brilliant, great length.

I've always been a fan of movies that don't spell out every detail for you, and that leave something to the imagination.

What's wrong with a story being short? Keeping a story short is not in itself a bad thing, although looking at these boards you might think so. For example, I love the short stories of Edgar Allen Poe; he often focuses on a particular incident and leaves details of before and after to the readers imagination. The pit and the pendulum is an example; there is no indication of how he got there, or why he was there. Would that story have been better if it were dragged out, with more and more details added? Not necessarily. Whilst books like lord of the rings, with their immense attention to detail and available chronological history of all its characters, have a place, so do short stories, which are often intense, mysterious and open ended. I believe that this is the case for movies too. These days people are obsessed with hitting the 90 minute mark, regardless as to whether the story has enough content, or whether the story is just plain better kept at a shorter length.

Whether the short running time was by design, or due to budget, I don't know. But I'm glad that it is the length that it is. The story provides enough details to create a framework in which it is possible to make draw your own conclusions about the girl's origins etc., without it either being spelled out for you, or it being left to wild speculation. If the movie had been preluded with a biography of the character, I genuinely think that it would've taken away from the experience. The story itself was fairly short, but is it necessary to drag it out any longer? The premise of a mysterious vampire slaying demons could very quickly sink into a generic, repetitive story, of her facing slightly more powerful foes, leading to a single showpiece at the end. There are plenty of movies like that, and most of them run out of steam very early on.

The live action movie was terrible, and whilst this isn't proof that a longer version of the anime would be bad, it does show that more content/story doesn't necessarily mean a better story.

I love this movie for what it is. An intense, interesting story about a mysterious vampire hunting down a demon. A large part of my enjoyment comes from speculating about her origin, or about her future. It is a shame that these type of movies are so rare, and that those that do exist are attacked from not following the same generic formula of taking a story and stretching in to 90 mins, with numerous meaningless set pieces to delay the plot.

Bit of a rambling post, and I really can't be bothered to check for typos etc.