And all the more when they are Japanese.
This is the post where I tell you my favorite vampire anime. There are plenty of top 10 lists out there, but these are the ones that I enjoyed. I hope you do, too.
Vampire Hunter D
This is the one that started it all. I think the first Japanese anime I’d ever seen was Totoro. There was this girl I met at a bus stop in San Jose and we became friends based on our book preferences. (Go figure!) She invited me to her apartment and we watched Totoro in Japanese while she interpreted it for me. I have loved anime ever since.
Oh, but we were talking about vampires! So, years and years later I was working as a tech writer and there was this programmer who lived over the cubicle wall from me (you’ve seen Dilbert comics right? Office Space, maybe? yeah, so you know about cubicle walls). And he slipped some anime over the wall and it was Vampire Hunter D and BAM. Hooked on anime again.
Vampire Princess Miyu
This is the prettiest of them all. The art is gorgeous and the story’s atmosphere so very full of beauty and creepiness. Hard to explain, you just need to watch it.
Hellsing
Now this is a classic! You gotta love a series that names its main vampire by spelling Dracula backwards. That’s some chutzpah, right there. But besides that, there are some great characters and interesting politics and a lot of great anime action. Miyu may be the pretties, but this one has so many kickass pics that it’s hard to choose just one.
Vampire Knight
This one is pure YA (young adult) fun, through and through, with the love triangle and everything. What to do when you’re supposed to be guarding everyone from the vampires, but you have a crush (maybe?) on one of the vampires… One of the best things about this anime is that it only has two seasons, so you get a complete story (more or less) without giving up years of your life watching hundreds of episodes. Ha!
Oh, yeah, and of course I enjoy the classics…
…Even though they aren’t Japanese. There’s the haunting and beautiful story Carmilla, which you can download free from the Gutenberg project. And the original Dracula by Bram Stoker (and the movie version).
Anne Rice has done so much for the genre with her many books, especially with the fascinating Interview with a Vampire and our introduction to Lestat.
The recent movie Dracula Untold was pretty cool, too. Go, Bard! I mean, Luke Evans. Heh heh.
I’ll tell you a secret!
In my own story world, the vampires are called hemavores. “Hema”, meaning blood. And “vore”, meaning that’s what they eat. You know, carnivore, herbivore — and hemavore. Hemas, for short. Of course, it doesn’t really matter what they’re called. They’d suck you dry in a minute if they could get away with it.
So tell me, what’s your favorite vampire story?
Drop a comment below and enlighten me.
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