If you were a fan of Japanese media in the
early 2000s, you probably heard of Vampire Hunter D. It's the story of how society was destroyed
by a horrendous apocalypse, not once, but twice. Humanity destroyed the world with nuclear
war in the year 1999; from the ashes rose a society built by vampires, the creatures
of legend who had been waiting in the shadows for their chance to rule the world. 10,000 years later, Vampire society is dying,
too, and our protagonist, a half human half vampire hybrid named D, is traveling the world
hunting said vamps. The story originates in a series of novels,
more than fifty of them over the course of four decades. Each story arc works like a monster of the
week - there are a few overarching running narratives or longer plot lines, but you can
jump in at any point and understand what's happening. D arrives at a new location, and comes face
to face with a terrible monster or a person in trouble. Typically there's an element of mystery or
a secret involved, and often a chase across great and terrible locales before a final
showdown with the culprit. Something tragic happens, a terrible twist
occurs or an unexpected cost is paid, and then D hits the road once again, leaving the
reader to wonder if he left the town behind him in a better or worse place than it had
been before. The author, Kikuchi Hideyuki, is ridiculously
popular in Japan; he is the face of vampire literature in the country, which is why he
was hired to be the host of a documentary about Dracula back in the 2000s. It's not his only series or his only popular
one by far, but it is a huge one, and one that's been translated into countless languages
the world over. It's still being published in English, though
we're only on volume 29 of some 50 plus novels, and the series never seemed to permeate pop
culture here in quite the same way. Around 2001, an animated movie adaptation
of one of the books came out in English and as far as I can tell, sparked the first real
flames of interest in Kikuchi's works in the west. His VHD books began receiving publication
here in the mid 2000s, and many of his other titles would eventually be translated around
that time, too; though none as extensively as VHD. I was in my early teens in the mid 2000s,
and I probably came across VHD in the manga section of my local library. That was a weird time for novels translated
from Japanese - not literature, of course, if you went looking for Murakami or Tanizaki,
you'd find them in the genre of literature appropriate to them. But popular culture stuff, like vampires and
monsters? That went in the manga section. VHD wasn't the only series there - the Trinity
Blood novels came out around that time, and there were yaoi publications like Only the
Ring Finger Knows. But novels in the manga section were few and
far between back then, and VHD in particular stood out as very different. It is by no means an "anime" novel. It's not even close to the same genre, it
doesn't have the traditions or the trappings of a manga or anime novelization. It's a hard core horror novel, and has some
have very explicit smut, gore, and extremely adult themes and topics. These novels just did not fit next to Ouran
High School Host Club and Fruits Basket. People come to the manga section looking for
manga. If they find novels, they'll look for novels
that are similar in style to the manga they read, because that's what they came to that
section looking for - so, even if you are open to reading a novel rather than a comic,
you'd have to also be a pretty hardcore fan of horror and dark science fiction, and I
mean really dark. I was the exact right audience, since I spent
my childhood years reading Hellsing - a very violent vampire series - and Saiyuki, a violent
manga series that answers the question, what if Journey to the West, but gay? If VHD had been in the section it belonged
in - in horror - perhaps it would have sold better, perhaps not. It's at least sold well enough since the series
hasn't stopped publication in years, and is now being reprinted in an Omnibus format - still
in the manga section, though nowadays some bookstores set out a section for light novels
alongside the manga. And thanks to the movie, there is a generation
of Japanese media fans who know of Vampire Hunter D, who think very highly of the work
because of the stellar film, but who actually know almost nothing about D or the novels
he came from. I'm here today because these novels are my
favorite books of all time; more than that, I think they're some of the best written horror
novels of all time, and nothing in the west comes close save for Clive Barker's incredible,
violent, homoerotic fever dreams like Weaveworld and Everville. I spent my college years hunting down VHD
like they were rare Pokemon cards, and I probably paid at least a few hundred dollars collecting
not just VHD but every physically printed Kikuchi book in English. I'm still missing like three things, but once
I have them, I will definitely have the World Record for Kikuchi Books Owned in English
by an Obsessive Weirdo. I finished my VHD collection just around the
time they announced the Omnibus reprints so I presume that we have me to thank for that
happening. The universe just could not ignore how funny
it would be, for me to spend hundreds of dollars on rare books and find them all just when
they were being made available again. Thanks God. Now, I've finally read them all and there
are no words for the masterpiece of fiction that is VHD. I've fallen in love all over again, and it's
even more incredible than I remembered it being as a kid. Because now, I understand so much more of
the history, the literature, the stylization that is working in the background, and how
Kikuchi has blended together an incredible amount of detail and worldbuilding into something
