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A podcast that holds horror to standards horror never agreed to. Hosts Jeremy Whitley, Ben Kahn, Emily Martin and guests watch, read, listen to, and check out movies, tv shows, comics, books, art and anything else from the horror genre and discuss it through a progressive lens. We'll talk feminism in horror, LGBTQ+ issues and representation in horror, racial and social justice in horror, disability and mental health/illness in horror, and the work of female and POC directors, writers, and creators in horror.
We're the podcast horror never agreed to take part in.
Alicia: Hey, just a heads up the
episode you're about to listen
to is about vampire hunter.
D Bloodlust.
Some relevant trigger warnings for this
movie include suicidal ideation, needles,
illusion to drug overdose, animal death.
Disorienting imagery, blood gore
and lots and lots of flashing
lights and our hosts ranked this
movie is scoopy and totally metal.
If you'd like to learn more
about the movie, discuss this
evening, please visit our website.
Progressively horrified.transistor.fm
for show notes.
After the spooky music, we'll
talk about the movie in full.
So before warned, there will be spoilers.
Now let's get on with the show.
Emily: Good evening and welcome to
progressively horrified the podcast where
we hold horror to progressive standards.
It never agreed to tonight.
Jeremy's away.
So us weeps can play.
We're covering an under
distributed anime classic.
Vampire Hunter D, Bloodlust.
This is Emily, your friendly neighborhood
megamoth, and with me tonight, I do have
a panel of cinephiles and cinebytes.
First up, challenging the sexy werewolf,
sexy vampire binary, which is especially
relevant tonight, it's Ben Kahn!
Ben, how
Ben: are you?
Vampire Hunter D.
I appreciate a movie that's
its own porn parody title.
Right?
Emily: I mean, just as horny
as you would want it to be.
I mean,
Ben: I don't think I'd want to
see this franchise get too horny.
Emily: I think it's just horny enough.
And next we have our very special guests,
comics artist and illustrator Amanda.
How are you doing?
Hi, I'm doing, uh,
Amanda: I'm doing all right.
Emily: Cool.
So what's our first
impression on this movie?
Ben: This is one of the most gorgeous
films I've ever seen in my entire life.
Emily: I agree.
It's a beautifully animated movie.
It is mostly vibes.
This is
Ben: a masterpiece.
Of the animated form.
Yeah, it's a vibe.
I do use a term coined by Patrick Willems.
It's a vibe movie.
It is a five movie.
This is Michael Mann's
heat as a vampire anime.
Emily: Amanda, what do you agree?
Amanda: I feel like it's a lot of style
and the substance might be getting
a little confused along the way.
Emily: I have some
Ben: thoughts.
If someone was to tell you.
that this was an adaptation of the
third book in a 40 book series.
Amanda: Oh yeah, I didn't know that.
I'm just judging the movie
on its own standalone merits.
Ben: If it seems like this is just
a completely inconsequential story
plucked from nothing just to adapt with
no true impact or arc, you're correct.
Yes.
Emily: Wow, is it pretty?
Oh, it's so pretty.
So this, this movie I believe
I would place in a genre.
Now, a lot of people consider
anime a genre and that's incorrect.
However, in the 90s, it's very
understandable to think that anime was
a genre because this was the genre.
I like to call it Japanimation because
it was all this same kind of stuff.
You'd find it in a corner of the
Hollywood video or whatever your
local video store was on the thusly
titled mini shelf somewhere in the
back, some, in a very niche area and
it was full of shit like Ninja Scroll
and Wicked City, all beautifully
animated, or in Akira, of course.
Akira was one of those that was
sort of like an odd man out.
It's Akira.
But, uh, it's all like beautiful,
horny, a lot of monsters and tentacles
and things happening and boobies
and there's not a lot of substance.
And because these movies were very, very
popular, um, as imports, because of course
they are, because they're just all vibes.
We get Japanimation.
Now we know that anime is, is
just an animated, very, very large
animated medium from Japan, but,
Ben: everything from isekai
to slightly different isekai.
I
Emily: guess this movie
can count as isekai?
I
Amanda: guess, how is it
Emily: aka we're it's us.
I don't think head we're in it.
We're in it.
The Akai transports us.
It's
Amanda: not a second person movie.
What are you talking about?
Ben: It's just a, it just has
very immersive atmosphere.
There you go.
Watching this movie, knowing that it
came out in 2000 I could so conceive
of a version of history where.
If Adult Swim had gotten their hands on
this, they, like, would have played it,
like, once a month on, like, Saturdays
at midnight, and it would have been
one of, like, at a Cowboy Bebop level
of, like, Western acclaim and prestige.
Emily: That's what's baffling to me
is that this movie is really, like,
it's not on any streaming services.
We had to watch it on YouTube.
Ben: Same, but fucking YouTube,
like Fucking just DVD rip, I assume.
Yeah.
What's going on?
Like, again, this is a stunning
achievement in animation.
Like, where's, like, the 1080p,
like, gorgeous Blu ray release of
Amanda: this?
Oh, no, I loved that on
YouTube it was titled 1080p
Emily: ish, which is really funny to me.
Amanda: Like, it's kind of 1080p,
like, it's very Strange, the
lengths we had to go to watch this.
It is very
Emily: odd.
Well, I don't think there's a remastered
version since it came out on DVD.
There's no Blu ray.
Ben: Wild.
This is an anime movie that actually
manages to capture in animation a degree
the feel of Yoshitaka Amano's artwork.
And that is one thing.
Fucking motherfucker of an accomplishment.
Emily: Yeah, and in a time of
life, when we have Castlevania on
Netflix, and we have games like
Bloodborne, and we have all of this
media out right now that's like, It
is this, like, it's based on this.
Like, Castlevania, of course,
predated the Vampire Hunter D.
Movies.
It did not predate, actually, I don't
know if Castlevania came out before
the first Vampire Hunter D movie,
because this is actually, technically,
I wouldn't call it a sequel, because
it just has the same character, it's
a similar world, but the first Vampire
Hunter D movie came out in the 80s.
I've, I did not Wikipedia this part.
Give me a minute.
But it was based on a
series of light novels.
When did, so 1985 was when we got
the first Vampire Hunter D and
that was a direct to video, aka
OVA, original video animation.
It, I
Ben: know what OVA stands for.
I'm a weeb.
Emily: I, yeah, we're weebs,
but I'm not going to assume that
everybody in our audience is.
Like, if, if you listener assume
that the anime was a genre, I'm
not going to blame you for that.
I just want you to know that, what
Ben: are you, my Spotify,
like, year end playlist?
Where every year it's just
like, your top genre was anime.
Emily: I mean, anime music,
I think that's a genre.
Amanda, would you agree?
Amanda: I, there is definitely a
sort of anime music that exists.
It's not my bot They do follow certain
They do follow certain, there's certain
chord progressions, there's certain,
there's a certain genre to the vibe
Ben: of anime.
that the Blue Lock
soundtrack fucking slaps.
Emily: A lot of these
soundtracks fucking slap.
But like, there's a particular kind
of anime opening that there's like the
opening songs and the ending songs.
There's a lot of meme material, you
know, check out all of, like, there's
several different YouTubers make
jokes about this, you know, anime
opening and anime endings be like.
Look that up on YouTube and
you'll find some great content.
Amanda: Fun fact, a lot of anime
openings, um, follow the exact same
chord progression as, uh, Never
Gonna Give You Up by Rick Astley.
Is that real?
No, that's true.
Yes.
And his music is very popular in Japan
because it follows that chord progression.
It's, it's, it's interesting.
Emily: That's true.
That's true.
And the Pet Shop Boys, too.
Like, a lot of anime openings are
just, this is the Pet Shop Boys.
Ben: This is a movie where The
main character undergoes no arc,
no change happens to the world.
The events of the movie are truly
inconsequential to most of the
people involved and the world itself.
But fuck if everything isn't just oozing
in style and atmosphere and elegance.
And mood and just the most gorgeous
fucking animation you've ever done seen.
Emily: Yeah, so the main, the
main animating studio that That
worked on this movie is Madhouse.
And when you say Cowboy Bebop,
Madhouse did Cowboy Bebop.
They also did Trigun, although they
didn't try as gun with Trigun, sadly.
this is Trigun 1998.
Uh, and they also did like Ninja Scroll.
They did oh gosh, they did a lot of stuff.
