#its hideyuki kikuchi

[grimvestige]

I finally got around to reading my Vampire Hunter D ebooks so I wanted to do a little fanart of everyone's favorite pretty dhampir~

#q #my art #vampire hunter d #gothic art #fanart #vampire #I tried my best to combine the nicest bits of his designs between bloodlust/amano/comics and I'm really happy with it #tho overall I wanted to get the feel of bloodlust ^^ #also the funniest fucking thing in the books is hideki's inability to refrain from EVERY character swooning over D in some way #edit: goddamnit i goofed the authors name I'm pretty sure #its hideyuki kikuchi #literally i forgot one character/syllable

[viralvava]

more vhd fic! this time its just a drabble collection, 10 of 100 words each :]

#vampire hunter d #vhd

[pencilxpaper]

Free Vampire Movies

I thought that maybe people might like a curated list of Free to view vampire media. I'll post some other lists or maybe individual reviews. To save space, the list is under the cut.

Der Vampyr, Marschner (1828 and 1980's)

https://youtu.be/-CdE8A3dtgs

I really wish this picture was of the vampire, but no, it's part of the opening sequence where the vampire gets his orders from Satan, but it is perfectly weird for the 80's. From the description: "This is an erotic English soap-opera version of Heinrich Marschner's famous work The Vampire." The original opera came out in 1828 (which is why it's first on the list), so many years before Bram Stoker's Dracula. If you can handle people singing constantly, this is a bizarre and amazing watch. The lyrics are often funny. They do a good job of making the vampire terrifying despite a low budget. Some nudity, but it's both men and women, so at least it's somewhat equal nudity. The ending… the ending is a spectacle.

Nosferatu (1922), featuring Type O Negative- https://youtu.be/PH7L4V-3VxA The CLASSIC Nosferatu with the goth metal band Type O Negative as the soundtrack. I think the movie is enhanced by the atmospheric metal. When I'm writing on this series, sometimes I just turn this on and listen to it while I write.

Dracula (1931)

https://archive.org/details/dracula-1931_202011

Available for free at The Internet archive. Here's the deal, I don't like this movie. I don't like the classic Dracula, but THIS MOVIE IS GORGEOUS in a way it shouldn't be. This movie, and its relatives, MADE the modern vampire and its aesthetics, and looking at this movie, it's not hard to see why. The graveyard. The wide shots. The castle. It's all amazing.

Vampire Hunter D (1985)

https://youtu.be/x235tSJcbGk

And Vampire Hunter D Blood Lust (2000)

https://youtu.be/tkPONNxgHag

The movies are based on the books written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and the very famous illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano. I picked up the omnibus Book one of the series at a local comic book shop last week, so it's still somewhat popular. Post-apocalyptic Vampire SiFi, where vampires are the nobility that feeds off the populace (possibly a commentary on the super-rich). The 1985 movie is not as good as the 2000 movie, but it's still charming as an 80's anime. You get to find out why he's called "D", and it introduces a lot of the basic concepts. Lost of gore, but it's anime gore, which I personally find easier to watch, but not everyone is like me.

I compiled this list for @rinniiart

#vampire #vampire media #Free vampire movies

[self-loving-vampire]

I'd consider Tsukihime to mostly be straightforward urban fantasy horror where the parts in the Tohno manor are gothic horror, but a lot of its inspirations were Hideyuki Kikuchi light novels like Wicked City and Demon City Shinjuku, and from what I can see of their adaptations, the protagonists of those works were straightforwardly uber-masculine powerhouses capable of fighting off anything that stood in their way.

One thing that is interesting to me is that while those are some of Nasu's influences, this description doesn't make those stories sound much like they are in the horror genre even though that is what they seem to be classified as.

From what I understand, that genre typically relies on vulnerability and disempowerment. While fiction doesn't scare me, some of the better horror I have engaged with (like Pathologic 2) has succeeded in creating such feelings. It doesn't generally put you in a situation you can just fight through (or at least not frequently).

Being able to handle any situation through your own power sounds like it would undermine that, but for a lot of people it doesn't seem to entirely do it in practice, even if they do have the power to easily destroy everything in their way.

For example, while Resident Evil 4 is considered far less scary than earlier games a lot of people still find parts of it to be very effective horror.

Anyway, I'd have to check those out to see what the specific parallels are but at first glance they seem meaningfully different.

[schwarzwaldcr]

𝐖𝐎𝐑𝐃𝐒 𝐓𝐎 𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄 𝐁𝐘

𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 𝟓 𝐒𝐎𝐍𝐆𝐒  𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔  𝐓𝐎  𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄.

► CLANN - Unseelie

► Carpenter Brut - Lipstick Masquerade

► Aviators - Zero

► Kiila - Howls the Wolf [Moll's Song]

► Two Steps from Hell - Step Into the Light

𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓  𝟓  𝐐𝐔𝐎𝐓𝐄𝐒  𝐓𝐇𝐀𝐓  𝐈𝐍𝐒𝐏𝐈𝐑𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔  𝐓𝐎  𝐖𝐑𝐈𝐓𝐄  𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑  𝐌𝐔𝐒𝐄.  