so truly unique. Come with me, and enter into the brilliant,
nightmarish world of Vampire Hunter D. ---------------- The first Vampire Hunter D book opens with
a young man riding a horse in the middle of nowhere. He comes across a young woman standing in
the road, challenging anyone who passes to trial by combat. The rider tries to ignore her, and the woman
demands he fight her. Then, to distract him, the woman rips off
her cloak to reveal she’s absolutely naked underneath. She attempts to fight the man and is defeated,
overcome by his strength and his incredible beauty. Having seen his face, she falls under his
spell; more importantly, the man has passed her test. She asks if he's a vampire hunter, and if
she can hire him. The woman is Doris, a young farmer taking
care of her younger brother on her own, and she's recently been bitten by the local vampire
lord. The young man on horseback introduces himself
as D, and accepts the job to protect Doris. He's rather impressed with the woman - typically
victims of vampire bites in this universe become soulless slaves of the one who bit
them. It takes a lot of strength and willpower to
keep your own mind after being bitten. The vampire lord unfortunately isn't the only
trouble Doris is facing. The villagers have become suspicious since
she started wearing scarves around town. The mayor's son, Greco, a bully and an idiot,
has been trying to coerce Doris into marrying him; learning she's been bitten, he tries
to use that knowledge to blackmail her into accepting his proposal. When night falls, the other threat appears,
the vampire Count Magnus Lee, and his followers, including his daughter Larmica. Lee wants
Doris to be his new bride, and won't take no for an answer; his daughter, however, feels
differently, horrified at the idea of a human woman dirtying the noble bloodline of her
family. To get rid of D and ensure he's able to capture
his bride, Magnus Lee hires a group called the Fiend Corps, bandits with monstrous powers,
led by Rei-Ginsei. The bandit leader takes a shine to Doris himself,
attempting to force his interest at various points in the novel. The story becomes a web of unholy desire at
the center of which is a young teenage girl, desperately fighting for her freedom and her
sense of self. As her employee, D acts to defend Doris, her
brother Dan, and the farm they live on. His work should probably only involve fighting
the vampire - he's a vampire hunter after all - but he constantly surprises the humans
around him by becoming involved in other problems. He stands up against Greco and the mayor when
they attempt to blackmail Doris; he defends her land and her brother, and goes out of
his way to be kind to the young boy. Though he is a dhampir - a half human half
vampire hybrid - he treats Doris with more kindness and humanity than the actual humans
she lives with. Over the course of a few days, D and the forces
of Magnus Lee face off; people are bitten and turned, battles are fought, dangers are
faced. D is defeated and almost killed a handful
of times, only to rise again, to the shock and awe of friend and foe alike. As they work together, Doris and D grow close,
and the woman offers him both her blood and her body, willingly - and D refuses to take
either. In a final face off in Lee's castle, the Count
Magnus Lee comes to a terrible realization. In his castle he keeps a portrait of the most
powerful, the most beloved vampire of all - the Sacred Ancestor. Vampire society recognizes the Sacred Ancestor
as the oldest and greatest of their kind, a godlike being who created vampire society
in its infancy. As D arrives to face Lee, the vampire count
recognizes how similar D looks to the Sacred Ancestor. And he remembers rumors that the Sacred Ancestor
had been with a human woman, and there had been a child... D defeats the Count, setting Doris free; he
leaves the castle, never returning to the farm to speak to Doris or her brother again. They watch the vampire's castle crumble from
a distance, relieved to know they are safe, devastated to know they'll never see D again. And so ends the first novel of Vampire Hunter
D. --------- The vampire as a concept is a metaphor for
sexual violence. The gothic writers in the 1700, 1800, and
1900s weren't able to publish explicit content, but the metaphor was clear to the reading
public - a man sneaks into a woman's bedroom in the dead of night, and forces himself upon
her; the menfolk, her brothers and father, find her in the morning and are enraged, out
for vengeance. From Varney the Vampire to Carmilla to Dracula,
the themes are the same, and the underlying thread of sexuality, consent, fear of the
foreigner, and fear of change, are omnipresent. Many of Kikuchi's novels center on the concept
of power and consent, on what is freely given, and what is forcibly taken. What creates monstrousness? Is it a creature that drinks blood offered
as a gift, or a human that takes pleasure by force? The dark twisted worlds of Kikuchi's Wicked
City and Yashakiden, modern dystopians full of nihilism, sex, and drugs, contain countless
portrayals of explicit content and assault. However, that style of writing wouldn’t
really work in VHD, and Kikuchi seems to have realized that early on. While the first three VHD novels have a lot
of explicit sexual content in them, none of the other volumes do. That doesn't mean that Kikuchi doesn't touch
on those themes; he just doesn't show these scenes explicitly, because the Gothic element
of these novels - that style that conceals violence behind metaphors - just doesn't fit
with explicit content. Nearly every VHD novel is about someone fighting
a figure of power who wants to take something from them - sometimes its a treasured object,
or a person's life; more often, it's their very body, their blood, their identity. To be turned into a vampire is to be forcibly
