Blood: the Last Vampire: Kemonotachi no Yoru
Blood: the Last Vampire: Night of the Beasts

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I've noticed that a lot of people disliked this book because it has nothing to do with the animated movie, neither thematically nor stylistically, but I liked it precisely for that reason. Although I recognize that the English release (and probably all non-japanese releases) was pretty much sold off to the fans of the movie, you should keep in mind that this book was NOT released originally after the movie, they were actually released near to the same time, so any complaints about misleading sealing practices are out of the realms of the work itself, being more about marketing than anything else.

That said, I loved ... the novel. Kemonotachi no Yoru (or Night of the Beasts) is a tale about youth, rebelliousness and the mankind. It also has throughout the narrative a pretty Oshii-like kind of postmodern critique of the role of your usual main character and of our pretense capability to change the world around us. He has always liked to question this, especially regarding art as a political mean to revolution. Such a critique is implied by certain lines in the actual narrative, but mainly by its subversive structure.

The only downside I can point out here is Oshii’s love for monologues. People usually criticize this in his films, in which I mostly disagree, but here he takes it to another level. The time he spends and the way he spends it ranting on the history of modern thought and on the universe in which the story is set and its philosophical implications, although pretty interesting as a whole and for me especially, as an Oshii fan, ends up being too much and, in certain points, even breaking the very perception of this work as a literary one.

But even so, I still do like this novel a lot. It’s very enjoyable and satisfactory to read as long as you don’t go for it hoping it will be by any means like the movie, because it isn’t. Besides that, this is definitely a piece that deserves to be praised and well-known by more people, even though I know it isn’t for everyone.

First off I have to say I bought this book original back in 2005 but only recently was able to force myself to read this book. I was a big fan of the original movie so I picked up the book expecting a decent amount of action and maybe some back story on Saya that was hinted at in the film. While this book as some action and some back story in total it probably only takes up about 20 pages of this books 298 pages. the six chapters of this book all revolve around either a moment in time or the ... charters taking some sort of action and then are broken up into smaller sections focusing on the moments leading up to the action or them making a plan. The first chapter deals with setting up the main charter Rei and him stumbling upon Saya and witnessing her doing what she dose best. The second chapter just sets up secondary character Gotouda and the starts leading the story into a direction of an investigation into the connection between mysterious disappearance of high school activist and this mysterious girl Saya that transfers into their class a few days before they disappeared and transfers out the day after. Third chapter just sets up the supporting cast that in all honesty don't play a big roll in things other then to argue over politics and make this chapter more of a civics lesson then any thing and get arrested in the next chapter. the forth chapter Rei and Gotouda after having a run in with Saya get kidnapped by her support staff and this chapter is basically just a lesson in Biology and Anthropology, yes it gives some contexts to how and why the vampires exist and why Saya is hunting them but its so long winded and is presented in a way that makes it sound like even the organization that is hunting them doesn't exactly know what they are. fifth chapter Rei and Gotouda have a gun battle at night in the school get their buts kicked and alost killed and Saya saves them. and the Sixth chapter is just an epilogue in the vein of 80's movies where you get a quick blurb about what happened to the cast 30 years after the events of the book, and just like those movies we find out what happens to the supporting cast that were just there so it wasn't two guys talking to each other for nearly 300 pages. All in all it is an interesting book and Gotouda by the end of the book was a much more interesting charter then when you first meet him and reviles he knows alot more about what was going on and was just using Rei and his friends just to get closer to Saya and the vampires but and its a BIG BUT the story dragged and focused more on the political views and ideals of anti establishment teens then it did the mystery of who or what is Saya and what was that thing Rei saw Saya kill. it had potential and for a moment there at the end it was starting to live up to it but it was only starting to get interesting in the last 30 or so pages and with an English title of night of the beasts and the summary on the back the lack of danger and action through the book took any redeeming factor I could thing of and dragged it through the mud and then through it in the sewer. in the end this is just my two cents on this book feel to have your own opinion I just hope someone finds this basic analysis of the book helpful.

For a story about vampires, Night of the Beasts isn’t that much focused on the blood-sucking beasts. And that’s not inherently a bad thing.

Incidentally, the protagonist of the movie this relates to has been demoted to a side, almost background character. This is a story of the world told from the point of view of a more regular human. Which brings us to the question, do you need to see other Blood anime before reading this. In most cases of light novel spin-offs, that is a no-brainer with yes as an answer, but this is an exception. First, you only need to watch the ... Blood: The Last Vampire movie. Second – you don’t even need to do that, as Night of the Beasts actually serves as a nice introduction to the world, more in depth explanation of the world building, a sort of prologue to the movie events.

The movie starts with introduction to a life of a student revolutionary activist and this goes on for some time. Not that I mind. The supernatural part of the plot is presented as a mystery, for the protagonist to figure what even is going on, and this serves as a nice way to get the reader into the world building, as we explore along him.

For me, the most interesting part starts around the half of the novel, with the very best part being the following chapter 4. You could call it rant or a tangent. Certainly, if you dislike long dialogues that are approaching the territory of monologuing, you are going to hate this. For me, I have certainly enjoyed the characters debating in length the historical context and creation of the vampire myth, in a nice juxtaposition with eating a barbecue, a point that is made more clear later. Yes, this novel managed to arrange for eating a barbecue to be a deep content. What finally made me rise the score from the 6 that I was going to give this was the shift of the discussion from vampire mythology to examination of various ideologies and philosophies, and using them to make their point in relation to the supernatural plot. Descartes, Hobbes, Darwin, Marx and more. A great combination between real world and fiction, resulting in a section that feels both entertaining and educational, as the quality of the arguments present is really surprisingly high. Amazing writing in this part, really.

There is no art other then the cover, at least in the English release, so not much to talk about here except for the cover being a bit clickbaity - as mentioned, Saya isn't exactly the spotlight of the story.

So yeah, feel free to pick this up even if you’re completely unfamiliar with the Blood franchise. Actually, if you are familiar with it, don’t expect this to be a typical part of the franchise, as the tone is quite different from the usual horror action.