And this look that they have is very,
like, elegant look to the characters
that is very much, you know, there's
a lot of Yoshitaka Amano there.
Now, real quick, just to give you
an idea of who we're talking about.
Yoshitaka Amano, his artwork you
may recognize from the Final Fantasy
series, he did all of the watercolors
associated with the Final Fantasy series.
Whenever you see that kind of elegance
like brushy artwork with those games
then, or then sometimes they appear on
the, um, the little title logo there,
that's Yoshitaka Amano and he's done
all sorts of stuff and he's, you know,
this is one of those things that he's
known for and his artwork is very, very
recognizable once you like, See it.
If you
Ben: like Final Fantasy,
Emily: yeah, I mean if you like Final
Fantasy, you'll like this movie.
Here real quick.
Does anyone know if Castlevania, the
original game, the original Nintendo
Castlevania came out before or after 1985?
To Google.
Ben: To Google.
Yeah, I don't know.
Increasingly useless by the day.
Amanda: I'm not a Castlevania buff,
Ben: I just know 1986
is the first Castlevania
Emily: game.
So that's a year after Vampire Hunter
D, the movie, the OVA, came out.
So this does predate because, you know,
then there were the books before that
and this does predate Castlevania.
So I'm going to go into, we're going
to, I'm going to do a recap and and
first I'll do basics recap, and then
we're going to talk about some stuff
that we feel about this movie and
whether or not has anything to say.
But to start director and screen.
Go ahead.
Stuff from
Ben: Hot Topic.
That's the message.
Emily: Yes.
Yeah, goth things are cool.
That's what this movie says.
So our director and screenwriter
is Yoshiaki Kawajiri.
We also have the English language
adaptation by Ellen, not Allen, Ellen
Moore, not Allen Moore and Jack Fletcher.
Our Japanese voice cast is Hiroyuki
Tanaka as D, Koichi Yamadera as Meyer
Link, Megumi Hayashibara as Layla
you may have heard Megumi's voice
before in Neon Genesis Evangelion, she
plays Rei Emi Shinohara as Charlotte,
and Ichiro Nagai as, uh, D's cool
hand, Ichiro Nagai is a very well
known, classic voice actor and actor.
He was also The Hand
in the original movie.
The Hand is an important
part, and we'll get there.
And yes, I understand that there's
a little bit of a, of an eyebrow
raise when I talk about The Hand
being a very important character
in a movie called Vampire Hunter D.
Our English cast, uh, we
have Andy Philpott as D.
John Rafter Lee as Meyer Link John
Rafter Lee you may have heard before
in Spawn, he was Jason Nguyen in Spawn,
the animated series, and he was also,
no this might be a deep cut, he was
also Trevor Goodchild in Aeon Flux
which is a very close relative of this
Ben: movie.
Now I didn't realize until after watching
it that it was originally recorded in
English and technically It's the Japanese.
That's the dub.
Yes.
I did not realize that.
So I just watched it in the Japanese.
Yeah.
So I wonder how it changes.
Maybe I got to rewatch it now in English.
The
Emily: English version was
the most common version.
And so I've seen it in
English a bunch of times.
This was actually, I found it in
Japanese just by, by accident.
And it's, there's some slight
differences in the dub and the sub.
The dub is slightly hornier.
But in kind of an awkward
way, and I'll get to that now.
Yeah.
Um, John Rafter Lee is Meyer link.
Pamela Adlin, who's credited here as
Pamela Siegel, who also voices Bobby Hill
in King of the Hill, and um, also known as
a sometimes collaborator with Lucy Kahn.
Oh,
someone
Ben: please dub over her
lines with Bobby Hill lines.
I don't know you!
That's my John Kahn!
Emily: Amanda, have you
seen any King of the Hill?
Amanda: Yes, I have, uh, mostly
due to, uh, my partner's influence.
She loves king of the hill.
Oh,
Emily: I didn't know that.
No, she loves it.
Yeah, I haven't, you know, I saw
king of the hill when it came
out or, um, like way back in the
day, like when it came out on TV.
And it was, it was nice that I
just, I haven't seen it since.
I just think it's hilarious how
like it's an international hit.
Yeah.
And anyway, so Charlotte is what
is played by Wendy Lee, who's
a very prolific voice actor.
Look her up.
She's great.
Comedian Mike McShane from Office
Space, uh, among other things,
is the, is Dee's cool hand.
And then John DiMaggio plays
like, you know, a good 40
percent of the rest of the cast.
So, some, recognizable names.
So, I have mentioned that this is
based, well, we've mentioned the
light novels the Hideo Kikuchi light
novels illustrated by Yoshitaka Amano.
And yes, this is based on book three
of the 40 some odd volume series.
Ben: And I can't find any info
on what actually happens in
any of the other 39 books.
The books,
Emily: the light novels were
available in English for a time.
And it may have been through one of those
spur of the moment publishers like Tokyo.
Well, I don't know if I call
Tokyo pop a spur of the moment
publisher, but you know, once,
once and maybe future publishers.
I don't know for sure.
That's something that I would
I'd say, I'm sorry, listener.
I'm, I'm putting this one on you.
If you want to find them.
Ben: It's like the James Bond movies.
I get such that, like, you never almost
even expect him to go through an arc.
You just want D to do D things.
And I have a new plot, new villains,
new themes, and it's very Cowboy Bebop,
Samurai Champloo in where it's just
like he's just a connecting thread
through these supporting characters who
are each really the main characters.
Emily: Yeah, he's sort of like,
an ambassador to this world.
Is what it
Ben: all feels
Emily: like.
Yeah.
But you're
Amanda: saying that, uh, if someone
were interested in reading the
series, they might have to do a
little bit of a yo ho ho, if you will?
Emily: Maybe.
Maybe a little.
Honestly, like, these days, I'm pro I
don't know if the, uh, um We here at
Ben: Progressively Harf do not
endorse the act of yo ho ho, but yes,
I
Emily: do.
Unless you took a bite of gum gum.
Anyway, so, We get to the recap.
That was a One Piece joke.
Coming soon to
Ben: Netflix.
Really?
Live action trailer.
Yeah, they've got a live
Emily: action.
A live action trailer of what?
They've got a live
Amanda: action One Piece.
Emily: Oh my God, the vibes are strange.
I cannot
Ben: imagine to only ever watch the
Netflix show just to annoy one piece fans.
Amanda: I love Luffy CGI arm.
It makes me
Emily: uncomfortable.
Is it is Japanese?
There's a, there's an,
like an international cast.
Ben: Oh, wow.
Yes.
They're letting Luffy's actor
keep his South American accent.
Okay.
Emily: Good.
Ben: I don't know where in South
America and I'm too lazy to Google it.
I
Emily: thought they filmed
Amanda: in Africa.
I'm not sure.
Ben: I think the filming
was in South Africa, but the
cast is very international.
Okay.
Emily: God, that.
You'll learn something new.
All right.
Well, I had no idea that
One Piece had a live action
Ben: series.
I hope Chopper is the worst fucking
CGI y'all ever done seen in your life.
I
Amanda: don't believe
they're getting to Chopper.
I think they're only going to the
part where they enter the Grand
Emily: Line.
Ben: That'll be something that
happens in season two, by which
we mean they're not doing Chopper.
Amanda: I would want to see
what Chopper looked like.
I think it's just the.
The
Emily: beginning, yeah.
I would not want to watch it without
Chopper, like, because if we don't
have Chopper, we don't have Robin.
No, yeah, no Robin.
All right.
Well, thank you for, for, uh,
being here for One Piece Corner.
You know what, listener?
Ben: I've never seen it or watched
it, except for that, duh, except for
like eight episodes of like the 4Kids
Emily: dub.
Oh my, oh.
Ben, you should preserve you.
We need to preserve you as you are.
Yeah,
Ben: I think that should be like,
that should be my exposure is like
the first 2, 3 arcs of 4 kids dub
and then the Netflix live action.
And that's it.
Yeah.
No other One Piece
Emily: media.
And then I want you to do all sorts
of critique on One Piece based on
this little bit of One Piece theme.
Yes.
Yes.
I think this is, we need outside opinions.
We
Ben: need to team me up with the
person that's only ever watched
Dragon Ball GT and Evolution.
Emily: Oh my god.
I'm some
Amanda: sort of sicko who enjoys One Piece
and has watched up to the Punk Hazard arc.
You're not, yeah.