changed, to have your personality overwritten by your master's desires. The power dynamics involved, in which the
vampires are the upper class figures in control of society, and the humans are lower class
and impoverished, turns a gothic metaphor for sexual violence into an overall exploration
of how damaging feudal society is, to everyone involved. When humanity blew up the world in 1999, the
vampires had full knowledge it was coming, bunkered down to wait it out, then returned
to the world and rebuilt society. The few surviving humans became the lower
class, subservient to their vampiric overlords in every way imaginable. At its height, this society was centered around
the Capital. It's an enormous city, a modern marvel with
all the incredible futuristic inventions you could imagine, and it is the heart of a nearly
global empire. The vampires have long since built highways
across the entire planet; they've created a city on the moon, and sent missions out
into space. At the same time, they've played around with
biology, creating or innovating on all the monsters from our bedtime stories. Werewolves, dragons, krakens, and all kinds
of nightmare creatures are real in this world, left to roam free at the vampire's whims. Outside the Capital is the Frontier, a wild
west style place that is likely most of Asia, Europe, and upper Africa. It is divided into sectors that are ruled
by vampire lords, who control the human populace below them in much the way a medieval lord
controlled his fiefdom. The humans are allowed to live on the land
the vampires own, and in return, they must provide a certain crop of blood to their overlords
every season. These humans live in squalor and are completely
at the mercy of any vampire, who may torture, kidnap, enslave and kill any human they like
with little recompense. These vampires aren't typically called vampires;
they're called Nobles, or the Nobility. There are greater and lesser nobles, based
on bloodlines and whether they were born a vampire or made one, and all of them live
in the style you would imagine for a Noble in a 18th century setting. The houses are enormous and palatial, the
clothes are high class, even the language emphasizes the wealth of difference between
the human classes, and the vampire upper class. Over time, as the vampire culture weakens
due to civil wars and invasions and general stagnation, the control of this society begins
to switch over to humans. How much has switched and when is a little
vague - it generally seems like humanity took over through a peace treaty about a hundred
or so years before the events of the first book. Since then, most of the trappings of feudal
society have remained the same, though the central government is ruled by a kind of Liberation
Army stylized in some ways after the Japanese governments of the past. People still live in the dangerous Frontier,
and they can't move without consent from the government; they still have to deliver crops
and food to the Capital as part of their trade; they still live with the threat of monsters
and even vampires in the most remote areas; and poverty and starvation are still very
much a problem outside the Capital, whose citizens are described as millionaires in
one of the books. People from the Capital are inevitably depicted
as rich and out of touch compared to their down to earth, poorer Frontier cousins. The stories and settings of VHD are very much
Western inspired. Growing up, Kikuchi fell in love with the
American western and the DNA of those films can definitely be found in VHD. Some of the plotlines are nearly repeated
beat for beat in his stories - adapted to a gothic and vampiric setting, but similar
in setup and execution. The towns D visits are described like they're
western towns. People live knowing they carry their lives
in their hands; there's little law and order, and might makes right; innocent people are
eaten or gunned down on a near daily basis. But while this general sense of danger and
lawlessness is very fitting for a Wild West setting, it's not exactly a one to one. The existence of a strong central government
exerting so much pressure on the outer provinces is very unlike the American Western. Rather than America, it's actually better
to look at Japan's past to understand the government and worldbuilding of VHD. For almost a thousand years, Japan has been
ruled by military governments, starting with the end of the Heian period in the late 1100s,
to the early modern period and World War 2. While these governments have been pretty different
and had varying degrees of stability and success, there are a lot of core similarities between
them; power was centralized in a great Capital city, which moved from time to time but was
typically Kyoto, Nara, or Edo. In the Capital, the Emperor and his upper
class Nobility lived in splendor; outside the capital, in the provinces, the people
lived in rural poverty, overseen by governors or overlords who drew a certain amount of
tax from the people. The nobility slowly would lose power and become
mere figureheads, while the military came to hold real control. As that shift happened, the people lost more
and more of their freedoms, and society became strictly and rigidly defined by class. Your class determined what jobs you could
have, what clothes you could wear, even what food you could eat. The world was still divided between the Capital
city, where the powerful lived in splendor, and the countryside, where the Daimyo, the
samurai leaders, ruled with iron fists. Farmers paid taxes in rice, and the samurai
class were paid their salaries in rice, which meant that the samurai lived off the food
given to them by the lower classes. The land the farmers worked on didn't belong
to them either; they were essentially renting from the government, living in terrible poverty
