I was initially excited to see this when it aired on the G4 channel
this past Spring, but upon seeing the first episode I was not all
that taken with the animation style. Granted it is from Madhouse, and
they generally do exceptional work, but here everything looked a bit
stiff, so, I stopped watching it.
Since I’m a fan of the other three Marvel Animes, I figure I owed
it to myself to get a review copy and force myself to watch it all
the way through and see just how stiff the animation looked. It
wasn’t until episode five that I actually started to like what I
was seeing. Yes, the animation is a bit sub par, compared to the
other three series, but it actually appeared to get better by the
halfway point, and the story itself managed to pull me in.
This is a Blade you haven’t seen before, and come to think of it, a
Deacon Frost you’ve never seen before either. Comparing their anime
counterparts to the first live action movie, Blade is younger here,
and deviating heavily from the young, seemingly American born,
Playboy type Stephen Dorff played in the movie, the Deacon Frost of
this anime is much closer to his comic book origins of being a tall,
imposing, middle aged man with a European accent, not to mention
being an adept scientist.
What’s even more accurate, which I didn’t know until listening to
Warren Ellis talk about the character in the extras, is his origin.
Ellis mentions he never wrote for Blade, and so had to do some
research on the character before writing the outline. His origin in
the comics has his mother living, and whoring, in London, when Frost
encountered her and bit her.
The series vacillates between Blade’s obsessive, life long search
and destroy mission for Frost and his origins and life as a kid, and
that includes his confrontation as a teen with his vampirized mother,
and his alignment with Noah Van Helsing some time afterwards, who
gives Blade his homemade brew; the one that manages to suppress the
feeding urges of his vampire side.
Along the way he gets a “partner/love interest” in the form of a
chick that reminded me of the character Jessica Biel played on BLADE
III.
In his quest to kill his surrogate father, he is led all across Asia
and encounters the many weird, and sometimes Lovecraftian
bloodsuckers that make up the lore of that land. Ellis himself also
states he did research into the lore of Asian vampires, and from what
I’ve seen in the series, he’s right at how bizarre and
unbelievable some of them are. One of the things I actually dug about
the series.
Another thing I dug was the connection it had to the WOLVERINE
series. Madhouse, or Marvel, must certainly like that character for
he appears in all four series; a major player in two, cameos in three
scenes, if I recall, in IRON MAN, and has a more significant
role in BLADE. In the episode, “Claws And Blades,”
he’s actually prominent throughout the entire running time. That
episode it also notable for being a nice sequel to what he’s been
up to since his own series ended. I initially thought BLADE
was occurring during the events of WOLVERINE, but a
conversation in the motel room they all holed up him later on
indicates it’s happening afterwards. He’s still on
Madripoor, but looking for A.I.M (Advanced Idea Mechanics), whom he
also blames for taking Mariko away from him.
Another more concrete connection to Logan’s solo series comes in
the form of Kikyo. The assassin Shingen set after Logan in his
series. Well, he shows up half way through Blade’s in the employ of
Deacon Frost. But as we slowly learn Kikyo and Blade trained together
when they were kids, and similar to how the relationship between he
and Logan played out, he and Blade form a fragile truce so they can
take Frost down.
Unlike the Wesley Snipes movie where we learned next to nothing about
Frost, there’s a very good episode towards the end where we learn
what motivated him and what he was like before he became a
vampire. Ironically, Blade and Frost both want revenge on vampires,
but while Blade goes about it in a more heroic, and dare I say,
“compassionate,” fashion, Frost shed all his humanity and will
kill anyone and anything to reach his goal.
Onto the DVDs . . . as with the others, Sony has graced us with
gorgeous, 1.78:1 transfers of each episode, which is spread out on
two discs. You can watch the series dubbed in English or in Japanese
with English subtitles.
The various featurettes are spread out over the two discs. Disc One
has ‘The Marvel Anime Universe: Blade Re-Awakened (10:22),
which is a brief overview of the character and his transition to
anime as recounted by Jeph Leob, Warren Ellis and others, and ‘Blade:
The Vampire Slayer’ (6:41): a short psychological breakdown of
the character, with astute insights by Warren Ellis.
Disc Two has only one extra, the 33:01 minute documentary, ‘Special
Talk Session: Marvel Anime’s Blade & Wolverine,’ which is
an in-depth conversation with Madhouse animators and directors on how
they approached converting Logan and Eric’s adventures into anime.
All four series have these Special Talk Sessions, and they are very
enlightening to see how American and Japanese culture is melded into
these shows.
Previews (G4’s ATTACK OF THE SHOW, RESIDENT EVIL: DAMNATION,
STARSHIP TROOPERS: INVASION, 21 JUMP STREET, LOCKOUT and THE
RAID: REDEMPTIION) round out the disc.
Written By Shawn Francis
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