Yeah, punk hazard.
Emily: I
Amanda: have already been tainted
Ben: every time someone just
says the name of a one piece.
I'm like, are you just making shit up?
Because everything is like, look, look,
look, I know it starts slow around the
cherry soda arc, but man, once you get
to marmalade turtle arc, holy shit, once
Emily: you get to the big cake.
Amanda: Super Mama Island or whatever.
I don't, I haven't gotten there yet.
Oh
Ben: my god.
That's a real word.
Once you had fucking Balloon
Mountain, fucking forget about it.
It's off the hook.
I just That's what they all sound like.
Emily: No, I'm aware.
That's what everybody
Amanda: talking about
One Piece sounds like.
I'm aware.
I was introduced to it by my partner, once
again, who loves One Piece and always has.
And every time she would talk about it, I
Emily: thought I was going crazy.
That's like, that's why I can't like,
I don't know where, how I'm going to.
Engage in one piece because
I've seen a little bit of it.
I read some of it.
Gosh, we have gone right off the rails.
Sorry about that.
Ben: That's what happens when Jeremy's
not here to rein in the weebs.
Yeah, well, the
Emily: episode you get
this is the episode.
So thank you again.
One piece corner aggressively
anime progressively anime.
Um, if you want to watch
anime forever until you die.
Watch one piece because that's
how much of it there is.
Okay.
Anyway, so back to Vampire Hunter D.
Bloodlust.
Very different.
One of the reasons that anime is not a
genre, it's a medium because it can't
be more different from one piece.
First of all this anime is
only like 90 minutes long.
Very short little animated movie.
Nice pace.
Very
Ben: nice pace.
Very tight.
Good, good, very good watch.
Emily: Yes.
we begin in this grim, dark, neo
Victorian horror future where
vampires pick up ladies on carriages
drawn by red cyborg vampire horses.
Vampires are not as
common as they used to be.
Apparently this is like
thousands of years in the future.
There are bounties and there
are also hunters and the
bounties are on the vampires.
And the hunters, go ahead.
This
Ben: is a world that has gone through
like three different apocalypses now.
Emily: So, indeed, there's been
like several vampire dynasties
that have risen and fallen.
And so now there are bounties
on the remaining vampires,
which are called nobles.
And the hunters that go after the
bounties are called bounty hunters.
This is what the title crawl tells us.
Also, one of them is a Dump Heel, or
a Dampier, or a Danpire, whatever.
His name is D.
Ben: No, no, I think we stick with Dump
Emily: Heel.
I like Dump Heel.
Okay, let's do it.
Dump Heel.
He's half human and half vampire.
He's like Alucard, but he's got
dark hair this time and a cool hat.
The girl in our opening who is captured
by Dracula, it's not actually Dracula.
Her name is Charlotte.
She's the daughter of a witch wheelchair
guy who hires Dee to take out the
vampire who's not actually Dracula.
His name is Meyer Link, and he's a really
hot Billy Idol looking motherfucker.
D is conscripted to take out
Meyerlink and possibly Charlotte
if she's also been turned.
But because D is a Dunpeel not everybody
in Charlotte's family trusts him.
So, her brother hires an auxiliary team
of vamp hunters, the Marcus Brothers.
They show up in their
sweet vampire slaying tank.
We meet them.
They are Borgov Marcus, SIGAR man, Nolt
Marcus, the other tank, not the one
that they drive in, but you know, DPS.
Kylo Marcus, two blades, Grove Marcus,
support caster, and Layla Marcus
my favorite brother, who has gun.
They confront D, try to
shoot him and let him go.
So they're planning to follow D
and steal the bounty from him.
We then meet D's cool talking hands.
Which helps him navigate the Sand
Mantas and the Laser Eyeball Fort.
There's all sorts of cool shit going on.
The first showdown between Meyer
Link and Dee almost takes Meyer
Link out, but Layla interrupts and
screws everything up with the timing.
Dee is a little bit put off by the
fact that Charlotte seems to give
a shit about her vampire captor,
and so he lets them go for now.
D goes back to help Layla
and she's mad about it.
So is D's hand, so we have a little bit
of tension between Layla, D, and the hand.
This is not a porn.
The Marcus brothers collect Layla
and follow their quarry to the
Barbaroi, a city of monsters.
Meyer Link has conscripted a
few monsters to protect him.
First we meet Bengay,
a shadow manipulator.
He stabs Nolte's shadow and kills him.
We then meet the Barbaroi leader, a
weird old horny dude on a unicycle.
D tries to negotiate with him.
Link's other two personal bodyguards, sexy
werewolf Machira and sexy shapeshifter
Caroline, offer to take D on in battle,
but before they can, Grove Marcus's
super powered ghost shows up and fucks
up the Barbaroi with ghost lasers.
Now, I just want to make sure that
there, that everybody knows that there's
crosses everywhere, there's crazy
spires everywhere, there's beautiful
mist, everybody is over designed,
and everybody has a cyborg horse.
I didn't know that cyborg horses was
something that I needed until I saw this.
And I don't know why we're not all riding
cyborg horses right now instead of cars.
You know?
Anyway.
Have you seen
Ben: the price on virtual oats?
I,
Emily: I feel like you can get
like recycled virtual oats.
I like
Ben: The initial carriage, uh,
the horses pulling the carriage
that also have Cyclops visors.
Are
Emily: you
Amanda: suggesting that cyborg
horses eat like NFT oats?
Ben: I believe that is
indeed what I am implying.
Non fungible oats.
Emily: It takes, like, a small
country of power to generate one oat.
Ben: I love that he's got all these
cyber horses, but then, like, he
just shows up at a place and is
like, can I buy a new cyber horse?
Emily: Yeah yeah, so there's no
real horses, just regular horses.
Regular horses can't handle this shit.
They've all been turned into vampires,
apparently, because Meyer Lake's
horses also have vampire teeth.
I feel
Ben: like that's, like, a product of,
like, Oh, world building or in the future.
This is like cars are super rare or hard.
So people go back to horses,
but horses aren't cool.
Let's make him like
gothy cyberpunk horses.
Emily: Yeah, vampire cyber horses,
which are like, yes, I'm here for it.
All right.
So, anyway, so growth Marcus has
fucked up a bunch of monsters
with a super powered ghost.
And this is a form that he
achieves by like, Almost dying.
It's like a weird astral projection thing.
It's a fucking cool idea.
But, it's a little messed up in the way
it's, handled, but the D can apparently
cut the ghost with his sword, so he
cuts the ghost and gives chase after
Link's carriage and then Bengay, the
shadow guy, swallows him in a shadow.
Oh no!
The Marcus brothers also give
chase, but Caroline fuses with their
tank and turns it all into spikes.
This doesn't kill anybody,
but it delays them.
D's hand can swallow pretty much
anything, I'm sorry, and it swallows
the shadow, so D is like, ah, fuck,
okay, I'm out of the shadow now.
Everyone regroups in Red Dead Redemption.
Vash Stampede is sadly not present.
Layla conscripts a local sheriff to
go after D, but the local cyborg horse
engineer has D's back and says ACAB.
Apparently the engineer was
saved by D when he was a child.
That's one of my favorite
Ben: scenes in the movie.
It's so good.
That's a great bit of just world
building and a great way of just showing
just like how long D has been around
and the impact he's had on the world.
Like, it didn't need to be in the
movie, but I'm really glad it was.
That's
Amanda: also one of my favorite scenes
and I have a bunch of notes about it.
Awesome.
Emily: I'm sure we'll get to it.
Yeah.
And this is where D is like, Can I
get your best cyborg course please?
And the guy's like, do you have gold?
It's a lot of gold.
And he is like, here's some gold.
And he gives him like a shit ton of gold.
And so it's a very, like, it's
Ben: $300,000.
Like what is the inflation rate?
By this point in AM empire, I mean world.
Emily: Considering the, uh, the value
of oco, things are probably pretty
fucked up in terms of the economy.
D gets another super awesome cyborg
horse because his last super awesome
cyborg horse was eaten by the shadow.
we now find out that Charlotte is in
love with Meyer Link and vice versa.
She will not leave his side.
Layla and D confront her and
are like, hey, he kills people.
And Charlotte's like but he's hot, and
then they Layla tries to kidnap Charlotte.
Caroline, the sexy shapeshifter,
intervenes, and gives the happy
couple a chance to escape.