►  "[...]I will face God and walk backward into Hell." - Dril via Twitter

► "The sky was inky meat that night/The moon a swollen bone/That shone so bright/Its light revealed/That you were not alone." - Emily Carroll; Beneath the Dead Oak Tree

► "[...]Before long the scene would be touched with the flavor of a dream, and then vanish surely as any dream would on awakening." - Hideyuki Kikuchi; Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane

► "Streetlights shining where there are no streets, only forest and the ocean. They were once meant to light the way. Now shining just to shine." - Hitoshi Ashinano; Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou

►  "Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf?" - Disney; The Three Little Pigs

tagged by: @r-edfield [thankee much dearheart~] tagging: @adversityfought / @virus-borne || @perceiivent / @sinshosted || anyone else who wants to, i tag you!

#A Game of Tag #this was fun though it took a fast second to find decent quotes haaa #music was easy though

[spdk1]

REVIEW: Vampire Hunter D - Tale of the Dead Town (1986)

A Novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi (Author), and Yoshitaka Amano (Illustrator) It’s been a while since I’ve read one of these Hideyuki Kikuchi Vampire Hunter D novels, and with a consistent release schedule of almost one a year for forty years, I better get a move on, or I will be 85 by the time I “get caught up”! 1986’s Tale of the Dead Town is the fourth book in the long-running series, and like its…

View On WordPress

#book #book review #books #Hideyuki Kikuchi #horror #novel #sci-fi #science fiction #Vampire #vampire hunter #Vampire Hunter D #vampire-fiction #Vampires #Yoshitaka Amano

[dhampir72]

As someone who’s

- love Sydrian since the moment I read both series in 6-7th grade

- and Yknow probably reread Bloodlines at least once a year since.

- …and spent much of the pandemic in my 00Q phase, both here and on tumblr.

Landing on your blog was like having an immediate celebrity crush I swear…and also like it HASNT HELPED that the quality of the content you reblog on a general basis is also generally awesome. So yeah…gosh darn it you icon. Keep being you and consider this a reminder of how many silent/anonymous loves exist in the world.

Hi there, anon!

This is such a sweet comment, you have me blushing! Thank you! I'm glad you are enjoying my blog, with all its strange and random multi-fandom things :)

I don't really feel I'm worthy of a crush, especially a celebrity style crush, because while I am absolutely aboard the 00Q ship, I did have to look up Syndrian and Bloodlines, having absolutely no clue what these were referring to. I see that there are some characters in these books who are dhampirs (!!!) which has me very interested, because we don't see them a lot in fiction!

But these books were not the inspiration for my username, which originates from a Japanese series written by Hideyuki Kikuchi called Vampire Hunter D. (In fact, I didn't even know how to pronounce Dhampir properly for a long time, because I always saw it as ダンピール and was like "yeah seems legit"). The series started in 1983 and there are something like 40+ books that are translated into English now and the story is very compelling :) If you're interested, check out your local library to see if they have them. Books 1 and 3 are actually inspirations for the 1985 and 2000 anime movies respectively!

tl;dr I don't know anything about Bloodlines, but I'll check out the books, because I'm always looking for something new to read, especially when it comes to dhampirs! And if you have any other recommendations, please send them my way <3

Take care, my anonymous love <3 D

#anon ask #I'm really blushing I don't ever know how to handle compliments #will have to check out this vampire academy and bloodlines series #because i need more dhampirs in my life #also it's time for a VHD reread and rewatch it has been too long #queue branch

[mi6021poppyhodgson]

Dissertation Ideas.

Initial ideas:

·         Puppetry?

·         Backgrounds

·         The feelings associated with being lost.

·         The dark mysteries of horror literature – H.P. Lovecraft / Edgar Allan Poe / Hideyuki Kikuchi.

Stop motion films

 I feel with Most of these ideas that I could really research and understand them, the processes, and the elements within that relate to animation. However, I feel like most of them are quite generic and common research areas in the film industry. I could research into them and find an area of which I want to continue and adapt into a dissertation, but first I want to relate my personal attachment to these suggestions presented.

 Stop motion films:

Stop motion films for myself have been a common influence in my life. We have Aardman Studios who create many stop motion entertainment for children’s programs and films such as ‘Shaun the Sheep’, ‘Timmy Time’, ‘Wallace and Gromit’, ‘Robin Robin’ and many more.

Aardman isn’t the only stop motion studios I enjoy, other films I take much inspiration from include: The little Prince, Fantastic Mr. Fox, Coraline and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This Limited group alone show the great diversity of types of Stop motion as well as the contrasting genre types. I’m a great fantasy / horror lover so I would love to delve more into the Tim Burton area of Stop Motion.

But what question could I ask myself about stop motion? What would be an inspiring motion to follow for this film area?

What defines a stop-motion film?

What scales of stop-motion rigs are there?

Backgrounds:

Backgrounds are an important part of films in my opinion. They help identify the time of day, Era, Genre, Season, and other important elements that can be identified separately from the main story line. This is an interesting topic as they have introduced live backgrounds in series such as the Mandalorian. This is where they have huge screens on set that react and show real time locations in time with the acting.

