Lady Death: The Motion Picture – Review

I have never read the comics or seen the other programs with this character, but to begin, the story moved too quickly. For someone new to this character and situations, I needed more built into creating the reasons instead of finding the solution. A woman burned at the stake in 15th century Sweden actually is Satan (Lucifer)’s daughter – and plots revenge against him. Let me just say that I think I could do battle with the King of Hell and survive. He was weak, his voice was laughable, and he just didn’t represent the image that I had in my mind.

The same goes for the character of Cremator. Who was this random person? The explanation they gave wasn’t enough, and instead I was left with more incoherent babbling than actual development. It is a very sad day in Hell when we forgo characters to show more violence and action, especially in an animated feature. I wasted my time with this one and would like to warn others so that when Death does come, you don’t find yourself in my state and regretting the fact that you wasted 80 minutes on this. The bad guy himself even talks like a Skeletor wannabe, has the obligatory inept henchman, and lives in a lair that looks so generic it hurts.

The story moves too fast and you feel no connection with any of the characters introduced. This is a real shame as I can see potential in these characters. This feels way more haphazardly thrown together and really doesn’t do the original writing justice. Frankly, I don’t exactly know what happened. What I do know is that Chaos! Comics ended up going bankrupt during this time. If you HAVE to watch this thing, do so with a large audience preferably after a few beers, you may then glean some enjoyment from it.

In the end we have a film that is very loosely based on the original “The Reckoning” storyline, but with a way more disjointed feel. Like Lady Death ends up in Hell for totally different reasons, also her father is a vastly different person as well. Cremator’s role isn’t explained very well at all, but they probably weren’t allowed to use his original concept. This movie is best enjoyed for accepting it as it is. Comparing it to Vampire Hunter D is unfair as they are very different in concept and style. Just remember anime is like American live action movies; they are all different and not meant to be all alike.