Blood +: Volume 2

Rating NR Formats DVD Genre anime Starring Kari Wahlgren , Liz Sroka, Crispin Freeman Directed by Junichi Fujisaku Publisher Sony Pictures Home Entertainment External Links Official Blood Website

I am tired of watching so many anime series that have virtually the same story line with different background information. A cute little girl (usually dressed in a school uniform) with some unrealistic but unique characteristic fights monsters and bad guys while insinuating some moral message and sheepishly pursuing her love interest. The character snatches sympathy by being scared of her true calling or feeling guilt for something she did in a past life.

Saya Otonashi is a subject of such masochism in Blood + Volume 2. In the first three episodes you find out she is the spawn of a vampire, has brown eyes that glow red when fighting mutated rat vampires called chiropteras and her mission is to kill her evil twin sister whose blood acts as a poison to hers and visa versa. Her adoptive father, George, dies right away after finding a chiroptera, it claws him and he begins to morph into one. So what does Saya do? She sheds tears and pours her blood onto him before he attempts to kill her. The toxic mixture begins to crystallize and he dies. There are plenty of flashbacks to her adoptive family so you will get the hints.

The fourth episode could have been cut but I guess the writers couldn't let you forget about her adoptive brothers. Kai, 16,  and Riku, 13, who are left behind in Vietnam so they would stay out of harm´s way. If you want to really screw up your kids, leave them behind in an unfamiliar country to fend for themselves. These two were lucky though. Saya´s group left them a limitless credit card. Instead of enjoying the town they search for their adopted sister. It´s sweet but you can safely assume they run into trouble. Kai and Riku meet a girl who had her left leg blown off by a land mine. The boys befriend her, she gets news of her father getting injured the same way she did so she goes back to her family to search for more bombs with a metal detector Riku was very naive to buy her. They end up realizing if they were in the same position they would have done the same thing in spite of the risks.

The last episode, Saya remembers her “unbearable” past after investigating a phantom sited at a girls´ boarding school in Vietnam. She suspects it to be a chevalier or a human mutated into a vampire servant by drinking the vampire´s blood. Her and her class mates go to a war museum and as Saya peers into a display case she sees a picture. Like a deluge of nightmares, her memory comes back of the farming village she slaughtered during the Vietnam War. Apparently, she snapped for no reason.

Now that she remembers a bit of her history, what is she to do? All there is left is to kill her sister, Diva. The only way to tell them appart is their eye color, Diva´s burn blue when she fights. Unfortunately, you don´t get to meet her in volume 2. You do meet Haji though. He´s Saya´s love interest and chevalier. He is the tall dark, handsome for being a cartoon and nearly mute type. Haji follows and protects her. He is mistaken for the mysterious phantom at the girls´boarding school while posing as a gardener and continue to stalk and protect Saya. Blood + reminds me of Sailor Moon but soaked in blood. Overall, the details are well fit but again and again the underlying story is the same.