Vampire Sensou 335p22

The first 5 min of the show are actually entertaining. After that the quality goes in a steady downward decline. This decline will eventually reach 0 and somehow manages to keep going.

Like I said right at the beginning, the show isn't terrible. There is kind of a mysterious quality to it. There seems to be some kind of cover up going on, involving multiple governments of the world. The show then makes the mistake of actually telling you what the story is about. This is the point were it just falls apart. The story's premise is so stupid that..... You know when someone makes ... a comment so stupid and you want to give some kind of response but you find no words that would be appropriate for that level of stupidity. That is how dumb this story is. I am not going to go into great detail but lets just say it has to do with vampires actually being aliens.

You might be thinking; alien vampires OK it sounds B movie-ish, but that could lead to some good action. This is not the case. There isn't very much action at all and the few action sequences the show has are very very short. There is one action scene right at the very beginning, the main character fights off 8 guys all at the same time. This is actually a cool scene, but then nothing near that good happens again. Even with the little amount of action this show has it somehow manages to put a surprisingly large amount of blood on the screen.

I hate to give even a single complement to the show, but the main character is actually fairly good. “Kuki” is a manly man type of guy. You know the kind that guys want to be and girls want to be with. Super secret agent with the ability to kick anyone's ass. The rest of the cast doesn't even come close to him, there just isn't much to anyone of them. Even though I did like “Kuki” he is hardly good enough to carry the show.

The animation was probably not that bad back in 1990. It doesn't hold up honorable to the test of time but it certainly isn't anything that good by todays standards.

The 2 min action sequence at the beginning is good and the main character is cool. Those are the only two good things I can say about this show. The story is one of the worst I have ever heard, poor action, and there is nothing to the rest of the cast. 45 minutes of my life were sucked away.

The first 25 minutes are pretty cool. It has the feel of a corny cop movie with good violence and profanity laden action scenes. This 7 foot tall humungous bad guy even punches this whore dead in the face. Blood was flying and they showed a good close-up of the whole thing. I laughed so hard. There were a couple good action sequences when the hero met the vampire. They had a creepiness to them too and it sure seemed like it would be a decent one after all. Then, the bottom fell out. What the F&%# ??? Totally fell apart. Story went to hell ... and all I could do was laugh at how bad it got. I was barely able to finish it. It went bad the same way Genocyber and Doomed Megalopolis fell apart. All 3 are worth keeping, luckily for this one it is only 50 minutes long and I can just shut off after 25 minutes. Total train wreck, but worth watching to decide for yourself. Can be found cheap in eng dub dvd.

I genuinely, non-ironically enjoyed Vampire Wars. That doesn’t mean I can’t laugh a little at it when it’s being dumb, but I found this to be an enjoyable anime. They’re gonna take away my critics license for this review, I am sure. But I sincerely enjoyed this little OVA from 1990 that Toei created. Sure by the ending it starts to fall apart, but before that it is a solid action romp. And what else can you ask for from an anime titled Vampire Wars. Surely anyone going into an anime with a title like this isn’t looking for deep realistic and well developed characters, ... meaningful philosophical concepts, or a wonderfully emotional love story. You want a good dose of the ol’ ultra-violence. And this little 40 minute OVA delivers.

Well I best explain the plot. In the future a communist terrorist, Kuki Kosaburo, living in gets involved with the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure (French Secret Service) in spying on the CIA. You see the French government agreed to helping the CIA operate more in the country, but the CIA and United States Government is not keeping up to date on everything that’s going on. In fact they are specifically keeping in the dark on many secret missions. Monsieur Lassar, a higher up in the French secret service, believes there is a connection between a recent attack on a NASA base in the Arizona desert and a corpse of a CIA agent found in Paris. This makes Lassar nervous, believing there may be a big terrorists attack planed for Paris, yet he can’t be seen to be investigating an allie. So he finds a terrorist/secret agent (and Kuki is a rather good one at that. We learn for example that Kuki was resposible for some ridiculous plot involving crashing a Drone Aircraft into the center of Tokyo, thus crashing the Nikkei Stock Average ) and arrests him on trumped up charges, forcing him to spy on the CIA or end up in prison. Kuki eventually learns that the famous film star Lamia Vindaw is at the center of everything. Both the CIA and the terrorists are spying on her, waiting to make their move. Toss into the batch the rumors going around that the terrorist are really a vampire clan, and well you have a crazy action film worth watching. A film that uses roughly the same amount of bullets used in all of World War II (including the Second Sino-Japanese War).

