Professor Popinjay's Compendium of Perspicacity

A Non-Review by Professor Popinjay

Vampire Hunter D (1985)

Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust (2000)

I am very excited to finally get to write about this. I have appreciated Vampire Hunter D ever since I first saw it during an all night anime marathon on TV. I managed to record the whole first movie.

It had all the tropes of 80’s anime. Eerie synthesized music, speed lines, frilly short skirts and high winds, epileptic seizure inducing flashes of light, and that echoey “SCHLING-ING-ING” sound anytime a sword was unsheathed. Plus this had character designs by Yoshitaka Amano, who would quickly become one of my favorite artists. Most will recall Amano’s character designs from many of the Final Fantasy video games.

Man, where to begin?

Vampire Hunter D is a long standing series of novels penned by writer Hideyuki Kikuchi. It’s set about 10,000 years in the future and the face of the Earth is very different. To say much has transpired over that amount of time would be an understatement. All of it is rich world building, a strongpoint of Kikuchi’s writing.

Here’s a list of major events leading up to VHD to the best of my recollection, in chronological order as best as I can recall, most of which is only nominally referred to in the films:

• Vampires reawaken.
• Nuclear war ravages the planet and greatly decreases human population.
• Vampires having sequestered part of the population, aide in repopulating the planet with themselves in power.
• With their immense intelligence and longevity, vampires bring amazing and terrifying advancements in sciences and magic, even interstellar space travel. They have space ships that look like gothic castles. How rad is that!?!
• Experimenting by vampires leads to bizarre mutations and deadly cyborgs, unearthing of strange demons, encounters with alien life and so much more. You name it. If it’s in a sci-fi or fantasy book somewhere, chances are it’s featured in VHD too.
• Vampires decadent lifestyles gradually lead to their downfall.
• Humans fight back and reclaim parts of the planet. Skilled Vampire Hunters begin to emerge.
• Vampires and humans kind of coexist on this war torn planet, now inhabited by all manner of monster, both keeping their distance and tumultuously maintaining their boundaries. Sure, a vampire steals and exsanguinates a maiden now and then but thems the brakes, I guess.

This is the state of the world in the year 12,090 when our story begins. We soon meet a Vampire Hunter simply named D.  D is a Dhampir, the result of crossbreeding human with vampire. As a result, D has many vampiric strengths and only mild versions of their weaknesses. Just like Marvel’s Blade but with less Kris Kristofferson hanging around.

In lieu of a Kris Kristofferson, D has a sassy parasite living in his left hand who appears as a face on his palm and makes snippity commentary throughout the stories and can also store things in a pocket universe by eating them; similar to how I consume 57 hot wings in less than 30 minutes. He’s like a cute buddy guy to the main character, like Meeko or Flit from Disney’s Pocahontas, only terrifying.

Oh and there’s more! And it’s so bizarre. This parasitic left hand of his? It can also consume and regurgitate the elements which somehow enables it to heal, even revive, D after devastating blows.

So D is like this ultra weird Superman. You might think “If he’s so powerful, where’s the story?”

Aside from D getting his butt handed to him (strange thought: Does he wipe with his left hand and, if so, how does his left hand feel about that?),….

…

Sorry, what was I talking about?

Oh, right! Aside from D getting his butt handed…

Butt handed…That’s funny.

Anyway, aside from D… getting beat up a lot, there are a myriad of mystical weaknesses he encounters and has to either figure out or rely on new found friends to abate. A similarly interesting aspect of the story is D’s difficulty interacting with regular humans. D is frustratingly beautiful for a 10,000 year old, and generates an otherworldly aura that is tantalizing to some and off-putting to others. Most of the time he is met with suspicion, especially by those dogmatically opposed to the supernatural.

It’s not long however before these same people are thanking him (or at least trying to) because D doesn’t like it when degenerate Vampires steal maidens and he really doesn’t like it when they exsanguinate people. Oo it just gets him so mad!

And so he does something about it, usually at some great pain or personal cost.

I don’t want to go into much more detail. Both this film and its sequel, “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust” released 15 years later, are equal in quality and visual style. While I saw the first as a kid, the second I hadn’t seen until about two years ago and I’m kicking myself for not seeing it earlier. I just didn’t know about it! I’m so fascinated by the character and world, I finally just broke down and ordered Kikuchi’s first omnibus of novels in English. Also, I now own a legitimate copy of the DVDs because, you know, artistic integrity and all that.

If you’re into anime, you probably already know everything about VHD. If you’re not into anime, this miiiiiiiight not be the best one to start with because it’s pretty crazy sometimes. The first time I watched D’s hand eating dirt with zero context I was like “whaaaaat is going on!?!” Maybe start with Hamtaro and work your way into Speed Racer.

If you want to be into anime and want to dive headfirst into the epitome of classic anime, you can’t go wrong with this one.