Dee fights Caroline, and just
about kills her, but then he
gets overtaken by pathetic man
syndrome, I mean sun sickness.
Since he is half vampire, he's a little
susceptible to sun sickness, you know,
that's why he wears that cool hat.
Layla helps look after him in return
for saving her life, she almost gets
got by Caroline, but then lightning
strikes the tree that Caroline is
fused with, and Layla somehow survives.
Layla and Dee talk about their
backstories during his recovery.
Layla's mom became a
vampire and killed her dad.
Dee is like, I'm a dunpeel and
that's pretty much it, that's why
I am who I am, but it is implied
that both of their dads were dicks.
They promise to visit each
other's graves when they die.
The Marcus brothers have now caught
up with Link and his werewolf guard.
They manage to cut off the
carriage by planting bombs on the
bridge, and pull Charlotte from
the side of her lover's coffin.
In an unheard of display of
selflessness, the vampire noble
braves the sunlight to save her.
As he slowly burns,
Charlotte threatens suicide.
Borgov thinks that he has shot
the werewolf, but he is wrong.
Machina kills the shit out of
Kyle and uses his werewolf laser
vision to displace all the bombs.
I don't mean that he uses his laser
vision, like, telepathically, like,
he figures out where they all are with
his laser vision, and then goes and
finds the bombs and displaces them.
I just want to make sure that's clear.
Ben: He's got them werewolf
eyes, which give him x ray specs.
Emily: Apparently.
Because apparently all
Ben: wolves Not to be confused with
the floating laser eyes that do appear
earlier in this movie, because, god damn,
does this movie just, so much aesthetic.
Emily: Yeah, it's like.
If everything, all the cool shit
from a Castlevania game was in
a movie, and it was just like,
thing after thing after thing.
so, Borgov jumps off the bridge to hit
the detonator, think he's gonna blow up
the bridge, but he is instead exploded by
all the bombs which are in the river now.
Meyer, Link, and Charlotte continue
their, continue on to their destination.
The Palace of the Vampire Queen,
Carmilla Bathory, who has a, get this,
gothic spaceship that can take Lincoln
Charlotte to the Vampire Space Station,
which orbits the dark side of the
Earth as the Eternal City of Night.
I was
Amanda: obsessed with
this when it happened.
I started screaming.
I started throwing up.
I was freaking
Ben: all over this.
I needed to see this.
I wanted to see this so bad.
Also, can we appreciate when that one
hunter The arrow hunter fucking ju
Hits the bomb, jumps off the bridge
feeling so proud of himself, then
jumps straight into his own explosion.
I don't know what they say, but
I could hear the Nani in my head.
Emily: I don't think he s
I can't remember if he did
Ben: say Nani.
He may have.
But I I need like the edit where
it's just like, Freeze frame to be
continued like, You roundabout by yes.
Emily: Yeah, that shit was,
uh, it was pretty good.
I also have to mention that Machida,
the werewolf, has like, not only is
he a werewolf and turns into like a
cool beast man, but he also gets like
a giant wolf snout coming out of his
belly that can like bite people in half.
Double mouth.
How fucking cool is that?
Ben: Anyway.
The designs in this movie are,
everything about this is fucking great.
It's so
Emily: cool.
Anyway, so Charlotte and Link are safely?
Question mark.
In Carmilla's castle.
And they're, they think
they're going to seal the deal.
Charlotte wants Link to finally bite her.
She's still human.
He won't bite her out, however,
and they discuss some ethics and
responsibility and come to an impasse.
Link concedes that they'll talk about
it later, while they're under G forces
on the spaceship, you know, like you do.
Carmilla then starts fucking with both
of them, with crazy illusions and shit.
Meanwhile, Borgoth, sadly
not fully exploded, and Layla
try to infiltrate the castle.
Carmilla fucks with them too.
Dee is also there.
Layla hallucinates her child self, Dee
hallucinates his human mom, begging
a lot of questions, and Borgoth
hallucinates his dead brothers.
Borgov gets turned into a vampire
because he's a dumb bitch.
He then threatens to turn Layla
in order to keep Dee at bay.
The day is saved, however, by
Grove's final near death experience
as he explodes Borgov for real this
time with his laser ghost powers.
Meanwhile, again, Carmilla collects
Charlotte's blood by tricking
her with a sexy hallucination.
Carmilla almost fully recovers
her true body and becomes a
blood demon, which is so dope.
And then Dee cuts her in half and swallows
her spirit with his cool hand face.
Meyer Link holds Charlotte's dying form
close because apparently he can't turn
her into a vampire now, question mark?
It's kind of unclear.
It's enough for Layla to decide
not to shoot them or retrieve
Charlotte's body for the bounty.
Instead, she just
collects Charlotte's ring.
Link and Dee share a few final
words about how it sucks to
be a vampire no pun intended.
And they fight.
Dee spares Link and leaves.
Apparently, Carmilla's ghost was the
one thing holding the whole palace
together, so it begins to crumble.
Dee and Layla escape.
But not without witnessing the
launch of the vampire ship.
Layla is moved to tears.
Apparently she likes vampires after all.
Jump cut to Layla's funeral.
She died old and happy.
Her granddaughter notices an edgy
stranger nearby on a cool robot horse.
Oh my goodness, it's D.
He kept his promise.
Also, apparently he's the Dunpeel son
of the future wanted future vampire
king because of course he is and
he's like the, magical prince of cool
Ben: shit.
He's the super specialist.
The edgy is badass.
Emily: Yeah.
Ben: More edgy than you.
Absolutely more edgy than me.
This is my original character,
not Alucard, do not steal.
Emily: Yeah, Alucard also came out,
I don't know, I don't know where
in vampire lore, like, where in
the vampire oeuvre of like, I know
definitely Bram Stoker didn't get there.
Where the fuck does Alucard
Ben: come in?
Yeah, well, let's see.
We have a Helsing.
When did Helsing come from?
When did Helsing start?
That
Emily: was after Castlevania for sure.
Ben: Yes, that was 97.
Emily: Well, the Castlevania, uh, Symphony
of the Night came out before Helsing.
Ben: Well, that's what I'm saying.
Like, is that, like, is Castlevania
where, like, the whole idea that.
Dracula has a son named
Alucard comes from.
Emily: I have no idea.
I mean, it's silly enough that
I figured that it would be
something from a Castlevania
Ben: game.
I mean, the idea that Dracula has a son,
who's just Dracula spelled backwards.
It's definitely the kind of
shit that Konami would come up
Emily: with.
Yeah.
And honestly, Dracula probably would,
if this is in fact the same Dracula.
that named Blackula.
I mean, dude was sexy.
I don't know how he didn't really
have much of a diversity of his brand.
Ben: Yeah, like, let's go, like,
let's dive into the Dracula that's
legit being like, I'm naming
my kid after me, but backwards.
Emily: Yeah, And, oh, okay, so he's
good and blonde, as opposed to you,
who is, well, I don't know, like,
Dracula in fucking, in Castlevania
has white hair, so, I don't know.
They're all fucking snacks.
They're snacks and a half.
Amanda: Did Alucard in
Castlevania name himself Alucard?
Or something?
Ben: He did, but I like the
image way better than Dracula's,
just this Fuckin weirdo.
Just going around not even doing
like, I'mma name him Dracula Jr.
He's like, no, I'm too weird for that.
My name, but backwards.
Emily: That, Amanda, thank you
for mentioning that, because
I had totally forgotten about
that, and I straight up thought
Ben: I had, I was just trying to force
my, Dracula's a real fucking weirdo.
I mean,
Amanda: Dracula is also a weirdo,
but the naming yourself your dad's
name in reverse is a whole new can of
Ben: worms.
Yeah.
Hey.
You might be emo, but if you've
ever been so emo, you'd sort of kill
your dad and also named yourself
after your dad, but backwards.
My dad's
Amanda: name is Dave, so I will
call myself E AD from now on.
I am E
Emily: ad the Anti Dave
.
Ben: Oh, what in the My Hero?
Academia.
Oh God.
Emily: All right, so I'm
going to go into spoilers.
I don't know what's
going on there, actually.
I've, I'm a little late.
Oh, did the thing
Amanda: that I knew from the very
beginning finally get revealed?
I haven't
Ben: been keeping track.
The fire dude is related
to the other fire dude.
Amanda: Oh, that's not the
Emily: thing I was referring to.
Oh, yeah, no, I knew that.