I will it I first went into Vampire Wars expecting either Crying Freeman level ridiculous and hilarious fight scenes, gore, and violence; or a train wreck like Psychic Wars (may God have mercy on your soul if you’ve seen this one). I was however was presently surprised that Vampire Wars is neither a ridiculous (but cool!) anime where people have 4 minute conversations with knives sticking out of their head (and stomach!), nor is it a boring anime where a doctor fights bigger versions of the cookie monster with the help of time travel and a giant sword he randomly finds on the road. I’d compare this to a Yoshiaki Kawajiri anime, although not nearly as well choreographed. It is merely a solid action movie, nothing more and nothing less. Sure the plot is a tad crazy, and the fights are exaggerated, but the main character is a badass and it’s an entertaining film. And like any good early 90′s OVA, there’s a sex scene (which I find hilarious, Kuki just sleeps with some random informant who he meet 10 seconds ago!) . The fight scenes in this OVA are pretty fun to watch, although as it goes on it becomes more and more unbelievable. But it’s an exciting film, and I can’t be too tough on it for trying to increase the excitement as it goes fourth. The characters are all pretty good, although very 2-dimensional. Kuki is an interesting guy. A die-hard communist, bent on bringing down capitalism by killing civilians. Yet he still desperately holds onto some sort of moral code. Besides claiming to be outright against killing innocent people (which is clearly a lie he tells himself to sleep at night) he treats his hooker neighbors quite well (tossing them wads of cash for no good reason). Kuki may be my favorite character, but the scheming Monsieur Lassar is also pretty interesting. As is Lassar’s meathead right hand man. The leader of the vampire clan/terrorists is another intriguing character. And although the movie star, Lamia Vindaw, is very cute looking I personally never bought into her. She seemed both unrealistic and too strange. But I suppose this makes sense when you learn about her more. But sorry I was never really a fan of hers. She came off as far too annoying.

As far as the story goes here, it’s not terrible and in fact at times is pretty damn interesting. I do feel as though EVERYTHING is moving way to fast, like the writers are in a rush to get to the next super-cool action scene though. Take a chill pill mr.writer, let the story blossom, don’t vomit it at me. But with a time frame of 40 minutes to work with, I guess it does have to move along at a rapid pace. And although the story falls apart at the end, I do have to commend the writers for keeping it together for as long as they did. When they’re not rushing us to the next ultra-violent action scene, they do their job at developing the story and making it come together quite well. The mystery of exactly what the CIA is up to, who or what the vampires are, and how this all involves a hollywood actor is played off quite nicely. Which is something the writers of Psychic Wars completely forgot about, you know actually writing a story not just action scenes that make no sense, or worse bore you to tears (Yes I so have to destroy this anime in a review one day). And although I do it Kuki changes sides too much for a short OVA like this (preferably the audience should be entirely sure where his allegiance lies if the story is this short), it’s still all manages to work quite well and make sense (until…THAT ENDING). Well I’ll pretend that character who randomly not only knows how to pilot a helicopter, but also owns one isn’t a terribly written deus ex machina. I mean they had to find some way to move the plot along…and besides I know plenty of people who own choppers, don’t you?

The artwork in Vampire Wars is quite plain. Still I liked the art style, it’s got that “manime look” you rarely see today. All the characters are uniquely designed, although no one is that impressive. The guys are all tough brutes, and the girls are sex bombs (except for Lamia who’s very elegant and cute looking). The anime mostly takes place at night, and I think the artsist do this a real diservice. Night scenes in anime can look gorgeous if well lit (think Megazone 23, Bubblegum Crisis, Akira, Cyber City), but the there is a real problem with lighting in this OVA. Some scenes are way to dark, and it just ruins the atmosphere. You also have a hard time seeing everything on screen. The artists who worked on this need a refreshing course in how to make anime. The animation is rather sub-par here too. They cut corners where they could. But it’s not a super cheap effort or anything like that, the action scenes are alright. The music however is very likable. The background music is mostly an exciting rock anthem that really melds well with both the vampire and action aspects of the anime.

