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| From http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/voiceacting/ images/e/e2/Vampire_Princess_Miyu _1997_Poster.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20140626233424 |
Director: Toshiki Hirano
Screenplay: Chiaki J. Konaka, Mitsuhiro Yamada, Sadayuki
Murai, Tamio Hayashi, Toshiki Hirano, Yasutomo Yamada, Yuji Hayami and Yutaka
Hirata
Based on the manga by
Narumi Kakinouchi and Toshiki Hirano
Voice Cast: Miki Nagasawa (as Miyu); Asako Shirakura (as
Chisato Inoue); Chiharu Tezuka (as Yukari Kashima); Kokoro Shindou (as Hisae
Aoki); Megumi Ogata (as Matsukaze/Reiha); Mika Kanai (as Shiina); Shinichiro
Miki (as Larva)
There are sadly cases where, after the original anticipation
is strong during the first few episodes, there's a crushing sense of
disappointment. Vampire Princess Miyu
is fascinating knowing that its really a personal project for director Toshiki Hirano, based on a manga
co-created with his wife Narumi
Kakinouchi which he brought to the screen twice, originall as a four part
straight-to-video series in 1988-9, and it certainly has a fascinating premise,
bolstered by my liking of other Hirano works
(even Apocalypse Zero (1996) but
that's another discussion entirely). Shinma (i.e. demons and various monsters
that can take on human forms) plague the world but there is a Guardian selected
to always deal with them, not necessarily to protect the mortal human beings
killed or tricked by the shinma but to merely send the demons back to the
darkness from where they came. The Guardian, a young and solemn vampire girl
named Miyu, enters a town posing as a transfer student at the highschool to do
her job, joined in her cause by a Western shinma named Larva who switches sides
after his defeat by her, and Shiina, a demonic bunny rabbit with a giant,
distorted eye that allows her the gift of foresight and the ability to see past
illusions. At the school Miyu befriends Chisato, an affable classmate, and her
own friends Yukari and Hisae, only with the clear issue at hand, over episodic
monster of the week stories where Miyu faces a different shinma, of whether
Miyu's friends will find out what her true identity is.
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| From https://cracktheworldshell.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/vpm01.jpg |
The episodic nature at first is not inherently a problem.
The first few episodes create the equivalent of a horror themed, gothic magical
girl show where Miyu, able to conjure fire to burn the shinma away, must
discover the demons in the midst of committing foul actions and then dispose of
them, such as a figure responsible in one of the first episodes for women disappearing
on a late night subway train. The generally melancholic tone gives the show a
great moodiness, even in the end theme in having Miyu as a tragic figure stuck
in permanent immortality and desiring, when her task is done disposing of
shinma, for Larva to end her life. Especially with Kenji Kawai's music, there's a darkness to the material compounded
by the fact that rarely does anything happy happen, the characters introduced
for one episode stories after the next either dying or having their pain taken
away by Miyu draining their blood, left in a blank living state. Were it not
for the fact Miyu doesn't really care for the mortals, only showing sympathy
for one Chinese female conjurer chasing a vampire in Miyu's territory, baring
her three friends and especially Chisato, it would be an utterly misanthropic
show at its heart.
As a monster of the week show for the most part it tackles
subjects such as a man finding a mermaid locked up in a secret aquarium or a
cat being directly responsible for jealously, antagonism between couples and
eventually joint murder and suicides in an apartment block, a dark morality
play at times especially in the episodes where Miyu only bookends the stories
or doesn't appear until their endings. Briefly the show flirts with a more
complex morality with the shinma, those Miyu starts to develop sympathy for
and/or promises to spare as they show kindness. An example of this is an
episode about a female shinma who sincerely loves a mortal man. The
complications of the shinma is emphasised by the other interesting figure of
the series in Reiha, a younger female shinma who is a Yuki-onna, wearing a
kimono and with a talking doll as a sidekick, possessing ice and snow based
abilities, whose antagonism and willingness to even kill shinma Miyu has given
mercy to causes growing friction with the Guardian. Episodes like this or Miyu
having to face a doppelganger, including having to play act as a ghost to scare
the local taxi services and protect herself after this event, or the sole
episode written by a favourite anime screenwriter of mine, Chiaki J. Konaka, about a man obsessed with a humanoid fairy in his
greenhouse, do stand out as being rewarding.
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| From http://v022o.popscreen.com/eG1ncWo2MTI=_o_ vampire-princess-miyu-tv-04vostfr.jpg |
The problems however arise in how twenty one out of twenty
six episodes are episodic stories and almost half of them are underdeveloped or
just awful. The first issue goes back to how it feels like a magical girl show,
almost every episode having the shinma finally reveal themselves, with text on
screen in freeze frame telling the viewer their name, only to soon after be
burnt to a crisp by Miyu. Especially as many of the stories are more appropriate
for a slower, more psychological or visceral take of horror, these shifts in the
end to fantasy action jar badly against what comes before in the episodes and
also gets predictable fast. Baring the final five episodes, only a two parter
about Larva changes the pace, where Western shinma attempt to bring him back to
their land, but this eventually turns out the same way as everything else with
no sense of progression or a change in tone for the action.
