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Blood Reign - Curse of the Yoma Number of Items: 1 Format: Color, Animated Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated) Running Time: 90 minutes Studio: A.D. Vision Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2001-01-30 Buy from Amazon

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 15 Average rating: 3.5 "Dear Lord I can't believe I wasted money on this." As in all things there are good and there are bad. Anime is no exception, while i've seen some great anime with unique stories, adult plots, and cutting edge animation I'd have to say without a doubt Blood Reign is the worst by far. Think Titan A.E. without the pretty artistry to look at and you've got Blood Reign. I watched about 2/3 of it and could discern no plot whatsover. Rather this is a collection of scenes that are pieced together in hopes that a coherent story would come out. The director must think that no one has the attention span of over 3 minutes because that about how long each disjointed piece of drivel lasts. I rank this a one, only because I can't rank it any lower. Ghost is a shell was far and away better than this tripe and that's not a compliment. I thought about trying to sell this to someone to recoup some of my loss, but I just couldn't bring myself to pass this piece of misery onto anyone else. Rather I'll take it out to the back yard later this evening and burn it. All the while praying I never run across something as horrible as this again. If you want good anime get Record of Lodoss war, or Princess Mononoke, but for the love of all that's holy stay away from this disgrace. "How a bad syncronisation can mess up a good movie" I have an addition to make. My erlier review was on the original, japanese version of yoma. Lately i watched the english version and now i want to tell all of you who read this - DON'T watch the syncronized version ! Even though you might not like watching movies with subtitles but this pictures loses A LOT in it's translated state. The cute squeekish voice of Aya has turned into an average female anime girl voice, the yoma sound as if they have no lust in preying on the humans anymore - in short words - the whole vocal cast is totally messed up. Alone the way they speak out the name of the main person, Hikage (which they do a lot in the flic) is a pain to the ears. Plus they ruined the atmosphere of the movie's best parts by adding some additional sound effects which don't fit at all. This shows how much a good voice acting can give to a movie or take from it. Watch this movie with japanese audio and english subtitles (most of you are not familiar with japanese i guess), you won't regret it ! "Boring movie, medicore animation" This movie was the first one to teach me that once a film is transfered to the DVD format, it's picture quality does'nt necessarily have to be remastered to cause a more enjoyable viewing. Thus, it seems that it has the same picture quallity as the VHS version. Now, as for the plot, it is just as simple as boring, the main character goes on a stupid quest to search and destroy his former youth comrade who has turned evil, but no one bothers to tell us when or why' for the story begins from the middle of something. The hero's quest itself is boring and slow, and at most of it's parts not understandable. Last, the monsters in the movie are pretty stupid (flesh eating horse?!) and the fact that the entire movie consist of two seperate episodes makes this film to look as unworthy and a waste of money. I baught the movie in France and was fooled by the plot summary on it's back to think that it's a good adventure anime. "An ill fated lover's lullabye for a smaller audience" Yoma is a twinbladed sword. On one side it's very bloody, there is ninja action and horror but with his mystical and sometimes calm story, his changing colours which are mostly of a darker nature it will more attract people who like dark fairy tales then ones who expect and want to see a good action movie. If you're in search for a good action flick with ninja/monster thematics you should stop reading here right now and go buy ninja scroll, cause this movie might dissapoint you. Yoma is also a melancholic flavoured ghost story about everlasting friendship and love that's stronger than death as well as other pathetic stuff. Romantic natures who might think now that it might be worth a try should mind the fact that there is a lot of blood and brutality as well, though it lacks the typical rapture scenes that are used most of the adult animes (which is a very good point i think). That leaves a small audience and that might be, in addition to it's age, the reason why it's not that successful and why people are so different in their opinions about it. I think it's a very good picture, cause i like dark fairytales with mystical and frightning elements as well as the era of the samurai and ninja clans. The moody colouring which might appear dull to some viewer fits the actual moments in the movie quite well i think (when you're outside at night you might notice sometimes that all around you seems to be singlecoloured or at least dominated by a certain colour). The music fits great, there is mystical music when something strange is happening, fight music when the yoma appear and Hikage has to fight em and dramatic music for the memory and love parts. Of course some things could have done better (i for myself hate the part where hikage is reminded of his childhood where he used to run trough the green fields with his best friend - nothing against scenes like that but it's repeated a lot and then always the same like a filler or something - they could have improved that a lot by using someway different scenes at least), but due to the nice characters (hikage is my favourite anime ninja ever, his skills and usage of weapons is quite unique in the genre - the redhaired aya of the second part is a kinda stereotype character in the story, but a really cute one - the yoma with their mighty arrogance who see nothing but food and tools in humans), the bitter-romantic plot (the end is someway really touching), the stunning fight scenes and the nice music it's one of my alltime favourite animes, maybe just BECAUSE it's so full of opposing elements and different from straight styled pictures. "Contrary..." Contrary to what other people say, the animation is quite lovely. People are comparing it to modern standards, so of course it is not up to par if you look at it like that, but for it's time, the animation is superb. The storyline, while not as developed as many other animes I have seen (Evangelion, Love Hina, etc), was enough to keep me interested so that I have watched it a few times over. Also, contrary to what some other people have said, the story is not confusing whatsoever. So if you are interested in seeing more action then story, then pick this one up. But, if you want massly developed characters and intrigue, this isn't for you.