If you will listen to dub, be prepared for some cheesy accents, and lackluster acting. The dub was produced at CTV studios Toronto (as far as I can tell anyway), using Canadian and British actors. Roger May plays Kuki, and he has the right voice quality for the job, and overall I do think he holds the dub together. That being said he does overact, and makes the show seem a little campy. But considering where the plot goes toward the end, I can’t blame him for the camp too much. Julia Brahms, who I liked in Appleseed did a pretty bad job here. It’s not that she’s a bad actor , nor is it that she doesn’t fit the role (I totally understand why she was cast as this girl), it’s just that she seems disinterested. She is rather unmotivated, and I can almost hear her (under her breath) contemplating exactly what choices in life lead her to be dubbing Vampire Wars on this very day. That being said at times she’s quite good, especially when she isn’t crying or worried (and also before the final third of the film…). Uh…to put this in a better way, she’s quite good early on in the film. Frank Rozelaar-Green plays Monsieur Lassar and he puts on a terribly cheesy French accent. But his acting was pretty good, and I pretty much bought him. But the star of the dub (as he usually is in anything they cast him in) is without a doubt the brilliant Peter Marinker as the head of the Vampire clan/terrorists. He made what otherwise would have been a campy character: sincere, realistic, believable, understandable and dare I say likable? Yes Peter Marinker does it again. And when he wants to be he can be damn near frighting. I will write Funimation, Ocean, or Seraphim Digital a check if they promise to cast Peter Marinker in a dub as a main character. Please? Give this guy some work! The person who plays Lassar’s right hand man is laughably bad. He puts on some corny deep voice that just seems so very fake. It sounds like he never heard what a deep voice actually sounds like (like he grew up in some weird alternate reality where everyone sounds like the chipmunks), but this is what he thinks it would sound like and damn it he’s going to talk like this the entire dub whether it makes any logical sense or not! *Spoiler* I especially like his death scene in which he cries on and on and on and won’t stop. Soda almost came out of my nose when this happened. *End Spoiler* . Most of the rest of the cast seem either bored, or worse can’t act. I’d describe this dub as a finding a diamond ring (Peter Marinker) in a garbage dump, and then noticing a spare tire with a dirty banana peel on it ( Roger May) you could use next to it. I can’t say I recommend this dub, but if you’re up for dumpster diving, it won’t destroy your soul. I wish Manga Entertainment had instead given this to their studio in London and let Michael Bakewell direct. But it is what it is.

Now to talk about the ending I keep alluding to. Three-fourths into the anime everything clearly falls apart. Sure it never gets to Psychic Wars-level, but I have to wonder exactly what happened here. Did the writers just stop trying? I mean this was never a masterpiece of cinema to begin with, but the ending is just entirely stupid. I won’t spoil anything here but when you watch it for yourself, try not to hurt yourself when you bang your head after hearing that final exposition the leader of the vampires babbles out. It’s quite rare for a movie to take such a nose dive at the end like this. It’s like we were flying comfortably at 30,000 feet when all of a sudden not only does the place crash, but it ends up hundreds of yards underground in a crater. It’s truly that bad. It’s a shame the writers gave up trying, because there’s a lot to like here. I do think you should see it, especially if you like old actiony OVAs. Just pretend the ending really didn’t happen, we all do. Manga Entertainment put this out on DVD, so you can pick it up if you like. Although it is out of print, it’s still very easy to find.

(review originally posted: http://predederva.wordpress.com/2012/02/22/vampire-wars )

It's a mystery noir. With 50 minutes (+5 minute ED song), plot is clearly rushed, but connects all the characters. Kuki & Lamia get some character depth, & /betrayal all jump through quickly, acceptable considering the shortness, but really could've benefited from longer development of the complex mystery. It's far from your usual vampire films, and more a mystery on a multi-country & grand scale.
I suggest English dub + English sub. Occasionally they are different, offset, or both. It gives nearly 2x the plot information, and quite funny seeing how much they diverge in meaning. After ~40min I laughed uncontrollably for the remainder. It brilliantly ... switches from dark noir to hilarity (not sure if intended). It's beautifully ended (with possible continuation), and allows the audience to question whether it truly was a good end or troll end.