I knew that at least.
Talk about, yeah, if you want
to, so if you really like,
Binge One Piece, you listener.
If you're a vampire and you want to
watch anime forever and you've finally
run out of One Piece, there's a lot
of other anime that I would recommend.
But this is not a show
Ben: about that.
But there's a weekly model too,
so there's, isn't there like
still a shit ton of filler or
Emily: slow paced?
Oh, probably.
I mean, there's definitely filler.
Ben: I love Dragon Ball Z so much.
I can't imagine a good conscious telling
someone like, yeah, fucking go back and
watch original like dub Bruce Faulkner
soundtrack Dragon Ball Z with its
entire episode spent on powering up.
Emily: yeah, I have like a really like
I have a soft spot in my heart for that.
It was nice because like you could
do other stuff like you could get
a cup of coffee, make some toast.
I
Ben: love it, I just can't imagine
but I feel it's one of those
things where it's like, you had
to be there when it was going on.
I feel tough being like, yes, person,
in the year 2023, the best use of
your time is to watch literally
hundreds of Dragon Ball episodes.
Emily: Yeah, and just like, I
mean, I think it is, valuable
in that you can multitask while
Ben: watching Dragon Ball.
I mean, at the very least,
watch Dragon Ball Kai.
Emily: Yeah.
this movie, Vampire Hunter D.
Bloodlust, does not have any filler,
however, or you could say it's all filler.
Who cares?
Ben: All killer and also all filler.
Emily: Yeah, all killer, all filler.
so, uh.
That's how they
Ben: did it in the 80s.
Slash 2000, 2000 one
decade after the eighties.
It was based off of a thing
that was, yeah, it was based off
of a thing from the eighties.
Emily: It's very nineties
in, it's in its execution.
I feel.
It really does
Ben: feel like it comes from that era of
Akira where you were just getting these
like very dark, atmospheric, gory OVAs.
Yes.
Like I was like, as gorgeous
as it is, like I was actually
still a little surprised to see
it come out as late as 2000.
Emily: a little bit of a fun fact about
this movie that I, you know, this is
a little bit of an extrapolation, but
there's the emphasis on the English
language, uh, original dub, the
the, the international distribution.
I don't know if it coincidentally
lined up with the announcement of.
The Oscars brand new Best
Animated Feature category.
I don't know if Vampire 100D Bloodlust was
ever even considered for this category.
I
Ben: think they released
it in like 12 theaters.
Emily: Yeah, and I mean technically it
would count because it was a 2001 release.
Ben: This is so good though, like, this
should be As part of like cinema when
cinemas do like, Hey, we're re airing
classic anime movies and they're showing
like ghost in the shell and Akira.
Yeah, this should so
be like amongst those.
Emily: A ghost in the shell and Akira.
Yeah, they do have things to say.
But like, a lot of people don't
really watch it for that, not to
dismiss, like, there's a lot of really
cool shit going on in Ghost in the
Shell and Akira, the, uh, the pacing
of those movies is very unique to
Ben: their Yes, I'm not saying this movie
is as good as Ghost in the Shell or Akira,
but it really feels like, it's crazy
what like, an almost buried gem this is.
Emily: Yeah.
The, but I feel like there's almost
more recommendable than Ghost in the
Shell and Akira, because it's, this
movie is like, like you said, it's all
thriller, all filler, you will not get
Ben: bored watching this movie.
Emily: Yeah, this is one
of the, this is popcorn.
This is a Marvel movie, but like
short, like it's a Marvel movie.
You don't have to pause and pee.
Ben: Yeah, like this is not,
it's not going to bog you down
with a bunch of terminology and a
complicated, hard to follow plot.
Yeah, like it's it's vibes like it's
it just wants to take you for it
just wants to take you through a tour
of this like of these immaculately
aesthetic gothic romance fantasy
like set pieces it's crafted.
Emily: Yeah, and like every background
is considered every like you have a
split second thing where he's like riding
his horse over the fucking sand manta
Ben: rays is nothing for the plot.
Yeah, but it's something
but is fucking gorgeous.
Yeah, cool as fuck.
And it's, it's so well animated like again
I, don't have much in the way of jokes
or even commentary, other than just like.
This movie is so gorgeous it almost hurts.
Emily: Yeah if this movie was
considered for Best Animated
Feature, it would have lost to Shrek.
Amanda: Justifiably Shrek is a masterpiece
Emily: as we all know.
Ben: Well, I mean, look, this movie
didn't have a matrix kick or smash mouth.
So, yeah, we know what the voters like
Emily: we have.
We don't have the matrix 1 kick.
We have other kicks that are
very matrix ask in this movie.
In fact, I think Matt house did.
A bit for the Animatrix, which would
have come out around the same time.
Ben: I do love it just taking that instead
of just being, oh, here's D verse evil
vampire doing regular vampire stuff.
Like, I do love the gothic romance
at the heart of it and, like,
it gives it this air of tragedy.
Like, it doesn't really add too much
in the way of, like, Themes, but
it's all just like more gothy vibes.
Emily: Yeah.
Amanda: That's the thing that I had to
like, when I was making all my notes
about the, my analysis of this film,
I had to really get over my bias for
that sexy vampire romance because
I see that and I'm like, Oh, baby.
I'm getting all flustered here.
Oh, it's a sexy vampire romance.
And it's like, no, let's really
analyze what's going on here, Amanda.
Come
Emily: on.
But we, I mean, it's cool to analyze it.
Yeah.
The movie
Ben: gets you rooting for it.
Like at a certain point
you do want to see them.
Yeah.
If only so we the audience
can see the fucking eternal
vampire city of the night on the
Emily: moon.
No, yeah, I
Amanda: did start rooting
for them towards the end.
And then like, I thought about it
afterwards and I was like, okay, this
is, it's kind of, Got those tropes of a
violent man who was nonviolent ified by
the love of a soft woman or whatever,
and she's doing all the emotional
Emily: beast labor and stuff.
It's the beast.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a beauty and the beast.
Yeah.
Ben: My, and they have a thing
where it's like, oh, he's a vampire
that's never killed anybody.
EE except for this one village.
That gets him all mad.
And then, then he does,
then he goes a killing.
Amanda: Yeah, I feel like this movie
just like is meant to look really cool.
So I feel a bit weird engaging with
that on a deeper level and like trying
to analyze it because I feel like
I'm almost not playing by its rules.
Emily: Yeah,
Ben: like there's not, I mean, I
do think there's some stuff, but
there's not too much there to analyze.
It's, meant to be like a very
pretty amusement park, right?
Almost.
And it succeeds wildly at being that.
Amanda: Yeah, it does.
It's just that I, I have a real
hard time finding myself entertained
by that stuff nowadays, because
there's so much spectacle.
There's so many movies
that are just spectacle.
And I'm like, I want, I
Ben: want, I think that it's coming
in this kind of animation that you
see so rarely nowadays and just how
hard it commits to that gothic fantasy
future aesthetic that really is just
unlike anything I've ever seen before.
And where I have seen it,
it was ripping off Vampire.
It was ripping off this.
Amanda: Yeah, it, it was weird.
It had, it was like a weird combination
of like blood borne aesthetic and
then like this weird steampunk cowboy
80s aesthetic where everyone had like
padded shoulder jackets and like,
Ben: Oh, it was like crazy
swirly, like shoulder pads.
Amanda: Yeah, the aesthetic was kind of a
Ben: hodgepodge.
Yeah, oh yeah, I mean it was like, I
mean so much of Dee's design, especially
of like the hat and the cape, it's
all just like, it's so just like,
what if Clint Eastwood's Man With No
Name was, like, a gothy anime vampire?
Amanda: it feels very Not, it
doesn't even feel very 2000,
to me it feels very eighties.
But that was when the,
it was like published,
Ben: right?
Well, I mean, yeah.
I mean it was animated in the, the
late night, you know, released in 2000.
But we're still talking about
something made in that, like the
heyday of that eighties dark gory, OVA.
Hmm.
That was definitely
what was, in the water.
Water.
I also love the original title of
this story is Demon Death Chase.
I mean, that's what it is, really.
That makes it sound like the name,
that should be the name of like
the Fast and Furious, like the
Halloween Fast and Furious special.
Emily: This, now, Madhouse, I don't
know if Madhouse is still around, as
they used to be when they were making
movies, like, I think they're still
doing stuff, um, but, They are, they are.