I feel like It would be interesting to research into the meanings and hidden symbology in backgrounds. Or to research how real life locations can be used to influence and aid the process of world building. The above shot of the Millennium Falcon is actually filmed where I live, so it’s amazing to see how they’ve taken some basic shots of my town and changed it into this beautiful wild planet scene. 

How can we use real locations in the compositing of backgrounds for films?

Is using a real location true imagination in film?

Puppetry:

The one type of film that I must say is my favourite is Classic Puppet films. Labyrinth, The Dark Crystal, The Never Ending Story, The muppet movie, Alien and Star wars are a selection of my favourites. Even Harry potter had Puppets in it!

I think its the attention to detail in the puppets design that draws me to these films, for set expressions to be able to show a multitude in a small movement shows the skill these designers have. I find it really interesting however that do we call puppetry animation? Is the movement of these in-animate objects manipulated by hidden people counted as a style or type of animation? Or is it just its own subject? 

This really excites me to think of the potential of research I can make in this field and what other experts think. 

Can we classify puppetry as a form of animation?

What differentiates Puppetry from stop-motion animation?

Feelings of being lost or found.

A common theme that I’ve seen in films / games and other entertainment productions is the underlying story of ‘finding something’ or ‘being lost’. Why do we as an audience feel so connected to that feeling? Is it the sense of celebration and adrenaline in finding the answer / source / missing thing, or is it the grief and empathy of loosing something / someone / hopelessness. It has always peaked my interest that these two contrasting elements invoke such a powerful feeling with us. 

Emotion to me is the best way to get something to connect to an audience. We will feel the emotions that are relatable to us most in production and maybe that’s what drives us to either hate or love a piece of work. A film wont provoke a great response if the audience feels nothing, there will be no connection or emotion towards it. However, a film that pushes the boundaries of our emotions could also push people to hate or love it. I believe connection to the audience is vital to push the reality of the story line, the possible truth of it being a real thing. 

Why must we evoke such strong emotions in film?

Why do we as an audience enjoy the intense feelings manipulated by film?

[anhed-nia]

BLOGTOBER 10/3/2020: BLOODTOBER PROLOGUE #2 - VAMPIRE HUNTER D

This is the first animated movie to be featured in my annual Blogtober program! I went back through my tags to see if there was something I was forgetting, and other than a brief notice about Serial Experiments Lain, the only other exception is that apparently I once attempted an analysis of THE EMOJI MOVIE during my off-season. I couldn't bring myself to reread it, but I'm sure it was a thousand times more horrifying than a lot of what I watch every October. Sometimes I think that every year I should include one movie from outside the horror genre as a kind of theoretical exercise in the experience of horror, like THE EMOJI MOVIE, MEET THE FOCKERS, or SWEET NOVEMBER...but I digress. Today I'm making an only-slightly atypical selection from the anime demimonde: the genre-bending 1985 classic VAMPIRE HUNTER D.

If you were an American kid with the Sci-Fi Channel in the '90s, you probably have some potent memories of seeing little isolated, decontextualized pieces of the stylish, sophisticated, and often graphic animation being produced in Japan. Even all-ages fare like Dragon Ball and Sailor Moon looked markedly advanced to western eyes, featuring “adult” themes like homosexuality and mortality. But of course, this stuff paled in comparison with the borderline Lovecraftian anguish of AKIRA, or the existential angst of GHOST IN THE SHELL. Somewhere in between lay the exploitational thrills of scummy horror features like WICKED CITY and DEMON CITY SHINJUKU. One may not have noticed, at the time, that the latter two were adapted from pulp novels by Hideyuki Kikuchi--who also wrote the source material for VAMPIRE HUNTER D. This iconic sci-fi/fantasy/horror story has endured in the hearts of many for a variety of reasons, and to be completely honest, I did not accurately remember how weird it actually is.

First of all, VAMPIRE HUNTER D takes place deep in the future of the planet Earth--a fact that I had a very hard time wrapping my mind around, even upon this recent viewing. The world of the movie, which might as well be an alternate universe altogether, is dominated by mutants, monsters, werewolves and vampires. The latter are referred to as Nobles, ruling over an antiquated human serfdom who tend the land and provide their immortal overlords with food and entertainment to break up the monotony of their undeath. This interaction often produces mongrel bastards known as dhampir, and our hero is one of them. Known only as "D", this enormously powerful mystery man arrives at the feif of Count Magnus Lee, a "5,000 or even 10,000 year old--in any case, extremely old" vampire who has set his sights on his latest highly perishable human bride. D fights his way through hordes of squealing, gurgling monsters and new wave mutants to destroy the parasitic nobility, even though he has more in common with them than they initially realize.