Characters:
Kuki mc is refreshing to see compared to 201x tropes. He's quite handsome, strong but not OP, buff without acting gay, & determined. Sometimes too fast, but he literally drives the show forward. His English dub is good in moments, but often very flat. I may rewatch with JP voice later.
Lamia is not a damsel in distress, and crucial to the mystery. All females are adults & drawn attractively (not moe).
Mirucha is very interesting. Most about him is spoilerific.
Various gangs/gov/parties get confusing but they're mostly contextual.

Art/Sound:
Stylized dark, realistic, gritty as noir should be. Many great osts, 90's nostalgia with heavy energetic drums, slow blues, electric guitar, hippies style etc. There's enough combat/gunfight animation to keep interested besides the rushed confusing plot, and for 1990 it's surprisingly smooth without cutting corners. Even details like loading each bullet, agony after getting wounded etc is animated, with good fight choreography.

Overall:
Enjoyable short, rare noir anime. Lots of whut...!? moments over unique, nonsensical events. Over 10 minutes of funny. Great music. Realistic GAR man. Unusual vampire mystery. I picked this for a terrible rated Halloween B movie, but turned out an absolute underwatched gem.

Vampire Wars is under an hour long but tries to squeeze two hours of plot in to it's run time which means it's completely baffling, a bit confusing and absolutely crazy which also means it's hilarious fun.

This is a mature anime from the early 90's and anyone who's a fan of this era of anime will know exactly what to expect: Violence, gore, naked chicks and a very funny and over the top English dubbing job. The animation is slick and professional although it's clearly on the lower budget side of things and i was laughing so hard at some of the dialogue and the ... general crazyness of everything.

I won't spoil anything but it's definitely recommend for anime fans of a certain age who enjoy adult oriented anime from this era, it's a laugh riot and i wish it was longer.

Didn't expect to enjoy this as much as I did.
I'd seen the trailer for Vampire Wars on a few Manga Entertainment DVD releases back in the 2000s and it looked to me like another ho-hum, throw away sex and violence title from Manga's library. Having decided on a whim one night to give it a try, I ended up finding myself presently suprised.

Based on a pulp novel series by Kiyoshi Kasai and produced by Toei Animation with Kazuhisa Takenouchi as director, Vampire Wars follows Kuki Kosaburo, a former mercenary living in the red light district of Paris who spends his time on prostitutes and booze. ... After failing to protect a sex worker friend of his from a psychopath and being framed for her murder, Kuki is forced back into service by a shady government agency who want to use him to investigate a terrorist attack on the NASA base in Arizona and the mysterious murder of a French Secret Service agent, which are believed to have been carried out by vampires. If he completes his assignment, he will be granted a full pardon for his alleged crime.
Kuki's search eventually leads him to Lamia Vindaw, a popular young actress who isn't all that she seems and is being targeted not only by the vampires but also the same government agency that hired Kuki along with the CIA.

The story is very good and really grabs your attention while throwing some great suprising twists along the way, even if suffering from some over complexity while being rather silly and dumb in some places. Plus it also suffers from exposition dumping though character dialogue at some points. The animation is decent enough despite looking like it was done on a budget and the action scenes are pretty solid showing that Toei certainly had some of their best animators on this.
That being said, characters get practically no form of development which is pretty typical of your standard half hour B-movie OVA title.
And of course, there is the English dub produced in house by Manga Entertainment which is cheesy as all hell and packed with some stilted performances and hokey American accents. And with the OVA being set in Paris we also get to hear British actors giving their hokiest French accents and, oh boy are they hokey!

Overall, Vampire Wars really doesn't deserve it's status of being one of the worst animes out there. Is it a great vampire/horror anime or one of the best animes in general? No, clearly not.
If anything it's pretty much shlocky B-movie fun that's worth a look.

