VAMPIRE PRINCESS MIYU: Vol. 1
Hirano Toshihiro, director
1988, 1996
(of 5)
VAMPIRE PRINCESS MIYU is another tale in which Yoshitaka Amano had a hand in the character design. The back of the package for the American version claims that like VAMPIRE HUNTER D, this is also supposed to be an elegant horror tale. I beg to differ in some respects.
The basic idea is a detective of the supernatural as she encounters various situations in each episode. The tales themselves are quite good and follow horror in the Japanese tradition - subtle and elegant - if you ignore the detective. She serves no purpose to the story other than serving as an irritation to the viewer. She lacks character development as well as charisma. If you watch this anime, check out the stories, but get a drink or blink when the detective comes along. I will admit that I am biased when it comes to work by Amano - I am very fond of his work. However, VAMPIRE PRINCESS MIYU does not do him justice and I was rather sad to see what they did to his character designs and ideas.
Copyright TLM 2000
