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Based on the beautiful and violent (beautifully violent?) Blood: The Last Vampire, Blood + is a wonderful anime, thoroughly deserving of its lineage.

In the first collection we met Saya, a happy young girl who also happens to be a deadly assassin. In Volume two, Saya begins fighting the Chiropterans, an ugly bunch of bat-like blood drinking monsters. All five episodes on this DVD show us exactly why Blood+ is like Pringles – once you pop, well, you get the idea.

In “My Father’s Hand” and “I Must Do It”, George, Saya’s adoptive father (as well as the adoptive father of her siblings, Kai and Riku) has been kidnapped and imprisoned in the Yanbaru Center. Haji, Saya’s chevalier, and David go to rescue him. The Yanbaru Center is overrun with chiropterans, proving for many fights. Haji especially shows just how much ass he can kick, and even Saya gets over her denial and fear long enough to use that big sword Haji totes around in his cello case. Sadly, George has been infected, and Saya has to kill him.

But wait, there’s more! The U.S. military has authorized the napalming of the Yanbaru Center (way to go, guys), and it’s up to Kai, Saya’s older adoptive brother, to let them know. The group joins up and an escape is made, but then Saya and Kai must tell Riku, the younger brother, about George’s death. The drama and tragedy are well played off each other here, and creates a duo of episodes that are utterly absorbing.

“Phantom of the School”, “Rainbow for Each” and “I Want to See You” kick off a new storyline. Saya has been put into a school in Vietnam as an undercover mission, seeking out more chiropterans. The location causes her to recover some memories of the last time she was awoken, when things went very, very wrong. Saya befriends some of her schoolmates, learning the history of a ‘Phantom’ who haunts the school grounds leaving blue roses for girls he finds particularly attractive. You guessed it – Saya lands herself a blue rose.

Meanwhile, Riku and Kai have been left alone by David, who is now overseeing Saya’s missions. Saya is ignorant of the break from her sibs, but the brothers, who refuse to let George’s death be in vain, go in search of Saya. We discover here that things are not well for Riku, and though David tried to kick them out of Saya’s world and therefore the world of Chiropterans, the chiropterans are themselves not done with Riku.

Haji is posing as a gardener in the private school so he can keep an eye out on Saya. When the mysterious Phantom does appear, it is Haji that he tangles with (and what a scene. If you don’t love Haji by the end of this scene, you don’t deserve to watch anime).

Bonuses are nonexistent, and that’s the bum side of this DVD. Basically the second disc of the box set, it has beautiful menus and stop screens, but nothing else.

The show has excellent animation, and beautiful music (thanks to Hans Zimmer as producer and Marc Mancina on score). The stories are sweeping, all-encompassing, and hard to walk away from. My only complaint was that this disc, while it was lovely with five eps instead of the usual four, didn’t resolve the Phantom storyline. Aniplex better pony up the next few discs fast,  because Blood+ is too good to wait for.

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