11/18/2023 0 Comments Vampire hunter d 1985 vs bloodlustWhile Rei Ginsei’s teammates all appear in the movie (the giant, the glider, the spider-guy and the old witch), no such connection is made between them and Rei Ginsei. In the novel he traveled with a group of mutant mercenaries and was hired by Magnus Lee. Probably the biggest alteration is made in regards to Rei Ginsei. Some stuff gets left by the wayside, unfortunately. They condense it fairly well, save for a few issues (which I’ll address in a minute). I’ve read the first volume in Kikuchi’s novel series, of which this film is an adaptation, and I have to say that they adapted it quite nicely. Unfortunately, he just doesn’t get enough to say or do in this story for my taste. D’s left hand (referred to affectionately as the “countenanced carbuncle” in the novels) was one of my favorite characters in the books, and McConnohie (IMDB claims its Kirk Thornton, but McConnohie assures us it was himself) plays him with the right touch of humor and menace here. Count Magnus Lee (named after Christopher Lee, star of Hammer’s Dracula franchise) probably comes off the best, with Jeff Winkless’ subtle Romanian accent and deep, growling voice being suitably threatening. Michael McConnohie is a great voice actor and isn’t terrible as D, though at times he plays the role with a little too much energy, while D is supposed to be perpetually stoic. The dub is of fairly uneven quality, as with most dubs of Japanese animation from this time period. They adapt Yoshitaka Amano’s art from the novels admirably, perhaps making D look a little less feminine (which I approve of), and the rest of the art design is quite good as well. There’s so much blood and guts in this movie you can’t help but wonder if half the animation budget was invested in red paint. Director Toyoo Ashida loves the gore, there’s no doubt about that (this is the guy that directed the hilariously over-the-top Fist of the North Star animated film, after all). I don’t hold that against the movie, as it’s a product of its time, and this sort of style was very popular back then. Along with the likes of the The Guyver and Devilman it was one of my first forays into the world of Japanese horror animation from the ‘80s and I still enjoy it to this very day.Īshi Productions’ animation is noticeably dated. Hardcore epic horror-fantasy animation wasn’t exactly a genre that was in-demand over here, so when it finally arrived it knocked our socks off (or mine, anyway). Vampire Hunter D is one of the first of its kind, or at least, one of the first of its kind to ever set foot on American soil. The enigmatic half-vampire is soon put to work, as Magnus Lee unleashes his hordes of unsightly monsters upon Doris’ farm, including the space-warping boomerang-fighter Rei Ginsei (Kerrigan Mahan). To escape becoming one of the vampire’s brides, Doris enlists the aid of the dhampir vampire hunter known as D (Michael McConnohie). On the far reaches of the frontier, a beautiful young woman named Doris (Barbara Goodson) finds herself bitten by the five thousand year-old vampire Count Magnus Lee (Jeff Winkless). In the distant future, a desolated Earth is ruled over by vampires known as “Nobility”.
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