How can you tell a first printing of Vampire Hunter D?

The ISBN tells on it: 4-257-76 means Sonorama Bunko original, 4-02-265 means the 2007 reissue.

Vampire Hunter D collecting runs on edition literacy, because the same Amano cover art has dressed at least three Japanese lives of these books. The good news: the editions identify themselves plainly once you know where to look, and the first volume is the easiest of all. A true first edition of Vampire Hunter "D" is the Sonorama Bunko paperback of 31 January 1983, ISBN 4-257-76225-X, Amano's horseman under the Bunko band.

The trap is the reprint. When Asahi Shimbun Publishing reissued the whole catalogue as Sonorama Selection in December 2007 and January 2008, the art stayed Amano but the books changed: Selection ISBNs sit in the 4-02-265 block (volume 1 is 4-02-265500-3) against the Bunko originals' 4-257-76 block. Check the colophon before you pay for age.

Vampire Hunter D Dark Road English cover, DH Press — **A DH PRESS EDITION**Dark Road, Parts One and Two, as DH Press issued it: the two-in-one format a first-printing check has to recognize.

THE JAPANESE SHELF

Originals, hardcovers, reissues

Sonorama Bunko originals · 1983 to 2007

The true firsts. Pocket paperbacks, Amano covers, ISBNs beginning 4-257-76. Printings within the Bunko run are told apart the Japanese way, by the colophon's printing line, not by the cover.

The Favorite Printings · 1992 to 1993

The tenth anniversary hardcovers of volumes 1 to 7 plus Dark Nocturne, each with a new Amano cover and a new colour interior illustration. Not firsts, but the deluxe objects of the line, and the prettiest way to own the early books.

Sonorama Selection · 2007 to 2008

Reading copies with a pedigree: the complete reissue that kept the series in print after Asahi Sonorama closed. Valuable as a set, honest about its dates.

THE ENGLISH SHELF

Firsts across the Pacific

DH Press paperbacks · 2005 onward

The English first editions proper, Leahy's translations, beginning with volume 1 (ISBN 1-59582-012-4) on 11 May 2005. The imprint later became Dark Horse Books; both forms are first edition printings of their volumes.

The omnibuses are not firsts

Dark Horse's Omnibus volumes (2021 onward) are reprint editions, three novels per book. They are the reading recommendation, not the collecting one.

Manga volume 8 · January 2023

The delayed physical English volume 8 of Takaki's manga is the scarcity story of the English shelf: cancelled in 2015, digital in 2018, print at last in 2023.

THE DISCS

What to hunt on film

The 1985 film, two dubs, no complete disc

The Streamline dub (1992) anchors the Urban Vision Special Edition DVD of 2000; the Sentai Blu-ray of 2015 carries the new dub. No single American release holds both, which is exactly why both keep circulating.

Bloodlust, the bilingual disc

American Bloodlust discs were English only for decades. The Japanese remastered Blu-ray of 26 March 2025, from the 35mm negative, is the first release to hold both tracks, and the current best object in the film's whole disc history.

How can you tell a first printing of Vampire Hunter D?

THE JAPANESE SHELF

THE ENGLISH SHELF

THE DISCS

THE FIRST WORD