Blood+

This series still hasn't been fully released here on DVD but finished its run on TV and it's one of the better anime series I've seen. The art is really well designed, with appealing characters and interesting monsters, and the animation is fluid and stylized. The action scenes aren't the best I've seen, but they're pretty good for something that has to have a new installment every week. Some of the secondary characters are a bit annoying, although they never bothered me too much. The real appeal of the show is the plot, as there is a continuous storyline throughout the fifty episode series. There's lots of twists and surprising moments, and while it seems strained a bit by the end, they still managed to pull off a conclusion that was unexpected and not as lame as it seems like anime endings usually end up being.

Blood: The Last Vampire was a well-animated, brief film that stirred some interest without really delivering on it, and Blood+ is the realization of that potential, although the setting and story are mostly different. It's about a young girl who's really an ageless vampire-like creature, who's been recruited to fight a bunch of other creatures as her blood is the only way to kill them. A lot of stuff happens, as she tries to protect what remains of her family and deals with many different enemies, both human and supernatural. There are some flashbacks and sometimes it can get a bit confusing, but I really liked it most of the time I was watching.