Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust DVD: Review By Huntsman

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is one of the best anime movies I have seen. The 2000 movie is based off of the series of short novels by the acclaimed Japanese fantasy-horror writer, Hideyuki Kikuchi. He is the same author who wrote Demon City Shinjuku, A Wind Named Amnesia, Wicked City, Yashakiden, Treasure Hunter, and Darkside Blues, which many have been turned into anime and brought over to the United States. Hideyuki was inspired by the American horror movies of the 1930's, 1940's, 1950's, and 1960's with such characters as vampires and Dracula, Frankenstein, Werewolves and other monsters of the time. Hideyuki said that his favorite movies of all time and the ones that inspired him are Forbidden Planet (56), Curse of Frankenstein (57), Dracula (30), Frankenstein (31), The Mommy (60), and his favorite movie of all time Horror of Dracula (58). Hideyuki took these iconic characters, and created his own interpretation of them and his own world. The movie Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is perhaps the culmination of his work as it brings the world of his books to life.

Perhaps what is best about Hideyuki's Hunter D novels and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is the world he's created. It takes place in the distant future, tens of thousands of years from now and he has created his own world with which Hideyuki has created an all-encompassing mythology of the history of vampires. The vampires of his world have little to do with the vampires in the movies and books of today or the legend of Dracula. Instead it takes place thousands of years after a worldwide war that destroyed the great vampire civilization which reached to the stars. Now the vampire race are scattered and have a dwindling number as the human race slowly expands. In the middle of this dangerous world is the half human, half vampire only known as D. Outsiders who haven't read the books might think they won't be able to understand what is going on in the movie, but that is what's so great about Hideyuki's Vampire Hunter D series in that all the books are self-contained. Each novel has its own story and characters, and by the end of the novel the main story has come to some kind of resolution. That is the same for Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, which is based off of Hideyuki's third book called Demon Deathchase. The story follows D who is hired by an old dying man who hires him to bring back his daughter who has been kidnapped by the vampire called Meir Link. D wasn't the only bounty hunter the old man hired. He also hired the Marcus brother's Borgoff, Nolt, Groveck, Kyle, and their sister Leila. What ensues is a classic chase as Charlotte and Meir race to an old castle and spaceship which survived the war. The two crossed the ravaged Earth followed closely by D and the Marcus Crew. The plot has everything in it, action, drama, comedy and romance, but is the movie perfect no. By the end of the film it leaves you wanting more as you have been engrossed in the strange world, or perhaps that is what the creators of the film wanted.

The Characters of the film are perhaps it's one and only flaw. Vampire Hunter D is of course the best character in the film as the dumpeal (half human, half vampire) bounty hunter that steals the show as a strong and silent type which the New York Times compared to the No Name man from the Sergio Leone films stating in their favorable review "The protagonist, known simply as D, is a powerfully reminiscent of the apparently amoral bounty hunter played by Clint Eastwood in the Leone films." All the characters are good, but the problem is that you never get to know all of them as the film is only one hour and forty minutes, and many of the characters die during the movie. The ones that stick out are Charlotte and Meir and the love between the two characters. The other character that sticks out is Leila who forms a bond with D during the film and the end scene between them is really sad. All the other characters are entertaining, but we never learn too much about them or care about them, and they end up being throw away characters, but that is just a small flaw in this film that keeps it from being perfect.

Madhouse did the animation production for the film. Madhouse has been around since the early 1970's and has done such anime series and films as Trigun, Record of Lodoss War, Ninja Scroll, Gungrave, Batman: Gotham Knight, Black Lagoon and many more. The animation is absolutely astounding, full of detail and animated smoothly, you'd think they were alive, and the characters just seem to come alive and make the movie much more intense. The animation is absolutely astounding, full of detail and animated smoothly, you'd think they were real. The settings particularly toward the end, will take your breath away.

Finally we have the music and dubbing. The music done by the relatively unknown Marco D'Ambrosio (The Rape of Europe, The American Gangster, and Star Wars: Droids-Treasure of the Hidden Planet) is extremely well done helping to bring the story, characters and world to life. The dubbing for the Japanese film is surprisingly good. It is rare to find a well dubbed anime series or film. The voice actors anime companies hire are not very good and when the companies usually mess up the timing between the animation and voices, but with Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust it is really well done.

Overall I highly recommend Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust as it's one of the best anime movies ever along with such classic anime films as Ninja Scroll, Wings of Honneamise, Patlabor: The Movie 1 and 2, Venus Wars, Princess Mononke, Read or Die and Wonderful Days. With a great story, good characters, excellent animation, great music, and surprisingly good dubbing I think anyone can enjoy this film.