Vampire Hunter D

Overview:

Time to look at a 1985 classic that made a huge impact on the popularity of anime in the US. It is the height of the Cold War and Reagan is in the White house. This was before Akira and Ghost in the Shell and besides Speed Racer and Astro Boy, Americans had no idea what anime was. All of a sudden we Americans see a cartoon with ultra violence, tits, and crazy steampunk nonsense that is never explained. We take one look at this incoherent acid trip and go...FUCK THIS IS AWESOME! This was the birth of the teen and older anime community in ... the United States. This is Vampire FUCKING D!

Plot and characters: 5/10

The plot is that 10,000 years the future, vampires have taken over the world and human civilization is a mixed up mess of modern technology and 1800s Romanian peasantry. Why? Who the fuck cares!? This is Vampire Hunter D, we don't need no stinkin logic! A powerful vampire lord called Count Lee in reference to Christopher Lee is terrorizing the countryside. A half human half vampire of noble vampire birth has decided to side with the humans and take down the vampires. The plot and cheesy voice acting will immediately remind the viewer of the Castlevania games and especially Symphony of the Night. However, this was actually made before the original Castlevania on NES and actually helped inspire the Castlevania series! One bizarre but funny thing in this film is that D also has a hand with a mouth that eats things (now we know where Deidara gets it), but unlike Deidara's, this hand never shuts the fuck up. D at one point even has to threaten to cut it off if it won't stop talking! In the end, D rescues the damsel of course, kills Dracula/Lee and the castle crumbles exactly like in the end of every Castlevania game. Actually the design of the castle as seen from the outside in Symphony of the Night is based on the castle in this movie!

Art and sound: 5/10

The art was decent for the mid 1980s and there wasn't really a high standard for anime at the time. It looked better than any anime Americans had ever seen to that point, so keep that in mind when watching this from a modern perspective. Saying the animation sucks is like watching Fritz Lang's Metropolis or Sergei Eisenstein's Alexander Nevsky and saying the special effects suck. It simply isn't helpful to compare to modern standards and you have to appreciate how great it looked relative to its own time.

Overall: 6/10

Don't expect amazing story telling or character depth, but this is a must see for people that want to learn more about anime history and for fans of Castlevania! It is nostalgic, cheesy, and a fun way to spend a boring, rainy afternoon.

Title: Vampire Hunter D

Novels, Manga, Anime: Vampire Hunter D was originally a series of seventeen novels written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano (famous for his work on character designs and the logos for the Final Fantasy series) starting in 1983.

Vampire Hunter D was adapted into two separate media; manga and comics. The manga was an adaptation in which Kikuchi hand-picked the artist, Saiko Takaki, began running in 2007, was licensed Stateside by Digital Media Publishing, and is currently ongoing. The comic, whose rights were acquired Devil's Due Publishing (the parent company of Digital Media Publishing) in July 2008, is known ... as Vampire Hunter D: American Wasteland, and will be written by Jimmy Palimotti (known for writing the Sci-Fi series Painkiller Jane and work on Monolith).

Vampire Hunter D, an 80 minute movie, was produced by Ashi Productions (known for their work on the Sailor Moon S and SuperS movies) and directed by Toyoo Ashida (famous for his work on... well, there's nothing really to speak of here). It was released in 1985 in Japan and licensed Stateside by, in order, CBS Theatrical Films, MGM, Streamline Pictures, and, the current holder of the license, Urban Vision Entertainment.

Story: Doris Lang, the daughter of a werewolf hunter, is out hunting werewolves one night when she is bitten by Count Magnus Lee, who then decides to make her his bride, marking her with his bite marks. She hires a vampire hunter known only as D, who she meets out in the middle of nowhere one day, offering him food and herself to take out the Count and save her from becoming his bride.

...Where to begin with this?

This story is all over the place. I mean, there's a general narrative here, and it's something resembling coherent when it's looked at overarchingly. In execution, however, it is made of WTF. There are sudden jumps from scene to scene, subplots are bought in out of nowhere, and twists are thrown around like they're candy, with all of this having little to no explanation whatsoever. Moreover, the thing just drags, with scenes seemingly added simply for the point of drawing out the movie, which really shouldn't have happened.

I honestly can't tell you what the hell happened here. I was watching this with my anime club tonight, and we just gave up on even trying to understand what happened about a half hour in and just started mocking it mercilessly.

