Hideyuki Kikuchi

This was a proper nostalgia kick for me, since I used to swallow these books as a teen. For every flaw of Kikuchi's, there was something that had me falling in love with the series all over again. It's common for people to claim poor translation, and I really can't comment on that, but there are times when the writing is so clunky it's downright hilarious; there are some things that a mistranslation can't excuse.

The appeal for me is largely in the combination of world-building, the unique show more character of D, and Kickuchi's endearing blend of multiple classic genres. The setting is just wonderful: a sort of post-post apocalypse. Initially, a nuclear war sets man back hundreds of years, at which point the vampires of legend rise out of the shadows and take advantage of a wounded world. They rule over the now archaic human civilisation as "Nobility" and, picking up where man has let off, develop a highly advanced technological society. Over the course of time, they reach out to the stars and colonise planets; there are wars with extra-terrestrials, mankind finds its spine and rebels, which eventually leads to an even more chaotic and broken world. The "Capital" is a remnant of this technological society that now remains clean of and protected from the Nobility, but everything outside of this is "the frontier", which functions much like the lawless West. Bloodthirsty nobles are presented as a dying aristocracy that get what they can take, but are prevented from regaining total control by the presence of skilled bounty/vampire hunters. D, the main character, is a half-breed and therefore an outcast to both Nobility and humanity. Nevertheless, he is one such skilled hunter who people will call on when convenient. Along with a left hand infected with a sentient parasite, D's cold demeanour and hinted origins make for a unique and mysterious protagonist.

This first book was never really a highlight for me in the series, and it looks like that's still the case. Regardless of the role which translation plays here, Kickuchi's prose comes across very, very bad in English. I don't remember it being quite this bad - I'm hoping it gets better. It's a bizarre mix of gothic atmosphere, flowery description, laughable dialogue and messy, chaotic action. It's sometimes effective, but more often childish, clunky and confusing. At its best, it can be accepted as fun, pulpy schlock, which sits right at home with its origins. Kikuchi wears his influences on his sleeve, dedicating the book to Terrence Fisher of Hammer Horror fame, and Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, notable in their roles as Dracula and Van Helsing, respectably. Shane, a quintessential Western, makes its presence known here also. The young boy in that is much like little Dan here, who idolises and looks up to D. Like the stranger, Shane, D waltzes into the lives of a family one day and acts as a mentor, protector, and even a farm hand. But he's only there for a season, and once he's saved the day, "off to the dusty trails" he goes.

Vampire Hunter D is pulpy because its influences are pulpy, but, if anything, it is elevated by its attempt to expand on its treading of cliches with big ideas and genre-blending. According to my memory, the stories do get better, and the world gets richer, but D remains as mysterious as ever. The book that started it all is an occasionally enjoyable - but mostly tolerable - foundation for a beautiful mess that would come after. I will be rereading the next book, but we'll see after that. My senses are still recovering from the assault. show less

This self-described Cthulhu Western is a very traditional western hammered into a very traditional Cthulhu mythos mold to make something uniquely fun. The writer wears his tastes on his sleeve, writing a western based deeply in the Hollywood 1950s movie tradition: famous gunslingers, nefarious train companies running honest farmers off their land, and deadly natives. Add to that Deep Ones, Cthulhu magic, and seemingly deathless villains, and you get quite an adventure.

This does mean, of show more course, that many of the more nuanced views that have started to shape the American view of the west, particularly recognition of the terrible treatment of Native Americans and Black people, are absent. The Native Americans in this story are enemies, if ones on perhaps more equal terms with the protagonists than was common in the old western tradition, and the only black characters are nameless servants.

One rather interesting element is the addition of the Japanese character Shinobi, and the recurring equation of his Japanese-ness with the Native Americans by malevolent white characters--it adds a wrinkle to the treatment of race in this one that is worth thinking about.

Overall, there is little original ground tread here, but the author makes no bones about it: This is a product of his love of old western movies, and his interest in Lovecraft's malevolent world building. If you go into it looking for that, you won't be disappointed. show less

I love the Vampire Hunter D movies and was really looking forward to reading these books. The atmosphere was great and D was as cool as ever, but the translation was kind of funky and it made the book a little difficult to read. I had a hard time following things sometimes and the book took longer to read than I would have guessed seeing as it's only 216 pages. I might read another of these books, but probably not for a while.