Okay, they need to do about Fast and the
Furious animated if anybody does Fast and
the Furious animated, it would be them.
Do we need
Amanda: any more Fast and the Furious?
Yes!
Do we
Ben: need that?
Do we really?
The director of this movie is
Yoshikai Kawajiri, who did, uh, a
seg one of the segments in Animatrix.
Mm hmm.
Did a segment in Batman Gotham Night,
that little anime thing, but really
it doesn't seem like hasn't directed
too much movies, but, you know, has
worked on a whole bunch of big shows,
like, it seems, in like, Some capacity.
You know, it says here he was, as
I go through, he was a storyboard
artist for One Punch Man.
Yeah.
Um, storyboard for Attack on Titan,
Demon Slayer, Jujutsu Kaisen.
All the, all
Emily: the hits.
Jesus.
Ben: Yeah, a lot of action.
Yeah, who's still doing like the
best of the best of like, like
the biggest of like today's action
shows, even if he's not a fan.
No longer doing like full on
Emily: directing there was a, there
was an animated short that they did.
But it was the same character designer,
certainly, and I, I don't know if it
was the 80s, I think it might have
been the early 90s, it was like top
cyberpunk, like whatever, if you ever
go on YouTube and find like one of those
vaporwave mixes or like 80s vaporwave
megamix, you know, hour long megamix,
it certainly is going to have a clip of
this in it which has to do with a guy
that is like cybernetically fused with
his car, And they're just like this
crazy race and they do a race and then
it's like death race, but with car guys
I'm not explaining this very well, but
I will say you'll probably
find it if you look it up.
You can, it's, it's part of a, an
anthology series, but you'll recognize
the, uh, the style because a lot of the
character design is very similar style.
Ben: Yeah, when it comes to like politics,
like again, I agree, Amanda, like there's
no big deep issue that they're exploring.
It's not like there's a central
theme or aspect that this movie
is interested in tackling beyond
just being super atmospheric.
Gothic romance, amazing crazy action,
which is all wildly entertaining, but in
that, like, for a vampire movie, there's
not a lot to sink your teeth into thematic
Amanda: wise.
I mean, I feel like there are themes.
It's just that.
Every single time they try to
explore one of them, it gets a little
confused at one point or another.
I'm not sure whether it's
the time to bring those
Emily: points up.
Yeah, we can, we can talk about
that because, um, there are things
that we could definitely discuss.
There's a lot of tropes in action
in this movie that are, completely
like 2D paper thin tropes.
That, you know, I don't think this
movie really has the real estate to
fully, like, develop, you know, there's
no, but movies like this always have
a chance to especially these days turn
twist the tropes a little bit, just
with, like, a visual thing or something.
But Amanda, did you have
something to say about the fact
that he's, like, half vampire?
I did, Emily.
Thank you.
Ben: Wow.
Good setup.
Amanda: So, vampires in this world are
called nobles and are referred to as
being of noble blood which makes you think
they're going to do the classic vampire
classism illusion thing where they are
The ruling class, they're parasitic.
They're feeding off of the lower classes.
But then they kind of end up
conflating issues of classism
with race in a very odd way to me.
For instance, D is half vampire.
So what exactly does that mean?
Is he, is he half nobility?
Does that mean he's half
rich guy, half ruling class?
But he's treated as one
would treat a despised racial
minority by other characters.
Let's see.
Oh, yeah, the vampires, our vampires
in this instance, are they a morally
corrupt ruling class that can change
their actions, or are they doomed
to perpetuate a cycle of violence by
virtue of their very biology you know,
because they're vampires and they have
to feed off the blood of other humans,
whereas you know, the ruling class
in real life, they don't necessarily
have to exploit people to live.
Ben: I mean, it's like, you got like
that opening thing or like some of
the things where it's like, oh, they,
could make fake blood, but they don't.
Yeah, it doesn't have this level
of like, biological determinism.
It's like, because again,
it's like, nothing is.
It's all just like told to us, this
idea that like apocalypse happened.
Amanda: Yeah, everything is
shown, but it's not ever really
clarified in certain ways.
Ben: So, yeah, or it's like, it's, such
a snapshot that we don't really get.
Like, there's a sense like we see Camilla
where it's like, Oh, I guess like 5,
000 years ago, everything was in it when
vampires were at their height and she
was like queen shit of the vampires.
And now.
We're still around, but look, she's
just a weird ghost in a creepy castle.
Emily: Yeah, well, they have the, they
have this whole beginning crawl with
the bounty being on the vampires and.
Ben: Bounty hunters, because
the bounties on the, it was so,
that crawl was so confusing.
Amanda: I loved that crawl and the
people that hunt the bounties are
called bounty hunters and it's like, oh,
Emily: okay.
Yeah, just so you know.
I mean, that's a, that.
Speaks to me of, of translation
issues, because like, in a lot of
cases you have things that checks out.
Yeah.
Because of this self definition,
because there's a could be, you
know, in the original script.
There's, it could be a different, like,
Japanese name for bounty hunters, but
it is also, they're using the English
bounty hunter because it's Vampire
Hunter D in the, uh, in the Hepburn
Ben: And that's the thing, I'm not sure
if they're using this, like, Oh, the
time of vampires is coming to an end
and they're receding from the world and
they're being driven from the world.
So humans can take over again.
And I'm not like, it doesn't.
I'm not sure if it's, again, trying to say
something about power, you know, nobility
classes, capitalism, aristocracy, or
if it's just all meant to be like, just
to make it a little darker, like this
is a world of a society in decline, so
everything's just a little more aesthetic.
Amanda: uh,
There's also the thing with D's
entire, like, goal throughout this
story is basically if vampires are
a race, D's entire goal throughout
the story is to like cock a block
an interracial couple so that he can
stop miscegenation from happening.
So, like, what's the vibe there?
Ben: Yeah.
Explicitly in the movie where
it said that his motivation is.
To keep him from there
being another of you.
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah.
which I think if we talk, if we've, if
we really like do a one-to-one comparison
between like the vampire, the conceit
of the vampires being like a hunted
minority and like the race being a thing.
That's rough.
Yeah.
That's really problematic.
It's
Amanda: also, well if vampires
that's a real clear, are
the, the rich ruling class.
That lords over everyone
and they burn in the sun.
Does that make them white people
Emily: or what?
I mean, I think we're getting
a little far in the weeds.
That was a
Amanda: joke.
Explicitly, that was
Emily: a joke.
Yes.
Yeah, no, totally.
Um, as a person who is
white and burns in the sun
Ben: yeah.
I'm not sure what this, the
world of Vampire Hunter D is
meant to explore or reflect.
About our own world other than just like,
look at this super sick heavy metal album
cover, but like, world brought to life.
Isn't this sick?
Emily: I think that there's, there
is an Which it is, it's very sick.
It is It is sick as hell.
I think that there is definitely an
intent to sort of create this pulp Old
West kind of post apocalyptic world.
And then the setup of that is, you
know, everything's kind of goth because
vampires used to be in control and
that's like, that is all we really have.
That's the reason that that's there
is that there used to be like this,
these vampire dynasties and the
vampires used to control the world.
But they weren't very sustainable.
because of their hedonism or whatever,
Amanda: like ruling class capitalists,
destroying the ecosystem or whatever.
Oh, my
Emily: God.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, the, you know, if we look
at it that way, I think that
there's a sort of a class thing.
I mean, vampires inherently.
Bring up class and especially because
they are called nobles, but there is
kind of a, of an Anastasia story with
this where, you know, Meyer link is
not the worst vampire he and, you know,
and there is a little bit of a a gray
area that is, uh, introduced, which is
something I appreciate in vampire movies
when you have, like, a, You have the
monster, but it's, there is some humanity
there that's being kind of dealt with.
And there are many times when Meyerling
is, is really like after he half burns
himself to death to save Charlotte,
and he goes, he almost goes into a
blood frenzy, but he kind of keeps it.
he keeps control, like, barely keeps
control over himself so as not to bite her
essentially without her consent which is
pretty meaningful in the context of this.
And, again, it's not like really
saying anything in depth, but
I think it's a cool concept.
And I think that it's something
that a lot of this movie really just
goes directly, like, comes directly
from the in terms of imagery,
especially from Bram Stoker's Dracula.
The
Amanda: thing is that even if
it's not trying to say anything
in depth the fact that is that
all media comes from somewhere.
