Hideyuki KikuchiReviews

Loved the anime. Took forever to read the book. Very dry, very flat. As a novelization, I was surprised just how much was not "extra" to the movie version. No depth, no building of characters, and I don't think I'll read further in the series.

This was a proper nostalgia kick for me, since I used to swallow these books as a teen. For every flaw of Kikuchi's, there was something that had me falling in love with the series all over again. It's common for people to claim poor translation, and I really can't comment on that, but there are times when the writing is so clunky it's downright hilarious; there are some things that a mistranslation can't excuse.

The appeal for me is largely in the combination of world-building, the unique character of D, and Kickuchi's endearing blend of multiple classic genres. The setting is just wonderful: a sort of post-post apocalypse. Initially, a nuclear war sets man back hundreds of years, at which point the vampires of legend rise out of the shadows and take advantage of a wounded world. They rule over the now archaic human civilisation as "Nobility" and, picking up where man has let off, develop a highly advanced technological society. Over the course of time, they reach out to the stars and colonise planets; there are wars with extra-terrestrials, mankind finds its spine and rebels, which eventually leads to an even more chaotic and broken world. The "Capital" is a remnant of this technological society that now remains clean of and protected from the Nobility, but everything outside of this is "the frontier", which functions much like the lawless West. Bloodthirsty nobles are presented as a dying aristocracy that get what they can take, but are prevented from regaining total control by the presence of skilled bounty/vampire hunters. D, the main character, is a half-breed and therefore an outcast to both Nobility and humanity. Nevertheless, he is one such skilled hunter who people will call on when convenient. Along with a left hand infected with a sentient parasite, D's cold demeanour and hinted origins make for a unique and mysterious protagonist.

This first book was never really a highlight for me in the series, and it looks like that's still the case. Regardless of the role which translation plays here, Kickuchi's prose comes across very, very bad in English. I don't remember it being quite this bad - I'm hoping it gets better. It's a bizarre mix of gothic atmosphere, flowery description, laughable dialogue and messy, chaotic action. It's sometimes effective, but more often childish, clunky and confusing. At its best, it can be accepted as fun, pulpy schlock, which sits right at home with its origins. Kikuchi wears his influences on his sleeve, dedicating the book to Terrence Fisher of Hammer Horror fame, and Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing, notable in their roles as Dracula and Van Helsing, respectably. Shane, a quintessential Western, makes its presence known here also. The young boy in that is much like little Dan here, who idolises and looks up to D. Like the stranger, Shane, D waltzes into the lives of a family one day and acts as a mentor, protector, and even a farm hand. But he's only there for a season, and once he's saved the day, "off to the dusty trails" he goes.

Vampire Hunter D is pulpy because its influences are pulpy, but, if anything, it is elevated by its attempt to expand on its treading of cliches with big ideas and genre-blending. According to my memory, the stories do get better, and the world gets richer, but D remains as mysterious as ever. The book that started it all is an occasionally enjoyable - but mostly tolerable - foundation for a beautiful mess that would come after. I will be rereading the next book, but we'll see after that. My senses are still recovering from the assault.

Kikuchi is bugnutz crazy.

This self-described Cthulhu Western is a very traditional western hammered into a very traditional Cthulhu mythos mold to make something uniquely fun. The writer wears his tastes on his sleeve, writing a western based deeply in the Hollywood 1950s movie tradition: famous gunslingers, nefarious train companies running honest farmers off their land, and deadly natives. Add to that Deep Ones, Cthulhu magic, and seemingly deathless villains, and you get quite an adventure.

This does mean, of course, that many of the more nuanced views that have started to shape the American view of the west, particularly recognition of the terrible treatment of Native Americans and Black people, are absent. The Native Americans in this story are enemies, if ones on perhaps more equal terms with the protagonists than was common in the old western tradition, and the only black characters are nameless servants.

One rather interesting element is the addition of the Japanese character Shinobi, and the recurring equation of his Japanese-ness with the Native Americans by malevolent white characters--it adds a wrinkle to the treatment of race in this one that is worth thinking about.

Overall, there is little original ground tread here, but the author makes no bones about it: This is a product of his love of old western movies, and his interest in Lovecraft's malevolent world building. If you go into it looking for that, you won't be disappointed.

If you're here because of the movie you will likely be disappointed. One, this isn't what Bloodlust was based on; that's book 3. Two, this guy's a bit more boring. Great feel to the atmosphere but D is never really in any danger or trouble, and he reeks of angsty protagonist who can never have any friends.

