A second adaption of Hideyuki Kikuchi’s stories of a half-human, half-vampire (dhampir) bounty hunter of monsters, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust premiered in 2000 at the Fantasia International Film Festival. And it honestly never left. For decades now, it’s been hailed as one of the greatest anime movies ever. So much so that it was brought back to theaters for a limited run on February 28 and, as of this writing, is still playing in selected Tokyo and Osaka cinemas. What does it take for a non-Ghibli anime movie to stay relevant for a quarter of a century? Let’s find out.
Allowing the Audience To Put the Puzzle Together
One of the worst things a filmmaker can do is not trust their audience. Every time you over explain things or rely too heavily on exposition, you indirectly insult the viewers’ intelligence. Writer-director Yoshiaki Kawajiri understands this and instead uses the medium of film to its full potential to tell the story of the titular dhampir D and his world. A quick intro tells us that Bloodlust takes place in a world full of vampires but we truly understand what that means after the opening scene where the camera pans across the rooftops of a gothic town absolutely packed with crosses.
The mesmerizing “sky cemetery” shot tells us that the people of this world live in constant fear of vampires. And the following scene where a passing vampire carriage warps the crosses into useless heaps of metal tells us that we are dealing with an immensely powerful antagonist. No words, just visuals that the audience is left to ponder on their own. The movie is full of moments like that. Though the world of Bloodlust looks vaguely Victorian with people (or vampires) moving around in carriages, those are being pulled by cyborg horses across abandoned highways, past crashed spaceships and crumbling satellite installations.
Through this, you can immediately tell that Vampire Hunter D takes place in a post-apocalyptic world. More details are available in the books but, in the movie, all we get are visual clues, allowing our imagination to fill in the blanks. That always results in a more engaging, more immersive movie-watching experience. The last movie that did anything even close to that is probably Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), today considered one of the best movies ever made. Maybe there is something to this whole “not underestimating your audience” thing.
A Tragic Protagonist
The titular D is an ageless, superpowered badass clad in black with a big sword plus most of the powers of vampires and none of their weaknesses (to an extent; he can’t be out in the sun too long but, hey, that’s true about humans as well.) And he is absolutely miserable about it. Underneath his stony expression and monotone voice, there is a creature in a state of quiet sorrow. Other half-vampire characters like Blade liked to talk about how their existence is pain, what with being of two worlds and belonging to none, but they still enjoyed things like the killings or alcohol or women. D isn’t interested in any of that.
This is all established in one line: “I don’t get to have a life.” D’s entire reason for being is to exterminate monsters like him because he sees himself and them as abominations. He takes money for his jobs, but he only seems to spend it on tools of his trade like buying a new horse. He’s especially motivated to go after the movie’s antagonist, the powerful vampire Meier Link, because he kidnapped a human woman and the thought of them making more dhampirs just doesn’t sit right with D.
Be it because of his centuries-long life, the loneliness, or his dual nature, the film’s half-vampire clearly feels he should not exist. When he off-handedly mentions how he’ll probably die one day at the hands of another hunter, he almost sounds happy about it. In short, D exists, but he doesn’t live because he’s constantly at war with himself. That’s gut-wrenchingly tragic but it makes for a fascinating protagonist.
Taking the Old and Familiar and Building on It
Every genre has its clichés. In a post-apocalyptic vampire-hunting movie like Bloodlust, you would expect, say, human vampire hunters to show up and interfere with D’s job, and they do appear in the film. They arrive in a Catholic Tank, a massive armored car with cross-shapes all over it and UV lights for conveniently toasting vampires. One of the hunters uses a giant pointy hammer to fight, and another one ends up shooting Meier with a bazooka. The vampire shrugs it off, though, because one of his powers is turning his cape into anything from an indestructible shield to a blade or a visual illusion.
It’s like Bloodlust was told that certain clichés were mandatory in its genre, so it agreed to use them but only after making them… more. More creative, more gory, more action-packed, and, consequently, more interesting. That’s why when the movie gives us, say, a werewolf character, he has X-ray vision and transforms into a man-wolf with a second, gigantic wolf maw where his stomach should be.
Incidentally, the abdomen-mouthed werewolf is escorting Meier and his human companion to a castle ruled over by a vampire ghost so they can borrow her rocket and go to a city of eternal darkness among the stars. Absolutely nothing in Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust has been done before. The movie is always building upon familiar elements to create something new and unforgettable, like space vampires or a rocket in the shape of a gothic cathedral/castle tower that’s one of the most beautiful things ever put in an animated movie. Many scenes from Bloodlust are, often looking more real than real life despite coming out the same year as the PlayStation 2.
With its looks, protagonist, and a story that treats audiences like adults while rejecting clichés in the best way possible, it’s no wonder that Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust is still beloved after 25 years. Hell, it will probably still be beloved after another 25. Let’s check back on it again then.
