Vampire Hunter D: Blood Lust
 This movie is the sequel to Vampire Hunter D. I haven't seen that particular one, but based on the screencaps I saw on the web, I can say that Blood Lust has visually improved immensely.
Spoilers
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The "D" in Vampire Hunter D stands for Dompiel which is almost like a curse upon itself. Dompiel was borned from the result of a vampire father and human mother. Hence, due to his half human and half vampire blood, he has inherited the immortality of the vampires as well as the obligation to hunt down all other vampires. At the very beginning of the film, there's a sequence that resembles something straight out of a Dracula flick. A beautiful young girl named Charlotte is abducted in the middle of night by a being whose has no reflection. Guess what..? Her family sets up quite a profitable sum to attract bounty hunters to bring her back... dead or alive. This is how we see Dompiel who seems more interested in going after the vampire than the girl.
Dompiel is extremely quiet at times. Because of his origin, he is not easily accepted into society. If it weren't for that talking parasite on his hand, the often dreary scene cannot possibly be relieved with humor. But first and foremost, this movie is pure action, where people get hurt, killed and so on. Another bunch of bounty hunters are also after finding Charlotte, and after trying to prevent Dompiel from going forward, one of the members, Leila, strike a small aquaintance with him. When Dompiel catches up to the kidnapper, he's slightly surprised to find that Charlotte and her captor, the vampire Meier, are in love. They had wanted to elope and live together. Now, not merely just to rescue the girl, Dompiel feels a he should stop this match from spawning another Dompiel.
Everyone on the Brother Bounty team perishes except for Leila and the big queen of the vampires, Carmila, plays an illusion trick to get Charlotte's blood to free herself from her grave. Charlotte dies and both Dompiel and Meyer duke it out to see who gets to keep the body. Then Charlotte's rings drops, and Dompiel says that that would be sufficient to give to her parents. And so Meyer carries his beloved's body into the special rocket that can take them to a place where they won't be prosecuted. Both Leila and Dompiel desperately urge the ship on its unsteady liftoff. After this, the last scene we see is a burial funeral being conducted. A little, blond, pig-tailed girl notices a darkly dressed man on a horse afarways watching the ceremony and calls after him, asking if he knew her Grandma Leila. She recognizes him from all the stories she heard from her grandma and thanks him for coming. Dompiel is even invited come to the house but he declines, saying that he was only trying to keep a promise to an old friend who was afraid no one would leave flowers on her grave when she died. Guess she worried too much... Then Dompiel rides off into a setting sun with his hand demon yapping off saying how nice that exchange was.
This movie was damn cool. ^_^ I saw the English dubbed version and the voice acting was incredible. I think they actually tried to be good. There is enough action and a mellow moral tone to keep everyone's attention until the end. The deep love between the human charlotte and the vampire Meyer goes beyond regular comparison. Many times Meier is tempted to drink from Charlotte, who is willing to be the same as her love, but he cannot wish his sad situation on her. This caring seems to trisend ordinary methods in order to remain together and I gotta say that part of the ending pissed me off a bit, why must it be a tragedy? Dompiel is so damn calm and formidable. At first look, he might look like the bad guy, and when he does almost lose his human side, you get sorta scared of him, but otherwise, he's someone I would pity. His job is almost thankless and he belongs to neither the human nor vampire society. He must live always alone too. Sigh, but this anime teaches a bit of not being prejudiced on anyone, because really everyone of the sorta good guys, meaning the bounty brotherhood, Meier and certain townspeople, do have a sense of honor code about them. (UsagiSakura 2/13/04)