Art: For the 80s, this is halfway decent. The character designs are extremely pointy and detailed, but they're based off of Amano designs, which explains a lot.

However, it has not aged well. Action scenes are done mainly with pulsating lines in the background, not to mention flashing lights that could probably induce epileptic seizures in those susceptible to them. The movie's extremely heavy on the gore, but the way that blood works in this is incredibly stylized and not even close to reality in the slightest. Characters' color palettes will change from scene to scene, far more than lighting should account for. Most notably, the hat that D wears creates a black void in the upper part of his face with only his eyes showing, and it's incredibly painful to watch, especially when it doesn't move even when the lighting does.

There is some nudity in here, however, it's not really all that well done, and it's paired with images of death and gore and such that I'm sure that, by the process of association, if you showed this to kids, they could very easily never ever ever want to have sex ever.

Music: Meh. I didn't notice this much, but it didn't make that much of an impression on me, either. So, we'll say passable.

Seiyuu: As with the music, I didn't notice them that much, but neither did they make that much of an impression on me, so, again, we'll say passable.

Length: This movie just dragged on and on and on; it should've ended at the hour mark, and a good deal of the "twists" could've been cut out, and it would've been semi-decent.

Overall: Don't watch this. It's not worth it, except for mocking purposes.

Story: 4/10
Art: 4/10
Music: 6/10
Seiyuu: 6/10
Length: 5/10

Overall: 25/50; 50% (F)

I own every Vampire Hunter D light novel. I've read all of them at least three times (it's really easy they're only about 200 pages) So when I saw this movie I spent a good portion of my time going ".......what?"

Story: The story is ok. I felt they spent too much time focusing on the story when it would have been much better for them to use the story to transition the action scenes. They make it a little less complicated than the book, but not to the point where it really detracted from it.

Art: The art is VERY ... old-school. You have to get over that very quickly or else you're not going to enjoy this anime at all. That old-style seemed so uninspired to me, it wasn't trying to be incredibly original and it wasn't.

Sound: With the old-school art comes the old-school sound effects..again get used to them. I can't say that I enjoyed the music, but that would mostly be because...it's old, it didn't stick into my mind at all as to what it could have been.

Characters: This is where this anime falls incredibly short. Every single character is a stereotype. You have D, the most incredibly powerful vampire-hunter on the face of the planet...and you really know it. He never seems to struggle and in every battle you know he's going to win. Magnus Lee...what can I say about him? I watched the dub...because it was the only one available to me and they just tried to make him the image of Dracula. But my biggest concern was Doris Lee. In the novel she's a powerful woman, she kills monsters too and she does a great job of looking out for herself and her brother. In the movie they make her dependant and very weak, no character for her at all.

Overall: Watch this for the experience. If you've been watching only recent anime, stuff from the last 2-3 years...watch Vampire Hunter D and appreciate how far along this art work has come. After you've watched this, watch Bloodlust.

Originally a series of novels about a vampire hunter who is half vampire himself, Vampire Hunter D's first transition to the anime world takes the form of this self-titled OVA from 1985. At the time of writing, the ever reliable Wikipedia describes this OVA as "a cult classic among English-speaking audiences". Amidst the lavishing praise - the effect of which is spoiled somewhat by the clumsy prose - there's a bit which notes that the OVA featured "memorable voice acting performances in both English and Japanese". Now, aside from struggling to recall anyone lauding the original "Vampire Hunter D", I've also watched "Vampire Hunter D" ... in dub myself, and the only way I would describe that dub as being "memorable" would be to couple it with an adjective synonymous with "shit".

Despite being made decades ago, "Vampire Hunter D" manages to look and feel even more ancient than its considerable age. The action sequences comes off as stiff and lacking in fluidity; the colours used are so dark that I could barely tell what was going on sometimes.

In addition to the low production quality, "Vampire Hunter D" shows its class with opening scenes featuring a girl running around with a skirt so short that it resembles a handkerchief tied around her waist. This enabled panty shots to be taken with ease from any angle, and, needless to say, we're treated to exactly that. Thankfully, the forthcoming tidal wave of fanservice turned out to be smaller than what the opening scenes suggested, though what fanservice there were felt shoved in with little regards to its impact on the mood and atmosphere. But apart from those occasionally blips, the atmosphere of the "Vampire Hunter D" is actually strong for the most part, and is probably the most competent aspect of the anime. The well selected BGM tracks helped; the atrocious English dub didn't.

