Several years ago, I caught sight of a previously (by me) unknown anime film called Blood: The Last Vampire. The artwork and premise–spooky vampire hunter masquerading as school girl hunts bloodsuckers on an American military base in post WWII Japan–looked fun, so I gave it a shot. About an hour later, I was sitting in front of the TV, saying, “Wait, where’s the rest of the movie?”

See, I thought Blood had a lot of fun potential that it failed to make good on, largely because of the overly short running time. Cue the point of the story: A couple days ago, I ran across an ad banner (see, somebody pays attention to them!) advertising a live action version of this story. Here’s the movie site link.

Now, I have no idea whether it’s any good, nor whether it’s even truly new (Japanese films can take several years before they appear, as “new releases,” on U.S. shores), but I thought it was worth throwing out there at you folks.

In a similar vein, one film I heard about when I was visiting Japan last year that I’m still keen to see is a live-action Ge Ge Ge No Kitarou film. Looks like it has a scene with a giant ghost skeleton in it! (How could you miss with that?!)

Anyone ever seen any of these flicks and have an opinion to share? Thumbs up? Down?

Many moons ago, shortly after I returned to the States from my year of living in Japan, I came across a fan site for the Japanese Ring phenomenon. Being a complete nut for Ring, and not yet having anyone Stateside with whom I could gush about it (the U.S. remake didn’t come on the scene for a few years), I took the opportunity to strike up correspondence with the site’s proprietor, J. Lopez. It’s been a long time since we last exchanged emails, or cursed video tapes, but I remember J. as a really nice guy. When I dug into drawing the Ring-themed strips you’ll be seeing this month, I thought I’d see if his site was still up. Lo-and-behold, it still lives, and you should check it out: The Ringworld

This site holds a wealth of info for Ring-nuts and intrigued others. And if you run into J., tell him I said hello!