Yami no Teio: Kyuuketsuki Dracula

A classic of bad anime panels at various conventions, Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned as it was titled for it's US release in the 80s by Harmony Gold is an example of how not to adapt an American comic book into film, especially a low budget anime one.

For one thing, this movie mostly takes place in Boston, and it's quite obvious that the creators have not only never been to Boston but didn't even research the city at all, which is why modern day (circa the 80s) Boston looks like an old European city with O'Hare International titled 'Boston Airport'. Even worse is ... New York City, which not only looks like Columbus, Oh instead of the Big Apple but also has gas street lamps and empty streets everywhere.

The story itself isn't too grand either, Dracula steals away a girl being sacrificed as Satan's Bride for his own greed but instead falls in love with her, has a kid, gets screwed over by Satan and God both and then has to deal with a group of idiotic vampire hunters going after him.

The dub is another mediocre bumble from Harmony Gold featuring a plodding narration throughout, flat performances, and goofy and awkward dialog like most
of their works.

If you're in need of something to torture your friends or anime club with or like to do homebrew MSTing of bad movies, this title is choice for that, as the horribleness of the movie makes it a fun watch. Highlights include the antics of the crazy old professor trying to kill Dracula and Dracula mugging a guy to get money to buy a hamburger, truly the greatest scene ever in a vampire anime!

The joy I get from watching "Dracula:Sovereign of the Damned" is the same I feel watching "The Room" or the best parts of "Garzey's Wing". To me it is the best of all the famously "so-bad-it's-good" anime because it is consistently so (specifically the dub, the most ideal way to watch).

My problem with watching bad anime or movies is that a lot of times it's just actually bad rather than enjoyably so, and at some point it's just an hour wasted. But this 1980's interpretation of the Dracula story is so ridiculous and over-the-top throughout and becomes a delightful sight to witness.

In this movie, Dracula ... pretends to be Satan because he hates Satan, and steals a beautiful women who was meant to be a sacrifice for Satan and then falls in love with her. The story from there mostly involves Dracula constantly whining about being Dracula and performing more and more ridiculous acts in the hope of not being Dracula, only to start performing even more ridiculous acts in order to be Dracula again.

Meanwhile, a group of completely inept Dracula hunters follow Dracula around and eventually both God and Satan get involved and the shenanigans continue from there.

All the comedy comes from both the absurdity of the entire plot as well as the nonsensical dialogue and hilarious voice acting from the dub, which once again is the only right way to watch this. Something to watch with friends while making fun of it, and honestly way better than "Garzey's Wing" in terms of being a bad anime. Also, if you think I spoiled too much in this review, I promise you I did not reveal any of the best parts.

There's something unsettling—and hilariously incongruous—about the way Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned tries to replicate the classic Hammer Horror aesthetic with some of the cheapest, clunkiest, flattest-looking herky-jerky animation this side of Hanna-Barbera.

I mean, seriously?

Call me crazy, but I'm not sure if the likes of Jabberjaw and Jonny Quest should occupy the same universe as vampires, devil worshippers, child-murdering priests, zombies, karate-kicking demon slayers, wheelchair ninjas, hyperintelligent dobermans, disco studs, reincarnated babies with Jesus powers, and—in a cameo appearance—a surprisingly pointy-eared Satan (or "Lucifer Satan, as he calls himself).


Uh, scratch that. On second thought, all of that actually sounds kinda awesome. And hell, ... let's be honest. It's not like a surprise supporting turn from Scrappy-Doo or The Funky Phantom would make this shit any less ridiculous.

Dracula: Sovereign of the Dracula appears to be an attempt at compressing the events of its source material into a 90-minute film, resulting in really sloppy storytelling and rushed pacing of its events.

The major element of the film that was rather confusing was how the title attempted to depict Dracula. Sovereign of the Damned tries making efforts at depicting him as a tragic figure who wanted to live happily with his family, wanted to be left alone and experience life as a mortal man. Yet at the same time, he had no qualms with sucking on the blood of humans or killing others who threaten ... him and he tries regaining his immortality later in the film when he loses his vampire power.