and giving a huge portion of the entire country's food supply to a tiny part of the population,
who had so much rice and so little money that many of the poorest samurai started selling
it to merchants who sold it back to the populace at a profit. The samurai were the top of the food chain
in this incredibly strict world. They were the 'nobles' - depicted as being
so above the lower class world, so enlightened and so much better, that they were not even
permitted to see the entertainment of the lower classes, because it was beneath them. That didn't stop many samurai from sneaking
into local theaters to watch the lower class plays, anyway. Meanwhile, the lower class were restricted
from seeing upper class theater since it might depict a better quality of living than they
were used to, and no one wanted those poors to get any ideas! Only the samurai were allowed certain weapons,
particularly the set of two swords they were known for. With those weapons, they were free to act
as violently as they wished with almost no recompense. They could cut a man down on the street and
claim he'd been disrespectful and thus deserving of death. They could assault a woman and leave her to
die and never suffer a single penalty. They were the elite. The rest of the world was meant to serve them. The more you read about Japanese history,
the more you see the almost one to one parallels between the classes of feudal Japan, the layout
of the country, and the world building of Vampire Hunter D. A powerful central Capital
city where all the rich live? Yup. Rural frontier countryside which is ruled
by domineering overlords? Peasants forced to feed the parasitic upper
class whilst suffering the most degrading, violent treatment at their hands? Sexual and physical violence gone unchecked
and unchallenged? Rigid standards of class in an archaic, crumbling
feudal society? It's all there. Kikuchi Hideyuki's vampire is not a wild west
figure, or even a gothic one; his vampire is a Samurai, living off the food the lower
class provides while holding themselves as lofty and morally superior to the naturally
inferior beings born to serve them. Everything about Vampire culture in these
works draws from Samurai tradition – the idea of lesser and greater vampires is similar
to how Samurai tracked their own bloodlines to various noble houses and ranked certain
families as higher than others. The veneration that the vampires give to their
Sacred Ancestor – the ancient all power vampire progenitor, who is definitely Dracula
– is similar to the veneration and respect the samurai gave the Emperor. While feudal societies the world over have
a lot in common, the Japanese feudal society of the 1600s and above was pretty uniquely
brutal. The closing of the country, cutting off Japan
from the outside world, restricted how much change and influence could come from foreign
ideas, leaving society to stagnate for centuries. VHD's world is also a world of decay and stagnation. The vampires created a feudal society and
tried their best to freeze it in time, to travel back to the past they pined for. Because the vampires are creatures of nostalgia,
they don't design their futuristic inventions to look futuristic. No one's driving cars in this world; instead,
they ride cybernetic horses, or mechanical carriages. Their homes are not mansions but medieval
castles, completely mechanized with modern cameras and laser weapons, but with the trappings
of the gothic world. The Japanese government attempted to freeze
their world with strict class rules and a closed border; the vampires attempted to do
so by rebuilding the world in the gothic image, by trapping the humans in a world of danger
and violence; both societies failed, and in VHD, the reason for that failure is a major
question in the series. Taking the outlines of feudal Japanese culture,
clothing it in a wild west setting with Gothic vampires as the samurai nobles, Vampire Hunter
D sets the stage for one of the best, most vivid and heartbreaking metaphors for dynamics
of power I've ever read. Like I said earlier, the vampire is all about
metaphors of coercion, of assault. In a story like Dracula, where the vampire
is a foreign nobleman moving into England looking to seek an English bride, the power
metaphors are clear - he is upper class, but he is also a European, a foreign nobleman,
and the idea that foreignness can invade and threaten the morals of the existing power
structures of a society is an ancient fear of the upper classes. It's in a lot of vampire fiction - but Vampire
Hunter D takes that narrative and adjusts it to a world in which the power dynamics
mirror a real feudal society. All of the vampires are rich and powerful,
they are nobility; they are the reason for humanity's suffering and degradation. And people love them. They desire them. They crave to be one of them. They hunger for their touch, their attention,
their love. While many vampire narratives touch upon the
duel elements of fear and lust in the vampire, few do so with the absolute mastery of VHD. This series is the best metaphor for the way
that power and wealth corrupts, and how people are both repulsed by and drawn to the very
people who oppress them; and how even the most well meaning and good intentioned of
the upper classes is so far removed from the experiences of those below them that they
may as well be from different worlds, incapable of understanding one another or finding any
means of peace. And it does it in a way that isn't a boring
morality lecture or economics dissertation; in fact, it makes the story incredibly compelling
by creating a Nobility that has no choice but to be what it is - the vampire is born
to drink blood, after all; there is tragedy in their very nature. Many of VHD's stories ask if the humans and