The film was acceptable. However, the plot was overly complex for the allotted runtime. Extending the duration by approximately thirty-five minutes could have been advantageous. My selection of this anime was arbitrary. While the cover art was quite impressive, the anime itself was unremarkable.

If you're a fan of 90s anime, you'll likely enjoy this film. However, be mindful of what you're getting into. I viewed the English-dubbed version, which is quite decent. I've encountered far worse dubs. Among the voice actors, Roger May stands out as the most skilled, although even he can occasionally come across as unconvincing, particularly during scenes involving swearing, which can ... sound like a temper tantrum.

The animation is quite good for its time, although it's noticeable that some movements appear disted. It seems that a significant portion of the budget was allocated to the fight sequences and the depiction of gore. One aspect I appreciate is that the characters are not all designed with exaggerated angles. If you've ever watched anime from the 90s, then you know exactly what I mean.

Overall, it's not particularly impressive, but if you're in the mood for a cheesy vampire movie, it's worth a watch.

• Anime Title – Vampire Sensou | Alternative Title – Vampire Wars | Type – Anime OVA | Genre (s) – Action, Supernatural | Language – Japanese | Runtime – 55 minutes 17 seconds | Year of Airing – 1991

• Review –
This OVA is an animated version of a manga by Ktyoshi Kasai and published by Kadokawa Shoten, produced by Toei Animation and directed by Kazuhisa Takenouchi. The plot centres the life of an ex-terrorist named Koh who is hiding in Paris for quite some time. Koh is hired by the Paris Government for a particular purpose (to gain information about the CIA activity in Europe) in ... the run of which, he is framed. With the age of time, Koh is seen to encounter vampires and ending up becoming one himself.
However, the plot of the OVA doesn’t appear to be strong enough in the opinions of the watcher, which is contradictory to the poster of the OVA – which makes it look quite appealing, superficially. Even though the vampires are portrayed to be the good guys in the OVA, which gets revealed in the later scenes; the first impression of these guys being the Good Ones is spoiled as the writer has not been able to present what should have been presented in which manner. Despite the appalling story line the OVA consists of a few mature sexual themes which are seen to be highlighted more than the actual story.
The closing of the plot too is seen to be substandard as the OVA ends when the actual story is supposed to begin. The ending, which should have been at least a bit cooler compared to the rest of the OVA, fails to develop curiosity in the minds of the watchers, which is a big failure for any writer or director, in my opinion.
The animation is ‘okayish’ pertaining to the year of airing (1991) and the artwork could not have been made better than how it was. The sound was quite fair and the voice casting was done in the best way possible. However, what ruined the fun or the urge to watch it was the dialogues and the background music. The dialogues aren’t up to the standard of any suspense thriller story, as they should be and so far as the BG music is concerned, the tone seemed to be a bit off and unstable as the intensity is seen to rise and fall throughout the OVA, in the most inappropriate moments / scenes.
• Plot – 4.0/10.0
• Art and Animation – 5.0/10.0
• Dialogues / Voice Casting – 1.0/10.0
• Average / Overall Rating – 1.0/10.0
Vampire Wars is indeed, appalling, in my opinion although it has secured a rating of 4.8/10.0 in MyAnimeList.

However, the ratings have been put in proper sync as per the options provided to rate in MyAnimeList. This review is based on personal observations / experiences.

(In)famously considered among the worst of the worst of anime OVAs - and with good reason. It's terrible. The story is ridiculous, the main character is way over the top, the 'acting' is raucous and forced, the action scenes make the SyFy movie of the week look well choreographed, the dubbing (yup, I watched it dubbed, so sue me) was unnecessarily R-Fifteened, and it just sort of...ends...abruptly. Leaving you wondering, wait, that's it?

Yup, that's it.

But all of those qualities (and more) are what make some people actually enjoy this. You see, ... this falls into the rare category known as the "Terribad" anime. That is, it's SO BAD that it goes beyond bad and becomes entertaining, as you revel in the awfulness of every scene. It's a good "group" movie, to watch with buddies who like to chime in and throw shade at the screen at every unbelievably bad line, or weird scene. Get your buddies together and MST3K Vampire Wars, it's the only way to go!