Vampire Princess Miyu #1 AnimEigo 50 minutes English/Japanese English Subtitles 05/29/2001

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Since midterms recently ended, I really don't have any work to do. This is a total shock to me because, you know, I never did work before this semester and now that I'm back in a situation to resume my old ways of lazing around and doing absolutely nothing I have no idea what to do. There was a time when I could gladly waste a whole day lying on the couch in a semi-comatose stupor watching cable TV. I might never know that joy again though, as our cable has been out for about two weeks and shows no likelihood of coming back at any point in the near future. Thanks Urban Cableworks, you asspiles, I sure do love overpaying for your crappy selection and lack of service. Why is it that in Philadelphia I'm allowed to choose my electricity provider, but I'm not allowed to choose my CABLE provider? What is that? So, I know what you're thinking, you're saying "He's got all this free time, so he'll watch more anime and do more reviews!" or "He'll actually work on updating the painfully ugly/underdeveloped portions of this site!" Well, yeah, that accounts for one of you. The other two people who read this are probably hoping, nay, PRAYING "Maybe he'll take a creative writing course so he doesn't sound like such a pathetic moron all the time." Fellas, as much as I hate to disappoint, I don't think I'll be doing anything like that anytime soon.

Consider yourself fortunate, at least, that my schedule and Bare's is so divergent that there's nothing to do on some afternoons but watch crappy anime on my laptop in the school library. As you can probably guess, this works out rather excellently for you, but not too well for myself. While I do love burning on something that some clutch of fans holds near and dear to their hearts, it's really draining on my emotional reserves here. Especially when it's a show like this, a show you want so badly to like. You know me, there's a few things I'll go out of my way to watch, especially in the animated field. These involve: 80s anime, stuff with robots, stuff with really bitchy and tough chick heroes, stuff with ungodly amounts of exposition, and stuff with a paranormal slant (preferably the kind of slant where massive amounts of vampires die in an orgy of blood). Vampire Princess Miyu has most of these things (I docked it a point for not having super powerful vampire robots bent on taking over the world by draining the oil reserves of major gas stations and refineries) but it still really just doesn't manage to come through for me.

We've got the lovable but weak-willed Himiko (pictured here in a costume that shows me that Resident Evil isn't above the idea of plagiarism), spiritualist by trade and her antagonist Miyu, who's a little sixteen year old girl/vampire warrior who goes around killing these evil demons called Shinma. Now, Miyu's not any less evil than these Shinma, she just doesn't like how they operate. Two questions, if you don't mind. What's up with the obsession that everything having to do with vampires has to have at least one little kid in it? My guess is that it's for pedophiles. The girl might LOOK sixteen, but she's really a thousand years old, so it's okay to sleep with her! Second, why do people like heroes who are such jerks all the time? I mean, what happened to lovable rascals like Lupin in anime? Selfish and kind of scummy, but overall good, nice people. I'm tired of this whole 'anti-hero' bullshit, like nobody can be a main character anymore unless they've killed a bunch of guys or raped a woman in their past. Hey anime directors, you're not rewriting Camus here, you're making up a story about little girl vampires who kill giant tape worms (literally!) to stop them from going around siphoning people's life out. Get a grip! It's really nothing revolutionary.

The second episode, despite the fond memories of "BLOODY PUPPETS!" that the doll maker and her creations evoked, was just as bad. I don't get Miyu's whole "I made them retarded by sucking all their blood out, so now they're happy all the time" shtick. Also, I don't get why Himiko can be such a wuss instead of being a real character (or the main character, like I'd prefer). Himiko's just there as a foil to complain when Miyu causes more trouble. That's probably what makes me angry the most about this show. It's obvious that the spiritualist would provide a much more interesting story than ANOTHER little girl vampire, regardless of whether or not she's trying to poison Tom Cruise. It's surprising, but Vampire Princess Miyu didn't manage to grab me in the slightest. It makes me sad and mad at the same time, sad that they can even manage to screw up one of my favorite genres and mad because... well, they screwed it up REALLY BAD. As much as I might've desired to make sweet love to this show all day and all night, the fact of the matter is that I could barely stand sitting through the runtime, and it was only 50 minutes long! When the next time I want a quick vampire fix comes around, I'll just watch Blade.** At least Wesley Snipes has a shotgun.

**Yes Bare, there are vampire Stormtroopers. I was wrong.