Vampire Hunter D (吸血鬼ハンターD) is the title character and brainchild of Japanese horror and pulp author Hideyuki Kikuchi.
Beginning in 1983, Kikuchi has so far written 17 "D" novels, illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano. The first and third books were adapted into popular anime movies licensed by Urban Vision, becoming cult classics in the U.S.; the first three novels are now available in English from the prose division of Dark Horse Comics, with three more scheduled for release. At least two art books, a survival-horror video game, Japanese radio dramas and various other official (as well as fan-based) memorabilia exist based upon the Vampire Hunter D series.
Plot
D, a sort of lonely knight-errant, wanders through a far-future post-nuclear Earth that combines the best of pulp genres: western, science fiction, horror and high fantasy with a good dash of Lovecraftian mythos, folklore and occult science. The planet, once terrified by the elegant but cruel Nobles (vampires), ancient demons, mutants and their technological creations, is now slowly returning to a semblance of order and human control — thanks partly to the decadence that brought about the vampires' downfall as a race, to the continued stubbornness of frontier dwellers and the rise of a caste of independent hunters-for-hire who eliminate supernatural threats.
As a dhampir (mistranslated in the films first as dampeal, and later as dunpeal) or half-breed child of a vampire (Noble) father and human (peasant) mother, D makes the ideal vampire hunter. He is renowned for his consummate skill and unearthly grace, but feared and despised for his mixed lineage: born of both races but belonging to neither. Often underestimated by his opponents, D has surprising power and resourcefulness, possessing most of the strengths and only mild levels of vampiric weaknesses. Unlike most dhampirs, D is able to live as a "normal" human, though marked by his extremely pale skin, and rarely accepted by humans. His only notable weaknesses are that he is, while not unfeeling, emotionally remote and will die if pierced through the heart by a wooden stake. He is also (far more rarely than other dhampirs) randomly susceptible to sun-sickness, a severe type of sunstroke, about once every five years. Otherwise, D does not suffer from vampiric weaknesses usual to dhampires, posessing an imposing supernatural aura to his opponents and godlike reflexes surpassing even vampires.
D is the host for a sentient symbiot, Left Hand, a wise-cracking shrivelled old face residing in his left palm, who can suck in massive amounts of matter through a wind void or vacuum tunnel. Left Hand enjoys needling the poker-faced D, but only appears as needed, rarely witnessed or heard by anyone other than D, yet aware of many of D's thoughts and actions. At all other times, D's left hand appears normal. Besides providing a contrast to D's reserved demeanor, Left Hand is incredibly useful, possessing many mysterious powers such as psychometry, inducing sleep, determining the medical condition of a victim, and the ability to size up the supernatural powers or prowess of an enemy, even beyond D's keen senses. Left Hand has its own mind and will, and acts as D's guide and sole permanent companion, providing a reservoir of knowledge pertaining to the lost Noble culture. So far, Left Hand's origins are unknown, and it is unclear how they came to be joined, howevever, some of its nature is revealed in the third book, which features a similar creature.
D rides a cybernetic horse with mechanical legs and other enhancements, wields a long-bladed sword and always wears a mystical blue pendant. The pendant cancels many automatic defenses, such as laser fields and small nuclear blasts, produced by Vampire technology, and will allow him to enter their sealed castles. In the novels and game, he also uses wooden needles which he can throw with super speed. He protects his milk-white face from the noonday sun with long black hair, flowing black clothing and cape, and the shadow of a wide-brimmed hat. Though he appears to be only 17 or 18, D is in fact several thousand years old, and his beauty is mesmerizing.
Very little is known of D's mother, or his past. However, the Vampires whisper dark rumours about the Sacred Ancestor, Count Dracula, and a human...
Dracula's role in the novels is very mixed, appearing both as bane and savior to isolated towns, and as an ancestral god-king to the vampires, many of whom never even met him. D is granted some respect by those who recognize his birth, known to Left Hand, even though he himself refuses to acknowledge it, and quotes his father's precepts in the first novel. Dracula appears both as a lawgiver honored for his intelligence, who showed some interest in preserving humans, and as a ruthless scientist in the second novel, conducting hybrid breeding experiments with humans in order to perpetuate his own dwindling species. Like D, he is also a mysterious and handsome young wanderer, who deals out both life and death.
Animated movies
[This section contains mild spoilers, as brief plot summary.]
