HE015 Vampire Hunter D

In honor of this most wonderful time of the year (it's still Halloween somewhere, right?), the Hate Expectations team sinks its teeth into the anime classic, Vampire Hunter D. We drank in the English translation (2005) of the Hideyuki Kikuchi novel (1983), were hypnotized into a restless trance by the animated movie adaptation (dir. Toyoo Ashida, 1985), and finally fought through the whole rambling mess to hunt for a living pulse somewhere in it. We weren't entirely successful. It turns out that vampires aren't the only thing that suck with this title. Certainly, it's not all noxious fumes and ghastly ichor (spoiler: Lizzy liked the book). And even where it is, we do our best to make sense of it. Garlic lemonade, anyone?