May Anime Forever Drift Through the Eternal Shadow of ‘Vampire Hunter D’

Whenever retro anime of the metal-as-hell variety makes the rounds on social media, it never fails to leave me in awe of the artistry its creators mustered back in the day. Think Bubblegum Crisis, Demon City Shinjukuand Wicked City—all certified classics that’d rightfully make any old-head anime fan get on their soapbox and wax poetic about them as if they were the fire Prometheus stole from Olympus.

But of all the old-school anime whose titles serve as diamond tests for an anime fan’s taste, the ones that endure are the vampiric epic Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and its less-discussed prequel film, Vampire Hunter D.

Having recently given them a back-to-back rewatch (a year late from the latter’s 40th anniversary, oops), I was left with the takeaway that everything I’ve ever found cool in anime owes a huge debt to Vampire Hunter D for doing it first.

While everyone and their mother has heard of Studio Madhouse‘s 2000 film, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlustnot many people are aware that it’s the sequel to an even older 1985 OVA, Vampire Hunter D. In all fairness, the gravitational pull of Bloodlust‘s gothic glory—a tone Madhouse remains the undisputed king of to this day—would make it easy for anyone to forget that there was a film before it. Still Studio Live and Ashi Productions’ joint effort to bring Hideyuki Kikuchi and legendary artist Yoshitaka Amano‘s 1983 novel to life is every bit as deserving of the flowers its sequel often receives as a cultural reset in dark fantasy anime.

Vampire Hunter D tells a tale every fantasy fan is overly familiar with by now. It follows D, a gravely voiced, mild-mannered dhampir vampire hunter wandering the land clad in a brimmed cap and a huge cloak, taking odd jobs that invariably lead to him fighting mutants and his own kind. With vampires forever being a vehicle for psychosexual themes, Vampire Hunter D sees D take on a contract from a girl named Doris, who’s been claimed by a vampire noble and shunned from her town. While all of this sounds like the makings of some ye olde tale from centuries ago, Vampire Hunter D actually takes place 10,000 years in the future, creating a visual melting pot where cyberpunk imagery is in the same frame as high-fantasy weaponry.

What I found exceedingly charming about Vampire Hunter D is how it exemplifies the growing pains of animation in the mid-’80s, a period when dual tones of whimsy and macabre storytelling coexisted within the same work. Vampire Hunter D had the feel of a Saturday-morning cartoon—a fact I was tickled by, knowing the darker reputation of its successor. I was so disarmed by the OVA’s tone that I’d almost forgotten D doesn’t travel alone. He’s got a companion in his sentient demonic left hand, who, whenever he isn’t sucking victims into its gaping maw, is yapping endlessly, like the Donkey to his Shrek.

That’s not to say that the prequel film is kid stuff. Far from. Sandwiched between the whimsy are bloody wipeouts from villains and sprinkles of mild nudity. But mostly, I found myself laughing at the OVA preceding D resisting his vampiric and manly urges with a scene where he’s honk-shoo-mimimi-ing on a brutalist couch. Still, it’s a good, fun time with a simple story whose score and psychedelic, speed-line-heavy action make for a fun watch (on Hidive for those curious).

Double featuring Vampire Hunter D and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust was comparable to jumping from the OG Mobile Suit Gundam to Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. That’s to say Madhouse went absolutely crazy with it.

There’s no elegant place to wedge new praise for Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust 26 years after everyone’s already carved its legend into stone, but here are my two cents: Bloodlust is to dark-fantasy anime what Batman: Mask of the Phantasm is to the Caped Crusader’s mythos. It’s a top-five anime film, full stop, and everyone owes it to themselves to watch it. Though I’d argue double featuring is the optimal way to experience the merits of what both works were going for and how they harmonize as timeless adaptations.

Where the ’85 OVA plays a pretty paint-by-numbers tale in which D is contracted to rescue a fair maiden from the infernal clutches of an ancient vampire, Bloodlust unspools that setup into something far more intricate. This time, the victim consents to her unholy union, turning its romance into a thorny Greek tragedy. And that emotional complexity is made all the more exciting by the inclusion of a badass troupe of neo-futuristic bounty hunters racing against D to save his charge first, alongside Carmilla, whose looming presence warps the story into something even darker and more decadent, to the point that it can’t be contained on Earth.

What we’re left with is absolute cinema whose shadow the anime industry may never escape from, and I’m not sure it wants to. And honestly, I can’t blame it. Bloodlust absolutely rips.

In my humble estimation, Vampire Hunter D‘s rule of cool acted as a paradigm shift in anime and forever serves as the inception point of rad about shows we love today—whether it be the tone in Powerhouse Animation’s Castlevania and Castlevania Nocturne series, the futuristic mix of dark-fantasy aesthetics in Devil May Crythe yokai-slaying of Inuyashaor even the psychosexually indulgent themes of shows like Bastard!!: Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy. Hell, I even feel D’s whole demeanor in The Witcher‘s Geralt of Rivia whenever he sheepishly accepts a job. Unfortunately, its status as a seminal work has also wormed its way into being a ground for training AI to “democratize art,” which sucks shit, but I digress.

Despite his appearance, D isn’t the kind of protagonist who resents being a hero. He’s a tortured soul, sure—a centuries‑old wanderer carrying the same burden Blade does—but what’s refreshing is that neither incarnation of him is jaded. And despite how vastly different the two films are (especially the thorny, Romeo and Juliet‑coded romance at the heart of Bloodlust), they both circle back to the same emotional truth: D’s journeys, no matter how dark, always end on a quietly heartwarming note.

My favorite part about double featuring these films is that they both end on the same signature image of D riding off into the horizon after receiving a simple, sincere thank‑you from the youngsters he’s saved. He even throws them a subtle smile that lands like godrays peaking through clouds after a storm. It’s bittersweet, but it’s honest. And it’s proof that the cool factor of Vampire Hunter D isn’t just aesthetic to ape off of in perpetuity; it’s the tide that lifts every dark‑fantasy anime that followed in its wake.

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