As it is October, the month of spooks and scares, I figured it would be a good opportunity to take a look at a movie that has been in my collection for a good year at this point, but never got around to watching. The 1980s Anime action/horror, Vampire Hunter D.
When a young girl gets bitten by a vampire, she hires a wandering hunter known as "D" for help. D must destroy the vampire that bit her to cure her of her infection, however, the vampire, Count Magnus Lee wishes to wed the young woman to... I am not making this up, alleviate boredom. While the plot is fairly solid it does take a while to get going. The Count sends others to kill D a couple times, and D goes to the castle once and gets caught by snake women. I guess these scenes mostly exist to show the audience what D is capable of, or maybe they were part of the original book. Yeah, this is another adaptation, and again, I haven't read the book. Then again, I would not know how easy it would be to get a hold of these books. Overall, the plot is solid, but the progression kind of meanders a bit, and sadly, that isn't the only thing that keeps me from enjoying this movie.
The movie also had some weird pacing issues. I mean, I guess I don't need to see the heroes escape the crumbling castle, but the previous scene they were still standing inside, and then the camera cuts to another scene and they're right there. At least, establish that they turned around to leave, but maybe it just bothered me. still, that is only one example, and it bothered me for most of the movie.
Now, I am terrible at identifying character, but I felt like most of these characters were bland. D is the strong and silent protagonist, but he has some moments that keep him from being a total bore. The Count is an interesting villain, but only in how we can identify with his motivation. Other than that, he isn't really that interesting to watch. The only other characters that I could find character to, were the Mayor's son and the Count's Daughter Lamika. The Mayor's son is an asshole womanizer, he is kind of like Gaston, only less likable. I really hate characters that I am supposed to hate that have nothing enjoyable about them. I want characters I love to hate, and not hate to love. As for Lamika, she is prideful, though she has moments where I found myself respecting her. As a whole, the characters are not great, but at least most of them have their moments where they aren't terribly bland.
Now, this is where I mention that I watched the dub of this movie as that is the copy that I have. So, this will be the first time I mention the dubbing quality. Now, growing up in the 2000s, I was in the middle of a huge anime boom. The nineties and 2000s was the time that anime became more popular in the west, with shows like DragonBall Z, Naruto, Bleach, One Piece and of course Pokemon. So, I have to wonder, was dubbing prior to the nineties usually of a mediocre quality? The dubbing in this movie is fine, but some of the lines were read completely bland, some dialogue was spoken too fast and overall it was mediocre, I mean, my standard is that is has to be of better quality than a TeamFourStar production, but this was more on the level of Friendship is Witchcraft.
Now we get to the animation. Now, what you have to keep in mind is that, 1980s anime and modern anime look completely different. Not to say that something needs to look like a modern anime to look good, but don't go into a movie or series from this era expecting it to look like FullMetal Alchemist or Attack on Titan, and especially not something super stylized like Kill la Kill. That being said, while this movie does look good, it is anime good, meaning that it is more artstyle than actual animation. I have this feeling for a lot of anime, where I just feel like a lot of it is stylized to hide the fact that little is happening. That being said, I did notice some reused animation, and there is a good amount of bright flashing lights in this movie, so be warned.
On the topic of content warning, this movie contains some pretty brutal deaths. I feel like a lot of the style went into these violent and gruesome deaths. Monsters get cut in half and you see their insides, and creatures get their heads blown off, and so on. There is also some nudity in this movie, so be warned this is not a movie for younger audiences.
As a whole, I did not really enjoy this movie. It was slow, had some weird pacing problems, and wasn't very engaging. It is a shame because I feel like this could have been a great movie, but we got some bleh characters, with mediocre dubbing and okay for the time animation. I guess it is not too bad, but I would have personally rather watched Netflix's Castlevania series instead. So... that's always an alternative. I can't really recommend this one, if you're into classic anime, you might enjoy it, but you've probably already seen it, with the original recording no doubt. Even if you haven't, I don't really speak highly of this one. Maybe Ghost in the Shell is better.
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