Forum - View topicREVIEW: Vampire Hunter D Blu-Ray
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Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18230 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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It may not be so much that you're hard to please, JaggedAuthor (although I suppose that could be the case?), as that you're just running into the common phenomenon of not being able to fully appreciate a title because you're not experiencing it at a time when it was on the cutting edge. I think that very strongly applies to VHD, and to a lesser extent the other ones you mention. (Although honestly, I still think the concepts in GitS and the animation in Akira set them apart for all-time standards.)
Another big example of this that I point to is Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. Listen to that today and it doesn't seem like anything all that remarkable (although I do think it stands the test of time on its own merits), but listen to it back in the early '90s and it's a song that made people stop and turn heads because it was so different from the prevailing rock sound of the time. |
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Marzan
 Posts: 515 |
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Spot on, Key. One has to take into account the time and context some of these films/OVA came out. I'm pretty sure most of the stuff done by let's say KyoAni, will probably get a lot of laughs by anime viewers twenty years from now. |
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JaggedAuthor
 Posts: 981 |
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Good points all around. Also, at the time, I may have been a little too young to fully appreciate certain elements of VHD. |
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AnimeLordLuis
 Posts: 1626 Location: The Borderlands of Pandora |
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good review I am going to check this ova out with the new dub.
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Ulinox
 Posts: 687 |
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These movies are so great. It always baffled me that they never continued the series with more movies or an anime remake. The books have enough story to fill just about 10+ anime seasons of this, don't they?
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the green death
Posts: 128 |
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Being an 18 year-old, hungry-for-anime,violence loving comic nerd in 1992 when this first came out on VHS in the states, my heart will never feel anything less than love for this feature. I also really like D's Clint Eastoowd, "Man with No Name" vibe, it's an archetype I dig.
That said its been over 20 years since I've last seen it, so how much I would enjoy watching it these days is questionable. Still I may buy the new bd in honor of young me. |
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TurnerJ
Posts: 481 Location: Highland Park, NJ |
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Opinions may vary on the matter (on Amazon, Streamline loyalists are napalming it), but I personally think this is a much better executed dub than the Streamline dub overall. The performances and the writing just sound so much smoother and less stilted. |
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walw6pK4Alo
 Posts: 9322 |
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Going back to my earlier point, even taking 1985 anime productions into context, VHD85 isn't really that visually arresting when compared to contemporaries Megazone 23 Part I, Area 88, or Genmu Senki Leda. Coloring all seemed mostly flat and details looked lacking, more like what you'd see in high budget TV productions. I've been very impressed by what remastering can do to some early and pre-bubble anime (Genma Taisen, Cobra), but VHD just wasn't riding that money wave quite yet. Though, taken in context with just the whole slew of anime coming to the west in the 90s, I'm not sure I'd have been impressed by it either when it's up against AKIRA, GitS, or any of those Kawajiri productions like I'd have watched on Saturday Morning Sci-Fi in 1997. I think VHD85 is kept around in people's minds because it's invariably tethered to Bloodlust. |
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Key
Moderator
Posts: 18230 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
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While this may be partly the case, don't forget that it is also a cult classic with fans beyond the normal anime fandom range. And it does legitimately have that "groundbreaking" tag. |
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Redbeard 101
Oscar the Grouch
Forums Superstar  Posts: 16941 |
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There was an announcement just recent that a new Vampire Hunter D tv series is in the works. I suppose it would be in pre-production right now. I'll have to search for the article. |
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enurtsol
 Posts: 14795 |
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And that's why VHD:Bloodlust was made with Westerners in mind, because the original VHD laid the groundwork in the West. Without that popularity, Bloodlust wouldn't have been made. |
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walw6pK4Alo
Posts: 9322 |
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But we're now 15 years after Bloodlust, so what's more prominent to fans and what they go after first has most definitely reversed. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2229 |
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It is, which is the POINT of him. He's a descendant of the Sanjuro/Man With No Name archetype, a lone wanderer shrouded in myth whose past is alluded to in bits and pieces, but you never get the full picture. It's why people don't get too deep into the backgrounds of guys like Golgo 13 and James Bond. They don't really do anything for the character and at this point they've been around for so long that any background could never live up to expectations and would in fact detract from the character. D is more of a guide than anything, showing the world of the Frontier, its tragedies, and its triumphs in the face of overwhelming odds as well as the remnants of super-civilizations that grew haughty, collapsed, and are all but extinct in the case of the Nobility. |
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MrBonk
Posts: 192 |
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Synthesizers are not cheap. Many of the Synths used in awesome soundtracks like this one cost thousands these days. Synth music is vastly over generalized about. |
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Desslok
Posts: 179 |
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Damn shame about the Streamline dub - it might be the nostalgia talking, but I enjoyed it from back in the day. Carl may get a lot of stick for what he "did" to anime, but I still liked his work.
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