Has it stood the test of time? Or has it aged poorly? Was it never very good to begin with? Or is it merely a product of its time? In the case of Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, visually at the very least, it holds up incredibly well.
However, as with all ‘nostalgia’ anime releases, there’s a conversation to be had about whether something that is considered a ‘classic’ is still any good. The journey to rescue Charlotte takes the characters from dusty Western towns to Greek-style ruins to Victorian-meets-science fiction castles, so the movie is worth checking out just for the visual style alone.
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On top of that, it’s visually stunning, with incredibly detailed gothic castles, atmospheric mist and a dark colour palette, plus an eccentric selection of demonic designs that really bring the world D inhabits to life. The protagonist is also a lone wolf, the strong, silent type with a thirst for blood that can never be quenched, so there’s plenty of gothic horror, vampiric action, angst and blood in this movie.
Even though there is a forbidden human and vampire romance, it’s more akin to the original Dracula rather than something out of a certain sparkly-vampire series. The vampires in this story are blood-sucking monsters with sexy allure and power from illusions to transforming into bats. If you’re a consumer of all things vampire-related, and long for the return of their old-school representation, then Bloodlust would be very much up your alley. D however, is not the only hunter searching for Meier, and the closer they get to catching up with his carriage, the more they realise that there’s something more going on between vampire and human than meets the eye. One of them is the infamous D a half-human half-vampire (called a ‘dunpeal’ in this film but it’s actually Dhampir) who has been hired by a noble family to rescue their kidnapped daughter Charlotte, from a known vampire named Baron Meier Link. But now, the vampires are dwindling and bounty hunters pursue the few that remain for reward. It’s the distant future and vampires once ruled the night, with bounty hunters being the only means of protecting the human race from their fangs and powerful magic. Is it a classic worth uncovering? Or should it have been left in the coffin to gather dust?
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Now it’s 2018 and we haven’t had a new anime adaptation of the source material since then, with news of a proposed TV series last heard back in 2016, but the original two films have been considered cult classic and Anime Limited have kindly brought over a Blu-ray release of Bloodlust for UK anime fans. Several years later, after fan demands to make a sequel movie and the original author also in favour of it, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was finally released in 2000 with a limited release in American cinemas as well (which back then was a much rarer occurrence). It was marketed in the US as ‘the first animated horror film for adults’, and it gathered a cult following for its gothic horror imagery and Japanese take on the classic ‘vampire’.
However, in the old days, from the small pile that was available, there was a title called Vampire Hunter D, an OVA based upon the long-running light novel series by Hideyuki Kikuchi. Nowadays, how one gets into anime is a much less a daunting task with multiple streaming avenues, home media releases and even some TV spots to help anyone become an anime fan, whether it be via something incredibly new or an old-school classic. In the UK especially, you only had what are now considered ‘old school’ classics such as Akira, Ghost in a Shell, Ninja Scroll, etc. In the early days of Western anime fandom, from late 80s to mid-90s, there was a very limited amount of anime that was commercially available, so there was very little a fan could recommend to help others get into the world of anime, unless you knew someone with fan-sub tapes or could import something from Japan.
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