Other sloppy elements to the film have to do with the implementation of its storytelling. The title's logic with elements to its world get messy, deus ex machina is employed quite often, questionable plot directions take place, certain characters who seem relevant in the film are actually mostly worthless, plot twists occur without any prior foreshadowing and an anti-climactic ending takes place with Dracula's fate. Adding more to this fun mess is that Toei attempts rendering a Western animation style with its character designs, yet this makes them appear more stiff and lifeless in appearance compared to conventional anime designs of the time period.

The English dub for Sovereign of the Damned is also a nice example of the rather low standards of anime voice acting in many 1980s dubs with two different types of acting from the voice cast: either bored and flat acting or over-the-top in an attempt at being dramatic, such as the case with Dracula's dub actor in many of the film's moments. Scenes in the film are also usually accompanied by a narrator who acts just as over-the-top as Dracula in attempting to give Sovereign of the Damned's events any sort of meaning or emotion.

Overall, Sovereign of the Damned is mostly worth a look just to see how laughably bad it is. Otherwise, don't waste your time seeing it if you are expecting any kind of decent quality to it.

Worst. Scooby-Doo. Movie. EVER!

Hoo-boy, was this a train wreck, from beginning to end! A ridiculous, incongruous, silly, improbably train wreck for the ages! Worth watching just because of how bad it really is -- and how it seems to take itself seriously but comes across as so over the top bonkers you cannot look away!

The Scooby-Doo analogy is unfortunately apt -- the style and quality of artwork and low-end animation are comparable. And you do have a mismatched rag-tag team (complete with dog!) hunting down the vampire. And the ... vampire (and the vampire's enemy, too) are so over the top they would fit right in to any Hanna Barbera episode.

The plot is beyond insane. Don't try to make sense of it, because you can't. Some of the twists and turns will literally make your IQ drop just by watching. Like I said, Scooby-Doo.

Hello everyone ! well, this time is the time to review a classical yet quite obscure anime (for the right reasons), but, before starting this no spoiler review i want to clear some stuff up, first of all, it is not as bad as people say sometimes, calling it absolute trash or the worst horror anime ever, and another thing is that this is not a adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel, but actually an adaptation of the Marvel comics story of a same name that is a adaptation of the novel, so this is kinda of the adaptation of a adaptation (yeah quite ... messy).
Now lets get into it, as i mentione this is an adaptation of an adaptation, trying to convert a book converted into a comic book into a anime is a task that well, can be called tough at the very least. In this anime you will see some points from the novel, others totally made up and some that i dont know if were originated from the comics because i didnt read it haha, and that is the problem, the anime tried to be original and to be faithful at the same time, which cause it to end up boring and rushed at the same time.
The movie tells the story of a satanic cult trying to realize and "black sabbath" or a "dark cult" in order to summon satan and present him a new bride, with Dracula being the messenger to Satan, taking the bride to him, but he ends up falling in love with her and betrays Satan and the whole cult. On the other hand we have descendents of Van Helsing and the Harker family who are there to hunt and kill the non-life king Nosferatu Dracula.
This sums up the plot and the initial story being told, but there are some plot twists and revelations that cause the movie to become boring sometimes or totally nonsense, but then when things have to be solved it gets very rushed in, which is the biggest problem from this anime.
That anime is indeed a classic of horror and a very underated one, if you are a horror anime fan, or a vampire fan or someone who really likes classical 70/80´s anime i would recommend you gave it a try, of course it is not a mandatory one as we have Golgo 13, Kick no Oni, Sagata Sanchirou and Ashita no Joe on that period, but if you already saw those and doesnt have anything better, give old Dracula a chance, also, it is a stand alone movie so if you dont like it so much, at least you wont need to see 20+ to find out what happened.
Technically speaking the art style is average most othe time, but has times of glory throught the movie and has that early 80's and late 70's style that i do enjoy, the only problem is with the sound, the soundtrack is good, but the voice action quality sometimes feel off, but as it is very old i can understand why converted versions have a worse quality sound wise. Well, in resume, give it a try guys, i believe even if you dislike it you will still have some good laughs with some crazy over the top stuff that happens there.