vampires are even capable of living together, or understanding each other, when their natures
are so at odds. This becomes even more complex when other
elements of horror and science fiction become involved. A major element of Kikuchi's world building
is a 2000 year long war between the vampires and the OSB - the outer space beings, who
function as something like a mimic or a Lovecraftian creature, a danger to both human and vampire. Presented with something that could destroy
their whole world, the humans and vampires find themselves on the same side of a conflict. By recognizing how truly 'alien' the OSB are,
both sides realize how similar they actually are to one another. ------------- Kikuchi Hideyuki is a huge fan of Hammer Horror
films; most of Japan is, in fact. They were dubbed and brought over to the country
during the post war period and really took off, becoming for many the first experience
of western monsters they had. The novels were being translated and released
in this time, too, but for most Japanese people, their first Dracula was probably Christopher
Lee, not Bram Stoker. Kikuchi writes about being terrified of Lee’s
role, but also becoming fascinated by it; and eventually developing many of his own
characters and vampires inspired by the man’s performance. It’s no mistake that the first vampire lord
in the VHD series is Count Magnus Lee. The vampire as we think of it today is a very
western Christian idea. The veneration given to blood isn’t common
in every culture – Japan, according to Kikuchi’s own writing, has no such respect for it. But Christianity, whose traditions venerate
the ‘blood of the covenant’ and the ‘blood of Christ’, have long given the substance
a sacred position. If you want to explore the idea of the vampire
in a global sense, most writers and researchers tend to simplify the concept into three things:
it is a nocturnal creature; it is a undead or non living creature; it lives off of a
human liquid. That liquid, depending on the culture, has
been everything from blood to breast milk; Japan doesn’t have any monsters that fit
the specific mold. When you consider the content of the stories
themselves, the closest Japanese model to the Gothic vampire is probably the Fox Spirit,
the feminine demon who tempts human men into sexual relations and feeds off their essence. It’s not undead and it doesn’t drink blood,
but the themes and story beats are pretty similar to western vampire stories. Considering all that, Japan’s introduction
to the modern vampire in its own culture is pretty unique. Some of the earliest Japanese vampire manga
stories are comedies, taking the piss out of characters like Dracula. The other genre vampires moved into was not
horror or science fiction – it was Shoujo manga. Shoujo is ‘girls’ manga; following the
general trend of assigning genres of fiction to age groups and genders, Shoujo is a manga
style that has very beautiful, often feminine characters, often but not always in a romance
or comedy. Sailor Moon is probably the most well known
of the genre in the west; but decades ago, one of the earliest and most successful Shoujo
manga was a vampire story called The Poe Clan. The Poe Clan is credited as one of the manga
series that successfully propelled the shoujo genre into the mainstream, earning respect
and admiration for its writing and art style from greats in the field. The story is centered on beauty and tragedy. These vampires are very much in the Lestat
and Anne Rice camp; not only is the story a more personal drama than it is horror, it’s
also contains male on male romance, which isn’t uncommon in Shoujo and its offshoots. As far as I can tell, in my limited experience
researching Japanese media and vampires in particular, The Poe Clan is the first incredibly
popular native vampire work, and its a homoerotic Shoujo manga about very pretty sad men. I think it must have had an influence on Kikuchi,
if only indirectly, since the themes of his work pull on some very similar ideas. Many of the vampires in Kikuchi's fiction
are described as unearthly beautiful, often in an effeminate style - long hair, delicate
faces - that mirrors shoujo traditions. They also have an almost drug-like effect
on those who see them, a trend that I've seen in only one other genre of Japanese fiction,
boy's love. It's not uncommon for a male character in
a BL story to be described as so beautiful and attractive that he is literally intoxicating
to those around him. Kikuchi takes both ideas - the vampiric feminine
beauty, and the intoxicating lure - and folds it into the worldbuilding of VHD in a fascinating
way. The vampire has a natural allure that humans
cannot fight. This draw or pull can only be overcome by
a person with a strong sense of self or dignity; they have to have strong willpower. In fact, the word 'will' is used in every
book dozens of times, and conflicts between main characters are at times fought out solely
through the willpower - through a staring contest or a battle of auras. The vampire's draw is very much tied to their
beauty. This beauty, however, is rarely described
as specific features or appearances - it is the existence of beauty, the prime ideal of
it. Vampires by their nature, no matter their
appearance, are the concept of attraction made real, and that beauty has a kind of magnetic
draw that weaker humans and monsters cannot fight. This is seen most with our main character,
Vampire Hunter D. D is a half human, half vampire, but that doesn't distort his vampiric
abilities; on the contrary, he is constantly described as not only the most powerful, but
the most beautiful beyond compare of any human or vampire he meets. No one can rival his attraction. He draws enemies and allies to him; men and
women fall over themselves for him. Multiple characters, vampires, humans, and