As an anime adapted from an established franchise, "Vampire Hunter D" feels like it's more aimed towards an existing audience. To someone like me who knew (and who still knows) next to nothing about the franchise, the anime feels incomplete. "Vampire Hunter D" clearly has a wealth of backstory regarding the main character D, but not only does this instalment reveal very little of his backstory, it seems almost reluctant to do so. Pity, because what it chose not to tell are what interested me the most. Ironically, the story it tells instead is pretty stale and cliched - especially the romance elements - but still manages to be confusing due to the narrative failing to explain things properly or just deliberately withholding information to keep up the sense of mystery. One of the effects of this is that the motivations of the characters are often unfathomable - I have no idea what they're fighting for half the time. And to be honest, it's also hard to care too much since all the characters except D himself are rather bland anyway. As for D... it'd be nice if the anime told us ANYTHING about his past instead of just being a gigantic cocktease.

Since "Vampire Hunter D" is so tight-assed when it comes to backstory, it's only a prequel in name to the "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" movie which came out in 2000. The reason I bring this up is because that movie is superior to this OVA in just about every way. So if you're interested in the franchise, you could just skip this OVA and go straight onto the movie because, honestly, you're not missing much here.

Personal score: -0.5 (mediocre)

If you read the book, and you're looking for a good adaptation, don't bother with this. The plot for this movie has been changed a lot from the book, and the art and music don't make up for it.

If you haven't read the book (you should), then really, DON'T watch this. If you haven't already enjoyed the real story, this wouldn't even have the appeal of being loosely related to that.

I highly recommend the second movie Bloodlust, as it captures the essence of the series much better, and is a better movie overall. The original movie is entirely skippable, as the second movie is quite ... self-contained.

The infamous cult classic and one of the first animated films from Japan brought over to the West. As much as this film is a classic, it really does show its age.

Set in a post-apocalyptic world with light sci-fi elements, and when demons and monsters roam freely. The story itself is simplistic and easy to understand. A woman gets bitten by a vampire noble, and the hero Vampire hunter ‘D’ just happens to be wandering by, agrees to save the day.

Some of the actions sequences are pretty good, as well as the fantastic voice acting (both Japanese and in English). However, this film’s art, ... animation, and sound look like something out of the early 1970’s, which is either from a low budget or a poor job. Either way, it is inexcusable. It does give off a dark and gloomy feel throughout the film, but the backgrounds never seem to change and are pretty bland most of the time.

If characters make the anime, this is another shortcoming. Being a film, the character development and interactions lack way too much, and always seem rushed without explanation. For example, what made the main girl fall in love with ‘D’ in the first place? There is all of a sudden a scene where she falls for him without any explanation, and the viewer just has to accept it as fact. There are many other examples of this so-called “development.”

It is a short vampire anime with some cool sequences here and there, but just can’t help but think what more could have been done to engross the viewer in the world in which Vampire Hunter D just kicks so much vampire teeth in.

This story takes place in the distant future, when mutants and demons slither through a world of darkness. Mankind has not yet disappeared from this world, but surviving in it has become a struggle, with some ancient war, lost to time save for it’s place in myths and legends, having rendered the world as we know it into a vast, unforgiving wasteland. The few communities that we’ve managed to form have been cobbled together from different points in human cultural history, with stone buildings, clothing from both Victorian and wild West sensibilities, and technology that wasn’t technically available until far later. Conditions are livable, at ... the very least, but the worst of all is the fact that despite the measures we’ve concocted to battle the various demons and mutants that stalk our crops, livestock and children, we’ve fallen under the mercy of the Nobility, a class of ancient vampires who live out their eternal lives in their castles, allowing us to live our pathetically fragile and ephemeral lives more out of amusement than anything else.

