A Film Directed by Toyoo Ashida, based on a novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi

While I have been an anime fan for decades now, I sometimes go back to some of the films that brought me into the fandom, and I feel genuinely fortunate that I got into it when I did. While I would never make a comment that “The old stuff is better”, largely due to the fact that the English market got a curated “best of” selection for a while, there are some genuinely great films from that time period that still hold up. 1985’s Vampire Hunter D is one such film, a movie that casts a long shadow over the entire horror anime genre even to this day. Once billed as “the first animated horror film for adults”, it was one of the cornerstones of the anime market during the nineties. On a personal level, I spoke about my introduction to the series in a previous article for this series so be sure to look at that and see why I love it so much.

I decided to go back and look at this movie in 2023 and see if it is still as good as I remember it to be, so make sure to toss on your wide-brimmed hat and keep your possessed left hand well fed, because it’s time to look back at everyone’s favorite Vampire Hunter on the whole Frontier.

“12,090 A.D. It is a dark time for the world. Humanity is just crawling out from under three hundred years of domination by the race of vampires known as the Nobility. The war against the vampires has taken its toll; cities lie in ruin, the countryside is fragmented into small villages and fiefdoms that still struggle against nightly raids by the fallen vampires-and the remnants of their genetically manufactured demons and werewolves. Every village wants a Hunter-one of the warriors who have pledged their laser guns and their swords to the eradication of the Nobility. But some Hunters are better than others, and some bring their own kind of danger with them… “

Vampire Hunter D was an OVA (or OAV) during the big OVA boom of the late 80’s / early 90’s, meaning that it benefits from having far better animation than your typical animation produced for television. It is, however, not a full theatrical release, so the runtime is a brisk 80 minutes vs what most in the US are used to. With that said, the story from the first novel in the series is not very intense in the story department, so unless this was produced with narrative expeditionary dialogue or somesuch, pretty much everything in the book is in the film.

For fans of the novels, there are only a few real differences between the film and the source material that stuck out to me. The biggest would perhaps be the character of Rei- Gensai, who is largely “a better person” in the film. In the novels, he’s a member of the Fiend Corps and a roaming criminal. He attempts to commit sexual assault on numerous characters, and is largely not very redeemable. In the OVA, he’s one of Count Lee’s underlings, serving him in the hopes he may become a Noble himself. Due to this, he almost ends up “helping” D at a couple points since his dissatisfaction with Count Lee seems to line up with the goals of our heroes.

The character of Doris Lang is also somewhat different in the novels – she’s stronger, more adept at fighting and more independent. in the film, she is largely relegated to a mere sex object which is unfortunate. All of the villainous men in the movie spent their entire screen time lusting over her. Count Magnus Lee wants her as his bride after a drink from her blood registers as “the best he’s ever had”, Rei-Ginsei tries to force himself on her, and Greco alternates between bullying her because of being bitten and lusting after her. Unfortunately for her, the only man she’s actually attracted to is D, and he isn’t interested. Her characterization unfortunately would not pass the The Bechdel test in any way shape or form today.

For me, one of the biggest strengths in this film is the atmospheric synth music peppered throughout. At the time, soundtracks like it were commonplace, but with a modern retro-tinged mindset we have now, it comes across like really solid examples of a modern genre called “Dungeon-Synth”. I’ve always loved the little theme song D has at the beginning and ending of the film, and hearing it again makes me want to track down a full film score at some point. Acclaimed pop artist Tetsuya Komuro was responsible for the film’s soundtrack, and also performed the film’s ending theme, ‘Your Song’, with his fellow members of TM Network.

The art design is also very good, and very different than most anime of the era. While the idea was to replicate the character designs and illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano, his art is insanely hard to animate. This led to a conglomeration of Amano’s ideas and the art director’s being used then adapted by the animators. If they ever did do a remake of this (which an animated TV series has been in development hell due to Covid for a while), I’d love to see them attempt something like the concept art.

As a director, Toyoo Ashida had some really cool ideas that he employed in this film. The very first scene, involving Doris Lang hunting in tall grass with a laser-rifle is insanely dynamic and really sets the tone for the rest of the movie. It’s easy to forget this film was from 1985, and with most theatrical anime films of the time looking far worse, you can tell this was cutting edge for the budget. Count Lee’s first appearance also sticks out as a great bit of cinematography, the scene I’m speaking of involves a black night sky spoiled by a flash of lightning that exposes his position towering right in front of Doris. Toyoo Ashida even snuck in some experimental stuff, such as the destruction of Count Lee’s castle being punctuated by scenes of reversed time-lapse photography creating an eerie, nigh horrifying anxiety as the castle crumbles into a huge pit.

Toyoo Ashida was also the director for a lot of the Fist of the North Star television series, which I also enjoyed. I really should seek more of his work out, because he seems like an underrated director.

For the purposes of this re-watch, I drug out the original English release by Urban Vision Entertainment that I still have on DVD. Urban Vision used to be an absolute juggernaut in the anime industry, licensing and distributing most of the edgy “cool” anime that the mid-nineties were built around in the West. As with most anime companies, the late ought’s (00’s, that still sounds weird to refer to that period as that, “turn of the century” isn’t better lol) brought an almost entire collapse of the anime home video market due to a glut in supply and little care to curate what people wanted to actually watch. Urban Vision was one such company that got hit hard, and sadly went under. Now, a majority of their titles have since been re-licensed and re-released by Discotek Media and Sentai Filmworks. That includes both Vampire Hunter D films, which apparently also got new dubs. Perhaps one day I will get around to watching this again to see what has changed.

My readers may recall that I’m usually perfectly okay with watching anime dubs, so that’s what I did here. This dub is pretty old, one of the classic dubs from Streamline Pictures, and sometimes the voice acting is not exactly up to par with what fans are used to now. Luckily, this was not a film that utilized the industry standard (in the 90’s) of pumping as many curse words into your production as humanly possible, but some strange directorial choices stood out to me upon my rewatch today. Some of the voice acting is just odd, examples include the character of Dan, who has weird British Accent, and members of The Nobility, such as Count Lee and Lamika, that speak like over-the-top Bela Lugosi impersonations. None of this is bad, and I have a fondness for this production due to nostalgia.

Overall, despite realizing this had a dub that wasn’t as good as I remembered, Vampire Hunter D is still every bit as watchable as it was in the past. The film is easily something that should be on the shelf of every horror anime fan even to this day alongside its “sequel” Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Certain sensibilities are a bit dated at this point for sure, but Vampire Hunter D set the foundation for my love of the character that has allowed me to seek out other bits of the franchise such as comics and novels. In a world of sparkly vampires and other blights to the genre, Vampire Hunter D shows how one can change the ideas around a vampire story and actually creating a compelling world to play around with.

If this looks cool to you, be sure to take a look at the huge sale going on over at Fanatical HERE. You can score 29 eBook volumes of this very series for $15, and if you act fast, I can save you another 10% HERE.

Click HERE for more Vampire Hunter D Content including everything from Vampire Hunter D Week.