What Is It Good For? Part 2: Vampire Wars

Vampires are everywhere these days.  The popularity of these blood-sucking creatures of the night never seems to wane and that is as true in Japan as it is here in the States. By the law of averages, if you produce a whole lot of anything a few will be great, a lot will be mediocre, and a few will be delightfully terrible.  This week we'll look at a title that falls squarely into the last category. 

Background:
Released By: Manga Video
Length: 55 minutes
Year of Production: 1991
Language: Sub and Dub both included, Dub reviewed
Available on Netflix: Yes, DVD and Streaming

Vampire Wars is based on a novel.  I have to wonder how much of the story was left on the cutting room floor to make it into a 55 minute OVA.  I really hope the book was actually halfway decent because the movie isn't, unless you're looking for a fun B Movie.  This title isn't nearly as obscure as it should be, even in the USA.  Vampire Wars was aired on the SyFy Channel in 2008 and it is currently available streaming on Netflix for some inexplicable reason.

The Conflict:
The "war" part of this OVA is mainly told as a narrative to explain everything else that is going on.  In deep space there were two races that were eternal enemies.  The first group was very religious, believing in a single, all powerful god.  They learned to travel the cosmos using nothing but the power of spirituality.  They also found a way to turn faith into immortality, and none of that afterlife immortality stuff, this life immortality.  This group is the vampires.  Their enemies believe in no god, built spaceships to travel the cosmos, and created special life pods to grant them immortality.  These two groups have battled for millennia.  Essentially it is the battle between Space Conservatives and Hyper Liberals as near as I can tell.

Story:
In the Arizona desert a group of 4 terrorists invade a NASA Laboratory as they are overseen by a shadowy cloaked figure.  The lab is essentially a SETI outpost.  The terrorists meet heavy resistance and their single female member gets gunned down.  As she falls over the woman screams something unintelligible but Latin sounding and explodes herself.  The US government is perturbed and begin to investigate the phrase shouted by the dying invader.

Eathday otay Mericaay!  Pig Latin sounds much less mystical.

The story moves to Paris where a drunkard in a rundown apartment gets a phone call from his friendly neighborhood prostitute.  The woman screams horribly into the phone so the man, a former KGB agent named Kuki, runs to her equally shabby apartment.  There he finds the mutilated corpse of the woman who phoned him.  Her nether regions are devastated and the only obvious cause of death.  Kuki trips over the murder weapon: a dildo with spring-loaded, retractable spikes.

I dare you tell me what this could be other than a weaponized sex toy

Ideally Kuki would have a few minutes to process all of this and maybe find another hooker to help him work through his loss.  He doesn't have the chance to do much more than blink however before a shirtless, axe wielding maniac appears from the shadows.  Kuki manages to beat the nutcase to a pulp before the cops pull up.  Kuki creates an improvised funeral shroud out of a fur coat, presumably to give the mutilated prostitute some final dignity, and makes his escape. 

Tourists flock to Paris for their famous murderer and whore hunts

Kuki is shocked that the police responded so fast considering the poor neighborhood.  He runs into a second hooker who advises him not to go back to his apartment as the police are already there.  Kuki thanks her in the traditional manner, by shoving money into her clothes.  After this heartfelt exchange a mass of men in trench coats swarm out of a nearby store and surround the two, immediately roughing up the lady of the night a wee bit.  She insults the hulking leader of the men who responds by punching her full force face in the face.  Kuki attacks in a rage, taking out all but three of the men before getting shot twice in the back.

You can make your own "Nasty Right Hook" joke

The gunshots turn out to be tranquilizers, and Kuki wakes up bound in a freaky, electrified, sleeping bag type restraint.  The director of the French Intelligence Agency comes over the loudspeaker and asks Kuki to do a job for him.  When he refuses the director shocks him twelve times before Kuki finally agrees.  He is taken to the director's office by the white hulk.  As the director begins to explain the job Kuki leaps through the  second story window and makes his escape amid a spray of bullets.  