One such vampire, the cruel Count Magnus Lee, has become bored with his immortality, and after what is rumored to be somewhere between 5,000 and 10,000 years of life, he’s taken to finding ‘distractions’ to help him pass the meaningless years. By distractions, of course, I mean human women, untainted, unturned, cast into unbreakable trances so that he can marry them, break them and ravish their mortal bodies on a nightly basis. His newest obsession, orphaned farm owner Doris Lang, won’t go down without a fight. Even after he’s marked his territory with a quick nibble at her nubile neck, this tough ginger has recruited a mysterious drifter, the silent Vampire Hunter known only as D, to protect her from harm and bring about an end to the nobility, whom he insists on referring to as transient guests. Thus the fight is on between an accomplished supernatural slayer and one of the most powerful opponents he’s ever faced as D, half vampire in his own right, once again finds himself in a battle to protect one half of his geneology from the other.

If Vampire Hunter D’s visual aspects look dated in any way, it’s because this particular anime film... OVA? Film? I see different sites claiming both. Anyway, it was released in 1985, which was a far different time than the current anime landscape. I won’t go into too much detail about the way anime styles have evolved over the years, as that would be another full length discussion entirely, but suffice to say I don’t really think it’s fair to judge an anime based on the restrictions of it’s age, especially since the spectrum of quality was just as diverse then as it is now. By the standards of 1985, this... I’m gonna call it a movie... isn’t quite the most beautiful material available at the time, but it’s still firmly on the high end of the spectrum, with a clearly generous budget and a sense of restraint about how and when to use said budget... For the most part. Yeah, they could have saved a significant amount if they’d skipped the oh so important shot of parting blades of grass that the film opens up on.

Well, that’s a minor nitpick... There’s some filler from a visual standpoint, but it still looks gorgeous anyway. Production Reed, formerly known as Ashi Productions, is an animation studio that did the majority of it’s work in the eighties and nineties before taking a handful of long hiatuses in the new millennium. Aside from Vampire Hunter D, very little of what they’ve worked on has managed to stay out of obscurity, with a few examples being Blue Seed and... Well, Vampire Hunter D... Seriously, who remembers Minky Momo? And if I’m being honest, what little I have seen of their production history points to D as being a rare standout. The movements aren’t always fluid, but they rarely ever feel cheap or stilted either, and out of them any action scenes that this movie has been packed with, I can’t remember a single one of them looking bad. There are some corners cut, but none that you’ll really notice, save for one particular moment where certain characters are getting captured, and some of the most obvious speedlines are employed. It’s jarring but brief, thankfully.

Despite being dated, the animation did actually hold up nicely in it’s original DVD release, but it was also very recently released on bluray, and the difference in quality is more noticeable in some scenes than others, including a walk through an ancient battlefield that I always found way too dark, and now we can see the details in the bones and debris a lot more clearly. I’m also pleased to note that the cleaned up presentation hasn’t altered the dirtier elements of the design, namely the desperate old west setting full of makeshift clothes, arid desert and a town full of people who’ve spent their entire lives performing physical labor to get by. It has, however, provided the opportunity for the designs more gothic elements to shine through in all their beauty. Part of what makes this series so iconic is the blend of gothic, sci-fi and western elements, all of which play an equal role in the design of D as a badass hero, Doris as a tough beauty, and Lee as a villain who doesn’t even have to move or speak to feel intimidating. The random mutants and monsters are also really cool and diverse, with the possible exception of a bland dinosaur looking creature in the beginning.

The soundtrack, composed by Noriyoshi Matsuura and Tetsuya Komuro, is a bit underwhelming, but there are a few memorable tracks here and there. D’s theme in particular, which plays at the end just before the credits roll, starts off with an intense action anthem before quickly settling into a more lonely, melodious tone, as if to tell the tale of a warrior whose exploits you may witness one day, but who endures years of uninterrupted travel that you don’t see once he rides off into the sunset, painting a more complete picture of the kind of life he leads and the kind of character he is than the movie ever properly establishes. Actually, D has three themes, and one of the other ones, that plays when he enters the film for the first time, is also pretty cool, with it’s lighthearted tune undercut by a beat that warns of danger and tragedy i the future. I called the soundtrack underwhelming, but I didn’t really mean to say it was bad... With the exception of D’s Themes, none of the tracks are really memorable, as they blend so flawlessly into the movie that they sound strange when dettached from it. They do their job well, and that’s not a bad thing by any means.

