Vampires have always held an important place in pop culture, the idea of a creature preying on helpless victims time and time again for the main goal of the consumption of blood has been adapted time and time again through films, books and other forms of entertainment. In Anime this was the earliest productions aimed for an adult demographic during the evolution of the OVA market in Japan which would begin a golden age of Anime that would go down in history for its violence, style which would fall into the increased budget for the production but fall somewhere in its story not adding to anything that would hit much impact, one of those is Vampire Hunter D.
Based on the long-running series of light novels written by Hideyuki Kikuchi, Vampire Hunter D tells the story of a lone Vampire Hunter just simply called D as he wanders through a run-down and technologically downgraded post-apocalyptic future where mutants, demons, monsters and all manner of bizarre and weird creatures roam the land. D (a dhampir, which is a half-breed child of a vampire and human) armed with his long sword cuts his way through these hideous creatures as the planet slowly falls back into the rule of human control.
This movie based off the first volume in the series, focuses on 17 year old Doris Lang whilst out on her rounds through the country she is attacked by Count Magnus Lee, ruler of the land and 10,000-year-old, long-lost vampire lord with the intention of making Doris one of her many brides. Desperate and in need of help she encounters D who agrees to help Doris defend her and her little brother Dan. What follows throughout this movie is Doris being kidnapped then having to be saved by D a few times, then D having to go head to head with the count’s minions, then finally after much time passing D confronting the Count whilst bringing an end to a once powerful dynasty of Vampires.
Having seen this movie when I was in my teens I enjoyed it, largely for its violence, blood and gore but at the same time the idea of a wandering loner being “badass” whilst going up against all kinds of monsters as well as Vampires. While that idea is a great one having seen this movie again however the problem with it though is that it doesn’t work, it suffers from being a great idea done not very well due to the amount of times the movie loses its way due to the pacing and sometimes gets lost in its artistry and the amount of ways we can show gore and blood as well as how many times the film can drag on to a certain point and show of as much as possible before the film is even over. That said despite when characters are engaging with each other, when fight scenes are occurring and when there are moments when the film remembers the story it’s trying to tell the payoff is a satisfying one.
Having seen this movie when I was in my teens I enjoyed it, largely for its violence, blood and gore but at the same time the idea of a wandering loner being “badass” whilst going up against all kinds of monsters as well as Vampires. While that idea is a great one having seen this movie again however the problem with it though is that it doesn’t work, it suffers from being a great idea done not very well due to the amount of times the movie loses its way due to the pacing and sometimes gets lost in its artistry and the amount of ways we can show gore and blood as well as how many times the film can drag on to a certain point and show of as much as possible before the film is even over. That said despite when characters are engaging with each other, when fight scenes are occurring and when there are moments when the film remembers the story it’s trying to tell the payoff is a satisfying one.
This movie has a wide arrange of characters which while not being very well developed at least make them people we want to be invested in. The first one being the main character D, D is pretty much written to be a stoic, calm, collected and very dedicated character with one main purpose which is to complete the job which he is being paid for while interacting with Doris and her little brother. Not overly developed but you get a clear idea of what he is trying to do and does a good job of hiding his emotions which when exposed really bring the character out a little more, including his Vampiric powers. The same applies to when he interacts with his Left Hand who plays as a supernatural entity which is tied to D but also acts as the movie’s “comic relief”. Doris Lang as a secondary character while being likable is written as the usual female character where upon she relies mostly on the male presence to protect her, but does a good job of protecting herself from monsters or anything else that would get up in her fact. As the film moves forward we find out abit about her and her backstory with her father and how that affects her, her relationship with D grows during the movie and while it doesn’t become a cliché love interest it’s strongly hinted with some level of subtlety. Doris’s brother Dan really is just there to serve as catalyst for monsters to kidnap and while his character is glossed over the scenes with him & D do add some impact as well as something special to look at and see how a boy can handle the trials and problems of when one’s life is threatened and there ways to move through that. The main antagonist of Count Magnus Lee while nothing very memorable is fun to see how his part in the story follows, as a vampire who does nothing besides prey on helpless victims has to find ways to surpass the overbearing boredom, it’s interesting to see he does that as well as interact with his vampire daughter Lamica who never had problems with his father’s behaviour in the past sees the girl Doris as something of a threat to the House of Lee.