I gave up on it. It has a few interesting ideas, but the translation, I presume, gives it some vaguely awkward prose and dialogue. It also seems to have that peculiar characteristic of Japanese media where the methods of characters getting out of danger, or the specific mechanism of how certain powers work, seem very contrived. I wasn't expecting hard sci-fi, of course, but still the effect was reminiscent of children playing with action figures. On the whole, it seems like this book was trying to be cool, but just ends up being silly. If the author had any self awareness of that, it was lost on me.

Fun read, writing style is a weird mix of serious and pulp. Also it's about a bunch of superhumans doing superhuman stuff. Again, fun to read.

While the [b:Vampire Hunter D|190361|Obsidian Butterfly (Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter Book 9)|Laurell K. Hamilton|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1172551780s/190361.jpg|2477403] books are still a massively guilty pleasure for me, it's getting slightly less guilty than it used to. The plot, involving D and a pile of supernatural mercenaries all chasing after a vampire-created McGuffin, moves along well, with enough twists & turns to keep you guessing. The characters actually get fleshed out, to a certain degree. They're still pretty rough sketches of characters at best, but they're more interesting & varied than in previous novels. The whacked-out concepts that Kikuchi populates his world with are as wonderfully plentiful as ever. And finally, slowly but surely, the purple prose and over-obvious writing is being toned down. Yes, parts of it still reads like fan fiction, but only parts, rather than the whole thing, like some of the previous books. Overall, I can foresee a day where I actually admit to someone what I'm reading than just saying, "oh, it's a dumb fantasy novel..." before running off with an embarrassed look on my face. Or maybe not.

A decent adaptation of the first Vampire Hunter D novel, thought the art in this volume is very heavy on the lines, to enough of a degree that it disrupts the flow.

This book is a novelization of the manga series; unfortunately, Goodreads cannot seem to distinguish between the manga version I read in 2014, and the novelization I just finished reading in 2018. Either way, it’s an interesting read. Science fiction, fantasy, horror, vampires, dystopian future, alternate history, steampunk, western – there’s a little bit here of everything, but it works somehow. ‘D’ is a dhampir – half human and half vampire – who hunts vampires. Vampires have ruled over humans for millennia, and are referred to as ‘Nobility’, but this far in the future they are virtually extinct. This series is not as enamored of vampires as some are; these vampires are soulless, ruthless, self-serving narcissists who only care for themselves. Humanity has been subjugated for so long, the rebellion has literally been bred out of them by the vampires superior knowledge acquisition and resource base. ‘D’ is a classic tsundere character – the stoic lone hero whose burden it is to save the weak and unfortunate. He uses his not inconsiderable powers – and prodigious genealogical and genetic inheritance – to defeat and kill the ‘Nobility’. I can’t say much more without giving things away. There is blood, gore, and violence, but there are no explicit sexual scenes, though are are situations where sexual violence is implied or threatened.
I found the novelization more enjoyable than the manga, but I think that is because I ended up with a digitized manga version, and the drawing did not come out well at all in that. [from Goodreads profil]

D, in direct competition with a clan of Hunters, goes after a Vampire who has absconded with a willing woman. The pair are trying to get to space to escape. Pretty much everybody but D dies. No loose ends that way.

I have one more VHD book, and that will be it. In this one, a woman is raped, repeatedly by her 4 brothers. Kikuchi is one sick *******.

The first novel in the Vampire Hunter D light novel series.
A young woman is bit by a local Noble and hires D to kill the Noble to free her. A local human thug, some mutant rebels and other demons all come together to make life hard for D as he just tries to do his job.

Obviously a first novel. Descriptions go something like this The wind snarled like a beast across the barren sky". It is like using fingerpaints to do a portrait. Gets the job done, but kind of makes you groan at the amateurishness of it. No real character development, but since I'm guessing D is the only character common in all the books, not surprising.

A nice light read."

The cleanest, morally, so far. Also the dumbest. D goes to a floating town where experiments have gone on to spread vampirism like a plague instead of through bites. I'm not going to be reading any more of this trash.

D must fight with the leftover experiments of some great Noble Doctor, vampires who can live in the daylight.

Bloody, sexual and just pulp fiction. This stuff is about on the same level, literary wise, as the Mars series. Shallow and action instead of plot.