I'm no anime expert, so I don't have much to contribute in terms of industry history or criticism, and I'll be brief in my analysis. The one thing that really surprised me about this revisit of VHD was its pastiche of european genre tropes. I don't even mean the obvious bodice-rippery flourishes that are a clear import from Hammer and Universal horror movies; I mean, there's something in VAMPIRE HUNTER D that reminds me very much of Heavy Metal magazine. Its blend of high fantasy and cyberpunk aesthetics, and its sexuality which skews a little sleazier than usual, are major contributors. But more than that, I couldn't stop thinking that there was something decidedly Jodorowskyesque about this production. The monolithic, black-clad hero, with his murky messianic origins, reminds me of both EL TOPO and THE HOLY MOUNTAIN, and the addition of a child disciple and a scrappy warrior woman complete the picture. The iconic look of VAMPIRE HUNTER D was established by Yoshitaka Amano, an illustrator best known for his work on the Final Fantasy series, whose gauzy gothic images have a distinctive european flair, seeming to owe as much to Moebius or Aubrey Beardsley, as anyone in the manga world. I wouldn't necessarily bet my bottom dollar that Amano was reading a lot of Heavy Metal, or watching a lot of psychedelic cinema at the time he illustrated Kikuchi's VHD novels, but let's just say it wouldn't surprise me.

#blogtober #2020 #anime #horror #vampire #sci-fi #fantasy #animation #yoshitaka amano #hideyuki kikuchi #toyoo ashida #heavy metal #alejandro jodorowsky #bloodtober

[recentanimenews]

Vampire Hunter D Will Be Reborn as Full-Cast Audiobooks

  Hideyuki Kikuchi's dark futuristic novel series Vampire Hunter D has taken many forms over the years: animated films, a video game, manga, and English-language comics, for starters. Next month, it will be reborn as an English language audiobook series from GraphicAudio.

  The company (with the tagline "A movie in your mind") specalizes in full-cast audiobook dramatizations with music and sound design. Vampire Hunter D will join the ranks of other Dark Horse adaptations in their catalogue, including issues of The Mask and X.

    So far, adaptations of the first three volumes have been announced: the original Vampire Hunter D (available December 15), Raiser of Gales (January 26), and Demon Deathchase (February 24). All three feature Yoshitaka Amano's iconic cover art, and will be available via the GraphicAudio Access™ app. CD editions of each release will be available the following month.

  This won't be the first audio outing for the series. There was a run of audio dramas in Japan, featuring many of the voice actors from the original film.

  GraphicAudio describes the first volume of Vampire Hunter D:

  12,090 A.D. It is a dark time for the world. Humanity is just crawling out from under three hundred years of domination by the race of vampires known as the Nobility. The war against the vampires has taken its toll; cities lie in ruin, the countryside is fragmented into small villages and fiefdoms that still struggle against nightly raids by the fallen vampires-and the remnants of their genetically manufactured demons and werewolves. Every village wants a Hunter—one of the warriors who have pledged their laser guns and their swords to the eradication of the Nobility. But some Hunters are better than others, and some bring their own kind of danger with them...

  Vampire Hunter D in anime form is currently streaming on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and other services. Dark Horse is currently printing the books in omnibus form.

  Source: @GraphicAudio on Twitter

    By: Kara Dennison

#Anime #News #Latest in Anime News by Crunchyroll!

[mybeingthere]

Yoshitaka Amano is regarded in Japan as nothing short of a master whose creations lie somewhere between fine art and Japanese anime, manga and video games.“All I need is a ray of light, music and pencils in my life. Happiness, for me, is as simple as that. Some people are more inspired by the night, but I prefer the day when the sun shines outside.”Born into a family of lacquer craftsmen in 1952 in Shizuoka, Japan, Amano has been fascinated with drawing from an early age.He is greatly influenced by traditional Japanese culture. But there was also the anime, manga, science fiction, games, art, drama and literature he was exposed to in his youth.All in some way helped form his unique style.At the age of 15, Amano joined the animation department of Tatsunoko Productions during its heyday.He he worked as character designer for such classic animations as “Science Ninja Team Gatchaman” and “The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee.”In the early 1980s, he began illustrating for Science fiction magazine SF and celebrated novelists Yumemakura Baku, Kikuchi Hideyuki, Tanaka Yoshiki and Kurimoto Kaoru.With unique artistic style and epic fantasy, he won the Seiun Award (the highest award for science fiction) four years in a row.

https://www.shine.cn/feature/art-culture/1906207023/

#yoshitaka amano #japanese art #japanese anime #japanese manga

[brokehorrorfan]

Vampire Hunter D will be released on Blu-ray in Steelbook packaging on May 12 via Sentai Filmworks. The 1985 anime film is based on the Japanese novel written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano.

Toyoo Ashida (Fist of the North Star) directs from a script by Yasushi Hirano (Dragon Ball). Kaneto Shiozawa, Michie Tomizawa, Seizō Katō, and Keiko Toda star.

Vampire Hunter D has been remastered in high-definition from the original elements. The press release notes “upgraded” audio tracks, although it does not specify what that entails or if it includes the English dub in addition to the original Japanese audio. No special features are listed.

For 10,000 years, Count Magnus Lee has walked the night, sustained by an unholy thirst for blood and an unending lust for human women. But when he tastes the sweet nectar running through Doris Lang's veins, the Count knows he has found more than his next meal: this is the woman he intends to claim as his next vampire bride. As the daughter of a werewolf hunter, however, Doris Lang is less than willing to step into the thrall of evil. And if she is unable to defend herself from the Count's nightmarish powers, she is fortunate enough to have found someone who can: the Vampire Hunter known as D. But D is no ordinary man, and signing up for his protection may carry a price of its own.