others, of all genders canonically fall in love with him. Kikuchi tells a story of how early in his
career, while they were working on the first VHD novel, his vision of the character of
D changed. The reason was the artist that the publisher
brought on to do the cover and inside art – none other than Amano Yoshitaka, the incredible
artist behind so many of Final Fantasy’s beloved characters. His editor told Kikuchi that it was important
to let Amano create a very pretty D for the cover of the book – it was guaranteed to
sell to young women if they did. Kikuchi agreed, the book sold bucket loads
with women, and the future of the series was guaranteed. From there, I think Kikuchi went whole hog
into the beautiful vampire idea. Most vampire stories include beautiful people
almost accidentally. Vampires just tend to look fantastic, something
about sucking blood gives them an extra glow. While some stories create in universe explanations
for why that is so, none of them go so far or focus so much on beauty as a form of power
and potential as VHD. I started trying to count the number of times
that D is described as beautiful or is complimented in the novels of VHD. At some point, I gave up. Each novel has at least 30 instances of someone
calling D so incredibly handsome, so beautiful, so intoxicating, they’d stab their mother
to be with him. Characters become obsessed with D – there
are rivals who must fight with him because they are drawn to him like a moth to the flame;
there are women who must follow him because they don’t know what they’d be without
him. There are men and women both who fight and
die for him because of a single look at his beautiful face. And D, all this time, has almost no romantic
feelings for anyone. The closest he comes is the very first VHD
book, and the character of Doris – the girl who ripped all her clothes off when she first
met him. They have some tension and chemistry that
won’t exist in later novels, likely because Kikuchi had refined the character of D and
the story he wanted to tell. It gives the novels an interesting tragic
element to them – the love interest was met and left behind in book one, and is only
ever mentioned one more time in the whole series. So you have this gothic, scifi western world
with a government and power structure built to mirror the samurai of feudal Japan. At the same time, you have vampires whose
beauty is literally hypnotizing – none moreso than our half vampire protagonist, D. The blend of real world history and politics
with the more dramatic, tragic elements of homoerotic Shoujo creates a world in which
the greatest and most tragic power is attraction; the power that none of us can fully influence
or control, and one that is heavily connected to political and social power. Most of the characters in VHD are being abused
by systems of power. The vampires – literally corrupt government
officials – are feeding off the people, demanding tribute, taking children. Doris in the first novel is trying to escape
Magnus Lee, who demands she become his bride. In the second novel, it’s Lina, the young
ward of the corrupt and abusive mayor, who seeks D’s help. The third novel has a young woman eloping
with her vampire lover, while her father is attempting to hunt her down and kill the vampire
she willingly chose to be with. These young women live in a world in which
the powerful can do whatever they want with them; kidnap them, assault them, beat and
abuse them, and nothing can be done. The laws of their world permit these things. It's not just women, either; the novel Bedeviled
Stagecoach centers on a similar narrative around a vampire lord and his willing male
victim, who eventually loses his mind and becomes unable to stand living as a victim
anymore. Then along comes D, the beautiful, ethereal
D. Wherever he goes, he is looked down on and ostracized. He is a vampire after all, even if he is only
half. The main character is presented with a world
in which their hero – beautiful beyond compare – is considered undesirable, while their
abuser is the one accepted by the state of the world. D’s beauty does not downplay his dangerous
side. People die around him constantly, and it’s
not always because of his enemies. The man has a moral code, but he does not
hesitate to cut others down, human or not. He has no patience for those who draw weapons
on him, and his mercy really only extends to children. The truth is, D is probably as dangerous as
the threats these characters face. Many of the novel’s protagonists suffer
and die because they joined D. Yet these people never regret it – in fact many are delighted
they were able to spend what was left of their lives with D. What makes him different from
other vampires – from the nobles he fights? Why is one desired and one loathed? Power is attractive. The entire sub-genre of romance that involves
rich millionaires and billionaires is proof that there’s a market for attraction to
power. Hell, the entire industry of fame is proof
of that. As people, we are attracted to power, even
when it is incredibly obvious how dangerous and unsafe that power is. In the world of D, the vampires are desired
and hated in equal measure, and their “beauty” the power they have on other people, is a
perfect metaphor for how power in general – whether it relates to a person’s money,
influence, physical strength, etc – draws people in even when it’s against their best
interests. That’s why D is also a threat and a danger
– he is powerful and beautiful and not safe. Using the metaphor of darkness – of those
innate deeper desires we all have for what is not safe for us, for the dangerous side
of the world – VHD explores that part of humankind that wants to stare into the abyss
and see it stare back. D represents the small good side of that risk
– the high that power can give you, when its used for your benefit, to protect you,