I don't advise going camping with the French

Kuki is framed for multiple murders so he decides to lie low in a fellow mercenary's apartment.  It turns out Kuki and this other guy go way back, having perpetrated a major terrorist attack on Tokyo that was very similar to 9/11.   Kuki's friend provides him with a gun and coat, now he is prepared for revenge.  Kuki busts into the Intelligence Director's house and jams a gun down his throat while politely asking what the job was.  The Director tells Kuki he has been forced to work with the CIA, but the partnership is rubbing the Frenchman the wrong way. The Americans won't tell him why they are in Paris.  He found out the name of their mission is Operation D, and that D stands for Dracula.  The Director needs Kuki to investigate the CIA so the job can't be traced back to his department.  Kuki demands 2 million francs, a clean record, and the codename Bat.  The director agrees and delivers the money and intel Kuki needs via a lovely young lady.

Place the money on the table and your clothes on the floor

While preparing for the inevitable, Bond-style, secret agent sex, the woman tells Bat about a recent development in the CIA case.  One of the American agents was found floating down the Seine with his throat ripped open and all blood drained from his body.  Then the sex.  The next morning Kuki, aka Bat, goes to investigate a lead.  Apparently a Hollywood actress named Lamia is somehow involved with the CIA.  The only thing odd about her is that she is in France to see a doctor specializing in blood disorders.

"Miss Lamia, can we exploit your medical issues for profit?"

Bat sets up a stakeout to watch the doctor in question.  He mostly watches the other man pace back and forth in front of a phone.  Bat isn't playing voyeur for long before a man with blonde hair and a flowing cloak shows up to murder the good doctor in the same way the CIA agent was killed.  Bat fashions a zipline out of a grappling hook and his belt and rushes to the latest victim.  The doctor uses his dying words to tell Bat that the vampires desperately need Lamia's blood.

The two puncture wound attack style is soooo 1980

Bat rushes back to Lamia's hotel room with purer intentions than usual.   He arrives to find the CIA escort slaughtered and the same blonde who killed the doctor is on top of Lamia.  Bat rushes over to kick his ass but is held motionless by the vampire's telekinetic powers.  Rather than kill Bat and drink the blood he apparently needs, the vampire leaves.

Blah!  I get paid by the line, so I can't kill the protagonist yet.  Blah!

The humiliated Bat drags the mostly naked Lamia back to his safe house, which looked fairly normal in Paris apparently.  She gradually wakes up, screaming about having nightmares about vampires.  Lamia is slightly concerned that she has been stripped and is in a room she doesn't recognize with a man she doesn't know offering her wine.  Bat fills her in on everything including her attack and the death of her doctor.  Lamia borrows some of Bat's clothes and they attempt to slip out of his apparently not-so-safe house.  They are assaulted by the CIA but Bat manages to take them out.  Lamia wants to go see her Aunt/Manager, so she dons a long blonde wig, which is apparently enough to trick America's top agents.

Totally obvious until she puts on the wig.

Lamia's aunt is relieved to see her safe and sound.  She reveals to Bat and Lamia that she received bloodwork results from Lamia's second, not dead doctor.  The tests show Lamia has a foreign Amino Acid in her blood, the Alka-Chloride E2 which is believed to be alien in origin.  Lamia reacts poorly to this information and holes herself up in a bedroom.  Bat would probably have followed her immediately but for the fact he sees the head vampire outside.  Since that fight went so very well for him last time he decides to give it another shot.  Bat manages to land one solid hit, breaking the vampire's neck.  Since the vampire is immortal and all, he simply reaches inside his own body and realigns his spine.

The chiropractors were not pleased to lose a patient this way

The vampire leaves again for no real reason other than to drag out the story a bit more.  Bat goes back into the mansion to comfort Lamia in the only way a buff manly man knows how.  Here's a hint, it wasn't with a carefully worded Hallmark card.  Lamia is enjoying his attentions until she gets the urge to bite his neck.  Unperturbed, Bat continues his comforting after preventing the worst hickey of his life.   Lamia blames her little freak out on her crazy alien blood. 

Would you put up with crazy blood disease for that woman?

After finishing up, Bat stores Lamia at the safe house and goes out to buy some insurance in the form of a large gun.  He also calls the Director to say he is refusing the job and keeping Lamia with him.  While Bat is out on this little errand, Lamia gets a call saying her little brother(who we haven't heard of before and won't hear of again) has been kidnapped.  Lamia and Bat's mercenary buddy go to try and retrieve her brother from the French Intelligence Agency.  Lamia's Aunt flies Bat to their location in her helicopter, because every Aunt Manager needs to be a skilled chopper pilot.  Bat trashes the place, frees his friend and kills the white hulk.  As the French behemoth is dying, Bat tells him the prostitute he punched committed suicide because no one would hire her on account of her smashed in face.  Bat then finds the director and makes the man dance.

