1989, or you might call these the “dark ages” of Japanimation (the word we used many moons ago to describe Japanese animation). You see, way back then, when I was a freshman in high school and just starting to collect anime on VHS, you just couldn’t get much of anything at all, and the stuff you did get was dubbed ten tomes over from some old laserdisc, video tape or Japanese television and never, ever had English subtitles. As a matter of fact, the first time I saw Vampire Hunter D, it was a tenth generation dub on a BETA tape that had the most completely muffled sound you can imagine, completely in Japanese, and had a picture that needed constant adjustment on the tracking. But you know what? I loved it, and the shoddy quality of the dub kind of added this weird atmosphere, and made it feel like I was doing something a little wrong while watching it - it created a sense of taboo. VHD was one of the first unedited Japanese language dialogue animated features I ever saw. This along with Akira and Nausicaa really launched my passion for the genre, and drove me to do some crazy things, the least of which was starting an animation club at my high school.
Jeez, talk about a bunch of nerds - as if playing Dungeons and Dragons in the science lab at lunch wasn’t bad enough, my friends and I were now staying AFTER school to watch shaky-no-sound copies of weird cartoons in some foreign language. Man, were we unusual.I guess we still are, only now our passions are enjoyed by millions of Americans across the country and you might even call some of out hobbies (video games) mainstream now. Who woulda’ thunk it? If I knew in 1989 that my nerdy pastime would be considered kind of hip 16 years later, maybe I could have scored a few more dates? Nah, who had time for girls when there were 20-sided dice to be rolled, orcs to be slain, miniatures to be painted and anime to watch?
Anyhow, onto the review at hand, VHD has some truly appalling animation. Most of the time, the actual animation used is at worst downright laughable and at best barely serviceable. The backgrounds for the most part are static, and movement on screen is limited to only a few key animations for the main characters. Often times we are treated only to the “anime-slide” an expression I use to describe the technique used when motionless characters seem to slide across a static background while motion lines are used to simulate speed or movement. The colors used, while they do add atmosphere, and uncreative and more often than not come across as dull and drab.
So, with all this heavy criticism of the animation at hand, one might think that the film is a failure. Well, that one would be wrong; VHD is anything but a failure. Like many other animated films that are from this era, VHD may lack in actual animation technique, but it more than makes up for these shortcomings in the detail of the drawings, the atmosphere and the story itself. Again this film demonstrates that Japanese animation dwells somewhere in between the comic book and full animation mediums. While it lacks the full fluid animation of a film like Disney’s Snow White, the detailed drawings convey much emotion and the narrative is as strong as can be.
The detail in the design also does wonders for the atmosphere, one of VHD’s strongest elements. The film is dark, almost to a fault, but the sum total of the drawings, the music and the story create a very somber almost depressed feel that permeates throughout the running time. The narrative is deliberate in its pacing and like the title character himself, is somewhat solemn but when the time comes can be a force to recon with. The atmosphere is thick and the characters themselves swim in a potpourri of monsters, demons, magic, castles, and cobble-stoned villages. Even the action elements used are more surreal than dynamic and often these set pieces end with crimson geysers of gore spraying across the screen. The sum total of the art design, which creates this tone, is what makes VHD’s visual style so bold, while at the same time it lacks quality fluid animation.
Anime however, no matter how well or poorly drawn, cannot make do based solely on its animation alone. Like all fiction, a strong narrative, interesting characters and dramatic elements are needed to draw interest from the audience and keep things from becoming a simple case of pure style - zero substance. Luckily, VHD has an incredibly strong narrative backbone, thanks in no small part to Hideyuki Kikuchi and Yoshitaka Amano, the author and artist respectively, of the original novels and character designs. Written in 1983, the original novel Vampire Hunter D, which the first film is based upon, is the initial novel in a series spanning over fifteen volumes. Luckily for us in the west, Dark Horse Publications along with Digital Manga Publishing are publishing the novels for the first time in the English language. Kevin Leahy is translating the novels, and the first seven volumes are going to see a release with more possibly to come.