to do good in the world. The vampires and corrupt figures of power
in D represent the much larger and worse side – all those people who let power go to their
head, and end up being used by it as much as they use it to hurt others. There are countless characters in D who go
mad from power; who lose control and are destroyed or destroy others from their inability to
recognize how far they’ve gone. That madness is presented in very obvious
metaphors to real world fame and glamour – vampires throw incredible parties with fountains full
of blood, they have balls and dances until dawn, they have beautiful castles and labyrinths
and gardens where they used to chase captured humans for sport. The vampire is the perfect metaphor for the
way that humanity is drawn to power, to want to have it for themselves (to be turned) and
wanting the power that comes from being desired by the powerful, in sexual or romantic ways. Yet D also shows how much damage those kinds
of relationships cause – power imbalances can never lead to happy, healthy lives; and
the powerful themselves can never actually live. When there is nothing to struggle and fight
for, nothing to live for, being alive is meaningless. The vampires had everything they could ever
want, they had nothing they had to strive for or struggle to create. Unable to accept change or to adapt to new
circumstances, they slowly faded into the past, becoming relics of a bygone era. Some of the vampires go to sleep and never
wake up; others attempt to continue as they’ve always done, ruling their little fiefdoms. None of them are able to cling to the past
for long. D is also very aware of the danger that power
brings, because he is incredibly powerful. He can kill with a look, with a flick of a
finger; he dares not drink blood from anyone. Though many offer and even come close to giving
him blood, D rarely accepts it – he fights against that urge, because he dares not use
his power on others. He knows it can only end in tragedy. Instead, D’s greatest ability in battle
is the ability to drink from himself. It’s one of the many things that makes him
such a great character – as a figure in a position of power, as someone who is likely
the most powerful vampire to ever live, he could become a god among men, a king of the
world – instead, he travels as a wanderer with no home, sleeping on the side of the
road and in abandoned houses, drinking from supplements and his own blood rather than
hurting anyone else. When you live in a world of might makes right
in which survival requires violence, it takes incredible strength of spirit to turn that
violence against yourself. It’s that self control that makes him different
from other vampires around him, even those who are trying to be good towards humans and
change their ways. Too used to indulging in their power and their
desires, they have no practice at holding them back, and usually give in. --------- Every VHD novel centers upon a specific conflict,
which is neatly tied up by the end of the arc. Sometimes that's just one book, sometimes
it's two to four volumes. But once that subtitle changes on the front
page, the story is a brand new one - almost nothing returns for a second showing. Every story has new characters, new locations,
new threats and new themes, which tie into the overall worldbuilding but in a very loose
way. So is there an overarching plot line to VHD? Is there a goal or character development of
some kind? It's certainly not traditional - the character
of D rarely says anything, he is incredibly quiet and withdrawn, he makes no friends and
keeps everyone at a distance. The one exception is a strange creature who
lives in his body - a parasite, that exists in his Left Hand, and is known by just that. The parasite has more personality and life
in him, often playing the comedic role to D's straight man. D is a vampire, who has lived for thousands
of years. His existence is very different from those
around him - because to be powerful is to be isolated, and completely alienated from
the world around you. It's not a good thing. It's also not anything D asked for; he was
created by the Sacred Ancestor as part of an experiment, a terrible attempt to blend
human and vampire into a new creature entirely. D is the "only success", a being even more
powerful than vampires who can walk in the daylight, but that hasn't done anything good
for the man. He spends his entire life alone, isolated
because of the danger he poses to the world around him. It makes him an incredibly unique protagonist. You see bits and pieces of the human beneath
the shadows at times; he is kind and gentle with children, and often goes out of his way
to protect others who he deems deserves it. At other times, he can be callous and heartless
by human standards. The man can kill people he was friendly with,
and he can spare an enemy he once fought with. What goes on in his mind is mostly a mystery,
but if you read most of the novels, you can see a greater arc to the story. If the vampire is a metaphor for how too much
power - physical or economical - makes a person so monstrous they can no longer understand
their follow people - then D, and his creator, the Sacred Ancestor, take that metaphor to
10. The Sacred Ancestor is no mere vampire; he
is omniscient and omnipresent, he is a god. And D is his demigod son, who wanders a world
his father created trying to fix what has been broken. The Sacred Ancestor - who I'm just going to
call Dracula because that's who he is - Dracula is described in incredible ways in these books. He doesn't have a physical presence. Often he is just a willpower, a spirit that
haunts a place, a memory that has been embedded in the fabric of the world. he can exert his
will over humans, vampires, machines of all kinds, and his power is so potent, so intoxicating
