One of the most iconic vampires in anime, Vampire Hunter D, didn’t get his start in anime. D first came into being in a series of novels by Japanese horror writer, Hideyuki Kikuchi.
Hideyuki first began writing the Vampire Hunter D series in 1983. Yoshitaka Amano illustrated the covers for the books and drew illustrated pages for Hideyuki’s books, as well. The novels were hugely popular and led to a Vampire Hunter D anime feature in 1985, based off the first novel, Vampire Hunter D.
The movie was considered a success and in 2000, a second Vampire Hunter D feature was released, Bloodlust.
Bloodlust was based off the third of the D novels, Demon Deathchase. This sequel was also considered a success, and Hideyuki continued to write the popular Vampire Hunter D novels.
Nineteen D novels have been published so far, with the first of nine being translated into English in 2005. The latest novel, Throng of Heretics, was released in Japan this past October.
In November of 2007, a Vampire Hunter D manga was released for the first time ever by Digital Manga Publishing. The manga was drawn and written under the direct supervision of Hideyuki, by a mangaka the author personally handpicked; Saiko Takaki.
Hideyuki Kikuchi’s Vampire Hunter D, as the manga is known, was released first in English. A Japanese language release will follow after the manga has been translated into German, Finnish, and Hungarian.
The manga closely follows the first novel…
plot summary
10,091 years after the world’s governments unleashed atomic doom upon the earth, a strange nobility is teetering on the brink of obsolescence. Vampires stepped onto the world stage after the nuclear dust cleared, and declared themselves rulers of a post-apocalyptic planet. The Nobility, as the vampiric ruling class is known, has governed the world from the safety of night for the past 100 centuries. But they have become decadent and outdated.
Mutants and supermen have risen from the peasant ranks to overthrow their vampire suppressors. They are the vampire hunters. The most renown vampire hunter, D, has dedicated his life to eradicating the Nobility. D gets his formidable strength from his lineage as a dhampir; a creature half human and half vampire.
As D is roaming the countryside one day, a young girl flings herself into his path and challenges the vampire hunter to a fight. After gaging the dhampir’s powers, the girl, Doris Lang, hires D to help her. Doris has been bitten by a Noble and needs D’s help to rid the countryside of the vampire who has chosen Doris as his unwilling bride.
D agrees, and becomes entangled in the girl’s plight and his needs as both man and dhampir.
review
I loved the original Vampire Hunter D anime. I loved it so much, that when the novels were first released in English, I rushed out and bought the first two. The novels were slightly disappointing, though, since it felt that the translation was poorly done.
I got tired of reading “the gorgeous youth/man” over and over and over. It seemed something integral was lost when the text was turned into English. But the gist of the story was still interesting enough for me to soldier through the book.
A manga format is a much better fit for an English rendition of the famous novels. The visuals which don’t translate well into boring prose, are painstakingly drawn out in the manga. The wordiness of the novels is changed from hard to read book, into beautifully illustrated manga, which needs little translation.
Character Development
There isn’t much development at all in the first Vampire Hunter D novel and there wasn’t much character development in the manga, either. Within the first four pages, Doris gets naked, fights D, and then begs him to work for her. This scene was ripped from the book, nearly word for word.
I can’t fault the manga for what the novel failed to do since the manga is following the novel so closely. It would have been nice, however, for the manga to strengthen the story with a bit more insight into D and Doris.
The Nobility is given some amount of character development in the way of motivations and background. D isn’t given any back story, but there’s some hint at his origins. The other books in the Vampire Hunter D series flesh the hunter out by degrees; however, this manga was a great opportunity to really develop D for Western audiences.
I felt no connection with Doris and her little brother, Dan, beyond superficial pieces of the story. D was the main draw, no pun intended, of the series, and the manga didn’t disappoint.
Story
The story is actually compelling, if not a little overwrought at times. I had a hard time getting into a few parts of the manga, just as I had a hard time getting into parts of the book, as well.
The beauty of crafting a world so far into the future, is that an author can be as far-fetched as they please and not have to worry about timely contradictions or unbelieving naysayers. There are many “out there” instances in the manga which I couldn’t connect with but still enjoyed: cyber-horses, mutants, scientifically-advanced vampiric nobility. Yet there were some examples which left me scratching my head: time-bewitching incense seems more like a parlor trick than an advanced feat of science by the ruling class.
Part of the story involves D and Doris. Their “relationship” seemed forced, if not downright fanservice for those wanting to see two gorgeous people hook up. It did work wonderfully as a fanservice device. I don’t mind admitting I was smitten with the vampire hunter way back, when I first saw him animated, and wasn’t averse to the thought of D in love.
Character Design
The mangaka, Saiko Takaki, did a wonderful job in following and developing Amanao’s initial direction of the character designs. Much of Amano’s trademark style is evident in the manga; the long eyes, sharp noses, and organic lines have all been worked into Saiko’s art.
