by Joseph McCabe

Here in the good ol? US of A, anime may not be everyone?s cup of tea. But every once in a while a series comes along that seems to bridge the gap between hardcore fans of the medium and a more mainstream audience. Back in the ?80s, this used to happen with some degree of regularity?Star Blazers and Robotech, for example, were two such shows that became cultural touchstones for my generation. But some would argue that these American versions of Japanese animation bastardized their source material, needless watering it down for US viewers. Not so with today?s English-translated anime, as can be seen by viewing any episode of the horror-action anime Blood+ (pronounced ?Blood Plus?), the TV adaptation of the world first introduced in Blood: The Last Vampire. Though the show airs on the Cartoon Network, its slot in the mature-audiences-only Adult Swim lineup insures that cute comic-relief sidekicks and distracting celebrity voiceovers won?t be injected into it any time soon. At last weekend?s Wondercon 2008, we sat down with the creative team responsible for bringing Blood + to US audiences?story editors Tom Teves and Joe D?Ambrosia and director Michael Hack?and voiceover actors Ben Diskin and Dave Wittenberg. Together, they told us what goes into adapting the series, what to expect on the show?s DVD box set (released today), and their hopes for a sequel series?

For people who aren?t familiar with the story of Blood +, how would you explain it?

Teves: Blood+ is about a high school girl named Saya, who is a samurai, and she is fighting a species of blood-sucking monsters. As the story unfolds, this mythology unfolds?a history of the monsters, which they call Chiropterans. They?re actually created from a formula that turns humans into Chiropterans, and as we go deeper into the story, we find that Saya herself is a Chiropteran; she has a twin sister who?s evil who is a Chiropteran?

Hack: She discovers all this as we discover it.

D?Ambrosia: Yeah. The interesting thing about the show is it actually starts off with her having amnesia. She doesn?t remember the past. But slowly things start to pop into her mind that bring her back, that bring us flashes back to what happened. And without giving away too much, the show starts with this amazing action sequence in Vietnam, where we discover this innocent young girl is actually carrying this samurai sword, and pretty much killing an entire village. That?s all they leave you with. And you slowly, throughout the story, find out who she is, how she came to be, and why she has to fight.

Teves: There?s a history, going way back to the 19th century, of these monsters, going back to the Vietnam War and War War II.

D?Ambrosia: Yeah, the original creators did a really great job of taking revisionist history and combining it with a new sci-fi action hero. That?s pretty much the general idea of who she is. It?s called Blood+, basically, because blood is what can either kill you or make you live.

Teves: It?s very violent, it?s very bloody and scary. The fans have seen it two or three different ways. They saw the original Japanese on the internet, and then they fed us those episodes and it was put on Adult Swim on the Cartoon Network. Now it?s in DVD form.

How does the US version differ from the Japanese?

Teves: We kept it very, very close.

D?Ambrosia: The only thing we changed, really, was the pronunciation of some of the characters? names. But we tried very hard to stay close to the original Japanese story. Because it?s such an intricate mystery/puzzle, if you change one thing it would have such severe effects. And we didn?t always know where the story was headed because we were working on it in the United States.

Hack: It had fans in Japan, and those fans knew the story. So you didn?t want to mix it up too much. You wanted to keep it pure, because it is a series with a lot of integrity.

Teves: The only time we might want to change details is when something doesn?t translate to western culture. There might be some kind of trait in Japan, or some kind of practice, that just doesn?t translate, doesn?t make sense. We?d have to come up with some kind of tweak for American audiences.

Can you give an example?

Teves: There?s a scene in episode 1 or 2 where Saya, our hero, goes back home to the bar that her father owns. She?s washing her lunchbox, and her father says, ?Well, someone had a good day!? We were scratching our heads, thinking, ?What does that mean?? Well, we spoke to the Japanese creators and they said, ?Cleaning your own lunchbox means you?re happy.? [Laughs.] They said, ?You have to keep it that way.? And we said, ?No, no, no. That doesn?t make sense.?

D?Ambrosia: ?It?s gonna go right over kids? heads here.?

Teves: We didn?t really change it. We just smoothed it over so it wasn?t so glaring. We just kind of made it that George recognized she was in a good mood, and just kind of inquired about it. But there weren?t a whole lot of those. That was the most glaring one. We always like to use that as an example. [Laughs.]

Ben and Dave, as the voice talent, what can you tell us about your characters?

Diskin: My character is sort of the kid who?s always being left behind, who really wants to make everything right. His whole family is torn apart by the Chiropterans, by who his sister really is, by all the stuff that she gets involved with. And to try to keep it together, he winds up joining along, even though he?s just a human being, who can?t really fight. So he winds up becoming sort of an emotional support for her, as opposed to the action warrior that he tries to be in the beginning.