Um - yeah. I read this. I'm not proud to have read this - this is exactly what non-manga understanding people think manga is (this isn't manga). Is it well written? Nope. It reads like a manga, but with more description. That is to say, we have a mystery man who comes in and saves the day, not much explaining as to why he is mysterious. A beautiful non-human female partner who is deadly, and sexy - and lots and lots of rape. Except that the victim likes it. To be fair, both men and women are victims, but the author spent pages on how a women was violated, and the men only a few paragraphs.... so yeah. This is a horrible book.

The plot isn't actually that bad, once you cut out all the porn - but there isn't much left of the book if you do so.

So... I'd suggest not reading this book. Ever. Its pretty horrible, not writing wise but subject matter wise.

The plot was predictable and tired. The dialog was simplistic and boring. And the artwork was horrendous and shoddy. This was an incredible waste of time.

The story wasn't bad, but the writing was distracting because of awkward sentence structuring.

Read this a few years ago and enjoyed it a lot, so I've added a few more of HK's books to my To Read shelf.

The vampire hunter from Japan. A great story and interesting characters in a well written story.

I liked the cartoon movie, so I gave it over 50 pages & just couldn't stomach it any more. A lot of the problem was the horrible dialogue. This may have been due to poor translation, but I don't think that was all of it. Very stilted & unbelievable.

The setting was too far out, too. Humans fighting vampires 10,000 years into the future, a medieval world in many ways backed by super science. Unfortunately, the author tried to draw a direct line from our time to that one & I found his reasoning completely unbelievable.

The characters were paper cutouts, no more believable than the setting they were in. The fight scenes played pretty well on the screen, but the descriptions didn't grab me. There was too much ridiculous speed hampered by inept choreography.

All told, I just couldn't stay interested in the simple story line. Everything was overblown & poorly put together. I'm sorry that it turned out that way because I was looking forward to it, but I just can't handle such poor writing.

Not as interesting as the first volume. The underlying story had some interesting potential, but none of the characters were fully fleshed out, and the actions scenes were almost impossible to follow; too much focus on stepping it up from the first volume rather than turning out a solid story.

Not bad! The story was intriguing and the characters were somewhat compelling. The good guys aren't perfect and the bad guys have at least some redeeming qualities in the end. However--holy golly, the large breasts on the women and all the scanty cladding. Geeze. I was reading this in public and felt like I had to close the book when little kids were standing next to me.

Yashakiden: The Demon Princess is a series of vampire novels written by Hideyuki Kikuchi and illustrated by Jun Suemi. The novels take place in Kikuchi's Demon City Shinjuku setting, of which I am particularly fond. The third volume of Digital Manga's English-language release of Yashakiden, translated by Eugene Woodbury, is actually an omnibus edition collecting the third and fourth volumes of the original Japanese series. The omnibus edition published in 2010 is based on the 2007 release of the novels (which may have also been an omnibus release, but I'm not certain.) However, the third and fourth novels in Yashakiden were originally written in 1989 and 1990 respectively. Digital Manga's omnibus also includes "A Vampire Tale Like No Other," an essay written by Yoshiharu Sasagawa about Demon City Shinjuku, Yashakiden, and Kikuchi's work in general.

Despite the best efforts of Aki Setsura and Doctor Mephisto, two of Shinjuku's most terrifying and capable residents, Princess and her entourage of Chinese vampires are slowly gaining control of Demon City. Setsura was severely injured and is still recovering, Mephisto continues to act strangely, and many of their allies have either been killed or taken hostage. To makes matters even worse, the vampires' influence continues to spread as more and more of Shinjuku's leadership fall victim to their fangs. The situation has gotten so bad that forces outside of Demon City Shinjuku are threatening and preparing to interfere. Setsura and Mephisto still present enough of a problem on their own for Princess and her plans that she has released Kazikli Bey, yet another powerful and deadly vampire, from his imprisonment. As the volatile situation in Shinjuku becomes more complicated, the city is drawn even closer to the brink of chaos and destruction.

Frankly, Yashakiden frustrates me. Although Kikuchi has a ton of great ideas, and I continue to love Demon City Shinjuku as a setting, he hasn't been able to pull everything together into a cohesive whole quite yet. I find that I often know what's going on without really understanding why. Some of the individual scenes and scenarios in Yashakiden are exciting and have great execution, particularly the action sequences, but I'm frequently at a loss as to how they are all connected to one another. Kikuchi's writing style in Yashakiden is very sparse with little extensive description. In fact, it is so direct and to the point that I often felt that I was missing out on crucial information. Occasionally, the narrative would seem to contradict itself which would leave me confused even after several re-readings. As unadorned as Kikuchi's writing in Yashakiden is, it can also be very unfocused.