I have not finished this book, and probably won't. Why not? "She had lost herself in the beauty of the unmasked youth, with his thick, masculine eyebrows, smooth bridge of a nose, and tightly drawn lips that manifested the iron strength of his will. Set amid stern features shared only by those who had come through the numerous battles of a grief-ridden world, his eyes harbored sorrow even as they sparkled. That final touch made this crystallized beauty" Okay, you know, I think that's enough show more of that. This is our title character, Vampire Hunter D, who's being described here. The author spends *a lot* of time describing D. I would not be surprised if a good 5% of the book consisted of descriptions of his hotness. There's also the equally hot damsel-in-distress Doris, who gets described for another 3-4% of the book, what with her "gorgeous features like sunlight in summer" and an "untamed aura, unique to all things living in the wild." ("Unique to all things?" Does that work?) I'm sure that if the book ever gets to Count Lee and the other vampires who I know will be there because I saw the anime once, they will also get their own steaming piles of urple, thus leaving about thirty pages for plot. Wait, some of those are Yoshitaka Amano's illustrations - those are good, but you can probably find them on Google. Damsel-in-Distress Doris's personality (I'm going to rip off Shadeshark and acronym her DDD, I think. It sounds like she is one, too.) doesn't make a whole lot of sense. First off, she's hanging around in the middle of the road, encounters D on his robo-horse, and decides to pick a fight with him and steal his big pretty sword. ""I take it you're a drifter. You a hunter?" Her tone was defiant and full of daring, but also a touch worn. The rider sat on his horse but made no answer... [description of D I'm not typing out goes here. Also, that "but" doesn't belong there] ...Her large eyes fixed on the longsword strapped to his back. Limning an elegant arc quite different from the straight blades cherished by so many other Hunters, it spoke of the vast expanses of time and space its owner had travelled. [Because taste in accessories is the window to the soul.] Disconcerted, perhaps, by the lack of response, the girl shouted, "That sword purely for show? If so, I'll take it off you to sell down at the next open market. Set 'er down!"" Hence, the "Spunky" dimension of her character. And she has an accent or something, too! D fends of her attack all cool-like and tries the "keep walking and ignore her" bit again - but DDD's got a trick or two up her own sleeve, goshdern it! "but when they'd gone a few steps more, the girl once again stepped into the road and shouted, "Hey, look at me!" [hey, hey, hey! Your participle is dangling, young man! Has she jumped into the road and shouted "Look at me!" *before*?] The instant the youth turned around, the girl grabbed her cape with her left hand and whipped it off in a single motion. For a moment, the venomous glow of twilight seemed to lose its blood-red hue. [Yeah, gratuitous nudity turns things sort of a puce. Quantum physics is at a loss to explain it.] Clad in not a single stitch, a naked form so celestial none save the goddess Venus herself... [blah blah blah Doris is hot blah] ...scent of a woman in the full of her bloom. "Let's try that again!" Once more her whip cracked." Her nudity allows her to catch D off-guard and keep the fight going on for a little longer this time... "The reply she received was totally unexpected. "And if I said I wouldn't?" [OMG! *Totally unexpected!* WTF I mean I *know*!] The girl became indignant. "Then you get your choice of how I knock you out. Either I strangle you or I drag you to the ground. So, which of those suits your fancy?" ["Strikes" your fancy. STRIKES, damnit.] "Neither appeals to me." With his words as her signal to start, the girl concentrated all her might into her right hand. Her power coursed down the whip to the tips, trying to send the youth sailing through the air. But it didn't! In fact, all eight loops passed right through the youth's body without losing their circular form!" Oh, my god, he used exclamation points *outside of dialogue*. *Twice.* And that sounded more like a physics lesson by a schizophrenic than a fight scene. So, there we've got the Dominatrix aspect of DDD's personality, and a lingering question as to whether she *always* goes out dressed to flash. D owns her again, and *then* she decides to get to the point: ""Hold up. I apologize for that craziness just now."" Hahahaha *wheeze* haha - WHERE'S *MY* APOLOGY, BITCH!? "I'd like you to hear me out. I just knew you were a Hunter. Better yet, you're a Vampire Hunter, aren't you?" The youth finally turned his eyes to the girl. "I'm right, aren't I? I wanna hire you!"" She's been bitten by a vampire and wants him to kill it before it comes back and turns her into a vampire completely, or she's outed before the town and bad things happen to her little brother, awww. But Vampire Hunters are very expensive to hire. Her offer, with "scarlet tingeing her cheeks": ""Me. To do with as you please." A faint smile played across the youth's lips, as if mocking her. "[getting turned into a vampire] is probably preferable to being bedded by the likes of me." [PILE on the awkward angst, D! You are an inspiration to the twelve-year-old girls of the world!] "The hell it is!" Suddenly tears glittered in the girl's eyes. "If it comes down to that or being a vampire, I have no problem with someone havin' his way with me. That doesn't have anything to do with a person's worth anyway. But if you must know, I'm... no forget that, it doesn't matter." Just to make that *totally* clear, a couple pages later: "the redness of her cheeks caused, no doubt, by the embarrassment of a virgin having her flesh scrutinized by a wholly unfamiliar young man. After all, in her seventeen years, she hadn't so much as held hands with a boy before." And *now* we get Shy Virgin thrown into the mix, which doesn't precisely gel. And I'm having trouble getting past this point. Now, a lot my particular problems here are definitely caused by bad translation; there is no direct Japanese equivalent to things like "suits your fancy" and "lips manifesting iron strength." That's just what you get when your translator can't write. However, the translator didn't just make up those paragraphs and paragraphs of urple description, and stuff like the pretty sword demonstrating what a exciting life D's had can't be blamed on translation mistakes. The book would not have been good if Lafcadio Hearn had translated it; there are huge issues with just the use of *language* in general on both sides. It is a bad book that bad translation has made worse. Basically, I strongly urge against spending your $9 on this book. show less