that no one can resist him. Everyone wants him. The way he moves and acts resembles a Lovecraftian
dream god more than a vampire, and many of the problems in the novels - the monsters
D faces or the tragedies that unfold - are rooted in actions Dracula took in the ancient
or near past. Dracula fell in love with a human woman called
Mina the Fair. However, across the novels it becomes clear
that he realized their love could never be. By biting Mina, he would be changing her entirely
- the nature of the vampire/human relationship means they can never be equals. One of the texts nearly says exactly that
- that Dracula wanted to create a world in which vampires and humans could be together
on equal ground, and the only way he saw to do that was to create a blend of both. So he attempts to do so, over the course of
thousands of years, ending tens of millions of lives in excruciating experiments and nightmarish
torture chambers. Around Book 11 the story heavily focuses on
this research and each reveal of the past becomes more and more horrid. D is enraged by these acts; he is traveling
the world looking for them, looking for Dracula, the monster who made him and who caused so
much suffering in the world. We see incredibly brief glimpses into the
bygone era that D once lived in during these times. Flashes of Mina the Fair, a beautiful woman
in white with long black hair, who appears at times to stand between D and his Father,
attempting to placate them both. D is her son, the only survivor of dozens
of babies who were deemed 'unsuccessful', and its implied that mother and son were parted
tragically early. How and why this happened is never really
said. Where did Dracula go? When did D start chasing him? Much of the narrative is left to the reader's
imagination, with only these tiny glimpses painting a picture of horrific tragedy and
loss. This is where the draw of the novels really
comes from, this over arching mystery of what happened in D's past, what Dracula is and
what he's trying to do, and how the clash between father and son will finally happen. The narrative grows far more layered, and
when you zoom out to consider the entire series, you see patterns and combinations that hint
at the greater themes and fates of the characters within. It is almost certain to be a tragedy - there
is almost no other fate possible for people like D. Yet he continues to struggle and fight
on, clinging to that one thing that everyone, human or vampire, clings to in darkness. Hope. The people of the frontier live with the hope
that a better, brighter day is coming. Some of the most tragic and horrifying things
happen to these people yet they still live with a smile. They do everything they can to survive, they
give it there all, and can only hope for the best. That hope reappears in the darkest moments
of VHD - when a character considers himself useless and powerless before the mighty forces
opposing them, D reminds him that weaker humans are relying on him to be strong, to have hope. A sex worker who spent most of her life in
a brothel talks about how she doesn't live focusing on how bad things have been - she
thinks about how she always lived the way she liked, with no regrets. Characters like these - who don't cling to
anger or grudges, who suffer but manage to stand up and move on, are often the sole survivors
of VHD books. Life is precious. No matter the kind of life, or the length
of it, and D is a protector of life. He may not see the world in the same way as
humans or ordinary vampires, but he understands the value that living has; survival is the
most important thing in this world, because nothing else can exist if you aren't alive
to experience it. There are a lot of VHD books. Each one I read, I put down and thought, that's
my new favorite book. Then I read the next one and it happened again,
and again. Each and every one is addicting, each one
builds upon the themes and motifs of the previous and raises them to new heights. They are incredible works of fiction, and
its amazing to compare how far Kikuchi has come from his first novel written in 1983,
to the most recent translation, The Tiger in Winter. It's an absolute marvel. I need more of these books. I need more of this universe. I need them to finally translate the other
side series to this world, including one where apparently it's about a dhampir vampire hunter
who is a woman and we never got that one because God hates me? I NEED EVERY KIKUCHI BOOK EVERY WRITTEN TO
BE TRANSLATEd NOW PLEASE THANK YOU. There is so much going on in VHD. I could talk about it and peel it apart for
hours. It's probably too much for one video - there
are 29 books and I'll be honest I was really overwhelmed trying to condense all my thoughts
into this one script. I will probably do more in the future because
I love these books, I love the movies, I want more people to read them and share them, and
I want somebody to write some Greylancer/D fanfiction because if they don't then I'll
have to and I am already plenty busy thank you! VHD is one of the most beautiful, haunting,
and horrifying vampire series out there. It's unique and inventive, it's constantly
evolving and adapting new ideas, blending modern themes and gothic traditions into something
so ... perfect. That's the only word I can use to describe
it. Because Vampire Hunter D is a violent gothic
vampire science fiction horror dystopia homoerotic shoujo fever dream, and it was written as
if it were made exactly just for me. Thank you, Kikuchi Hideyuki, and the translator
of VHD, Kevin Leahy, and the folks who bring these books to us across the globe. And please... please can you bring more of these books? And the spin offs? And also the rest of Shinjuku series? And the manga about the hot spider demon exorcist? We only got two of those books and france
got like seven which I feel is very unfair.
