Vampire Hunter D was produced at Tokyo's Madhouse studio, but Urban Vision arranged for the post-production work to be done in California. © Hideyuki Kikuchi/Asahi Sonorama/Vampire Hunter D Production Committee.

First Rate Executio
The movie has some clever dialogue, but it relies so heavily on its visual impact that it would not matter much if it were shown as a silent film. The suspenseful direction by Kawajiri (who also wrote the screenplay) is backed up by beautiful graphics. Most of the chase takes place by day, through bright forest settings filled with trees and flowers. The vampires' sumptuous palaces and court costumes are rococo marvels of filigree and lace and sparkling gold trim (no cobwebs or emaciated corpses here). The main character designs are by noted international fantasy artist Yoshitaka Amano, whose recent American projects have included the art for 1001 Nights, an animated fine-art film commissioned by the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra with original music by David Neuman, and the full-color illustrations for fantasy author Neil Gaiman's deluxe book Sandman: The Dream Hunters. Amano's art style was faithfully matched for the rest of the characters and costumes by animation director Yutaka Minowa. Although the character animation is not up to the highest Disney standards, Kawajiri's tight direction of facial expressions and body language conveys a convincing "illusion of life" despite a limited fluidity of motion.

While the animation of Vampire Hunter D was in production at Tokyo's Madhouse studio, Urban Vision arranged for the post-production work in California. The English sound track was recorded in Los Angeles in 1999 before the Japanese dialogue was completed. The sound effects and other post-production work were directed during 2000 by Kawajiri in Marin County at Marco Co., whose husband-&-wife owners, Marco & Terry D'Ambrosio, composed the score. The film's final print master was made at George Lucas' nearby Skywalker Ranch facility.

Urban Vision has also been working on publicity and distribution all this time. A 2 1/2-minute theatrical trailer was finished in 1998 and has been shown often at American anime fan conventions; it is also downloadable on Urban Vision's website. UV has made a work-in-progress print available for international film exhibitions since mid-2000. It has played to enthusiastic audiences at the FANT-ASIA Asian Film Festival in Montreal, Canada in July; at Japanime: The Best of Japanese Animation, the major film event at the Sydney 2000 Olympics Arts Festival in Sydney, Australia in August; and at the New York Anime Film Festival in October. A sold-out Halloween screening at UCLA's Anime A-Go-Go film program in October-November was blurbed as: "Regency meets Transylvania in this visual knockout of a movie with exquisitely gothic atmospherics, creepy special effects, tense action, and von Helsing fashioned as a foppish, half-vampire, half-human outcast called 'D'."

Vampire Hunter D 2000 due to hit theatres early next year. © Hideyuki Kikuchi/Asahi Sonorama/Vampire Hunter D Production Committee.

Now, plans are being finalized for a simultaneous theatrical release in Japan and America. A Japanese general theatrical release is assured, but tiny Urban Vision is still trying to arrange for an American release that will exceed the traditional anime art-theater crawl of one theater in a couple of cities at a time. Its goal is still modest for an American general release: five or more theaters per city in twenty cities at a time. If Urban Vision can achieve this, Vampire Hunter D may become the first anime feature to reach America's general science-fiction/horror fantasy theatrical audiences.

[Thanks for information on Hideyuki Kikuchi and his Vampire Hunter D novels to the Vampire Hunter D Archives website (http://www.altvampyres.net/vhd/) run by Cathy Krusberg, an American fan who can be reached at ckberg@ix.netcom.com.]

Fred Patten has written on anime for fan and professional magazines since the late 1970s.