#vampire hunter d #anime #hideyuki kikuchi #yoshitaka amano #steelbook #manga #horror #sentai filmworks #dvd #gift #Toyoo Ashida #Kaneto Shiozawa #Michie Tomizawa #seizo kato #keiko toda #Yasushi Hirano #japanese film

[jmsebastian]

Vampire Hunter D’s Lone Video Game Adaptation

When people talk about PlayStation era 3D games being hard to go back to, Vampire Hunter D is the one I most often think about. Something of an alternate timeline version of the Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust animated film, the game has you play as the vampire hunter, himself. Throughout the adventure, you explore the castle Chaythe to rescue a woman, Charlotte, from having been kidnapped by the vampire lord, Meier Link. I say it’s an alternate history because while the general plotting of the film (itself an adaptation of the third novel in Hideyuki Kikuchi’s series), the events of the game take place entirely within Chaythe, whereas only the last act of the film is set there.

The decision to condense the story to all take place within the castle is a brilliant move and makes for an interesting and thematically consistent setting. You work your way from room to room, finding items and solving puzzles to open up more of the castle to explore. All the while you must slay or evade enemies that stand in your path and battle the occasional boss. If any of this sounds familiar, it should. It’s the formula for the classic survival series, Resident Evil.

Vampire Hunter D does its best to disguise itself as a survival horror game. It has pretty much all the staples. There’s the spooky mansion setting, the keys and puzzles, the backtracking through areas to open previously inaccessible locations. There are pre-rendered backgrounds and static camera angles. Last and for many, definitely least, there are tank controls.

My feeling is that tank controls are perfectly fine for survival horror games where the player has no control over the camera. It makes sense that your directional movement would be absolute rather than depend upon the view of whatever area you happen to be in. The drawback, of course, is that precision movement is difficult and you often move a bit slower because it takes time for your character to turn to face whatever direction you want to go.

Vampire Hunter D is not a survival horror game. It’s an action adventure game. It’s an action adventure game with platforming, fast paced melee combat, and plenty of ways to keep yourself fighting fit in the form of consumable items. None of these things are made easier by way of tank controls and they are, by far, the biggest barrier to entry for players who might have otherwise really taken to the game. All it takes is getting stuck against a wall while being wailed on by an enemy or missing a jump due to a poor camera angle to sour the overall experience.

The game seems to be aware of just how inappropriate tank controls were as well, as other aspects of the game seem to exist purely to compensate for the movement. The platforming I mentioned earlier rarely has you leaping over dangerous gaps. Even the instances that do only set you back a few seconds or reset the current room with no penalty to your health points. Really, most of the time you just need to hop onto a box or a knee high ledge, which kind of makes you wonder why they bothered including it.

Tank controls really have their limitations in the combat. To compensate, by default, you lock onto the nearest enemy when you draw your sword. This alters your movement a bit as pressing left or right will have you circle around your target in that direction rather than having you turn your body to face that direction. This works fairly well in rooms that provide good visibility and aren’t too cramped, but can be pretty useless in tight hallways or if you're trying to work around more than one enemy at a time. Again, the developers at Victor Entertainment Software seem to have been aware of these limitations and generally limit the places where you face multiple enemies to specific sections of the game, many of which you can just run past if you need to. It’s no surprise that the bosses are all fought in more open rooms where you have ample room to run around, side step, and circle around while locked on.

It’s a shame that tank controls were what we were given. I understand why it was designed the way it was, but if any game could have been improved by having more standard 3D movement enabled, it would be this one. Perhaps most amusing is that there is analog support, but like Resident Evil, all it really does is map the tank controls to the analog stick rather than give you true freedom of movement we’ve become accustomed to over time. I have plenty of complaints about the movement in Devil May Cry, but something like that would have been a huge improvement over what ended up in the game.

While the movement controls may be frustrating during combat, the mechanics around combat are actually where Vampire Hunter D shines the most and why I think it’s a game worth exploring despite its shortcomings. Being half vampire, D’s prowess depends upon having a steady supply of blood. That vampire power is represented by the VP bar under your HP.. Overtime, your VP depletes and causes your attack power to drop and your magical abilities to weaken. You can recover VP in two ways: consume blood capsules that you find throughout the castle or be splashed with the blood of enemies you strike with your sword.

I love this idea because it provides incentive to engage in combat when you would otherwise be tempted to just run past as many enemies as possible. If you avoid fighting, you have to consume blood capsules. While they aren’t exactly in short supply on the normal difficulty, they are best served for boss fights or other tough enemies so that you can recover some health and your VP and deal as much damage as possible.

It’s not as balanced as it really should be, unfortunately. Your VP drains at a pretty slow rate, but it’s also hard to get back up to a high level through the blood splashes alone. It would have been interesting to have the meter drain more quickly, but also refill more quickly, adding a bit of urgency to the game and really encouraging you to take down any monsters you come across.

