Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust [Blu-ray]

Like a fine wine, they don't make them like this anymore.

I'm just happy to have it on Blu-ray.

I never read or heard of the original material, so I came to this with no expectations other than my general trepidation of anime.The first Vampire Hunter D film was forgettable--a kindness. I had to rewatch it to remember it at all. It was AWFUL. The script is poor. The lines are delivered with the thud of lines that were never read aloud until they recorded them. The enemies are boring to laughable and of no real consequence. Like most anime, the characters constantly explain to you what you just watched happen as if it was a radio show. Painful and difficult to enjoy the material at all.BLOODLUST feels much more cinematic despite certain lapses into anime tropes. First, there is a soundtrack that changes with the action the way an orchestrated soundtrack should. It is built for the movie, not created separately. The English voices are mixed for me. I don't feel some of them match the characters on screen at all, but that can be very subjective. They are a giant improvement over the first. They are distinct and the emotion in the voices is in sync with the visuals, script and the emotion of the scene.The story is interesting as are the characters and the monsters. Some are just frickin cool. Several of the villains are entertaining to watch with interesting powers and visual tricks. There are multiple scenes with cool ideas and stylish graphics and quality animation. The shots of the film feel as if they storyboarded this for a live action film. The "camerawork" was done by a true director of film. Varied and creative. Shots designed to be emotive and evoke tension, interest, and effect. For me this is one of the better combinations of high quality animation and an anime subject. I think it moves along well, without those dud scenes that you want to fast forward through. By no means perfect but creative, unique, memorable, entertaining and with some emotional weight to the story. The ending is a bit heavy handed.I immediately watched this one again when it ended.There is another movie struggling to be made and there are a number of people from this production in that one, so I hope, if it ever gets made, it will follow the quality of this one, and not regress to the first.Now, I am not a fan of Anime, never have been, and probably never will be. Japanese animation was great back in the 80s. But they learned to cut quality for financial efficiency. Anime is filled with still frames with a sliding or flashing background, or just a tiny mouth flicking between two positions. Then you get panning of a still picture. The frankenstein walk where the transition of the leg is super quick followed by a paused stance, then super quick movement of the other leg. Long fixed shots are framed with minimal detail, or extreme wide shots with very little moving within them. These aren't artistic choices to tell a better story--these are frame reductions techniques to reduce how many frames get drawn by real animators. When you are accustomed to quality animations, these all look bad. Stylistically, there are the little whispering mouthed and big screaming mouthed characters which stay the same size and shape regardless if they are whispering or screaming, happy or sad. The giant bubble-eyed girls who all look like toy dolls mixed with the slot-eyed characters. The English voiceovers that don't match the visual expression or action. Characters screaming or shocked when the on-screen doesn't appear either. Couple that with the repetition of those styles for so many of the characters from series to series and I struggle to watch 98% of what the anime industry cranks out.This was such a welcome surprise.

This is still a great anime after 25 years and it turned out great on Blu Ray.

Arrived quickly and in good condition.

When I was ten or eleven years old, I remember the first Vampire Hunter D film being on the shelf at the local VHS rental store. I was very captivated by the dark and stylish cover, but when I rented it, it didn't have a huge impact on me at the time. As I got older I became a cinephile and when an anime film was listed on a "best films" list, I'd usually check it out even though I'm not really into anime. Anyway, the first film was highly regarded and appeared on a few "best of" lists (mostly due to its historical importance). I purchased it and thought it was okay. This sequel is often considered a huge improvement on the first film, so I purchased it. It's certainly not Akira or on the level of any Miyazaki anime, but it's beautifully animated and the characters making up the opposing vampire hunter squad are well-realized and so much more realistically complicated than your average Disney "hero." It's a decent film and it's nice to see foreign anime where a complex reality is presented with no clear cut "heroes" and "villains." The plot and motives of the characters here are never black and white (which is probably why foreign children are so much more intelligent than American children whose brains are rotted by simplistic Disney garbage). If you enjoy anime, I'm sure you'll find this one entertaining, but after I eventually get the original The Ghost in the Shell, I think I'll be finished with anime as it's just generally not my thing (even though it is ALWAYS better than ANYTHING Disney does).

I stumbled across this anime in a social network.The story is simple, with somewhat of a twist, but effective in the end. The main character, 'D', albeit simple as well, remains effective within the storytelling. Main 'Antagonist' and his motives were actually unexpected. Look, I watched this movie while doing a pelotón workout. But I had to stop and finish it the way it was intended. The real protagonists of this movie are the art with its hyper stylized gothic characters and architecture, the voice acting is amazing, and my god, the animation; I was not expecting animation of this quality from what is now a vintage movie. Geez; I can only hope they do produce a sequel or a TV series based on the original source material.

I saw this movie as a kid and it was so nice to finally find this movie again!! Auto was good, has subtitles, yes I need them to hear I'm at that age lol. The video was so good as well. I couldn't have been any happier to have this in my collection!