This was due to series supervisor Junichi Fujisaku wanting the viewers to distinguish the portrayal of this version and previous incarnations of Saya.
During the anime series, Ohkawa portrayed Saya as a normal girl that is a town's protector beginning to intrude this very life.
Towards the end of the series as it broke conventions of a hero-focused anime to a twist to a lie, Ohkawa portrays Saya with more storic and cold personality like the previous incarnations, as she regained her true self.
[9] Saya's school outfit is also different from previous incarnations, as she sports a black and red uniform in both the anime and The Last Mind stage play.
[4][6][7][8] In the events of the 2011 anime television series, Saya Kisaragi is living as a high school student and a shrine maiden with her father named Tadayoshi, and defends the town at night from the Elder Bairns.
Her battle with the Elder Bairns becomes difficult as they accuse her and the humans violating a covenant called "Shrovetide", and starts attacking during the day.
[14][15][16] In the sequel anime film, Blood-C: The Last Dark, which act as a conclusion to the series, while arriving to Tokyo, Saya saves a girl named Mana Hīragi from a man that transformed into an Elder Bairn.
Along the way, she encounters Kuroto Mogari and the internet rebel group called SIRRUT, where they're opposing Fumito's new youth ordinace bill.
After Fumito reveals that she killed Mana's father during her arrival to Tokyo, Saya battles him, who transformed into a giant-Elder Bairn with Kuroto.
[17] In Blood-C: The Last Mind stage play, set shortly after the events of the twelfth episode of the anime, Saya, in an amnesic state, wakes up in a hospital in an unnamed town near Tokyo, by an unlicensed doctor named Haru, who reveals to be her fiancée.
[18] In Asura Girl: Blood-C Another Story, which takes place in a pre-World War II era, Saya arrives at a small village near Tokyo City, and saves a boy named Ren from the Special Political Police force in the woods.
As she takes her first step to Tokyo, she finds and participates in the underground fightclub called "Blood-Club", led by Fumito's former bodyguard, Sōen.
In the novelizations of the anime and the sequel film (written by Junichi Fujisaku), it was expanded that Saya was an Elder Bairn that was abandoned by her own kind and was raised by humans.
[16][17] In the audio drama, "Hot Summer Day" (written by Junichi Fujisaku, and character voiced by Nana Mizuki), when the main cast first arrives on Ukishima, they encounter Saya, who's chained up and angry towards Fumito.
[20][21][22][23] In Blood-C: Demonic Moonlight prequel manga (written and illustrated by Ryō Haduki), set in 1946, Saya is seen with an American officer named Lucy, who act has her handler, and appears multiple occasions to Kagekiri and David.
[27] Comic Book Resources said that Saya could not live up the popularity of her predecessors due to simplicity of her premise of fighting monsters on a weekly schedule while her false identity ruins her character as the staff rushes it in favor of creating violent scenes for the final episodes rather than develop the protagonist comparing it to The Truman Show.
[34] Kotaku also criticized her apparent romantic relationship Mana for having poor chemistry and that the morals of the Saya's not killing humans are not properly executed due to her revenge quest against Fumito.