A similar mechanic is used for D’s magic abilities, which are made possible thanks to the parasite that lives within his left hand. There is an option to heal, an attack based magic that surrounds enemies and drains them of health, and the ability to absorb the souls of enemies. That soul absorption replenishes your magic meter, so while you want to refill your VP with sword strikes, you also want to make sure you inhale as many enemies into Left Hand as possible as well.

Again, this is a mechanic designed specifically to encourage killing the monsters in the castle and it’s a perfectly reasonable goal for an action game. Unfortunately, it has a bit of an opposite effect as absorbing enemies is not a guarantee and you’re likely to take damage when attempting it since you need to be in close proximity for it to work. If you try it and you can’t absorb one, you’ll almost certainly take a hit that would have otherwise been avoidable. It’s a shame the VP and magic replenishing systems weren’t all that complementary as the intent behind them really has a lot of merit and offers a glimpse at what could have been complex and satisfying combat mechanics.

If you know what you’re doing, Vampire Hunter D is a fairly short game with a fair bit of replay value, as there are three endings you can achieve depending on a handful of choices you can make. I find the story to be one of the more compelling things about the game. It’s told through standard in-engine cutscenes and they’re acted fairly well (several of the actors from Bloodlust reprise their roles). Your enjoyment of that probably largely depends on whether or not you’re already a fan of the Vampire Hunter D source material or your feelings on sci-fi action horror in general, but there’s a lot to like about it.

I feel a bit bad for those who just aren’t able to enjoy older games due to feeling archaic. I can’t really defend the issues Vampire Hunter D has, as there are legitimate limitations and design choices that make the game frustrating at times. However, I also don’t want it to be dismissed as an old game not worth playing. You can tell just how much the people who made it really seemed to care about making it true to the Vampire Hunter D series. It’s about as faithful a video game adaptation as could be and one well worth spending some time with.

#vampire hunter d #sony playstation #resident evil #survival horror #majesco

[weirdletter]

Vampiric: Tales of Blood and Roses from Japan, edited by Heather Dubnick, Kurodahan Press, 2019. Cover art by Kojima Ayami, info: kurodahan.com.

Japan has always had its own vampire tradition, and has eagerly naturalized Western vampires and vampire literature to produce exotic new hybrids and species of horror, of terror, and of sensual, exquisite beauty. Here are a few of their masterpieces. The Japanese word for vampire is kyūketsuki, which translates literally to “blood-sucking monster,” but the literary tradition is far, far more complex. The practice of Buddhism permeates Japan, and burials are almost always by cremation... leaving the Count and his relatives with no coffins to sleep in! But there is more than one way to sip a little blood, as these authors reveal. Thanks to Bram Stoker, Christopher Lee, and countless others who have popularized the Western vampire, modern Japanese authors have an extensive range of traditions and tales to weave into their own creations.

Contents: Introduction — Raechel Dumas A Cultural Dynasty of Beautiful Vampires: Japan’s Acceptance, Modifications, and Adaptations of Vampires — Shimokusu Masaya Blue Lady — Inoue Masahiko, translated by Neil Webb Kingdom — Asukabe Katsunori, translated by Laura Woolley Dominguez The Stone Castle — Kikuchi Hideyuki, translated by Jonathan Bunt The One-Legged Woman — Okamoto Kidō, translated by Neil Webb Vampire — Hikage Jōkichi, translated by Jo Ash The Crimson Cloak — Asamatsu Ken, translated by Aragorn Quinn Vow — Sunaga Asahiko, translated by Irit Weinberg The Husk Heir — Kajio Shinji, translated by Ben Cagan A Piece of Butterfly’s Wing — Kamon Nanami, translated by Angus Turvill Unnatural — Okuda Tetsuya, translated by Hayley Scanlon Paradise Missing — Iino Fumihiko, translated by Lucy Galbraith Dracula’s House — Fukuzawa Tetsuzō, translated by Irit Weinberg Birth of a Vampire — Konaka Chiaki, translated by Lauren Barrett Halvires — Mikawa Yū, translated by Jonathan Bunt Parasol — Inoue Masahiko, translated by Yan Yijun Contributors

#book #anthology #weird fiction #horror fiction #vampire fiction #vampires #japan horror #japanese vampire

[alexponard-blog]

GOGO ANMIE

The Top Notch 10 Best Action Anime Movies

Anime Movies are a real delight to Watch. They combine all the real world elements similar to a motion picture. Yet, the absence of real-life people or real-life objects is what makes them so unique and also powerful. Like actual movie, anime Movies are of similar length and have a solid story to support the playtime. While anime Movies can be of various styles, we will talk about only the Action anime Movies here. The standard essence of Action anime films is so profound that they have actually quickly booked their place in the hearts of anime enthusiasts. As my top anime suggestions, allow us go over the 10 best Action anime Movies, which have actually been marked as standards and also trailblazers by anime fans and have actually given that developed a cult following them. For more info visit https://gogoanime.digital/other-brand/spacemov

Akira

Well, the motion picture Akira is what's being spoken regarding. Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, that developed the manga of the same name, Akira is an impressive animated scientific research fiction Action cult traditional film, which takes location in an advanced Neo Tokyo. It is thought about as one of the best science fiction Movies to ever be made as well as is certainly one of the top Action anime Movies.