Vampire Hunter D
One of the first anime films released outside of Japan, Vampire Hunter D remains a cult classic in the English-speaking world. Billed by the Japanese producers as a "dark future science-fiction romance" Vampire Hunter D is set in the year 12,090 A.D., in a post-nuclear holocaust world where a vampiric Nobility terrorizes human peasants.
While making her rounds, the whip-wielding seventeen-year-old Doris Lang, daughter of a deceased werewolf hunter, is attacked by Count Magnus Lee (named for Hammer Films' famed vampire actor, Christopher Lee) the long-vanished vampire lord said to be over 10,000 years old. Out of sheer boredom, Magnus intends to make Doris his new zombie-like vampire bride, marking her with a telltale bite. Doris later encounters a reticent and mysterious horseman, D (the first wandering hunter she has been unable to drive away or defeat), whom she hires to protect her from the vampires.
The young hunter girl becomes enmeshed as the pawn in a conflict between Count Lee, his daughter Ramika, the 80's glam mutant servant Rei Ginsei — and Greco Rohman, the seedy town mayor's son who wants the feisty Doris for himself at any price. When Doris is kidnapped by Count Lee, D battles his way into Lee's gigantic fortress to rescue her. Ramika's loyalties are torn when she becomes disgusted with her father's lack of "nobility", becoming a mirror character to both Doris and D.
A long rescue with episodic battles ensues, as D races to defeat the count in time to prevent Doris' irreversible evolution into a vampire. At first, it seems Count Lee is too much for him; however, D prevails. With the count defeated, the castle crumbles melodramatically with cosmic light flashes, and D escapes with Doris and her little brother. In an homage to the Spaghetti Western film, D sets off under a now clear blue sky. Doris and her little brother wave him off as looks back briefly and smiles. He then rides off into the sunset.
For all that it's a Japanese action/horror story, Vampire Hunter D follows a standard format of the western genre, echoing such stories as ''Shane'': a mysterious, lone, laconic hero arrives on horseback and takes on the job of protecting a homestead from some menace; the woman of the house falls in love with him, but her love is never (physically) returned. And when the job is done, the mysterious hero rides on, never to be seen again, but always remembered.
Differences between the novel and movie
There are several, and they are significant. Overall, the novels provide a far richer backdrop for Kikuchi's tales, devoting pages to its history, and lengthy explanations for its disparate elements cobbled together from technology, superstition, history, occult beliefs and legends, sewing them together to form a vast and surreal world. The first novel provides far more plot elements, with more characters, and covers a larger expanse of territory than the movie adaptation.
The very capable hunter Doris is reduced to a feisty but inept stereotype who is wholly dependent upon D for salvation. In the book, D has respect for both the girl's bravery and her prowess with a whip, and the phenomenal strength of will she displays by being able to move after being bitten as opposed to being in a coma-like state. She's a match for any human hunter. In the movie, Doris gets no battles, other than a bloody opening sequence, in which she makes a fatal mistake, and she deals with Greco by giving some forceful retorts. In the book, she smacks Greco down, and even manages to survive a battle with the formidable mutant, Rei Ginsei. In keeping with Doris' significant increased empowerment, in the novel her initial offer of sexual favors as payment is treated as a matter of pragmatism upon the frontier (as she has little money, and other means of repaying him), without the stigma implied by the movie. In the novel, D initially declines her offer, but near the end he kisses Doris in response to her advances, when a relationship has been established between them. The romance between D and Doris is far more developed in the book and almost reciprocated, with Doris taking initiative.
In the movie D is almost completely stoic and seems sexually repressed. Unlike the novel, he makes no errors in judgement or battle, and is loathe to resort to his vampiric side, resisting it almost to the point of death. Novel D is willing to use his vampirism to get out of trouble, although he is needled about it by Left Hand. But the vampirism and his sexuality are inevitably just as strongly linked, and in both formats it takes a force of will to resist the temptation to bite Doris.
Dr. Ferringo's character and relationship with the Langs is further developed in the book, and he spends more time helping them in the novel.
