Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust

First of all, the story, although it’s rather simple (The search for a kidnapped girl by bounty hunters) it is still well worked in various aspects such as amalgamating the classical vampire story with a post-Apocalyptic future, two plot lines very difficult to combine, yet it has been done in a marvelous way.

The characters, since it’s an anime, the entire work of giving life to a character is entirely at the hands of the director and the artists, while the dubbing cast puts a lesser weight.

I am not trying to take credit from the dubbing cast since their work is very, very good (I can’t stop laughing every time I hear the voice of the Old Barbaroi while the expression put into Leila’s and Left Hand’s voice is not even voice but pure feeling).

As I said, the work done by the crew in everything that involved character and psychological development is the best I’ve ever seen in any animes, sadly even better than the great Lupin III.

By the end of the film you won’t have any doubts on the characters and it will seem to you as if you’ve known them for your whole life.

This film is EXACTLY what American audiences have been craving for years. This is Madhouse at their finest. This anime is full of the exceptionally cool, wickedly designed characters and unbelievable, fast paced action of their previous masterworks (The aforementioned Ninja Scroll and Wicked City) but with fantastic, more technologically advanced animation work.

The animation.... by far the best I’ve experienced. I cannot describe it with words, since nothing would make justice to it, but in case you have had the luck to see the film I’m sure that scenes such as the attack to the Barbarois by Grove and the SUPERB "arrow sequence" (This I believe to be the finest scene I’ve ever seen on an anime feature) of the graveyard have been stuck in your head since then.

If you like vampire tales and fantasies, this is a must-see. If you appreciate well crafted, illustrative animations don’t miss this one.

Yet to catch Richard Linklater’s "Waking Life" - a modern approach to animated film - substance includes deeper exploration than usual animation flicks. Actually sounds quite philosophical - his "Before Sunrise" 1994, with Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy on a train ride and brief stops in Europe, was a philosophical romantic exchange.