It’s Spooky Season! – Day 26: Blood-C

Hey look, it’s time for vampires again. Or is it? Over the years there have been a few different entries in the Blood franchise, which began in 2000 with Blood: The Last Vampire. In that animated film, a teenage girl named Saya battles vampire-like creatures on behalf of some mysterious American handlers, while allegedly (as we discover later) being an immortal vampire herself. In 2005’s Blood+, an alternative universe retelling of the general details of the film plays out over 50-something episodes. But we’re not here to talk about either of those versions today. Instead I’d rather share my feelings on the “black sheep” of the family, 2011’s Blood-C.

In this interpretation of the general ”Blood” concept, the teenage Saya is a sweet, somewhat airheaded girl who lives in a small rural town in a temple with her father, a priest. She attends school with her friends and enjoys sweets at the local coffee shop, run by resident attractive man Fumito. When night falls, however, she transforms into a deadly supernatural sword-wielding killer, tasked with hunting down malevolent creatures called “Elder Bairns.” These Elder Bairns are creatures who prey on humans by possessing various objects and creatures (statues, animals, and even a train in a particularly striking, gruesome episode).

As Saya battles these enemies, eventually her classmates begin to disappear one-by-one. Saya also finds that her memory of certain times has become hazy and incomplete and she begins to question what is actually happening. Eventually the truth of the town and its members is revealed. The reality of Saya’s origins and her existence is shocking, but needless to say it becomes obvious that she’s been manipulated by outside forces, allegedly as a sort of experiment in order to prove a certain person’s hypothesis. Ultimately the real story is far different from first appearances.

I have a big soft spot for this series. What I remember from the time of its original broadcast was that it was generally disliked by a lot of the anime fandom. Granted, the series has some peculiar aesthetics – the character designs are provided by CLAMP and have the odd, lanky look they’re known for. On the surface, some parts of it seem a little goofy or over-the-top. My takeaway from it was that the “meat” of the viewing experience was much less in the surface-level plot elements, and more in the interpretation of the characters’ actions and the story events. Saya represents a character type that I felt had reached a peak in that era; many of her personality traits seemed very keyed-in to moe culture. When those very personality elements are revealed to exist within the series as the result of manipulation by men, I think it says something about the purpose of creating palatable, consumable, yet deeply unrealistic characters for a certain element of a fandom, and the consequences of allowing those desires to start spilling over into real life. And it seems relevant to me that an all-woman artist collective was called in to collaborate on the creation of the series (including in the all-important series composition/script writing roles in addition to character design).  But perhaps I was just one of few people willing to give this series the benefit of the doubt and these are just my whimsical interpretations. Maybe.

Blood-C is available to watch on Hulu (as well as apparently Funimation – it doesn’t look like it’s made its way over to Crunchyroll, and it’s not apparent it ever will at this point).