With all the vampires saturating pop culture in Twilight, Anita Blake, 30 Days of Night, even in X-Men, Vampire fiction is grossly overexposed nowadays. Considering this bloody mess of modern vampires, I thought it might be fitting to read about a good vampire hunter and decided on the original novel of Vampire Hunter D. The first Vampire Hunter D film from 1985 was the second Japanese anime I ever saw, right behind AKIRA. I saw it roughly 10 years after its initial release on a VHS tape I rented from the Des Peres Blockbuster with my friend Robby. We watched it in Robby’s dark basement late at night while his cats walked between the panels of the ceiling. Between the mysterious noises his cats made above our heads and the dark and twisted atmosphere of the film, Vampire Hunter D absolutely scared the hell out of me. From the opening sequence where Doris’ horse is slaughtered by a demon beast to the acid-trip when D raids Count Lee’s castle, I’d never seen anything like Vampire Hunter D. What more, the film had brief animated nudity in it! For a kid who grew up on Disney it was mind-blowing to think that any animation could exist like this. Was I going to hell for watching this animated sin?

[One of the greatest opening sequences of all time]

I remained a fan of the series and saw the premiere of the sequel Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust at the Tivoli in 2001. I’ve always thought it was one of the most essential Anime of all time and was actually very surprised when quite a few of my co-workers admitted to having never seen either of the films. Before I started into the book I watched the first film again on youtube for the first time in at least 10 years. Though the animation seemed greatly dated and resembled an SNES cut scene, it was hard to not to cherish the unbelievable atmosphere the film created and how fresh it felt when I originally saw it.

The first Vampire Hunter D novel was released in 1983, the year I was born, and creates an even darker atmosphere than the film. My favorite aspect of the novel is that it combines every cool genre imaginable like horror, science fiction, western, and high occult fantasy, with a hint of romance. Can you really ask for more? Of course you can. That’s why writer Hideyuki Kikuchi made it a serialized collection of novels ending with the chapter of the next book in every novel. It is without a doubt the closest novel I’ve read to a comic book ever. It doesn’t hurt that it also has Yoshitaka Amano illustrations in every chapter of the novel. I know vampires are overdone nowadays, but I have no regrets picking up Vampire Hunter D again. It is well worth reading.

-Jon

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