Ghost in the Covering

Ghost in the Covering is an anime cult Action film guided by Mamoru Oshii based on the manga of the very same name by Masamune Shirow. It is taken into consideration to be a benchmark for scientific research fiction movies as well as is thus rightfully identified as one of finest Action anime Movies.

Vampire Seeker D: Bloodlust

The movie complies with the story of D, a bounty seeker employed to restore a girl called Charlotte, who has been abducted by an honorable vampire named Meier Web link. The movie is based upon the novel Devil Deathchase, the 3rd in Hideyuki Kikuchi's Vampire Seeker D collection. If you are a fan of hardcore anime Action, then this film will certainly satisfy you with lots of satanic force slaying Action.

Ninja Scroll

A seriously acclaimed Japanese animated Action film, launched in 1993. Ninja Scroll shows the events of a bloody fight, embeded in feudal Japan, in between a ninja as well as the eight evil ones of Kimon. The movie was written and also guided by Yoshiaki Kawajiri. The anime motion picture has acquired tremendous appeal as a result of its narrative style of the journey of the protagonist Koichi Yamadera, a ninja, whose character is inspired from the Japanese individual hero Yagyu Jubei Mitsuyoshi.

Princess Mononoke

If you just expect plenty of Action in a movie, after that Princess Mononoke is your choice of an activity anime motion picture. Princess Mononoke is thought about to be one of the best Action anime Movies up until today.

Cowboy Bebop - The Motion picture

Hardcore anime enthusiasts are well accustomed with the name "Cowboy Bebop" for the television series, that ran with 1998-1999 as well as won million hearts with its 26 restricted episodes. Based upon the very same storyline in between episode 22 as well as 23, Cowboy Bebop - The Motion picture follows the story of the room fugitive hunter team on the spaceship named Bebop, appointed to remove a chemical terrorist threatening to damage the world Mars with an unidentified pathogen. Directed by Shinichiro Watanabe as well as generated by Sunlight Studios, Cowboy Bebop is taken into consideration a classic on the planet of Action anime Movies.

Road Competitor II - The Animated Motion picture

Ever before pictured to recreate a game right into a flick? The developers of this flick did this point actually by making a movie based on the prominent combating video game series of the very same name. The movie is composed by Kenichi Imai and guided by Gisaburo Sugii. It adheres to the tale of Ryu, a road fighter handling a criminal offense lord named Bison, who is curved to beat the biggest competitors of the world. The movie has a huge following since as well as functions as a motivation for the live-action film starring Van Damme.

Appleseed

Produced by "Ghost in the Shell" fame, Masamune Shirow, Appleseed is a computer system animated sci-fi Action movie featuring some appealing computer animation. The movie rotates around the former Deunan Kute, who gets started to recover peace with her cyborg companion in a post-apocalyptic Optimistic city "Olympus", whose populace is composed of genetically customized clones called Bioroids and also human beings in about the very same percentages. The man-made Bioroids, who have little sensations like rage or worry, were developed with the purpose to balance the human culture as well as bring tranquility. However specific organizations protest it as well as wish to interrupt the balance as well as tranquility one more time. Appleseed as well as likewise its successor Appleseed - Ex-spouse Machina are most definitely should expect all followers, that love Action, scientific research fiction as well as legendary soundtrack.

Sword of the Unfamiliar person

Sword of the Complete stranger is guided by Masahiro Ando as well as generated by Bones, the very same studio co-producing the timeless Cowboy Bebop - The Motion picture. The movie follows the story of a young child called Kotaro and also his dog as they satisfy a retired ronin, Nanashi, while running away from mystical swordsmen hunting them for mysterious factors. Sword of the Unfamiliar person is my top anime pointer.

[kaiserdingus]

Night of the Vampire Robots - 1995 Cartoon Network Retrospective

Most anime fans in the US over the age of 25 will tell you they got hooked on anime through Cartoon Network’s Toonami block, which aired weekdays from 1997 to 2004. The block would introduce staples such as Dragon Ball Z, Sailor Moon, and Gundam to a national audience, as well as more obscure shows like Tenchi Muyo and Outlaw Star. Toonami was created by Williams Street, Cartoon Network’s in-house production studio responsible for Space Ghost Coast to Coast and Adult Swim.

Well before the launch of Toonami and its success as the premiere anime destination on cable TV in the early 2000’s, Cartoon Network broadcast three animated movies in a one-night event called Night of the Vampire Robots. The marathon aired on Saturday night, January 28th 1995, and featured three anime movies from Streamline Pictures: Robot Carnival, Vampire Hunter D, and Twilight of the Cockroaches. These movies weren’t new, they’d previously been released in theaters and had previously aired on the Sci-Fi Channel, as well as TBS and TNT.

Streamline Pictures were a small film distributor in the late 80’s and early 90’s who would release anime movies and OVAs to American theaters. Founded by Harmony Gold’s Carl Macek and animation historian Jerry Beck, Streamline’s goal was to introduce Japanese animation to American audiences beyond poorly dubbed Saturday morning cartoons. They dubbed and released several noteworthy anime films in the early 90’s, including Kiki's Delivery Service, Akira, and Fist of the North Star.