Rei Ginsei's character was almost entirely alterred, as was his ethnicity, name and sexual orientation (bi-sexual). He's Japanese and a smooth operator, and also attracted to both Doris and D-- both of whom he propositions, with similar results. His mutant power of warping space within his body, however, remains the same. Rei's role in the movie was combined with Magnus' werewolf servant, Garou, who has no lines and only makes a brief appearance in the initial scene. His death was alterred for the movie, coming from Magnus, rather than D, removing the character element integral to the novels of D as Batman-like problem-solver and master detective. His three companions were reduced to nameless monstrosities; one was changed from a mutant with superhuman speed to a glider who laughed. Their deaths, like Rei's were also changed, in the book D kills them when he cut Rei's hand (saving Dan) in a total of forty-three seconds, instead of on his way out. Golem (the larger of the three) was also nicknamed the tortureless because his skin was impenetrable, D does stab him through the mouth, but no other damage could be made. In the movie, all three were killed on D's way out of the castle (the glider being killed by Rei's shrike-blade in the woods).
Rei does not rescue Dan in the book, and fully intends to kill the boy when he kidnaps him.
In the movie, Rei kills Greco outdoors, whereas in the novel Greco is killed by a more active Larmica at the asylum.
Ramika's (Larmica in the novel) lineage is alterred, and her original pale hair color was swapped with Doris. Both girls had their outfits changed, Doris normally wears jeans and a t-shirt instead of a short tunic, and Larmica wears Elizabethan dresses.
The lamia-like Three Sisters, or Snake Women of Midwich, get more screentime in the book, with signifcantly different results. The Midwich Medusas, an ancient trio of demons predating vampires, have the powers of a succubus. In trying to to subdue D, they are instead ensnared by his own formidable powers of seduction, and turned into lovestruck (though short-lived) allies, echoing a familiar thread in Kikuchi's novels.
In the book, D's pendant neutralizes the technological defenses of the Nobility, whereas in the movie, it chases away many of the demons living within Lee's castle.
Dracula's nature, and why the vampires respect him so much, are also explained more within the novel. D even quotes his Father as warning of the Nobles' downfall. Dracula apparently did not believe in exploiting humans like mindless cattle, something Magnus Lee has forgotten, and for which D takes him to task.
Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
The second film, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, is set 2000 years after the first film, in the year 14,090 A.D. Bloodlust, directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri is widely regarded as the cinematic superior of the two due to advanced animation techniques, voice-acting originally recorded in English (English voice casting/direction by Jack Fletcher), and a more sophisticated orchestral soundtrack. It's also far more faithful to the art style of the illustrator and original character designer of the first movie, Yoshitaka Amano.
The storyline is more thoroughly developed, with a larger cast and more characterization, echoing the flair of Kikuchi's writing. The second Vampire Hunter D movie (VHD2000; Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust in the USA) is based on the third of Hideyuki Kikuchi's Vampire Hunter D novels ("Demon Deathchase" in English).
One of the last remaining vampires, Meier Link, has taken off with Charlotte Elbourne, a human girl. Her father hires D to find her-- and kill her humanely, if turned into a vampire. Her older brother also hires the notorious Marcus brothers as backup.
Borgoff, the very American leader of the group, bites cigars and battles using a special repeating crossbow that he wears on his right glove. The bow is capable of launching hundreds of silver bolts at its targets.
Nolt is a quiet behemoth with a white cross tattoed on his face, who wields a warhammer made from an enormous wooden stake, clad with silver at the point.
Kyle, pretty in pink, fights with a special pair of boomerang-like blades that spin on his fingertips, and likes to throw wise-cracking insults.
The bedprone Grove astroprojects his spirit, capable of devastating psychic energy attacks, after being given a special injection that induces seizures. However, even in this form, Grove is still vulnerable to attack, and the process weakens him.
Leila, conspicuous as the sole woman of the group, is not a genetic member of the Marcus family, but fights alongside them using a special small ultra-powerful gun. Like the novel, she gets the most character development, attention, and screentime of all the Marcus family. In a touching scene, she tells D that she became a hunter to avenge her parents, who were victims of vampires. In this same scene, she forms a pact with D that, if either one of them survives, the survivor can bring flowers to the other's grave. D agrees because, as he says, a "dunpeal" doesn't get to have a life like she does.
The two parties race inexorably toward a final confrontation with Link, but not before battling the mutant ''Barberois'' — a group of mercenary bodyguards with strange, lethal powers. A bizarre, lecherous unicycle-riding old man speaks on behalf of the Barberois (and hits on D).
Several events don't seem to add up. As the story unravels it is revealed that Charlotte's abduction may not be all it seems-- and that D's reasons for this pursuit are not solely monetary!
Meier is one of the few vampires ever respected by humans as an honorable lord; he is never known to have harmed a human, and never attacks unprovoked. So why has he suddenly run off with a young human?