D never looked better, nor could I have imagined him to look better, than how he appears in the manga. He truly does live up to the description, “gorgeous youth”, but without the youth bit. In the novel, both D and Doris are described to be around the age of 17-18. In the manga, they look to be more around the age of 23-25.
All the characters in the manga look exactly as they’ve been described in the novels and they also resemble Amano’s brief illustrations. However, the art does retain some of Saiko’s own style.
Art
Too many busy lines, though, tend to distract from the work. The overall heavy organic feel of the art becomes tangled up in all the detailing and shorts the flow of the manga. The shading also tends to be a bit muddy. Aside from a few distracting instances, the art for Vampire Hunter D is strong and beautifully rendered.
Production
The cover for Vampire Hunter D is richly done in dark purples with crimson embossing. The edges of the pages are tinted a matching reddish-purple which compliments the gorgeous cover. However, the paper of the pages themselves is only a step above newsprint.
The roughness and off-white cast of the pages detract from Saiko’s artwork. Paper quality counts, and sadly, Vampire Hunter D’s pages don’t add up to the effort inked onto them.
Hideyuki Kikuchi’s Vampire Hunter D is a must read for any Vampire Hunter D fan, but it’s also a must read for fans of the truly unique and creative.
Rating
Hideyuki Kikuchi’s Vampire Hunter D gets 3 outta 4 Hammies™.
I think you are wrong. The novels are very well written and translated, maybe you just prefer uninspired, repetitive visuals over substance. Perhaps instead of complaining about the “hard to read book” you might instead pull out a dictionary. And you’re inability to connect is, I am to conclude, your lack of imagination. I suggest you take a look at current events, many mutations already exist in examples such as humans ironically enough. “Out there instances” such as Cyber horses? Did a mechanical bull not come to mind? Why not build from there? I think you might have walked into the fad idea that is; character development is the only thing that makes a work good, I insist you sit down and think of the vast world that has been meticulasly layed out for you.Could it be you had a hard time “getting into the book” because it actually followed a believable time-line, where, for lack of a more fitting term, MOE cliches of things happening right on time one after the other were not present. I, of course, have seen that time-bewitching “trick” (Performed of course by the scientifically-advanced vampiric nobility)at my local pub once and once again. When you mention the fan service (which I can determine is common, by the D and Doris picture above, in the ‘purdy’ manga) I was a bit baffled, needle in a haysack if I do say so myself, between all the action and stimulation of imagination it was a welcomed break. Umm please don’t relate manga to Amano Yoshitaka’s work, his is lissome and flows, where as manga follows a very definite and easy to do order(circle for the head, 3 lines indicating where giant eyes, tiny triangle nose and straight line mouth belong). His work most certainly has left the restrictive and childish relm of “beautifuly illustrated manga” which I consider to be an oxymoron, but i digress. The paragraphs where you seem praise Saiko’s style and downplay Amano’s is quite shocking to me, ah well to each their own. In closing I would just like to suggest that next time you crack open a book leave the confirmation bias on the shelf.
-Allisha
@Allisha, so you really think the overuse of “beautiful youth” is a hard hitting literary device? Or was it my “lack of imagination” which kept me from believing so? I never once said “out there” was a bad thing. Where was that implied? So what if I couldn’t “connect with it”. My definition of connect is to believe in it. No, even with my suspension of belief, I can’t get behind the idea time can be stopped by burning a candle. Such technology doesn’t fit with the rest of the world in D.
I had a hard time getting into the books because the sentence structure and word use was poor, no, horrible. I have no way to say whether that was on Hideyuki or the translator, and even said so. Besides which, this is a review of the manga, not the books.
As to my preferences of style over substance, please look around the site and you’ll learn how truly, truly wrong that statement is. The word use in the book is repetitive, (”gorgeous youth” ten times in six pages isn’t repetitive?) not the visuals of the manga. And how would a dictionary make all those wretched sentence structures go away? If I look up “hypnosis” in the dictionary, would I learn to make myself accept the badness?
As to downplaying Amano’s work, how did you infer that? Really, where did you get that from? “Restrictive and childish relm of manga”, huh? What’s that even mean? Don’t compare Amano’s work to manga since, “where as manga follows a very definite and easy to do order”? Seriously, Amano is an artist, but so are mangaka. While his work is fantastic and organic, so is this manga. Of course it follows a format, that doesn’t mean it isn’t art as well. You do know manga has its roots in illustration, which is what Amano does?
If you want to have a discussion about how great the Vampire Hunter D books are, which I don’t agree with in the least, I suggest you do so when a review of such comes up. This is a review of the manga. Please keep your insults on my “lack of imagination” till then.
Hum. The irony of you suggesting the sentence structure and word use was “horrible” and following with that exact mistake was not lost on me. Also, do you consider manga and it’s over use of the ellipsis more structured with stronger affects than a novel? As a last, you quoting and mocking things I’ve quoted and mocked from you seems a bit asinine.Your little blurb about believing in it is, I believe, incorrectly worded. So you believe in vampires but the idea of time not following a direct line is absurd? Perhaps you should delve into the world of quantum physics where the theory of 20 years being equivalent to 60 years is mathmatically explained.
