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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

Customer Reviews: Total numer of reviews: 183 Average rating: 4.0 "A futuristic vampire hunter spaghetti western anime" "Kyûketsuki Hunter D" is the oldest example of anime I have seen to date, having originally been released in 1985, which becomes a necessary grain of salt in rendering an evaluation of the animation. My initial impression was that this would have been considered pretty cool a decade earlier, but by today's standards there is just way too much emphasis on minimalist animation: softer and rounder character designs, lots of blood and gore, higher framerate, panning and scanning, loops, color and lighting changes, lower detail, etc. The story begins 10,000 years in the future with our heroine, young Doris Ran, the daughter of a werewolf hunter, who is out carrying on the family tradition one night by hunting mutant animals in her skimpy little outfit when she encounters the local vampire count, Magnus Lee, who marks her with his bite, planning to make her his future bride. At this point out hero, in the great tradition of a Sergio Leone spaghetti western except for the giant sword, rides into town. Fortunately he is a vampire hunter and since he says virtually nothing there is every reason to believe he might be able to take the count and his minions down a peg or two. There are several distracting subplots (Doris has a worshipping kid brother and the lecherous son of the mayor wants to jump her) but this movie comes down to two key questions for D: whether or not he can kill the count and/or love Doris. The other big question is how old you think Doris is, and you should decide early on because this film has a shower scene in which you are going to see her neked and if you think she is under aged you ought to be ashamed of yourself. On the other hand, the simple scene is a lot more effective than most of the nudity I have seen in live action films in the past decade (and my favorite shot of the film shows a strand of Doris' hair failing away and leave her neck bare while she is embracing D--remember what the Japanese think about a woman's neck). "Vampire Hunter D" (you really want to emphasize the "D" according to the Japanese trailers) is based on a pair of novels by Hideyuki Kikuchi ("Wicked City" and "Demon City Shinjuku") and not reading these books puts the viewer at something of a disadvantage. There are a few brief bursts of exposition delivered by characters at various times, but I still had a hard time piecing together the new world order depicted in this film. I thought for a while the titular character had a talking sword, but it turned out to be a saracastic parasite that lives in his hand. The second time around I was able to put everything together a lot better, but I do have a much better appreciation now of why people who had not read Frank Herbert's novel had such a hard time with David Lynch's "Dune" movie. I have to admit I do not get why this particular anime is such a cult favorite. For every good moment there is another than seems sub-par. But the resulting mix is certainly interesting, especially for fans of vampire fiction. The post-apocalyptic world is nothing special but the concept of the dampiel, the vampire-human half-breed is certainly interesting, and the mystery of "D" is a toss-up. It might not be a keeper for everyone, but it certainly deserves at least one viewing. "Vampire Hunter D" Before I really knew what Anime was, I saw this movie. I was about 11 and saw it on TV. It is the only movie I can truly say I can remember in vivid detail. Since then I have learned what anime is and enjoy it because of its depth and complexity. The thought of a dunpire, one with a talking hand, is a memory I will ever keep with me. "HOW? WHY?" My only guess is that someone someone said it was a classic and everyone agreed as to prove they were "true" anime fans? I am a huge anime fan and all i can say is this is the WORST anime, hell, its the worst anything i have ever seen. I cannot put into words how bad this was. the animation- terrible, dialogue-my god....so stupid and cheesy. storyline- a joke. do yourself a favor, gauge out your eyes... and ear drums. before you put this one in. "A Classic" Okay, so the animation is far from perfect. Despite that, it's a great anime. The story isn't complex, which is rare in any anime nowadays. The character is definitely an interesting one, dark and mysterious he plays the perfect role for this Gothic anime. This may not be the anime to see if you're trying to find a DVD to experiment and decide if Anime is something you really want to delve into. Diehard fans will be able to see the greatness in the story and the characters. It's not cheesy, the animation is pretty good for it's release date, and the characters are perfect. So, if you've been watching Anime for awhile now, and you enjoy dark adventures, without mindless Conan the Barbarian violence then you'll love this Anime. Also, the second is far, far better then the first. It's one of my all time favorite animes, but you'll have to watch both to fully follow the story. "good movie" this movie is cool and i liked it a lot if you haven't seen it then you should