Hack: The thing about your character? I think Kai might represent our audience to some degree, and I think that they?re feeling what he?s feeling. I think you?ll see that in the later series.

Wittenberg: I play a couple of different characters, but my main character is a guy named Solomon who, for all intents and purposes, sort of plays both sides of the fence. I don?t want to give away too much as far as the story goes, but, basically, the minute he sees Saya he falls completely in love with her, and begins this process of trying to figure out whether to stay loyal to his previous commitment, the oaths that he?s taken, or to follow his heart, and if there?s a way to do both. He?s a very confused character that is trying to make everybody happy, but at the same time chase after the one thing he really wants?which is Saya and her happiness. He wants her to be happy, and he hopes that that means being with him. So he goes through a lot of soul-searching, and a lot of tough decisions?that he?s got to make at very bad times. [Laughs.]

The show is broadcast on the Cartoon Network here in the States. Even though it?s presented as part of that network?s Adult Swim block of animation, geared towards adults, is it a challenge to present material this shocking on TV?

Hack: We enjoy that, because it?s refreshing.

Teves: It?s so bloody you can?t get around it.

D?Ambrosia: I mean the show is called Blood +. Blood is what will either make you live or die in the show, so it is an integral part of the show. But what was actually refreshing, having worked on other animated projects, was not having to edit what the original Japanese creators did. Because the show works on such a huge epic scope, not cutting snippets apart, it really flows very much like a film. I really enjoyed working on it. After you get through the first two minutes of the show, you know what you?re in for. And the rest of it really is a fun ride.

Wittenberg: It made it fun for us as actors, only because, at other times, there are so many projects that we?ve worked on where we?ve said, ?Oh, man, that?s really cool.? Then somebody says, ?No, that?s not gonna make it. We have to take that out.? Whereas every time you saw something like that in this show, you?re like, ?I can?t wait to see that on the big screen at home!? [Laughs.]

Teves: And you know from the very first second of episode one, how bloody it?s gonna be. Because it?s action from the first second.

D?Ambrosia: There are big battle scenes that I was so glad we didn?t have to cut, because the story wouldn?t make sense without seeing people experiencing the loss of family and friends. And also it does make interesting statements about war, and again, in a very science-fiction/fantasy way, from all different points of view. So again I?m glad we didn?t have to self-edit and cut around that.

Teves: I think, also, a big part of the story is how different characters? blood affects other characters. And there?s a mythology where Saya?s blood, if it gets introduced into someone else?s bloodstream, it can kill them?a certain type of creature?and vice versa. So there?s all these relationships, and the goal is to put your blood on your sword and stab your enemy so that they?ll crystallize and die, essentially. You can?t take the blood out because it?s all based on blood.

D?Ambrosia: You have to pierce yourself first for your blood to drip on your sword before you go into battle. Because it?s not the sword that?s gonna kill the other person, it?s your blood. There?s a channel within the sword?when you prick your thumb, a pulse of blood runs into the channel of that sword, into the tip. Then you use it.

Can you talk about what?s on the DVD set? And what?s in store for viewers in the episodes that have not yet aired here in the States?

Hack: On American TV, we?re already on Episode 45, so we have five more episodes to go. On the DVD, Volume 1, the [box set], there are episodes 1 through 25, and there are manga comics and a T-shirt--everybody?s gonna want one of these. But there are also interviews and extras and special features.

And once Volume 2 is released, the remaining episodes will be available on DVD. Is there any chance we?ll see a sequel series?

D?Ambrosia: I hope so. We were actually talking about it. Because, at the end of the show, a lot of questions are answered, but some characters?they?re left open to where they want to go. Two characters head off to the Middle East. Another character sort of hibernates. And one character ends up doing a complete turnaround and ends up taking on a very parental role. So it does set up, actually, three different new stories. I hope they do take one of those directions and go with it. Because, again, it?s an exciting show.

In real life, what are your greatest fears?

Teves: My greatest fear would be to be buried alive.

D?Ambrosia: My greatest fear is reincarnation. I don?t want to come back as anything. When it?s over, it?s over. I?m so terrified of the whole karma thing, coming back as a cockroach or something absolutely horrible. [Laughs.]

Hack: Of being misunderstood. But I don?t understand what I?m talking about. [Laughs.]

Diskin: Being on camera. [Laughs.]

Wittenberg: Spontaneous human combustion. Not that it would happen to me, but that I?d be sitting next to someone who would burst into flame. And then my dry-cleaning bill? Straight through the roof! [Laughs.]