As for the dub... well, there are two dubs, one from Streamline pictures, and the other from just last year, done by Sentai Filmworks. I’m not gonna lie, when I was first getting into anime, and this was maybe the second anime movie I ever bought(right behind Cardcaptors movie 1), I almost never watched it in English, vastly preferring the Japanese track, and I’ve heard a lot of people say the same. Descriptions of the original dub range from ‘It’s tolerable’ to ‘Burn my freaking ears off,’ and while the acting was decent for the time... Well, for the most part, Doris’s brother was an earsore... The writing, in parts, was just terrible. For a quick example... Trust me, this is not as bad as it gets... There’s a scene about halfway through the movie where a certain character who’s just been turned into a vampire is looking at an old friend in a new light. In the Japanese, he says that he’s always thought of her as like a granddaughter to him, and he’s now wondering why he never raped her. Honest, but creepy and abrasive, so a rewrite was in order. In the first dub, he replaces the second part with “I can tell now that she’s a beautiful young woman.” Nicer, but it feels neutered, almost too safe.

In the Sentai dub, however, the line is changed to “But now that I see how beautiful she is, it’s a wonder I never violated that beauty,” which is a line that retains the honesty of the original while still finding much more tasteful way to word it. There are a lot of scenes that were able to find a touch more subtlety in the new Sentai dub, such as an early scene where Doris offers to sleep with D in payment for his work, in a later scene where the count’s daughter is weighing her fate against a recent revelation about her lineage, and one very specific scene where they originally dropped the worst possible Star Wars reference. Seriously, Doris says she loves D, who drops the fucking “I know” bomb on her. I’m not making that up. There’s also a moment early in the film where Count Lee meets Doris for the first time, and it’s supposed to be silent, but the Streamline dub chose to fill in the silence with an introduction stolen right out of classic Dracula, which doesn’t sound that bad at first, but even on first listen, it just feels unnecessary. Sentai, on the other hand, left the atmosphere and ambience speak for itself.

When it comes to the two primary characters, Doris Lang and the titular vampire himself, I feel like the performances were equally good in both dubs, despite different approaches that were taken. Both Michael McConnohie and John Gremillion bring a sense of strength and stoicism to the character of D, with the trade off being that while Gremillion plays him as more raspy and weary, playing more to his history of combat, while McConnohie’s steely, controlled delivery plays more to the character’s air of mystery. also, McConnohie does double duty in playing D’s talking left hand, while another actor plays him entirely in the Sentai dub. Barbara Goodson and Luci Christian both play Doris as strong-willed and determined, with the main difference being that Goodson makes her sound older, making her constant fanservice and attraction to D far more palatable, while Christian plays her as much younger, sounding more like a teenager, which makes the threat of danger against her feel more palpable. Shannon Emmerick plays a much more likeable Dan than Lara Cody did, and that’s also pretty cool.

One of the more obvious changes between the two dubs is the change in the nobility’s accents, with Count Lee and his daughter Larmica going from Romanian to British. There was really nothing wrong with Jeff Winkless’s performance, Dracula inspired as it was, but with the incomparable David Wald taking his place, he’s easily outshined, as you can feel the millenia of boredom and almost casual malice much more richly in Wald’s throaty delivery. Unfortunately his daughter didn’t fare the change so well, as Edie Mirman’s prideful, seductive performance almost feels mocked by Brittany Karbowski’s much brattier interpretation of the character. This could have worked, mind you, if Brittany didn’t overcook her accent, sounding like a middle schooler who just saw her first Harry Potter movie. To be fair, she’s stated in the past that she’s well aware of the fact that pulling off accents is one of her weak points, so I’m tempted to blame the director on this one. Actually, to be honest, while the new dub is well acted and well written, it does feel poorly directed in a lot of areas. I’d recommend the Sentai dub between the two, but neither can touch the Japanese track.

I think I was about 14 the first time I ever saw this movie, and it happened at a friend’s house as part of their birthday party celebration. I had never heard of it before then, outside of the fact that it was one of the many ridiculously overpriced M-rated anime that I wasn’t old enough to buy at Mediaplay. I was still fairly innocent at the time, with my deepest knowledge of Anime revolving between what was airing on American TV and what I could find in manga form at the public library, and Vampire Hunter D blew me away as the first adult-oriented anime I’d ever seen. My fragile little mind was blown away not just by the ominous music and tone, or the dark, gothic design, but also by the graphic bloody violence and full-on nudity that I’d never seen from any other title prior. I bought the DVD soon afterwards, having tormented my poor parents into ignoring the content warning on the back, and I just about wore that poor disk out with my constant rewatches. Seriously, I still have that copy, and I can barely get it to play.