The comment you made about my conclusion that you downplayed Amano’s work would come from “…Saiko Takaki did a wonderful job in following and developing Amanao’s initial direction of the character designs”. I assume you know the manga came after the movie, which, came after the novel and that Amano had a direct role in developing the character’s designs in both the novel and movie. Please atleast google something before you start making assumptions, that also refers the to the comment about Amano doing illustrations(which seemingly implies that is all he does). Though he has done that, it is most certainly not his only trade.
Instead of looking up ‘Hypnosis’ in a dictionary try looking up ‘restrictive’ and ‘childish’ then you won’t be left with the dim-witted remark “huh? What’s that even mean?” Not to suggest that I believe that manga is not art, lets explore the fact that people who draw “art” are called artists and people who draw manga are “mangaka”, could there be reason behind this? Oh and manga is illustration, geez. Lastly I did not suggest that you preferred style over substance, I implied you liked “purdy” over style and substance.
In closing, I’d like to tell you that I did not insult your lack of imagination I merely connected that with your apparent inability to “believe” the fiction novel. But, as I stated above, to each their own.
@Allisha, I’m not even going to argue with you since it would seem you didn’t bother to thoroughly read the review or digest what I was saying. I don’t have the time to refute what you “argued” is wrong with my review, my sentence structure, my imagination, my “dim-witted” nature or what I think about the books. The minute you crossed the line and insulted me personally, your argument lost credibility and I lost interest in what you had to say. I’m glad you’re a loyal fan of Hideyuki and Amano and enjoy their works. Since you are, I recommend checking out the manga.
Well I’m glad you’re going to stop arguing with me because your defense is somewhat lacking to say the least. I didn’t insult you. I never suggested I was a “loyal fan”. There was nothing to digest, it was a very shallow review. It seemed from the beginning you had no interest in what I had to say, you just made presumptions and denied things I had stated instead of “digesting” them and maybe coming up with a decent justification for what you found to be the case in the novel and manga. Instead you opted for a hackneyed, what I so graciously call, defense. You used sarcasm (the lowest form of wit) as a remark, and didn’t even try to understand what I had said. I think the next time you write a review you should remember to add; I did no research into whom I am speak about and began reading with an apparent bias.
That would be much appreciated @(?)Rachel.
To get so fundamental over a review that is probably face value at best, is a bit funny. There’s no need to debate a opinion laden review, as everyone is different in their likings and taste. I will say that upon reading the review I felt Rachel is more of an appreciator of the visual side of vampire D and Allisha you are probably more in tuned with the broader aspects Vampire hunter D has to offer, like the crafting of a different world with words. I wish I could read a novel or two, and take a peek as to how the transition from Japanese to English is like. I honestly wish someone picked up on making a short vampire hunter D series, or maybe even a movie for every novel. I think it would do both the novels and the manga some justice. Btw who is the artist for the bloodlust film? I feel like the same person who drew bloodlust also drew works like Ninja scroll and a older Black-Jack movie. Also some shorts on Animatrix and Batman: Gotham Knight.
@Halfkoreanmike, a short series would be a good idea, if the same folks who did Bloodlust (Madhouse) did the series. A movie per novel would be a nice idea, but there are nineteen novels. That’s a lot of movies.
As to the books, I say read them, but read them with a grain of salt. They read much like an anime would read if it were transcribed blow-by-blow. It’s interesting, but it gets old. Especially since D is described as being “beautiful” and “gorgeous” at least once every two pages. That and the descriptors used don’t flow very well. I’ve encountered this before in translated works, so it’s tough to say who the “blame” for it falls on.
hhhmmmm…you know, Holloween is coming up, and I was thinking about buying this manga in celebration. (lol) but how far ‘naked’ does Doris go? i mean…it doesn’t show the ‘front bum,’ does it? (sorry, i don’t mean to be immature, but i don’t know what to call it.;)) i mean, if the manga is that amazing, i’ll go ahead and buy it, but i just want to know what i’m getting myself into first. haha
@Lynsea, there is some nudity in the manga, but it’s mostly boob shots, no lady bits. It’s not that bad- it’s not henati or even eroge for that matter. It’s a good manga for sure, but leaf through it before you buy it, if that’s possible. The first manga is good, but the second is abysmal, just an FYI in case you were thinking of investing in the series.
As much as I love the Vampire Hunter D series, I do have to admit the elongated descriptions of the scenery & how the characters look can get a little annoying at times. Otherwise, I have no problems with the novels. <3 But that little annoyance is what makes me cling to the manga. It makes 3 to 4 pages of descriptive scenary into one page of beauty. *_* Thanks for reviewing the manga.
I agree that his novels really translate well into readable manga, which I’m glad for (to a degree). Otherwise, I couldn’t bear to read his books.