for me is on the rise. Last season gave us
Vladlove, a gonzo throwback romantic comedy overflowing with shameless indulgences from its writer, the esteemed
Mamoru Oshii. He references everything from cult horror films to avant-garde protest theater, with an apparent disregard for any kind of marketability beyond what interests him. I love that. This season gives us
MARS RED, which shares no similarity with
Vladlove beyond the presence of vampires, but which nevertheless scratches a similar itch of mine for offbeat vampire fiction.
Conceptually, there s little remarkable about
MARS RED. In Taisho-era Tokyo, the military assembles a unit of vampire soldiers under the command of Colonel Yoshinobu Maeda, with the intent of rooting out other vamps hiding amongst and attacking the general populace. It s nothing that would surprise anyone familiar with