Deffinately NOT one of the best vampire films I've ever seen, nor is it one of the best vampire ANIMATED films I've ever seen for that matter. VAMPIRE WARS is not a great title for this movie. Sure, it's a COOL title, but it's only hinting slightly at the much bigger picture of the film: the Vampire Wars. Yes, there is a race of vampires from space, and yes, they are in a large scale struggle (i.e. the WAR part) with another group, but that's not what the flick is about! We don't focus on this anticipated war, but see only a small fraction of it through the movie's main characters, so I don't think that the war should get top billing, unless of course Manga Video likes to disappoint anime fans like myself, in which case I'd call them bad business men... oh, and women.

Our story opens as a gang of the titled fang characters lay siege to a NASA communications base. Why would they do that? They're obviously space vampires who either need to contact their intergallactic family or are trying to block someone else from relaying a message that could harm or destroy them, since the program the base was running was called "Dracula". You knw how it all goes in these sci-fi horror action dramas... Meanwhile, in Paris (as in France, not Oklahoma), our hero Kusabura discovers a hooker friend of his with her gash, well, gashed! Completely torn out actually, and it looks like it was done while she was still alive. What a fun way to go, right ladies? Kusa then hunts down the guy responsible (considering the brutality of the crime, I'd say it's the NEW YORK RIPPER!) and cold cocks the sick fuck flat on his face, axe or not! When the cops arrive, Kusa makes like snot and runs, only to be attacked by a gang of thugs waiting for him. Hmmmm, guess it's not as good to know loose women as I once thought it would be...

When Kusa awakens, he finds himself done up in a full body straight jacket and strapped to a table... then again, maybe it DOES pay to know loose woman, heh heh. Turns out that Kusa used to be a big time KGB special agent, and his captors (an organization known as W.I.N.G.) want to hire Kusa to do some work for them. Kusa has a better plan though, as he breaks free and escapes! Kusa then hooks up with his old pal Miraki to chat about the W.I.N.G. offer, and Kusa decides to go back and take the job, since it would mean a complete sweeping of his old police records and would get the fuzz off his ass concerning this prostitute axe slaying... which he was set up for in the first place by the same guys, but who's counting, right? Under his codename "Mr. Bat", Kusa is sent to do a little surveilance job on some big wig Mr. Fancypants, but while he's spying on his target he witnesses a vampire attack! The big blond fanged fiend clears out a couple of people before Kusa acts, scaring the bloodsucker off and saving the life of Lamia, a major actress and potential love interest for our hero, whom the vampire was targeting. After the attack Lamia is taken to a hematologist, who discovers that Lamia's blood has a rather odd deffect... $20 says that Lamia is actually a space vampire... okay, since I've already watched this and I KNOW she's a space vampire, I'll betcha $10 instead...

After her visit to the blood doctor, she and Kusa are again visited by the vampire, leading to Kusa's first actually physical combat with it. The battle is short, as Kusa goes all KGB on the freak's ass, breaking his undead neck like a Ritz cracker! But, in a move that's almost too freaky, the vamp stands up, sticks it's fingers into it's neck, readjusts it's vertabrae, and walks out... told ya. Feeling the need to better even the odds, Kusa leaves Lame (Lamia) with Miraki, long enough so he can go to his supplier's house and pick up some heavier artillery. While he's absent, a gang if CIA goons kidnap Miraki and Lame, so it's up to Kusa and his new pet assault rifle to get them back! He breaks the two out, punching holes through many of the government goons with his little friend, before he's attacked from behind, choked out by the tall blond guy with the hunger for hemoglobin.

This time when Kusa wakes up, the vampire and his other pals try to hire the ex-KGBer to do a job for THEM now! They give him all this bullshit about their centuries old feud with another race of aliens. Turns out the vampires are actually remnants of a race of aliens who crash landed on Earth 5000 years ago in their escape from their enemies. The only way the bloos slurping occultist E.T.s can hope to defeat their opponents is with the help of their ancient vampire God Veraswaldi, who happens to be buried in Trannsylvania awaiting the proper motivation to awaken. According to Kusa's new Nosferatu amigo, Lame's blood is the key to awakening the heavy hitter... I knew she had something to do with space vampires and shit. Kusa joins the monsters and they, along with all their other vampire friends, raid the airport the CIA is supposedly holding Lame at. The agents, feeling it best to cut and run, attempt to fly off in their little plane with Lame as their hostage. Not one to miss out on a genuine opportunity to show off what all his KGB training and devotion to American action movies have taught him, grabs hold of the plane and pulls himself in AFTER it goes airborne!

Kusa gets his ass kicked though, shot and taken to the brink of death, before Lame becomes aware of her alien heritage, goes vamp, and kills the CIA goons! How sad for a big tough guy like Kusa to be saved by a half-pint girl like Lame... But, the only way to bring Kusa out of his fatal gunshot is new life... as a vampire. Yes, in a last ditch effort to save the man she, uhm, loves I guess, she chomps his neck, sucks him and snowballs him, and he joins her in the ranks of the walking dead parasites. They fall in love, take control of the plane, and head to Trannsylvania. And that's when the film ends... wait, ENDS?! It's just starting to get interesting! Damn it! Turn those end credits off, cuz I wanna see some more action! I didn't spend my hard earned cash on a 60 minute crap bath! WHat the Hell happens next!? Do they ressurect Verswaldi and save their race? Is there some big intergallactic final battle between the two races? Does the CIA just kill everyone?! Why do the Japanese INSIST on stealing my money? Not like I don't already buy enough crappy video games, computer merchandise and Asian porn, why do they have to start ripping me off in my video purchases too!? Little Karaoke singing butt imps...

VAMPIRE WARS has all the elements for a bitchin' anime. The blood and violence is graphic and plentiful and the plot is intriguing. The animation itself is decent, though nothing astounding. However, the execution is bad and the character is just too hard to love. Hey, if love is forced, it's not exactly love, is it? The biggest things that ruined the flick for me would have to be the loose ended finish and the over use of extreme vulgarity. Don't get me wrong, I can cuss like a sailor from dusk till dawn (little vampire humor there) if I want to, but these guys would make my grandma Anubis cry her cold dead eyes out! Well, if she weren't dead and all... I mean, yeah, I hate it when the language in anime is so toned down that a class of third graders can watch it, but by the 30th "cocksucker" or "fucker", the shock effect is completely gone. It gets so bad in VAMPIRE WARS that the words become like "is" and "the", only they're so long and crass that it just gets VERY annoying. Now, if they make a sequel (and they should, since I'm very pissed that the ending came at such an inopportune time), they could deffinately stand to to cut down on the language, or at least add some variation to it. For instance, cut out the 17th "cocksucking fuckfaced ass whore" and replace it with something like "dickhead" or "son of a bitch", or just plain "fuckface" will do. Come on kids, expand your vocabularies just a little, okay?

Sequels: Don't think so

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