August 15, 2005

Vampire Hunter D by Hideyuki Kikuchi and Yoshitaka Amano

I watched the anime film (IMDB) some time ago, and when I saw the novel in our local bookshop and read that it was the first volume of the series on which the anime was based, translated from the Japanese for the first time, I wanted to read it: I hadn't realized that the anime was based on a novel; I had assumed that it was produced from either an original script or a comics series.

Reading it is certainly an odd experience. Of course it is a translation, but that can hardly account from its utter lack of novelistic sensibility. It seems to have been written with anime conventions fully in mind, from the irritatingly coy adversarial relationship between the two leads, to the strange, stilted dialogue, particularly the "rustic" accent of the heroine, a gentle country maiden with a bullwhip who talks like Elly May Clampett with a wicked hangover. I don't know anything about Japanese horror and its conventions, but if this novel is indicative then it would seem to be more of a trans-media than a strictly literary phenomenon. Or I could be talking through my hat; let me know please.

It's a nicely produced book, with attractive illustrations by Yoshitaka Amano, best known for his work on Neil Gaiman's Sandman: The Dream Hunters and the Final Fantasy games.

The second novel in the series of thirteen is due out very soon. I'm not sure if I will buy it, but I probably will. Call me curious.

Scribbled at August 15, 2005 8:29 PM AST | Permanent link to this post | More? sf

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