As the story ends, a bloodbath ensues, and D must battle Carmilla, Mayer's dubious patron, the ghost of a long-dead vampire Countess. Once, when vampires were all-powerful and unchallenged, this countess reigned supreme within the Castle of Chaythe, but her bloodlust was unparalleled, and she was slaughtered in disgust by D's father, Count Dracula, King of the Vampires. Her character is based around the myths surrounding the murderous Hungarian Countess Elizabeth Báthory.
At the movie's end, many years after the events at the castle, a funeral is held for Leila, who, we are told, retired and settled down to a long and happy life. D arrives at the funeral, watching from a distance, and is greeted by Leila's granddaughter who invites him to stay with them for a while. D declines saying that he simply came to "repay a favor to an old friend, who feared no one would mourn her death." The girl thanks him, and D replies by smiling gently at her, eliciting the typical awe Kikuchi's heroines show for D's beauty. In one of the simultaneously funniest and most touching scenes in all anime, D's infamous talking hand remarks as they ride off into the pristine mountain glades, "That was nice. You're not so bad after all. You just- dress bad."
It should be noted that despite popular belief, a Japanese dub to the movie does exist, with Tanaka Hideyuki as D, Yamadera Kouichi as Meierlink, Hayashibara Megumi as Leila and Shinohara Emi as Charlotte (also featuring Seki Toshihiko as Grove). The Japanese version has some differences from the English version, most obviously in style (it's much less wordy, which makes for a darker and more tense mood) and script (it's very different from the English script at places), and the world it depicts is more accurate to that of the novels (eg. the currency used is dalas instead of dollars, the general attitude toward dhampirs is made more obvious, etc.). In fact, sometimes it directly quotes the novels - eg. at Leila's funeral the priest is reciting a poem from the sixth novel. Inerestingly in the Japanese dub the Left Hand gives Carmilla's full name as Carmilla Báthory.
Differences between the novels and the movie
This time, the movie adaptation provides more characterization and straightforward plot pacing than the book. The novel is both more violent and bleaker than the film; what it lacks in the movie's sympathetic character development, it replaces with greater background detail-- both for the world, and the story setup.
The book focuses on the Marcus family, not D, and is far less charitable to them. They are reduced to amoral thugs. All of them show some form of genetic enhancements bordering on mutations, allowing them supernatural physical skills.
Leila, the only daughter in the Marcus Clan, is described as having predatory cat-like eyes. Although she is given superhuman prowess with mechanical objects-- particularly vehicles-- far exceeding her brothers, she is repeatedly victimized by them. Novel Leila is younger than the movie, with long hair, rather than a utilitarian butch cut, and physically no match for her brothers, being small and lithe. She is the victim of forced incest, all of her brothers violating her when she attempts to settle down with a suitor, which makes her become colder and crueler as a Vampire Hunter-- although Kikuchi fails to explore her reactions to this event. In the movie, the Marcus Brothers are cold-blooded, hard nosed hunters, but nevertheless fond of their adopted little sister-- Kyle gets a humanizing scene as the protective big brother staring his little sister down over her growing (and denied) attraction to D.
The four brothers are also quite different. Borgoff, the largest, is often referred to as a 'granite statue with whiskers', and shows a lack of intellect, often described as having expressions bordering on moronic. His bow is primitive (merely a stick with a string attached, the arrows just metal darts). He dies gruesomely when a trap set for Mayerling turns against him, devoured by flesh eating ants. While not turned into a vampire, Borgoff is still possessed by Mashira, and fulfills a similar role of threatening the the characters in the climax. Borgoff also possesses strange psychic abilities and genetic enhancements, including a form of projected remote viewing and weightless running.
Nolt is far smaller than his movie self, without a tattoo. (Crosses are not used in the books but remain a part of the iconography of the movies). His staff grows and changes length with the swing. Also he is killed by D, not Benge, when he tries to finish him off after D is blasted into a river by Borgoff.
Kyle wears black, and his weapon is just a cresent moon boomerang blade on a string, similar to Rei Ginsei of book one. He shows a fondness for Leila, but rapes her to provoke Grove into a seizure. He is turned into a vampire slave by Caroline and is killed by Borgoff when he gives his change away by light sensitivity.
Grove (also Groveck) is bitter and selfish in the book, but softens when placed into a protective/romantic encounter with the nameless Girl (movie Charlotte). He gets more screen time in the book, as opposed to his brief instances in the movie. Instead of dying nobly to save his beloved sister from a zombie Borgoff, he is butchered when Borgoff tapes a small bomb to him to trigger one last psychic attack.