After finishing the first novel, I can safely make two claims: 1) the filmed version is one of the best adaptations ever made, and benefits from such a strong back story, and 2) although the narrative prose may not be “great literature” it is still highly entertaining and action packed and the story is well written. The narrative of the novel is told in classic fashion and reads like watching an action packed animated film. Within the story we are introduced to the half vampire, half human hunter D, along with his clients Doris, her brother Dan, and a host of cyber werewolves and horses, demons, rival hunters, mutant warriors, a vampire count, laser-guns, magical whips and blades and a parasitic hand who saves D’s life and posses his body.
What struck me the most about the novel is how well the original author conveyed the back-story of the world at large. Most stories dealing with vampires get bogged down in cheesy romance or castle court house melodrama, but in VHD Kikuchi injected his monster and vampire filled world with technology and heavy doses of post-apocalyptic doom mixed with pseudo-utopian/distopian science fiction. So, what we have here is yet another example of a genre busting story and a strong narrative. Like Stephen King’s The Dark Tower, VHD cannot and should not be classified as horror, science fiction, western, drama or what have you - it bravely and successfully mixes all of these elements into a package that becomes its own entity.
Kikuchi also does a wonderful job of creating a world and then just running with it, forcing the reader to keep up and to accept what he has written without bogging down the narrative with too much detail and explanation. The world truly does seem alive with characters such as Rei-Ginsei the leader of a bizarre group of mutant hunters, Greco, the mayor’s conniving and selfish son, and Garou, a cybernetic werewolf working for the count. All of the characters involved in the story are given realistic ambitions and they all fit into their place in the unique and wondrous world. The world of the story does not revolve around the characters, but the characters are placed in context to a larger world and bigger conflict. We know just enough about their personalities and desires for the characters to seem that they really belong in the landscape of the narrative.
When viewing the film after reading the novel, one can clearly see the filmmakers handled the adaptation with respect, and with reverence. While not all the characters or subplots made the transition from page to film, what did survive is the over all tone, structure, plot and atmosphere. Some characters were combined, while others were left out, some subplots were axed while others were modified, and much of the overall plot was cut out. However, the film does not suffer for this when compared to the original printed work. Each version of the story does what needs to be done to make each respective medium a successful venture.
The translation of the novel does a serviceable job and I have a feeling Mr. Leahy is quite talented as a tranlator. However, from what I understand the original Japanese is written in a somewhat dense and poetic style akin to the prose of H.P. Lovecraft and is probably quite hard to really do justice in a translated state. How does one approach a translation of a poetic work so dense with metaphors and culturally sensitive descriptions? Some of the words used, such as the term “youth” used to constantly describe each of the characters rather than the pronoun “he”, seems a bit out of place and frankly it is over used. I wonder though, if this term means something more in the Japanese language and so Leahy kept it in tact. Over all though, I do not have any more criticism of the actual translation, and any shortcomings in the prose, like the stilted dialogue or corny delivery, probably stems more from the original text.
I do however have one MAJOR complaint regarding the physical book itself. I think Dark Horse and DMP are doing the original author, artist, translator and the story itself a HUGE disservice by publishing the book in a smaller format that more closely resembles the multitude of manga books that flood the shelves rather than an actual piece of respected genre fiction. Barnes and Nobles, as well as Borders both keep the VHD novels in the manga/graphic novel section and not in the popular fiction sections. This is wrong, as VHD is NOT a comic book or a graphic novel. I feel the two publishers have grossly misjudged the work at hand and are missing a large market that should be the target audience. If treated with the proper respect the work deserves, and given the proper packaging and marketing, the VHD novels could become quite successful and gather a strong cult following. However, as they are treated now, I fear they will be doomed forever to the comic book sections of the large book stores and will never be stumbled upon by readers of popular fiction as they gander across the science fiction, fantasy and horror shelves.