Anecdotes from viewers who tuned in detail the marathon as being heavily edited, which isn’t surprising considering the mature content in Vampire Hunter D alone. The format of the marathon was similar to that of the Cartoon Network retrospective series Toon Heads. During commercial breaks an announcer would talk over clips from the movies and explain the cultural relevance of Japanese animation.

For this retrospective I watched Twilight of the Cockroaches on Amazon Prime Video, I watched Robot Carnival and Vampire Hunter D on VRV. These versions differ from the ones that aired on Cartoon Network, being uncut and more faithful to the original Japanese releases. 

Robot Carnival

Robot Carnival is a package film that was released as a straight to video animated film in Japan, but received a brief theatrical release in the US. It features nine short films centered around robots, some of which are full of action, others can be sad and introspective, and some can be funny and over the top.

The first thing I noticed during this movie was the beautiful animation. Each of the nine shorts is a work of art that could never be produced today. Japan's economy was booming in the 1980′s, resulting in a wave of great animation. Among the animators who worked on the film are Katsuhiro Otomo, creator of Akira, and Yasuomi Umetsu, creator of the Kite series. Only two of the shorts feature spoken dialog, the rest rely on visual cues and the soundtrack to carry the narrative.

The central theme is robots, with each short being about robots in one way or another. One short is about a man who creates a robot who yearns for affection, exploring the idea of what it means to be alive, or to be human. Another segment is a parody of World War 2 era Japanese propaganda films, taking place during the 19th century and features a giant Japanese mechanical wooden robot fighting an invading Western robot.

Vampire Hunter D

Vampire Hunter D is the least obscure of the three movies, having been widely available on home video and given a sequel in 2001. Its based on the popular book series by Hideyuki Kikuchi, and is credited as the first horror anime for adults to feature graphic violence and sexual imagery. This was the movie you didn’t want your parents walking in on while its on the TV.

D is a dhampir, a half-human/half-vampire, with a giant cross sword and a parasitic left hand with a sassy mouth. When the evil Count Magnus Lee begins hunting a towns woman named Doris, D is hired to protect the woman. The movie takes place in a far off future that resembles the late 19th century. Guns are actually high powered laser rifles, and the horses are cybernetic. Its alluded to, but not explained, that the vampires are actually aliens from another world who’ve settled on Earth.

For much of the movie D is seen struggling with his identity, as his father was a vampire and his mother was a human. The humans live in fear of the vampires, and anyone bit by one is cast out of society. D recognizes the suffering vampires have brought upon humanity and vows to protect humans from them. 

Vampire Hunter D was a minor hit in the US, prompting the creator to allow a sequel to be made with the West in mind. A PlayStation game would launch in 2000, followed by the sequel Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust in 2001. The books would eventually be translated and released in the US starting in 2005, and there were plans for a licensed American comic book that were canceled at some point.

Twilight of the Cockroaches

Twilight of the Cockroaches is a movie that blends live-action with animation, similar to Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The movie is about a colony of cockroaches who live in the apartment of a depressed man who can't be bothered to exterminate them. The cockroaches are depicted as cartoon characters with humanoid features, the humans are portrayed by live actors on a set.

The cockroach colony feeds off the unkempt nature of the man in the apartment. He orders take-out and leaves piles of uneaten meals on the counter tops and tables, creating a feast for the cockroaches he largely ignores. The younger cockroaches go out in the open without fear of being attacked, while the older cockroaches understand the need to stay in the shadows. The fears are eventually realized when the man starts dating a woman who isn't fond of cockroaches. In order to impress her, he agrees to clean the apartment and exterminate the roaches, leading to a war between the roaches and humans.

The story is an exploration of genocide from the perspective of the victims. It's true humans generally dislike cockroaches, but the movie presents them in a sympathetic light. The film is shown from the perspective of the cockroaches, showing the humans as larger than life figures. Common sounds the humans make, such as footsteps, boom with a loud intensity that help make the audience feel small.

Twilight of the Cockroaches was relatively obscure even in its time, though it did manage to influence later films. The 1996 MTV film Joe's Apartment was inspired by Twilight of the Cockroaches, boasting a similar plot about a society of cockroaches living in a man's apartment. Director John Payson has been open about taking inspiration from Twilight of the Cockroaches, and outside of the basic premise, the two are completely different movies.

Even though Night of the Vampire Robots was a one-night event, Cartoon Network aired the movies individually during the Summer of 1995. For three weeks in a row Cartoon Network would air each movie at 12:15 AM on Saturday night, during what they called Saturday Japanime. As far as anime for an adult audience is concerned, these would be the last until 2001 when Cowboy Bebop premiered along with the rest of the original Adult Swim line up.

Where to Buy

Robot Carnival (Amazon)

Vampire Hunter D (Amazon)

Twilight of the Cockroaches (Amazon)

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#Cartoon Network #Night of the Vampire Robots #Cartoon Network Anime #Toonami #anime #90's anime #80's anime #Robot Carnival #Vampire Hunter D #Twilight of the Cockroaches