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Directed by Yoshiaki Kawajiri
Produced by Madhouse
When the infamous vampire Meier Link kidnaps a beautiful young woman of noble heritage, a price is put on his head and the best bounty hunters are called in to retrieve the girl. One of these bounty hunters is D, a half man half vampire known for his ruthless efficiency.
Bloodlust is the sequel to 1995’s Vampire Hunter D and is by no stretch of the word a fantastic improvement over the original in every respect. The animation has been put into the talented hands of Madhouse [Ninja Scroll] and is all the better for it. Gone are the static and ugly backdrops of yore gone too are the silly character designs and laboured fight scenes. What we have here is a fusion of Goth chic, cyberpunk mechanical design and state of the art computer generated backdrops. This is a killer package at least in terms of aesthetics.
Not only has the animation been touched up ten fold, the character designs have also undergone a significant overhaul. Sure, D still looks like Robert Plant and the other characters still have an air of Wild West cum European designs. However this time around it’s all in Bloodlust’s favour and adds a certain sense of style to the proceedings. This distinct style sets Bloodlust apart from other vampire themed anime such as NightWalker, which to its credit is a good thing.
The storyline plays out like a black comedy, D is not alone on his quest and there is a psuedo rivalry between him and the Markus brothers [another group of bounty hunters] These brothers undergo many a misfortune and in a way this can be looked on in a humorous manner, however this can only be seen as humour if you’re a fan of Tarantino movies or schlock horror affairs and so it barely adds up to a point of merit.
Another thing that is definitely worth mentioning is the direction on show; the people at Madhouse really know how to do a brutally realistic fight scene well. In the same style as Ninja Scroll the battles are over before they begin this adds to the element of realism and some of the deaths are well, clever. Take for instance the vampire that can transport herself into the wood of a tree, she cannot be killed through conventional means and even decapitation cannot defeat her. So in a final act of desperation our heroine [Lela [the other main character]] throws a knife into the creature’s forehead the knife is hit by lightning and the creature is burnt to the ground. It is this imagination and scope in battles that keeps Bloodlust afloat throughout at no point does it suffer from the slightly imperfect pacing of Ninja Scroll or the frankly bewildering pace of AKIRA. Of course this helps propel this movie up the scoreboard to no end.
The music on offer is well suited to a vampire movie featuring organs and lots of choir singing and thankfully it does not suffer from the silly electronic music found in many a modern day anime.
The story itself also has a fitting climax with the love Meier has for Charlotte [the beautiful girl he kidnapped] shining through and eliminating the need for a real final showdown it all ends on a happy note [of sorts] and D is left to ride away and fight another day in true spaghetti western fashion. Truly Bloodlust is a movie that delivers in terms of action and overall development it may lack the cutting edge style of Hellsing but it certainly has more heart [not to mention a better ending!]
Eight out of Ten
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