Production for this movie is a limited but rather detailed one, done by Ashi Productions (Black Blood Brothers, Grenadier, The World of Narue) & Movic (Roujin Z, Ultimate Teacher, Judge) as being one of the earliest anime for adult demographic the budget on this was cheap and the need for two studios to work together meant for this movie to work with the very minimal of what money they had. This movie has heavy uses of scene reusage where scenes that had been played once would be played either in reverse or threw a filter so that way the audience wouldn’t be able to tell, speed lines which is a common troupe used in Anime where during fight scenes characters would charge at each other sword in hand or clenched fist and would save on cost of animating characters to move during fight scenes and because of the film’s obvious love in its artistry, would rely heavy on the animation to stretch the movie beyond it’s running time just so we can see the animation play out due to added scenes which would have very little to do with anything. Despite the problems with the cheapness of the animation this movie does a rather good attempt at displaying a post-apocalyptic world that looks and feels like run-down and ruined and under the control of a supernatural entity, but also displays the look and feel of a world that is stuck in what appears to be the old west based on the character’s fashion and how despite being the far future technology and clothing appears to be somewhat outdated. Character Designs done by Yoshitaka Amano (Illustrator of the Final Fantasy series) who also worked on covers for the novels made the characters stand out decently to where the women would look petite but also add some level of detail to their character, the mean would look gruff and standoffish and where the monsters would look disgusting, unique and horrifying and nothing design-wise looks bland or dull. Director Toyoo Ashida (The Mysterious Cities of Gold, Fist of the North Star) managed to pull off a cheap, but pretty effective production that blended horror and sci-fi well to where everything works only slightly.
From an audio perspective things tend to range a little differently from its musical score to its English dubs. The score by Noriyoshi Matsuura is rather bland, nothing about the score of this stands out to where anything is remembered for its height or depth of what can be added to a scene. Music in this would tend to just go on to where it has no reason to go on past the length it’s supposed to go on for and would be added in rather inappropriate moments to where watching this becomes difficult to take seriously, the film’s ending song titled “Your Song” by pop singer Tetsuya Komuro is LAUGHABLE in how it doesn’t work with this type of production because of how upbeat it is.
This film has two English Dubs, one being done by Streamline and the most recent one done by Sentai Filmworks. Streamline’s dub is very flawed because of how it sounds, Michael McConnohie as D sounds incredibly out of place because of the way he is portraying him. D as a character looks and is designed to be in his late 20’s early 30’s but Michael makes the character sound a little older and a lot more sterner which doesn’t work for this type of character, Barbara Goodson as Doris Lang doesn’t work to where she is playing a character who is in her teens but Barbara herself is a bit past the vocal range for this specific character and where her performance seems somewhat flat and devoid of any believability that she is playing a teenage girl, Jeff Winkless easily stands out by how over the top he is as Count Magnus Lee by attempting a pseudo-Romanian accent for the character and it really doesn’t work. Although the intention is there to make this character be played off in the same way that Christopher Lee or Bela Lugosi played Dracula it doesn’t quite work here because Jeff’s voice for Magnus Lee doesn’t sound natural and doesn’t flow well. Other voices in this by well-known talents in anime voice acting such as Tom Wyner, Edie Mirman, Steve Kramer, Kirk Thornton just fall into the category of “Okay”, they are trying really hard to keep the dub of this afloat but with the leading voices as out of place as possible it’s clear that the attempt is a good effort it just feels flat.
The dub by Sentai Filmworks is a slight improvement, John Gremillion while the voice he is giving for D doesn’t quite work it’s something interesting for the character. John Gremillion plays D rougher, angrier and adds that level of growling bass that is a unique one and the line delivery isn’t as silly or as cold as McConnohie’s, Luci Christian as Doris Lang is a perfect fit because Luci has a long history of playing both teenagers and children throughout her career as a voice actress and she does a wonderful job of hitting the right notes a teenage girl would hit when she is excited or in terror of some kind. David Wald as Count Magnus Lee is easily the biggest improvement by far; David plays Magnus as a tired, old and very jaded vampire and gives off that level of intimidation as well as boredom this character would most likely be going through. No Accent and no over the top performance, just tired and old. Additional cast members to this such as Shannon Emerick, Andy McAvin, John Swasey, Brittney Karbowski etc. bring something rather good to this dub and with slight tweaking to the characters the play they bring their own formula to the dub and make it sound a little better.
Overall Vampire Hunter D is a flawed movie, the plot while it’s minimal just seems to lose focus because of what the movie is throwing in to make it interesting, the animation while it’s dated does go over it’s head in showing how “Artistic” it can be. But the movie is entertaining, it’s violent and it doesn’t stop the maelstrom of violence and gore which is satisfying to watch for the audience it’s aimed for, it started a wave of Adult Anime which plays an important part in the industry and it started off a rather well known character which people today still want to see.
The movie itself is Average, but worth the watch.
The movie itself is Average, but worth the watch.
Sami Sadek is a lifelong Transformers and Anime fan, and can often be found propping up bars or appearing in the background of Auto Assembly vids. He has also talks on Youtube, Tumbls on Tumblr, Tweets on Twitter, doodles on Deviantart and is a regular co-host on this very site's Cyberritz. He has never had a swordfight atop a church whilst a crow watches. Honest.