To this day, Vampire Hunter D is not just my favorite anime movie, but also one of my favorite movies of all time, but if you think that means I’m going to give it a gushing masterpiece review, you’re sadly mistaken. I’ve learned over my years of reviewing that you have to separate your personal and professional tastes in order to be fair, and to be fair, Vampire Hunter D is not very good. It holds up very well from a visual standpoint, but when it comes to the story and the writing, it doesn’t really stand up to close scrutiny, which I’m sad to say is the case with most cult classics. For a brief overview of the plot, a young woman is facing the possibility of being abducted by a cruel lord of inhuman ancestry and questionable royal standing, so she hires a silent protagonist to retrieve her every time she gets taken. He must travel to the lord’s castle, battling grotesque monsters, several mercenaries and the lord’s own children in order to get her back, only to have her get captured again immediately afterwards.

I’ve seen people compare this movie to Castlevania... I’ve never played it, so I can’t really speculate... But personally, it feels a lot more like a Super Mario Brothers story to me. I mean, yeah, there are obvious differences... Thank god D isn’t followed by a green clad brother named L... But just like the classic line of Mario games, it does get a little tiresome seeing a story’s lead female just getting traded back and forth between the hero and the villains like a volleyball. To be fair, the original books, including the first in the series, which this movie was based on, do have a lot more exposition and explanations given about all of the characters and the environment they cohabitate, but that’s just the thing... This movie isn’t a book, and that book isn’t particularly easy to find outside of the internet, so it’s more or less unlikely that anyone coming into this movie will have read the proper text beforehand, and by virtue of a movie being visual media, they shouldn’t have to. There’s so much more to this story than the movie gives us, and it’s sorely lacking without it.

Right from the beginning, we’re given two sentences of dialogue to describe the world we’re about to be dropped into, and that’s it. It’s entirely possible to just take the movie at it’s word and not think about it, but considering the state the world is in in this story, with demons and dinosaurs existing alongside classic monsters like werewolves and vampires, there’s obviously a rich history behind it all, and it’s damn near criminal to leave all of it up to our imaginations. The history of the vampires... Excuse me, the Nobility... Is particularly important, because not only is their role in the history of Earth and human society never touched upon even once, but when it’s mentioned that Count Lee could be up to 10,000 years old, it leads to headache inducing questions about how long they’ve existed, how long we’ve known about them, why D keeps calling them transient guests, why half-vampire Dampiels are somehow stronger and better equipped to survive in the sunlight, and are exempt from that same transient label. The very few answers we get just wind up increasing the mountainous pile of questions that the book may or may not have addressed... I don’t remember, I read it thirteen years ago.

Well, I do remember a few details that would have been nice for the movie to include, like the fact that four of the nameless monsters in the movie... A giant rock creature, an old hag, a flying S&M conehead and a hunchback full of spiders... All had names and identities at one point, and were all members of the mercenary Rey Ginsei’s gang. They’re reduced to glorified cameos in the movie, just a bunch of featured baddies to be mowed down. I also distinctly remember the three lamia sisters from under Lee’s castle having a backstory that got cut from the movie entirely. The interactions between Rey and Greco were also supposed to go on longer, with the two of them entering into a partnership as allies against D. There’s a lot of pulp that got cut out of the story, including a hint to the relationship between Vampires and humans revolving around their weakness to garlic, and the list goes on, but even if you can forgive all of that, there’s still a ton of stupid shit that happens in the story. I won’t go into all the little examples, but if you want to see them, I did an Inconvenient Questions post about this movie, which I’ll link at the end.

So if I have all of these problems with the movie, do I think it’s a bad movie? Well, it’s not very good, but no, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad, either. As rushed and poorly executed as the story may have been, it’s still a story you can easily get sucked into, and the characters are compelling enough to get invested in without really knowing them as well as you should. The action and all the battles are still fun to watch, and the designs are still cool enough to hold your attention. Well, mine, at least. With the exception of D, who comes off as yet another example of every badass lone wolf wet dream that socially challenged emo kids have ever attached themselves to over the years if you haven’t learned more about his backstory and personality from the extended book universe, none of the other characters feel one note, they all have their own personalities and motivations. I found Larmica to be particularly compelling, but hey, even the annoying Greco had some depth to him. It’s just too bad this 80 minute film couldn’t have added in about an extra half hour of material to flesh out it’s setting and characters better.

