How many Vampire Hunter D novels are there?
Three numbers, all true: 41 novels, 53 volumes, and a count that has since reached 44.
The question has no single answer because Kikuchi writes novels, but Japan publishes volumes, and the two counts drift apart every time a long novel is split across two, three, or four paperbacks. As of April 2023 the verified tally stood at 41 novels spanning 53 volumes in the main series, plus the supplemental anthology Dark Nocturne.
The series kept moving after that tally. New stories have been serialised in Asahi Shimbun's monthly magazine Issatsu no Hon since November 2017 and then collected as full entries, and in January 2026 the Japanese numbering reached 44 with D: Crimson Summer Procession. More than 17 million copies have been sold across the whole shelf.
WHY THE COUNT SPLITS
Novels versus volumesA novel can be four books
Pale Fallen Angel (1994 to 1996) and Tyrant's Stars (2000 to 2001) each ran to four volumes. Dark Road (1999) took three. Twin-Shadowed Knight and Mysterious Journey to the North Sea took two apiece.
The English count runs hotter
English editions number every split part separately, so by 2020 the English shelf held 29 volumes covering 24 novels. Same stories, faster arithmetic.
Dark Nocturne stands apart
The 1992 anthology of three novellas is a supplemental volume, published between novels 7 and 8 and never absorbed into the numbering. Every honest census lists it separately.
OUTSIDE THE MAIN NUMBERING
The rest of the shelfAnother Vampire Hunter: The Noble Greylancer
Two prequel volumes (2011), illustrated by Ayami Kojima, set five thousand years before D. A third has been on hold since 2013.
Vampire Hunter Gaiden: Dhampir Hunting
One spinoff volume (2015) by Yuki Asakawa under Kikuchi's supervision, following a different dhampir hunter entirely.
The short stories
At least ten short works live inside art books, the Reader's Guide, an audio drama box, and one New York convention guide. The novels are the shelf; the stories are the drawers.
THE SCOREBOARD
The series by the numbers17 million plus
Copies sold worldwide across all editions, Japanese and translated.
1983 to now
Forty-three years of continuous publication, all from one author, all with one cover artist.
One magazine pipeline
Since 2017, new D stories debut in Issatsu no Hon and are collected afterwards, sometimes under new titles, which is one more reason the count needs care.