I have to say I was expecting something bad but to be honest, this isn't the worst thing I've seen.
In my opinion, the voice acting was probably the worst part of it all, the characters sounded monotone and some of the things they said literally made me laugh. There are a couple of instances when two characters speak over each other and it shows the little effort that was put into audio mixing the movie.
The kid's transformation suit looked really bad.
But it did have some depth to characters' backstories and if the VC sounded better I would've given it at least a 5.
They've also portrayed ... Boston incorrectly and the vampires looked like zombies towards the end.
It's a good watch if you want to laugh at some trash anime.

Edit: I watched in English dubbed, couldn't find a subbed version.

Man this thing is frickin' crazy.

Modern-day Dracula is pursued by some Satanists who he duped so he could take their virgin sacrifice, then he's pursued by the wheelchair-bound grandson of Van Helsing who has hired Dracula's own mortal descendant to help kill him, then he's pursued by his own son, who God Himself resurrected as a holy warrior to kill him. It's just not looking good for this vampire.

Not as good/utterly brutal as Marvel's Frankenstein, but it does have similar themes of "holy crap this protagonist is just gettin' brutalized by everyone around him."

People complain about Marvel being too samey these days with their superhero ... movies and stuff. I agree, because this is the same studio that made Frankenstein and Dracula animes in the 80s and got away with turning them into utter madness. Why can't we get more of that in the Marvel movie universe?

“Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned” is a 1980 TV special based on an American comic. And boy, is it “special.”

A wannabe Scooby Doo gang stalks a sort-of-reformed-but-not-really Dracula, who stole a bride offered to the devil and had a son with her. Their baby gets killed, but God later revives him, giving him an adult body and shapeshifting powers. The son has been tasked with killing his father, while the devil seeks revenge on Dracula for stealing his girl. Caught between God and the devil, what’s a vampire to do? (Mope around in a Boston cave and eat a hamburger, I guess.)

The plot, as you ... can probably tell from the above, is ridiculous. The meandering narrative introduces us to characters with major fanfare, only to have them fizzle out and contribute very little, if anything, to the story. None of the characters are likable. It seems that the intent is to have the viewers empathize with Dracula, but since he keeps going on killing sprees and acts rude to those trying to help him, it’s difficult to care about his fate.

There were so many things wrong with this anime, particularly inconsistencies and redundant dialogue, that it would take longer than its runtime to point them all out. That being said, I was entertained by it, and it kept my attention for the entire 1.5 hours. I couldn’t guess how the story would turn out, so I found it interesting. It felt less like an anime and more like a classic B-movie, like something that would be right at home on “Mystery Science Theater 3000.”

The art looks more western-style (think Hanna-Barbera) than Japanese. The animation is not that great. They use a lot of stills, panning shots, and scenes with zoom-ins/zoom-outs instead of actually animating stuff much of the time. Also, characters’ facial expressions can be odd, and sometimes they’ll be looking in a completely different direction from the character they’re talking to. The voice acting is subpar, probably due to the messy dialogue. As for music, we’re frequently treated to a funky disco soundtrack, usually whenever something dramatic or serious is happening. There are “songs” in this anime — 2 within the anime itself and one as the ending theme — but they aren’t memorable. They’re just some orchestral music with a female vocalist going “oooh” or “lalala.”

As for objectionable content in “Dracula,” it consists mostly of depictions of people getting their blood sucked, and frequent religious and cult imagery, which might bother some people. There’s one scene with mild nudity as well.

From relatively minor scenes such as a TV news station showing the body of a murder victim, to plot-crucial elements like the baby’s revival as some sort of adult godlike being with shapeshifting powers, just about everything that happens in this special makes no sense. You’ll be left thinking “huh?” after almost every scene. If that’s your kind of thing, then you’ll enjoy this.