Vampire Hunter D was originally available on VHS and DVD from Urban Vision, but has been long out of print, at least until Sentai Filmworks rescued and rereleased it in 2015. I actually would recommend tracking down a copy of the original release, because unlike the more recent bluray release, it had a ton of special features in it, including trailers, interviews with the Japanese cast and a preview for the video game, which I’ve played... It’s for the PS1, and it’s pretty terrible. It’s actually based on the second movie, Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, which is superior to the first in pretty much every way, and is based on the third novel in the series. The novels by Hideyuki Kikuchi, as well as a pretty decent manga series, are also available stateside. There’s also a handful of art books, if you’re so inclined.

While I can’t entirely dismiss this movie as so many other critics before me have done, I can certainly acknowledge that it’s more junk food than most viewers realize. It does it’s job as a gateway anime, drawing in less experiences otaku and younger viewers with it’s dark tone and mature content, even if such content isn’t always presented in the most mature fashion. It survives in today’s market mainly as a right of passage for these fledgling otaku, especially once they’ve broken away from the current releases and started to venture into more old school offerings, but that isn’t to say that it’s aged well, as it’s obvious cool factor does little to make up for it’s bare bones world building, rushed story and absurdly strenuous pace. If anything, it stands as a symbol of how badass vampires can be in Japanese pop culture(along with Hellsing, which had a lot of similar problems), and in a market where the noble undead have recently been used as harem and romantic comedy fodder, this distinction is still an important one, lending this film both credibility and relevance beyond it's years. I give Vampire Hunter D a 6/10.

https://fullmetalnarcissist.com/2015/10/17/361/

Fair warning if you're epileptic. I'm not personally but even this was a little too much for me. There is a lot of flashing so maybe don't watch it fullscreen if you aren't all that great with flashing colors.
There is a LOT of times where the screen will flash black and white. It happened so much that I ended up feeling dizzy and got a headache through out watching it. Afterwards I had to go have a rest, even though I had woken up a few hours before starting the movie.

I would have enjoyed 1985's Vampire Hunter D a lot more if there was less ... flashing. I can handle a bit but this was too much. Other than the flashing, it was a pretty good movie and I have no other complaints.

I just finished the movie, and that's my opinion

Synopsis: The story of a girl who asked a vampire to protect her from a vampire without knowing the identity of the person she asked for help. A repetitive and boring story in many vampire works.
Elements of a cliché fantasy world, monsters that kill humans as they want.
I did not see anything special in this work.

Characters: Since it is a rather short film, there is no time to develop the characters and highlight their goals and intentions, such as D and why vampires twist. There was a weakness in the writing of the characters, I liked the ... change in her thinking like Ramika's character and her acquisition of some humanity during the events of the film away from her personal motives.

Art: The drawing and animation were very good, but the dark colors that were used I did not like, and the atmosphere of the film was dark throughout the film

Music and sound: The background music did not obscure me much, and there was stinginess in its use.
The sound effects were quite impressive, especially when the swords meet or the sound of walking.
The voices of the characters in English were rather luxurious.

A vampire story of a class that you might enjoy if you have nothing to follow.

First, as I'm reviewing a movie from 1985, I'll set a handicap here for this decade standards. The most exciting thing about Vampire Hunter D is by far it's setting, that just screams "RPG" at your face (and not the explosive one). It has been some time since I have seen something close to traditional vampires in media, and of course i would find some reminiscence of it in an 80s vampire/action themed movie!

For the art and sound direction, I would give it a 2 out of 3. The OST fits really well in the setting. The animations match the 80s quality, an average quality ... at most. The combat scenes are generally good, but nothing really out of this world, at least it doesn't abuse of action stripes and lazy parallaxes all the time. It has some cool character designs that, again, fits nicely into the setting. The scenery is really cool and well drawn in most of the parts.

I can go with 1 out of 3 for the writing. It's very cliche even for this era standards, typical mysterious hero that have to destroy some villain in order to save the girl, but then we have some predictable plot twist regarding him and so on. The movie could really have benefited better from the world around it and explored more of the characters. Speaking of the characters, some have good potential (like D and the main antagonists) and others are just more of the same or unexplored.

