646f9e108c In a Japanese city haunted by nature spirits and demons, a secret war is raging between the renegade demon Eko and a spectral warrior known as the Karas. Eko has mechanized himself and his followers to defend against the unearthly fury of the Karas; in addition to an armored humanoid form, the Karas can transform into any of various heavily armed and armored vehicles. Eko and his followers prefer to live in the material realm in human form, but to continue doing so they must feed on the fluids of human bodies. Their periodic feasts result in massacres that leave only a single traumatized survivor; these "inexplicable" tragedies are the obsession of a marginalized police inspector whose daughter was the survivor of one such massacre. Opposing Eko are the renegade demon Nue, who also lives in the material world in human form but refuses to drink blood or take a mechanized form, and Otoha, a former human who is summoned by the mysterious Yurine to become the new Karas.
I'm giving this an 8 ONLY because it is only part one of a series.<br/><br/>The opening sequence will slowly pull you in, and then once the battle begins you want to turn down the lights and turn up the sound. Then you want to back up and do some of the sequences in Slo-Mo-- and you will be gratified to see that the details are there frame by frame by frame. Then you back up again and let the speed go back to normal and just hiss out the word: COOOOL!<br/><br/>Then you get to the Title!<br/><br/>Now to be fair-- even though this is a movie-- you will begin to see that it has the structure of an anime set episode-- just way longer. Yet the storyline hovers up in the adult level of appreciation as well as appealing to teens-- WITHOUT the usual anime non-stop attempts at creepy soft-kiddie-porn thank you so very much! <br/><br/>It will take you a while to figure out exactly WHO is WHO, especially with the not-quite-linear cuts from one scene to another. But once you get the hang of it-- you will get the hang of the scene "sidesteps" and accept the fact that during the battles-- Human Time freezes, and Demon Time begins<br/><br/>If anything, I'll bet that when this whole series is complete, it will give you the familiar ring of "Doomed Megalopolis" <br/><br/>Ohh-- and last but not least-- the English Dubbing is VERY GOOD. For fun-- leave the English Subtitles on-- the differences between the spoken English and the subtitles can be intriguing.
After being rushed to an emergency ward in a hospital, a man is called to protect the spirit world by becoming both a doctor and a guardian. By battling a man who once had his job in the past and the spirits whom he took under his wing and turned them into machines that feed on human blood, Otoha has to preserve the balance of the human world and the nether world by using his power as a Karas.<br/><br/>Guaranteed that if you love action, you will be drawn into the movie by the first 10 minutes of this film. The story strikes as odd but the action completely makes up for it, for every minute of boring talk and calm scene, there is an equal minute of hardcore fighting. Combining both CG and Japanese animation, this is truly a masterpiece of anime. If you're a first timer, I would highly recommend this film.