Oh, yeah.
And it comes from certain social values.
It comes from certain, like,
it can tell you a lot about the
author's understanding of the world.
All these tropes come from somewhere.
So it's still worth analyzing
with it, even if it's not
quite on the terms that it.
It thought it was going for.
Emily: Absolutely.
I mean, we're, we're here.
We, live in and podcast by the words,
you know, holding horror to progressive
standards that never agreed to.
And yeah, that's where we're here.
And yeah, I think, the vampire story,
like, when we did the episode on, on
Bram Stoker's Dracula, we talked a lot
about Bram Stoker and where he got his
vampire, and this is, this is Francis
Ford Coppola's Bram Stoker's Dracula,
which is not by any means, like, the
first or most influential version of the
story, but we, you know, we talk a lot
about the ideas of nobility of certain
xenophobic ideas that come into play with
vampire of, like, the myth of the vampire.
I
Ben: find where I run into here is
like the problem where it's like,
it's the same issue where mutants and
X Men eventually kind of hit a wall
as it being like, where it's like.
That the fantasy elements almost make
it where it's like, yeah, but they
do kill humans and suck their blood.
Emily: Yes.
Yes.
Amanda: It's the, it's the same
issue that I have with the racial
allegory going on in Zootopia.
Yeah, where they make it point
where humans are just all
one species and then they.
Make a racial allegory by
literally differing species, like,
Emily: you know what I mean?
Ben: Yeah, it's like Yeah, like
that's where the X is, where it's
like, yeah, but persecuted minorities
can't actually steal your thoughts
and kill you just by looking at
Emily: you.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Amanda: you know, as much as
gays wish they had superpowers.
Oh, don't
Ben: I ever.
Oh.
I mean, if I could just, if I could just
pull off Emma Frost's looks, that'd be my
Emily: power.
You probably could, honestly.
Aw.
I mean That'd be a cosplay.
Yeah, there you go.
Do the, like, the Wired Magazine
one, where it's just, like,
little pieces of crystal on her.
Ben: yeah, no, I mean, it's, like,
I think that's probably on us, where
it's, like, trying to find that line
between where can we find something
real the movie is trying to say and
where it crosses over into, like, Whee!
My vampire action figure is bang bang!
Emily: Yes.
Yeah.
I do think it's good that, like,
there's I think that it's remarkable
that the movie did the right thing.
Do something slightly different,
and now we look back on it and we,
you know, we've seen Castlevania,
the TV show, we've, we've played
Castlevania Symphony of the Night.
You have Twilight or whatever, like, you
have a lot of humanizing vampire stories
where you have, like, that same conflict.
But there's a lot more
humanity in those vampires.
I'd like to
Ben: believe that this and Twilight
take place in the same universe.
Oh, hell yeah.
Twilight, fast forward like 5, 000
years, you get Vampire Hunter D.
Emily: This is the future vampires want.
Edward and
Ben: Bella are somewhere just
glittering their asses off in the
gothiest fucking castle you've ever
Emily: seen.
Oh, they've been, they've been bountied.
I think D has killed both
of them at this point.
No, he probably is.
He probably has like a little,
like a little list somewhere of all
of them that he has to take out.
And he's like, Oh my God, if
Amanda: it's 5000 years in
the future, that means creepy.
Jacob is dead.
Yes.
Emily: Or he is their kid.
Amanda: What was our
kid's name in the series?
Renesmee.
Emily: He just named himself
D because he's like, yeah,
Amanda: Renesmee is a trans
man and named himself D.
Emily: There we go.
Yes.
So we have also some other things we
could talk about, like the, this, uh, how
does this movie deal with mental illness
or, uh, health or physical disability?
The man in the wheelchair is
corrupt, but he's also very rich.
So, but we can talk about
Ben: Grove.
Chronic illness with the, uh, the brother
who turns into the murder like ghost.
Yeah, can
Amanda: we talk about Grove?
Let's talk about Beautiful, handsomest
character in the whole movie.
Emily: Look, I, when this movie
came out, I was like Grove
Ben: just shows up out of nowhere
as just like this angelic ghost just
firing lasers at like this horde of
assembled elite monsters, I'm like
what the f do we got angels now?
What the fuck is going on in
Emily: this movie?
Can I just say
Amanda: that like soft boy Grove
showed up, fucking turned into a
beautiful ghost, started blowing
shit up, and my heart Swelled.
I saw this man.
I'm
Emily: so happy because I also,
like when I first saw this movie
in like 2001 when I, like on DVD
or whatever, I also was like, that
guy, that little guy right there.
Fuck yes.
the man who is like very, very frail, but
he, his spirit is so powerful it could
blow up an entire society of monsters.
I'm so
Amanda: attracted to growth.
Emily: It brings out my maternal instinct.
You know, you just want
to take care of them.
Ben: But it's the glow and that
really gets me translucentness.
Emily: I like his translucentness
and the fact that what he's like, his
ideal form is a doctor who cosplay
Ben: gross question mark.
Emily: I mean, there can be a toxic
element to the fetishization of groves,
like weird passivity, but, and I've just
made it way more weird than it had to be.
But that
Ben: was gonna say, allowed to wanna fuck
the, you're allowed to fuck the soft boy.
Yeah, no, I mean like, thank you.
Like soft boys need love too.
I,
Emily: yeah I've, I like him
'cause first personality soft
Ben: boys can get into all
sorts of crazy shit too.
Emily: Or he accepted to
Amanda: crazy shit.
Yeah.
We kind of, uh, got off track
on the disability thing.
Emily: That's true because he does have to
enter a near-death state in order to, um.
create like his ghost form, which
is evocative of drug overdose.
you know,
Amanda: he's like, his, his
physical body is like emaciated.
He is constantly in a bed.
He can't, yeah, doesn't get
Ben: up or anything.
If neg, he is like, negative man,
if Larry Traynor had to do meth in
order to release the negative spirit.
Yeah, yeah,
Emily: God, and especially Where's that
Ben: Doom Patrol
Emily: arc?
I mean, the way that like, a
lot of these DC franchises have
gotten like, incredibly dark.
And
Ben: the more meth he does, the more
powerful the negative spirit is.
God,
Emily: I mean that there,
there could be something there.
And also considering that this movie came
out in the year 2000, which is like right,
like coming off of the nineties with the
heroin chic, you know, like everybody was
like, everybody famous is doing heroin at
Ben: the time.
Everybody wanted that Brad
Pitt flight club body.
Emily: Oh my God.
I wasn't born yet.
I don't know.
It's okay.
No, it's, it's.
But I think it's worth
Ben: noting that this is very
much a case of like Brad Pitt did
Fight Club and then every actor
was like, well, guess I have to be
dehydrated for every action role now.
Well,
Emily: there was also the, the grunge
scene and a lot of celebrities, a lot
of like these 90s celebrities were,
Ben: I mean, it was where you had like
your size, negative one celebrity, like
Emily: models.
Yeah, the, the fashion was
all like faced around people.
Heroin became
Ben: a term, which is a terrible
Emily: term.
Yes.
Yeah and we
Ben: should have a chic and
that chic should be tie dye and
Emily: beanbags.
Yeah, it should be comfort.
Yes.
Comfort sheet copious snacks.
Yeah, hell yeah.
Fucking dude Lebowski chic.
I think that the.
Deal with growth and his
like flatliner situation.
Is supposed to be tragic
which is ultimately kills him.
Like, he's also at the
mercy of whoever is there.
And he has to, like, go into that state
permanently in order to save Layla.
Layla does need a lot
of saving in this movie.
Amanda: She does.
All the, all the, all the girls do.
All the girlies constantly
need some saving.
Ben: Another thing is, how do we feel
about the women characters in this movie?
Like,
Emily: Charlotte almost had
more agency than Layla did.
I wanted to
Amanda: say the same.
Yes, Charlotte had a
surprising amount of agency.
It's like a very simple subversion of
the damsel in distress kind of trope
expectation because, Dia's sent out to
save her and then it turns out she doesn't
want to be saved because she's with her
hot vampire BF and I was like, okay,
Ben: cool.
Good for you.
I mean, yeah, link Meyer link.
I mean, yeah.
Especially when he's being like,
yeah, we're going to go live and
be vampires on the moon city.
Like,
Amanda: yeah, go ahead, girl boss.
Emily: I mean,
Ben: she even gets a brief
character arc, though.
