VampirePrincessMiyu

The ultimate in understated gothic horror. Vampire Princess Miyu was the first Japanese animated series I ever saw, and I was hooked, utterly and immediately.

The TV series was preceded by four OVA episodes. The artwork of the OVA episodes is vastly superior to that of the TV series, but the characterizations are not. Miyu is a giggly sort of demon in the OVA's, not the focused, powerful, judge of the TV series.

The first episode of the TV series contains one of the 'trademark' effects of subtlety that the series makes such wonderful and effective use of: a male student is visiting a female teacher to warn her that Miyu is a vampire, and that she is to be a victim. The teacher is very uncomfortable having the student in her apartment... there is a static shot, about 3 seconds, of the teachers lap. The teacher stands up and abruptly asks the student to leave. There was no leading shot of the student sizing up the teacher, the camera did the work all by itself, creating just enough sexual tension to justify the result. The student is baffled, having no idea what has happened!

I would recommend that the OVA series be watched after watching the TV series, as a kind of alternative take, and for the opportunity to see the really beautiful artwork that did not make it to the TV series.

Vampire Princess Miyu is not a technical tour-de-force, but it makes impressive use of subtle techniques. Pan and scan, and entirely static shots are scored brilliantly using music by Kenji Kawai that combines the traditions of horror drama music and Japanese traditional themes to very good effect.

The English dub of the TV series is arguably better than the original Japanese, and certainly much better than the subtitled Japanese. The Japanese original soundtrack has a very unfortunate slurping effect when Miyu is taking a victim that does not contribute to the drama in any way... what I mean is it is distracting and irritating.

There is a fair amount of violence in Vampire Princess Miyu, but it is not of the shocking variety, and there is little blood. The violence serves the purpose of expressing finality, since, when things get rough, nobody just gets a bruise, they die. But then, this is a show about death, and immortality, and these subjects are dealt with in a very detailed and frank way in Miyu.