How was Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust made?
The rare anime feature built for America first: recorded in English, post-produced in California, drawn in Tokyo.
Bloodlust exists because of two pressures: fans demanding a follow-up to the 1985 film, and Hideyuki Kikuchi loudly complaining about that film's cheapness. Plans began in 1997 with director Yoshiaki Kawajiri and Madhouse. Producer Mataichiro Yamamoto arrived sideways, through talks over the rights to Madhouse's Wicked City, itself a Kikuchi adaptation, and pushed the new film toward an American theatrical release from the start.
Kawajiri wrote and directed, adapting the third novel, Demon Deathchase (1985). Amano designed D; animation director Yutaka Minowa translated Amano's painterly line into designs a whole studio could draw, and matched the rest of the cast to it. Marco D'Ambrosio scored it for full orchestra and chorus.
THE STRANGE PRODUCTION
English firstRecorded backwards
The animation was made at Madhouse in Tokyo and post-production done in California. The English soundtrack was recorded in 1999, before the Japanese dialogue was finished. In Japan, the film screened with the English track and Japanese subtitles.
A title at the last minute
The film is simply Vampire Hunter D in Japan. "Bloodlust" was a late decision, added abroad to separate it from the 1985 film on shelves and in listings.
The trailer circuit
A two and a half minute trailer was finished in 1998 and shown at American fan conventions, two years before the film: the Western audience was being courted before there was a film to show them.
THE RELEASE
2000 to 2001Fantasia, July 2000
A work in progress print screened at Montreal's Fantasia festival, then at the New York Anime Film Festival that October.
Japan · 21 April 2001
Theatrical release through Nippon Herald Films, in English with Japanese subtitles.
America · 23 September 2001
Urban Vision opened it in six theatres, expanding to twelve. Total gross $151,086, small money that carried a strange record: the highest-grossing Japanese film ever released in a language other than Japanese.
The shape of it
102 minutes. Rotten Tomatoes holds it at 72 percent from 32 reviews; Metacritic at 62. The Chicago Reader called it a gorgeously animated surrealist adventure.