Vampire Hunter D

Original Title: 吸血鬼ハンターD
Romanized: Kyuuketsuki Hantaa D
Literal: Vampire Hunter D

Plot Synopsis

10,000 years in the future, the world has become a very different place; monsters roam the land freely, and people, although equiped with high tech weapons and cybernetic horses, live a humble life more suited to centuries past. This story focuses on a small hamlet plagued by monster attacks and living under the shadow of the rule of Count Magnus Lee, a powerful and very ancient vampire lord. When a young girl is bitten by the Count and chosen as his plaything, she seeks out the help of a quiet wandering stranger, D. It so happens that D is one of the world's best vampire hunters, and he takes it upon himself to cut through Magnus Lee's many minions, and put an end to the Count's rule.

Quick Review

Rating: 3 / 5
Reviewer: Marc
Review Date: 2003-07-26

Vampire Hunter D, one of the first anime movies brought to the US by Streamline Pictures, is wildly popular for no particularly good reason, but it does hold its own as an old-school anime gore flick with a fair amount of style. The classic plot also has a bit of an epic horror feel to it, and manages to move its way through the plot steadily, being neither hurried nor boring. The audio features your choice of a decent Streamline dub with a bit of dry humor or a better but less humorous Japanese track.

Its main strengths, however, are its dark, gothic style (with distinctive Amano character designs), and post-apocalyptic setting blending cyberpunk and medieval fantasy. It's not a spectacular movie in any way, but if you enjoy a good bloody horror action flick, you'll no doubt enjoy Vampire Hunter D, and there's enough gothic style (with a cyberpunk twist) to go around for fans of that sort of thing as well.

US DVD Review

The video on the DVD is fairly good looking for a movie this old, with a minimum of bleed and harshness, although a few scenes seemed to be so dark that some of the detail was lost. The Japanese audio, unfortunately, is very harsh, and crackles whenever folks start screaming, but it's still a welcome addition. The dubbed audio track is the old Streamline version, but sounds pretty good all things considered. On the down side, the DVD also used the Streamline video, which means that the English credits are overlaid on the montage at the end, and although the full Japanese credits are included, there is no English translation (see below for the cast).

The DVD also includes the Japanese Trailer (not subtitled), a trailer for VHD: Bloodlust (and other Urban Vision titles), an Amano image gallery set to music (including some biographical information and an introduction to a collaboration with Neil Gaiman), a preview of the Playstation game, and a video on the making of the production, including interviews with the director and Japanese stars (you probably don't want to know what D really looks like, though).

Content Guide

Very violent, with some mild sexual content, for a 16+ rating. Note that there is an edited version that was shown on the Sci-Fi Channel.

Violence: 4 - A fair amount of spurting blood and dismembered bodies.

Nudity: 2 - One shower scene.

Sex/Mature Themes: 2 - Nothing direct, but some mature themes.

Language: 2 - Some harsh language.

Notes and Trivia

Vampire Hunter D is based on the first of a long series of novels, written by Hideyuki Kikuchi, about the same character. This movie has a sequel, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, that is loosely based on the third novel in the series. There's also a Playstation game.

An additional semi-random (and obvious) note not of much interest outside role playing circles that I feel like pointing out anyway is the similarity between Vampire Hunter D's world and the Palladium role playing game (the paper-and-dice sort) Rifts. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if this provided some of the inspiration for the setting of that game, particularly considering Palladium's extensive involvement with the highly detailed Robotech RPG.

Similarities include the distant future setting, medieval-styled post-apocalypse peppered with extreme technology and monsters, the resurgence of magic, and powerful vampires and supernatural beasts ruling over cowering human peasants. In a particularly random side-note, I also noticed that this movie lines up quite well with Palladium's rules regarding vampires and mega-damage; Magnus Lee is entirely immune to Doris' obviously mega-damage laser rifle, but he is physically damaged (with no lasting effect) by her brother's knife.

Availability

Available in the US from Urban Vision on bilingual DVD ([buy from RightStuf or AnimeNation). Was previously also available on subtitled and dubbed VHS. There was also a much older Streamline dubbed VHS tape, long out of print.

Looking to buy? Try these stores: RightStuf (search) | AnimeNation | Akemi's a(nime)Store