Vampire Hunter

Title:Vampire Hunter
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
Overall:Rent
Keywords: , , , , , , , , , ,
Notables: Animation - Madhouse
ISHIZUKA Unshou
MIYAMURA Yuko
OGAWA Shinji
OKAMOTO Maya
R1 License - Viz Media (Shopro)
SAKUMA Rei
TACHIKI Fumihiko
YAJIMA Akiko
YAMADERA Kouichi
In another world, another time, all the old legends of vampires...of ghosts...of werewolves...and all manner of things that go bump in the night...are real. And as all the old legends make so very clear, humans are the natural enemies of...The Darkstalkers. Donovan Baine is a man whose blood is half-tainted by the blood of the Dark and has made it his mission to eliminate the invading Darkstalkers. The clashes between mankind and Darkstalkers get the attention of the fiery omniscient being, Pyron, who becomes interested in the activities of the Darkstalkers.

(OAV, 4 episodes, 45 min. each, 1997-98)

Based on the Darkstalkers video game series made by Capcom.
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Rent 9 9 9 8 6 6 Ggultra2764 [series:1754#1552]
The Pros: Night Warriors is another anime based on a fighting video game series. The series divides up its time to explore the different sides of which popular Darkstalkers characters are dealing with their lives in the human world through the perspectives of Demitri, Felicia, Morrigan, and Donovan. All four characters are given a decent amount of depth into their views of living from Felicia’s belief in humans and Darkstalkers living peacefully to Donovan’s self-searching for accepting his ‘wretched’ existence of being a half-blooded Darkstalker. Compared to other video game-based anime, this OAV manages to create a solid, flowing storyline while retaining the action scenes of the video games and staying faithful to the original storylines of the series. Speaking of the action, Night Warriors features some crisp and fluid character designs and battle scenes, which create a stylish look for the series. The animation impressively still holds up well today to current anime titles and would make a viewer think the series was made just recently. The soundtrack features some energetic rock n’ roll music mixes that do a good job of not intruding into the intensity that flow during battle scenes.

The Cons: While standing out from other video game based anime titles, Night Warriors still retains some of the problems of the genre. It has a habit of showcasing characters from the video games series that play little to no role in the main storyline of the OAV. With only four episodes to explore the characters, the storyline of Night Warriors can feel a bit tight, as there is not enough time to explore all aspects of the main characters that are introduced. Also, the ending is a bit disappointing and open-ended as the resolution to the conflict in the series is typical to past action anime titles and the ending appears to foreshadow another conflict.

Facts on the OAV:

-The names of some of the anime’s characters were changed for the English dub of the series much like the American video game. For example, Lei Lei’s name was changed to Hsien-Ko and Gallon’s name was changed to John Talbain.

Last updated Tuesday, January 08 2008. Created Tuesday, January 08 2008.

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org