Surprisingly light on his feet.

As Bat is completing his vengeance the vampire leader shows up behind him and strangles him until our protagonist passes out.  When Bat wakes up he is tied to a chair surrounded by the four vampire terrorists and their cloaked leader.  The leader explains the war background as described at the start of this article.  He also says the vampires' king was rendered unconscious in a great battle 5,000 years ago, and the only thing that might wake him is the pure blood of Lamia.  The vampires destroyed the Nasa base to make it harder for their enemies to find the Earth.  They request Bat's help in retrieving Lamia, who has now been abducted by the CIA.  This new partnership storms the airfield where the CIA's plane is getting ready to take Lamia back to the USA. 

Vampires with automatic weapons and clown clothes

The vampires hold off the guards at the gate while Bat tries to get on the plane.  Instead he gets clobbered upside the head by an obese CIA agent and dragged aboard.  When Bat wakes up the CIA director and his two goons threaten to throw Bat out of the plane to his death.  At that moment a glowing Lamia tears her way through the walls of the plane and kills off the goons with her supernatural power.

She warned him he needed to take his seat.  This stewardess means business!

The CIA director is furious and shoots at Lamia.  Bat throws himself in the path of the bullet, despite the fact Lamia has obviously transformed into an immortal vampire and likely wouldn't have been hurt by puny human weaponry.  As the life slowly drains from Bat, Lamia dispatches the CIA director and uses her new vampire mind control to make the pilots take them to safety.  She also manages to save Bat's life by biting him, presumably making him into a vampire as well although this hasn't happened to anyone else in the OVA.  Lamia is worried about her new abilities, but Bat assures her it is a wonderful thing.  She will be able to wake the Vampire Lord and save the Earth.  This is what he says, but as the planet isn't in any obvious peril, I have to wonder about the wisdom of waking the master of a race of aliens who feast on human blood to power their immortality.  I'm sure he's thought all that out though.

Best not to think about it

Why watch?
1. Terrible dialogue - This OVA has amazingly awful dialogue which is compounded by the heavy handed French accents.  My favorite line from my first view(subbed) was an exchange between Bat and Lamia which sadly, isn't as hilarious in the dub.
Lamia, "I need you to hold me!"
Bat, "Hold you like a prostitute?"
The dub makes up for it with some great lines of its own. such as the following:

“I bet you fist f&$# your wife because you don’t know what to do with your c@*&!”

“Flattened it like a dog turd under a steamroller”

“All I did was carry you here.  I haven’t interfered with you or molested you or anything”

2. Artistic shots - While most of the show is very standard, low budget animation there are a handful of shots that the crew seemed to take great pride in.  It isn't much, but it helps.

This just looks really cool

Why not to watch?

1. Plot holes - There is so much of the plot that simply doesn't make sense, especially in regards to the pseudoscience relating to Lamia's blood and the vampires' immortality. Is it too much to ask for some continuity?

Just drink until it makes sense

2. Vampire Lore - As I've mentioned before in my review of Kimera, I'm not a fan with completely shredding traditional vampire lore.  Tweaking good, complete revision bad.  At that point you may as well create a new blood-sucking monster or alien and give it a new name.  The only thing that makes these creatures "vampires"  is that they are immortal and drink blood.  Everything else has been thrown out.

The blood is the only important thing though, right?

3. The missing Hyper Liberals - I would have really liked to see the vampires' extraterrestrial enemies appear at some point.  Their intergalactic feud had a somewhat interesting premise and it would have been nice to see this second race before the OVA ended.

Should you be watching?

For most people, the answer is a solid NO.  If you have an unending desire to see everything even vaguely vampire related, then yes.  If you have a very high tolerance for bad movies and want to laugh at some bad French accents, then go right ahead.  It still boggles my mind that this of all things is streaming on Netflix.  Of all the things they could make available why this?  The question is rhetorical of course, I don't honestly want to know why.  Steer clear people.