The rinse-wash-repeat mentality starts to get worse as the
stories start to get bad or lazy. An episode about a demon corrupting a girl
into a pop star he can control with magical red shoes takes the biscuit in
terms of contrivances with having the girl introduced as a member of the
classroom interacting with Miyu and her friends, a contrivance worse when she
has only a few references to after throughout the rest of the series. The nadir
of this, which would've been hilarious in another series, is a story about a
man who loves cats who encounters a female shinma who grows demonic flowers in
her garden with the souls of dead felines, something that I couldn't have made
up if I tried. The flatness of these tales are compounded by the fact that,
whilst it drip feds potentially interesting characters and reoccurring
plotlines, they eventually are wasted. Reiha's climatic fight with Miyu isn't
the conclusion of their relationship and the episode itself is lacking, whilst the
schoolgirl friends are complete non-entities for the most part without an
emotional bond to them. For every fascinating episode, the one with the mermaid
or one about a female creator of life like dolls who ends up in a triangle with
her female maid and a life sized doll she loves, so many are a waste and they
outnumber the interesting ones until even the good ones start to show flaws in
their script or the fact that, as a hand drawn TV animation, it lacks an
appropriately macabre or imaginative aesthetic for it throughout most of the
programming.
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| From https://cracktheworldshell.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/vpm03.jpg |
[Major End Spoilers -
Skip this paragraph is you intend to watch the
series without knowledge]
The show then reaches its final five episodes and things
start to completely collapse despite the fact that, on paper, what takes place
would've made this a great series if it was actually set up properly. It finally
tries for deeper characterisation and drama that takes place over multiple
episodes, but because it's used up the twenty one episodes before, its forced
to transcript the plotting in such a short amount of time and with no
connection to the events of before barring the merest of suggestions. In a
better structure, this finale would've been a great gut punch, and its sudden
jump to a darker and esoteric tone - Miyu's back story set against a carnival
in the past that evokes Shūji Terayama
of all things, strange images of giant eggs sat in seats in a classrooms, Chisato
being revealed to be the strongest shinma, meant to defeat Miyu, who kills her
friends Yukari and Hisae - would've been wonderful and tragic, but here because
of how abruptly included it is it's an utter catastrophe to sit through.
As interesting as it is to see Miyu's back story by way of a
carnival of shinma protectors, a slow paced episode also explaining Reiha's
hatred of her because her magician father's final words were about the
Guardian, it's useless to switch to a more arty and interesting tone knowing
this episode should've happened much earlier in the series to build from,
especially as its only by the end of the show true antagonists are shown in a
group of "birds", suddenly introduced with no sense of threat to
them. The third to final episode has Chisato's brother introduced as an evil
shinma, only to be easily vanquished with the potential drama wasted, and then
by the last two episodes it finally introduces what should've been the ace in
its sleeve for giving the viewer heartbreak, that the sweet and likable Chisato
is the final villain who, as mentioned, kills her friends when she's awoken. Sadly,
when the friends are one-dimensional and Chisato's turn is abrupt, going as far
as even proclaim she wanted to become her older brother's bride and never age
in as drastic and inappropriate a personality 180 degree as you could get, this
is squandered. That's not even mentioning the Machiavellian figure behind it is the luck
charm salesman from one of the first episodes, only shown again for the final
two episodes turning into a birdman and evoking the worst type of reveal for a
killer from a bad slasher film than great drama. The final shot of the show is
legitimately sad and haunting, Miyu forced to take Chisato's severed head to
her supernatural dimension so she can live with her forever, but the utter lack
of time for the material is dreadful and tarnishes the sudden spike in artistry
and pathos.
[Major plot spoilers finished.]
And as a result of not setting up a story over twenty one
episodes, and then attempting to in the final five and clumsily, not building
up characters beforehand in titbits and no doing what fellow horror anime show Requiem From The Darkness (2003) did
and make the central characters important in each episodic story, the result beat me down until I felt numb. So much
that when it finally tries to have greater character depth and a sad tragic
ending its utterly absurd rather than rewarding. I still intend to see the
original 1988 OVA, as it is said to have a different tone and the central
character of Miyu is interesting, but the viewing of the 1997 television series
was an incredible letdown. Considering as well how this is clearly a personal
project for its creator, I feel legitimately sad realising how increasingly
bored and hostile I was to the episodes as I got further through it.
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| From http://www.rightstufanime.com/images/productImages/814131017185 _anime-Vampire-princess-miyu-complete-tv-collection-dvd-altc.jpg |
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