Yashakiden was originally planned to be four volumes long. It quickly became clear to Kikuchi and his editors that four novels weren't going to be enough; he kept adding new characters and plot developments. I'm not sure how much of Yashakiden Kikuchi had planned out in advance. It frequently seems as though he's making things up as he goes. Ultimately, the series ended up being eight volumes long. With Yashakiden: The Demon Princess, Volume 3 the story has reached its midway point. Overall, the volume is better balanced than those preceding it. As Kikuchi states in the author's notes, the story is beginning to "gel." Yashakiden isn't as blatantly sexualized or grotesque as it once was. Although those elements still exist, they are better incorporated into the plot as a whole. As much as Yashakiden frustrates me, there is still enough in the series that intrigues me; I'll probably continue on with the series for at least a little while longer.

Experiments in Manga

My introduction to the works of Hideyuki Kikuchi was through Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1, Saiko Takaki's manga adaptation of Kikuchi's light novel of the same name. I first read Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 after borrowing it from my local library; later, Digital Manga would send me a copy as part of a Kikuchi care package. It seemed appropriate to give Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 another, closer look for the October 2012 Manga Moveable Feast which focused on vampire manga. The Vampire Hunter D manga adaptation is an interesting project. Coordinated by Digital Manga with Kikuchi's direct involvement, the goal is for each volume of the original Vampire Hunter D series of novels to be adapted. (So far, six of the more than twenty novels have received the treatment.) Takaki was personally selected by Kikuchi to work on the project and is responsible for illustrating and adapting the novels as manga. Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 was simultaneously released worldwide in 2007.

After nearly annihilating themselves in a nuclear holocaust, the remnants of human society now struggle to survive in a world filled with mutants and monsters, the most powerful of which is a race of vampires known as the Nobility. But even the Nobility's reign of terror can't last forever; thousands of years later the vampires themselves are now also in decline. Even though their control over the world is slipping away, the Nobility are still extremely dangerous and are a threat to what is left of humankind. Doris Lang, a beautiful young woman from the frontier town of Ransylva, has been bitten by one of the Nobility, putting her life at great risk. To save herself, she hires a vampire hunter known only as "D." Although appearing as a young man, D is a dhampir--the son of a human mother and one of the Nobility. Reviled by both vampires and humans, D is in an unusual position. His heritage grants him superhuman skills and power, making him an ideal vampire hunter and nearly as dangerous as the Nobility.

Takaki's artwork in Vampire Hunter D is well-suited for the story. It's darkly beautiful, striking, and yet disconcerting. (Although, perhaps, not always as horrifying as I might hope.) At times the art is vaguely reminiscent of the work of Yoshitaka Amano, the illustrator for the Vampire Hunter D novels. Great care has been taken with the character designs, especially D's. He is the epitome of tall, dark, and handsome--easily the prettiest character in the manga. I particularly liked the attention given to the details of his attire. A brooding anti-hero who rarely smiles, the more terrifying side of D's dhampir nature is rarely seen. It's easy to forget how dangerous he really is as he plays the part of the "good guy" well. But occasionally there is a glimpse of fangs and malice as he struggles to control his desires.

While I wasn't overly impressed by Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1 when I read it for the first time, the manga has grown on me after subsequent readings. Since I haven't yet read the original Vampire Hunter D novel, I can't comment on how the manga compares or even how it works as an adaptation. However, I do think it is fairly successful as its own work. The story is quickly paced but there are leaps and potential inconsistencies in the plot that require readers to fill in what happened themselves. (This is actually something I've seen in other works by Kikuchi, so it wouldn't surprise me if this issue comes directly from the source material.) Still, there is plenty that I like about Vampire Hunter D, Volume 1: it's post-apocalyptic setting, D himself, the mix of traditional vampire lore and advanced technology, the interesting powers granted to the mutants. In the end, I do want to read more of the Vampire Hunter D manga and maybe even give the original novels a try.

Experiments in Manga½

The 2nd vol in the manga adaption of the Vampire hunter D novels didn't grab me as much as the first vol. I think the main problem i had was that the story seemed to jump around a lot. It seemed that they were trying to go for mystery with the big reveal at the end but to me it fell through. Everything was answered in the end but the journey there could have been streamlined a little better. however even with the problem with the story i still enjoyed it. The art was fitting and i did like the dichotomy between the nobility and the humans as in this case the humans seemed to be the more barbaric of the two wile the nobility even though not directly shown seemed to be the more compassionate even though there actions would lead to tragedy. Overall not as good as vol.1 for me but still enjoyable½