The opening setup is entirely different, with the Marcus clan first arriving at the dead zombie-ridden town to meet the last inhabitant with some human faculties left-- the girl's father, who addresses the unseen D instead with his plea to rescue his abducted daughter. Throughout the entire book, her name is never given (woman as sex object). She has few lines and fulfills a barely sketched role, whereas in the movie, Charlotte is an active character, who speaks on her own behalf. In the novel, the nameless girl is endangered by sexual assault twice-- once by Mashira, and again by a nameless lascivious huntsman. However, the condition of the dead town is more thoroughly explained in the novel.
The Three Barberois body guards are signifficantly different in the novel. Instead of mutants, they are the descendants of a variety of halfbreed demons, indebted to Dracula, who appears in their past as a savior.
Benğe, while still a trickster, is completly black and unnaturally slim, as opposed to his kabuki-like white face and hands in the movie adaption. He still crafts illusions, but never ensnares D with the movie's dramatic time-space warping trap (one of several elements borrowed instead from the second novel). His death is almost identical, as he attempts to attack both Borgoff and Kyle. Caroline and Mashira both show disgust with his antics and modus operandi.
The movie appears to have divided Caroline into two characters-- a minor mutant with fascinating abilities, and the far more dynamic villain Carmilla. In the novel, Caroline is a bizarrely powerful dhampir, though her origins are vague. Rather than controlling substances through bonding with them, she can turn anything she bites into an 'undead slave' by drinking it's lifeblood; i.e: A mechanical arm's fuel or a tree's sap. Blonde and voluptuous, a siren rather than a feral, green-haired mutant, Caroline continually wears a dress, emphasizing her use of proxies in battle, rather than her own efforts. Her powers lead to an exploration of the world's history, when she possesses the remaining piece of a long-dead, gigantic machine race who independently achieved sentience and fought ancient ideological wars observed by the Nobles.
The book's tragedies ensue from the lusts of both the Marcus Clan and the hired bodyguards-- as Caroline plots with Mashira to separate the human and vampire couple. She seduces and turns Kyle, then bites Leila while D lies prone under the dirt, the battle ending in a stalemate. Leila succeeds in resisting Caroline's bloodcall, managing to kill her in the last scene.
Mashira is not the noble young bodyguard who acts with gentle consideration toward Charlotte as in the movie, but a lascivious traitor bent on raping her. He is not a mutated werewolf but a parasite like Left Hand, inhabiting the stolen body of a middle aged man. Much about the nature of Left Hand's race is revealed in dealing with him, implying that D and Left Hand share a very unique bond, as Left Hand's mind and will have not dominated D.
Very little of this novel is written from D's viewpoint, and the movie's theme of overcoming racism and xenophobia, highlighted in the relationship between Leila and D, is never addressed in the novel. The novel Leila is rescued several times by D, and shows evident love for him, rather than the platonic respect for a fellow hunter she demonstrates in the movie. The movie's prime characterization scene, where they both talk while D recuperates, never happens in the novel; D remains unconscious while Leila defends him from Caroline, receiving grave injuries in the process. The town scene where D encounters an old man he once rescued as a child also exists only in the movie.
Mayerling's name was mistranslated into Meir Link, but the novel translation retains the original name, referencing a crumbled German castle, and the tragic love story of a young German nobleman who dwelt there. His character is similar, but given less focus; his relationship with the lovestruck nameless girl is very heirarchical, although more detail is given on their meeting and the girl's "abduction".
The ending is markedly different from the movie, and comes suddenly. Instead of Chaythe, the ruined spaceport of Claybourne awaits the ill-fated lovers; but when they arrive, the rockets are completely ruined. D and Mayer face off, with D mysteriously sparing Mayer at the last minute. Unlike the movie, Mayer is killed by the posessed Borgoff, and then the girl commits suicide on Mayer's claws.
D and Leila leave without much commentary; he pays a man to bury the lovers, and still has a characteristic smile in the end, but it's for Leila, who leaves to find the one man who offered to marry her, years ago.
The Novels
Despite the popularity worldwide of the Vampire Hunter D movies, English translations of the books only emerged in 2005, from Dark Horse Press and Digital Manga, with translation by Kevin Leahy.
The first volume of Vampire Hunter D lacks an official subtitle. In subsequent novels it is designated simply as "Vampire Hunter D: Volume 1."
