A few weeks ago I reviewed Blade: House of Chthon on DVD, which is the first episode of Blade: The Series. My big gripe with this release was that it would have been nice to get a complete set. Well the wait is now over! DVD Times reports that on February 12th 2008, Blade: The Series – The Complete Season, will be release in a 4 DVD set.

Check out the cover art:

Special features appear to be the same ones that were included in the single disc DVD.

A review of the DVD for the pilot episode of Blade the Series.

Thanks to Janine for getting bit to make this video better.

Even though this game has been overshadowed by its sequels three times over, Soul Edge was and still is a revolutionary title in the fighting genre. A 3-d fighter with weapons based gameplay, Namco’s classic took the genre to new heights. Although this certainly wasn’t the first fighting game to feature weapons, (SNK’s Samurai Showdown and Sony’s Battle Arena Toshinden having been released prior) it made the weapon deeper and more fluid rather than simply having sword slashes as a substitute for punches and kicks. The game also had a deep storyline taking place in the 16th century featuring a diverse cast of warriors. Later games in the series would expand on the plot even further, adding new characters and plot twists. The home version of the game wasn’t bad either. As a matter of fact, the Playstation version of the game, renamed Soul Blade, featured new playable characters, new game modes, and other cool extras. Along with Namco’s Tekken 2, Soul Blade was one of the few arcade-to-home conversions at the time that managed to surpass the original arcade game it was based on.
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In a follow up to Thursday’s early reports of the series cancelation Spike TV has confirmed that Blade: The Series will not be renewed for a second season.

As is fully expected for any series of any popularity or quality getting canceled before or after it’s prime the hordes of fans are launching a futile campain to save the show.

There is also mention that there will be a DVD release though no details were announced to that extent.

Blade star Jill Wagner, who plays Krista in the series, posted a bulletin using her MySpace page with the following message:

Thanks for all your support

Just wanted to say thanks again to all of you who supported me and Blade the Series. I was just informed today that there will be NO 2nd season of Blade the Series. I really enjoyed playing Krista and i hope that i did her justice at least for one season! However, that is not the end of Jill Wagner’s acting career. I will keep you guys posted on what’s next for me. Again i say thanks for the support. Hey, there is always the DVD right????
Jill Wagner

This was posted on September 28th. Due to the nature of MySpace bulletins I can’t link to this since it’s something that’s sent to people on her MySpace friends list.

This is sad news to see after Kirk “Sticky” Jones had earlier mentioned in an interview that there would likely be a second season.

Still no official word from the people at Spike TV.

Thanks to Corvus from the heads up.

Tonight Spike TV‘s Blade the Series concludes it’s first season. There’s been no confirmation of whether or not the show is being renewed. When asked about the possibility of having a second season the show’s star Kirk “Sticky” Jones was quoted to say in an interview with MediaBlvd Magazine that “I’ve been told, unofficially, that it will. I’ve got the inside scoop.”. The show did quite well with it’s pilot episode with ground breaking ratings for Spike TV. Though ratings dropped for the rest of the season the show still had a good deal of success.

This season really didn’t pull any punches. With some pretty graphic violent scenes and sexual content it’s nice to see something like this on TV where in the past you’d be hard pressed to find it in theatres.

I think the show so far has been excellent. The story has been quite gripping and I find the characters to be very well fleshed out with tons of personality. One problem as I see it is they’re spending so much time giving the vampire vilains great personality that in contrast the hero Blade and his gimp sidekick seem boring. Though one shouldn’t fault the writters and actors for outshinning them. It’s just that the concept of having a very solitary broody character like Blade makes it difficult to give him much depth. Going against this wouldn’t really be good for the series. Still I find they do a great job of compensating for this with the other characters. You can’t really have a series who’s heroes are villains so Blade just sort of needs to be there.

The cast has done a great job. Kirk “Sticky” Jones is great as the stoic bad ass Blade. He’s not Wesley Snipes but he fills his shoes and brings more than just emulating. The stylish and cool Marcus, protrayed by Neil Jackson plays both a very civilised and clean cut business man and viscious and capable adversary to Blade. Jessica Gower who plays Chase plays a wonderfull bitch. Whether that’s her natural demeaner or not doesn’t affect the fact that she delivers a sweet performance who’s hotness is superceeded only by the smokin’ hot Jill Wagner as Krista, Blade’s mole/love interest/antagonist/whatever! The character of Shen by Nelson Lee hasn’t had an excessive amount of screen time. He’s no Whistler but then it would be pretty lame if his character was just like him. My favourite performance of the season by far had to be Emily Hirst as the incredibly creepy Charlotte, the young pure blood vampire who verbally chastises otherwise intimidating characters and shows a disturbing preference for the blood of newborn babies. I wouldn’t have thought that a child could give such a performance as to make me believe that she was really a few hundred years old but here we are. I was starting to worry about how they’d deal with a vampire character who’s actress was so young that she would in time show clear signs of aging. I don’t think that’s going to be a problem with her…

Hats off to a great season filled with action packed excitement and a slew of powerfull scenes that made me cringe and look away more than once. In a time with a lot of crap on TV here’s hoping we get a lot more of this great show.

Links:
Spike TV’s official site
Official forum
Blade: The Series Myspace page
Series page at IMDB
Blade: The Series on Wikipedia
A popular fan site
Original powet.tv post about Blade: The Series premiere

Tonight Spike TV premiered Blade: The Series in a 2 hour “limited commercial interruption” event following UFC 937 or someting.

The premier holds much promise for this series which follows the style of the world of Blade as we see it in the movie so well that it almost seemed as if they were reusing some of the sets. The action is certainly there and is helped by effects, while understandeably not of a the calibre of a high budget Hollywood movie, are great for a tv series.

The story appears solid though it remains to be seen if it can keep us interested for weeks to come. Blade’s backstory is the same as the one we already know with some minor changes. It’s unclear where this movie takes place with respect to the movies though I get the impression it starts off around the same point as the first movie did and will evolved differently. The premier story, which is setting the scene for the TV series, centers around the character of Krista, played by smokin’ hot newcommer Jill Wagner, who in tracking down the death of her brother gets caught up in the world of Vampires.

Most of the cast including the star, rapper Sticky Fingaz, is composed of relatively unknown actors with the obscure exception of screen legend Randy Quaid as Professor Melvin Caylo. The cast delivers a solid performance and shows that you don’t need big names to get a good story across.

A preview for next week’s episode as well as things to come in the future of the series were shown. The only other star I reckognised from the bunch was The Big Hit star Bokeem Woodbine. It’s looking like the rest of the season will offer the same fun action packed story and amazing visual style we’ve gotten a taste of. I’d certainly recommend checking this series out if you have a chance.

The premier episode will be rerunning this Saturday, July 1st, at 4pm. The show’s regular timeslot is Wednesday night at 10pm.

I’d have to say that “Blade: The Series” is surely the best comic based motion picture to be released on June 28th 2006.

I love crossovers. Whether it’s Super Smash Brothers, Capcom vs SNk, King of Fighters, Warriors Orochi, Marvel vs Capcom, Tatsunoko vs Capcom, or really, anything vs Capcom, there is just something special about taking players from one company and either putting them against or teaming them up with characters from another company. Thus, when Project X Zone hit the Nintendo 3ds in 2012, bringing together characters from Capcom, Sega, and Namco, I had to check it out. I was not disappointed. Of course in 2015 when a sequel was announced with a 2016 release date, that became an instant must-watch game for 2016. Again, I was not disappointed.
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