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Vampire Hunter D Directors: Carl Macek, Toyoo Ashida Number of Items: 1 Picture Format: Academy Ratio Format: Color, Animated, Dolby Audience Rating: Unrated Running Time: 80 minutes Studio: Urban Vision Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 Region Code: 1 Product Group: DVD Release Date: 2000-10-17 Buy from Amazon |
 "Dark and gore ANIME"This anime is the second of D's adventures. The animation is much better than in the first one. I would say that this story is mixture between "BLADE' and "Bram Stokers Dracula". Now for the DVD itself. The sound is pretty good except that the music is pretty loud compared to the lyrics. The features are all pretty interesting. The only and biggest problem is: THERE IS NO ORIGINAL AUDIO TRACK IN JAPANESE which is unforgivable. Even if the english dubbing is not bad it is still no match for the japanese version!  "worse than i remembered"i purchased this movie because i remembered watching it, way back in highschool, and loving it. i guess i remembered it being better--somehow reconstructing its animation and plot so that it seemed amazing. watching it again, however, was a monotonous experience. the plot--while promising--is ultimately flimsy, dull, and predictable. furthermore, the animation is pathetic. the movement and action is wooden and hundreds of frames are sorely lacking. i think most people like this movie because of the gore. hey, i like gore as much as the next person--but the lead up to the blood is boring: streaming backgrounds with still figures and other outdated, primitive animation techniques. furthermore, like lots of anime, the movie possesses lots of pointless nudity and scantily clad women: it's insultingly sexist. it was only worth watching for nostalgiac reasons.  "old school but really good"a good anime to watch if u'r a fan of anime and if u like a bloody action anime u'll like this recomended to any anime fan "Wait for the sequel"Vampire Hunter D has incredible character design, probably the best I've ever seen in a movie. Between Greco and Rei Gansei, and of course D's hand, there's a lot to like. The movie suffers from horrible timing though, and the scenes that are intended to be touching are all very over dramatic. Some of the artwork isn't so much BAD (though it is pretty bad) as it is poorly thought out. D's cloak changes shape every time you see it, and the length of his sword and where he stores it pretty much ensure that he could never actually draw it. Pretty much any time Rei Gansei draws his boomerang blade, you know something physically impossible is going to happen. It's as if the artists and writers had an idea of what they wanted to convey, but no idea as to how to go about it. And man oh man is it sappy. The sighing and fainting of Doris every two seconds makes you wonder how the heck she survided as long as she did in the wilderness. Every time Dan opens his mouth, get ready for a lesson in ethics, complete with lecture and discussion among the group. The final moments of the film are so sappy that you want to throw up. Overall, I'd have to say that the sequel, Bloodlust, would be a much wiser purchase. It has way better art, that actually makes sense most of the time, and with the makers of Ninja Scroll and Wicked City behind it, the drama has been handled better as well. "Good."To be completely honest, I do not have this DVD. The 4 stars are for the storyline which, while rather straightforward, is still a very good romping vampire story. Lots of blood and gore, but then if you didn't want to see it, why would you pick a vampire tale? Also, I wrote to correct the review by Mr. Strohmann Christian from Durango, Colorado USA, written on February 19, 2002. His review is actually for Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust, the movie that came out in 2001. And the reason that DVD does not have an original audio track in Japanese is that the original audio track was actually done in English. When it was shown in Japan, it was shown in English with Japanese subtitles. I highly recommend both VHD's! If you love vampires, this is for you. |