For uniqueness and enjoyment, I would give it a 3 out of 4. I love vampires, it's a really cool theme that fits nicely in a fantasy/gothic setting; I feel like Vampire Hunter D mixed the exact right amount of futurism in between. I just can't stop imagining how many possibilities a Vampire Hunter D RPG would have, covering everything the movie didn't explore. In its duration we could see different types of monsters, weapons, an unexplored world lore and more. And I can't go without saying that all these characteristics reminds me greatly of Castlevania, which I didn't search prior to this moment, but I think that it might have inspired the authors somehow.

If you're a retro anime fan, I would totally recommend giving Vampire Hunter D a try, I'm pretty sure you would like.

NARRATIVE: 5/10

This anime would likely have been better off as a short series rather than a movie. (I do realize this comes from a Light Novel though). There simply wasn't enough room to develop the characters and plot enough, leading to plot holes, underdeveloped side stories, and poor viewer engagement. The story itself was pretty good though, and the pacing was about as good as it could be for such an ambitious story in a measly 1 hr. 20 min time frame. The action scenes were enjoyable albeit a little short; They could've been utilized in a better way to deliver the plot, but they ... are largely inconsequential.


CHARACTERS: 3/10

As stated in the narrative section, character development was quite poor due to there simply not being enough time to develop them. After finishing the film I still have no idea who "D" really is or why he's killing vampires, and the "relationship" between D and Doris was nascent at best; I would've liked to see it pushed a little more. The character that got the worst treatment however was Ds talking sentient face-hand. What was this thing? Zero information is given on what he is, what he does, or why he even exists. His only significance to the plot is delivering snarky dialogue and eating spiders and dirt (?) to save D when he's in a pickle; although I admit it's a pretty cool character concept. At least the evil two vampire siblings were well written. Ramika started gaining some humanity throughout the film, and realized she is more than just vampire, and Rei-Ginsei vainly tried to increase his family standing which ultimately lead to his demise.


PRESENTATION: 7.5/10

The animation is pretty alright, I wan't blown away by it, but it definitely did it's job. The art however is where this anime really shines. everything was well drawn with plenty detail, and the character designs are done by the king himself Amano Yoshitaka. It was able to pull off the extremely dark Gothic Castlevania-like setting with great justice. All-in-all the setting combined with the visual themes and gory violence really makes for an immersive and memorable atmosphere. Of particular note is the scene when D walks through the hallway with all the wonderfully portrayed grotesque rows of macabre monsters, which really solidified the mood for me.


SOUND: 5/10

I watched the dubbed version on VHS, which I suppose had decent voice acting for the time. It wasn't that great honestly but I didn't let it affect my enjoyment too much. I don't typically care or put much thought into music or SFX in anime, but of particular note in this anime is lack of music in a lot of parts, which I think helped contribute to the desolate feeling of the world.


OVERALL: 5.0/10

Vampire Hunter D was a real treat for the eyes and left quite the impression on me, it has good character design, pretty cool fight scenes and plenty of violence and gore, but is plagued with severely underdeveloped characters, plot holes, and is far too short.

The plot and dialogue are below mediocre, but the monster design and gore scenes were excellent and that along with some ok action was good enough to just barely drag the movie over the line from mediocre to enjoyable. I do really hate the unnecessary nudity and sexualisation of female characters that was much too common in anime from the 80's and 90's though.

The characters themselves were also pretty bad for the most part, and didn't have much in the way of personalities, or characterisation, and felt more like they were created to seem cool and serve the progression in very specific ways, rather than ... feeling like they were fully fleshed out at all.

Also, that end credit song was an absolute banger

The story and world building is not exactly anything we have not seen before, nor is the writing anything to die for, but what this story lacks in uniqueness it more than makes up for in retro anime vibes. I watched this because someone posted stills from "Vampire Hunter D" on twitter a few days ago and I knew I needed to watch it. The art style definitely fit the story. It kind of looked like a much older version of "Hellsing" or "Hellsing Ultimate". This may not compare particularly well to anime produced today, but the art style was just fun to look at. ... People who need something else aside from comfy retro anime vibes should look elsewhere.