The story is similar to the original movie, but goes into far more detail in terms of plot, character, and building Kikuchi's world. The novel itself is discussed in the section concerning differences between the original movie and book.
Vampire Hunter D Volume 2: Raiser of Gales
Ten years ago, four children - three boys and a girl - went to play at the foot of a hill where an old Noble Castle stood-- and vanished. Several days later, only three of the children returned, one of whom was irrevocably changed. All three lacked memory of events that transpired while they were missing-- even under torture and repeated questioning.
The novel opens in in the snowy village of Tsepesh, where residents solemnly carry casket with a dead child, killed by a vampire. Suddenly, a hand breaks through the coffin, impaling the expert vampire-hunter hired by the town-- with his own stake, in full daylight!
D is called by the mayor to find out what's going on and stop the vampires. Not long after, he uncovers a plot to create vampires with the ability to walk in the daylight. Lina, the girl out of the group who had vanished, tries in vain to gain D's affection while also struggling to bring her village fame by being accepted for a position in the Capital. D soon learns that a Noble kidnapped the four children and experimented on them in an attempt to make a new breed of vampires by splicing human and vampire DNA.
Vampire Hunter D Volume 3: Demon Deathchase
This volume inspired the second Vampire Hunter D Movie, and the translated version was published in the US in January 2006. D arrives at a village to find a single vampire has killed the entire population, who have come back to life and are attacking a group of fellow Hunters called the Marcus Brothers (Nolt, Kyle, Leile, Grove, and Borgoff). The ghost of a wealthy man manages to ask the Marcus Brothers to retrieve his daughter from the Noble responsible before the attack. This leads to the grueling and competitive hunt for the Noble responsible, as well as his human captive.
Notes
Some material is paraphrased from the notes included in the original Vampire Hunter D laser disk, fan-subtitled by the Dayton Anime Club.
The name of the head vampire in the 1985 movie, Count Lee, was of course named as an homage to Christopher Lee who played the role of Dracula in a long series of Hammer Films.
Larmica, also translated as 'Ramika' is a version of the name Carmilla, taken from a nineteenth-century fictional female vampire villain from the story "Carmilla" by Sheridan le Fanu.
Carmilla of 'Bloodlust' does not appear in the novels, and is based in part upon the fictional Carmilla and in part upon the historical Hungarian countess, Elizabeth Báthory.
A Message From Hideyuki Kikuchi, The Author Of Vampire Hunter D.
"D" originated from the fact that I wanted to write a horror story. I based my story on ancient traveler folk tales and on Western horror movies.
"D" is also a product of my eccentricity. It started as an idea about letting a vampire be a hero instead of a villain. My first image of "D" was the gunfighter video of Phil Collins. In this video, Phil was wearing American Western gunfighter clothing with Japanese Samurai gear; the background had a red sun burning in the sky. For some reason, my image shifted to a character like that wearing a half-moon sword and a cloak. Also, his face is changed from my image of a handsome man to a rough, gunfighter look. When I saw Amano's paintings of the character, it was beyond my expectations. (Yoshitaka Amano worked on the character and production design for this movie as well as for "Ninja Team Gatchaman" and many other animations.)
D's personality is shifting between two different modes. He is not a man or a vampire, yet his personality constantly shifts between man and vampire.
I hope that everyone enjoys this movie.
- Hideuki Kikuchi
Video game
A video game based on Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust was also made for the PlayStation game console, titled Vampire Hunter D. It is a survival horror game, but also similar to a standard adventure title. The player can see D from different prerendered angles throughout the game, and allow D to attack enemies with his sword. D can also use magic, Left Hand's abilities, and items. The story of the game is similar to that of Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, although it takes place entirely within the castle as D fights all the enemies. Only two of the Barbarois mutants appear as enemies. There are 3 endings, 1 of which is similar to the end of the anime.
The gameplay is somewhat difficult, making it unpopular with the general gaming market, although it was a treat for fans awaiting the delayed release of the second movie, and shares some of the voice actors of the film. For a persistent fan, the ethereal soundtrack, insight into Kikuchi's universe, and pretty set designs may make up for the awkward gameplay.
Soundtracks
External links
- Vampire Hunter D at IMDb
- Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust at IMDb
- Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust Official Website
- The Vampire Hunter D Archives
- DHpress Books
- Urban Vision - The company that licensed both Vampire Hunter D movies
- [1] - some background, academic information on the role of D as an example of the bishonen or Japanese "beautiful boy" archetype. Not fan-fiction, slash, or yaoi.