That character arc is, oh my God, I
can't believe, like, Meyer, I can't
believe you killed that village.
Wait, I was the, I guess technically
it was really, I was the one
responsible for that village dying.
look, sometimes you just got to
kill a village to bake an omelette.
Emily: Yeah, that
Amanda: was a really weird scene.
I felt like Meyer Link in general
is kind of a weird character
because he's like, he's vaguely
remorseful for his past wrongs, but
he doesn't show it that strongly.
And I feel like most of his remorse is.
Like, expressed via his, like,
soft wo the soft woman attached to
him doing the emotional labor and,
like, voicing his remorse for him.
Like, oh, you're trying so hard, honey.
Look how good you're being and it's
Emily: like,
Ben: okay.
It seems like the only bad thing
he actually did was this village he
turned while fleeing the hunters.
And that's the main thing.
And I guess it's implied that, like, he
got sent on, like, a rampage, but, like
it's not like, oh, I was a bad person
then I was changed by the love of Awo.
Good woman.
It was like, no, I was the good guy.
Vampire.
And then I fell in love and we're trying,
but I did have a whoopsie on the way.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The
Emily: But the whoopsie, well the
Amanda: whoopsie was kind
of a big whoopie and it
Emily: does, it's a big whoop.
Amanda: It does kind of also.
It reads as that, like, oh, the
man, there's a man and he just
can't control his big, strong,
murderous, manly urges and needs
a woman to temper it trope thing.
Yeah,
Emily: that, I mean, in
a lot of vampire stuff.
Ben: It wasn't, I don't, no, I
definitely agree that, like, it was
played in, like, oh, don't, sure,
this guy murdered a town, but.
You know, he was provoked.
Don't blame the man for his anger.
Exactly.
I do think there's that, but I do
think the movie avoids the sense of
like, Oh, well, because the woman is
here, She, she calms the bees hard.
If anything, the movie's kind of
like, oh yeah, no, you're way more
killy now that like you got her
to protect and you care about her.
Like, if anything, she's
bringing out the murder in you.
That's true.
Amanda: I didn't even think
Emily: about that.
Yeah.
And she's also like, please bite me.
Like, please bite me.
And he's like, no, I'm monster.
And she's like, which is He's the sub!
Oh my god,
Amanda: he totally is,
she totally pegs her.
Emily: She totally
Amanda: pegs him, she totally pegs him.
Um, why is that such a, I mean, I know
it's because of that angst angle, like,
no, I can't, you don't want to be a
monster like me and it's like very,
oh my god, it's, it's very conflict,
it's very emotionally appealing.
But like that always happens where
there's a man vampire and he's like,
no, you don't get bodily autonomy.
I, you're,
Ben: yeah, you don't want this.
She, she very much wants this.
Also, you're going to take her as
a regular human to the vampire moon
Emily: city?
Yeah.
She's going
Amanda: to suffocate!
Emily: It's the moon!
Can humans even survive
in a church rocket?
I don't know.
Yeah, I don't know if that
rocket head was like stressfully.
I love that
Ben: rocket.
I love that rocket.
Amanda: No, I'm
Emily: obsessed.
Fucking like gothic ass flying
buttresses on the rocket like
Ben: Yes, more cathedrals in space.
Amanda: It was giving me, it was giving
me the fallout quest from New Vegas where
you're trying to get ghouls to the moon.
Emily: That's what I was reminded of.
You have to get ghouls to the
moon on a fucking goth rocket?
Uh, it's
Amanda: not a goth rocket,
it's just a rocket, but you
have to get ghouls to the moon.
I
Ben: just like the idea of ever
being like, space travel is so easy.
And not even a thought to us that,
like, we're just gonna make our,
we're gonna make, like, Rolls
Royces of, like, rocket ships.
Like, it's so easy for us that now
we're just gonna focus on aesthetics.
Amanda: Which is actually, I kind of
also love that, because what are rich
people nowadays kind of trying to do
with space travel to escape our dying
earth and all the stinky pores, you know,
Emily: they're, they're working on it.
It's surreal.
Well, I remember when I first
saw Dune, the David Lynch Dune,
and there's a scene in Dune.
where, uh,
Ben: where Patrick Stewart shows up
and he's got a weird, like, Minecraft
Emily: man body?
Yeah, and he also has a dog.
There's a lot of cool shit in that movie.
That
Ben: was pre Star Trek.
Imagine watching the first episode of Next
Generation and going like, Hey, that's the
Emily: guy from Dune!
Yeah.
I can't fucking remember the character's
name right now, which is like, I feel very
Ben: stupid now.
Uh, Josh Brolin plays him in the new one.
Emily: Yeah, yeah.
Gurney Halleck.
Gurney Halleck.
Yeah, he plays Gurney Halleck.
But, there are big warp ships
where they have to, like,
warp from, Caladan to Arrakis.
Had like these huge gothic like
portals on there were just big
tube with this, this Rococo.
It's not really, it's
not Victorian Gothic.
It's Rococo like portal.
And I'm like when are we going
to have Rococo spaceships?
I know it's a lot of money
in the space right now.
You go
Ben: Glenn Rococo.
Yeah.
Emily: It's, it's appropriate.
But, uh, that, like,
blew my mind at the time.
I'm like, so, so can we
have gothic spaceships?
And yes, we can have gothic spaceships.
Now, this does come up in Doctor Who, too.
Like, apparently, TARDISes
also can, kill vampires.
That's something that you're gonna,
I'm, again, onus on you, listener.
I'm very sorry, but we
only have so much time.
I can only tell you, just look it up.
Vampires in Doctor Who, you
know, if there's no sun, pretty
much Carte Blanche, right?
Or Carte Noire?
Ben: What happens if it's in the 90s and
a vampire encounters a black hole sun?
Emily: Then their eyes get really
big, and they like, scream.
Just like in the video.
Um, their flesh melts off their
face, but they're smiling.
Because Chris Cornell.
Black
Ben: hole sun!
Why don't you
Emily: come?
Amanda: Wash away the rain!
Our cross is freaking everywhere in this
movie and everyone who hunts vampires
wears a cross, but they never, they
don't seem to function in any way.
Emily: I don't think they
understand what it means.
Amanda: They've got, I, yeah, I think
it's just for like the aesthetic,
but like the vampire hunting mobile,
like it's, it's spotlight is shaped
like a cross too, but it doesn't
seem to add to the effect at all.
It's really, really confusing.
And then there's a part where
Dee, who is half vampire.
Walks on water.
So like, what's the vibe
Ben: there?
The vibe is the
Emily: vibe.
The vibe is the vibe.
What can I say?
Like, is he Jesus now?
Like, are we going with that?
Ben: Again, I think in their
like 1980s slash the late 1990s
Japanese middle aged Japanese man.
They were like, whatever the
translation was, they were like,
it'd be poggers if D walks on water.
Emily: How do you say poggers
Amanda: in
Emily: Japanese?
Like,
Ben: I, like, I don't know what exactly
this is, but I'm pretty sure that's the,
that would have been the translation.
Emily: Yeah.
we, we talked about vampires and race.
that is again, an extrapolation,
you know, I think that.
I think that that's something
that can be discussed and it's
definitely discussed in other films.
In this movie, however, when we talk
about, like, actual, real, known races
of humans the only character that is
squarely coded as black dies first and
quickly and is kind of a bad stereotype.
So.
Ben: I did like that his weapon
was a giant wooden stake.
It was like a giant wooden stake
Emily: hammer.
His design was off the hook.
Like, his design was so cool.
Like, all of these guys were designed
Borghoff was like, he had a beard and
a crossbow, whatever, and a scarf.
But like His design was cool.
Fucking Kyle and his like, rat tail.
Or
Ben: Borgoff and Kyle.
Be the shadow guy.
I love that scene.
Oh, that was good.
I love just like being like, Oh,
these human hunters aren't just
here to like, Be meat puppets,
like they, These guys are actually
kind of badass in their own right.
Almost.
Well, it's like, okay, it's like when
they have the element of surprise,
And they know, and they have like,
The right information, like, These
guys can pull off some badass moves.
So it's just made it like, it that
much more earned when they then
like, all start getting just killed.
Amanda: Can we acknowledge that in this
like, gothic cowboy sci fi land, there
is a man named Kyle, who has a braided
rat tail and wears like a skin tight
jumpsuit with a deep V down to his crotch.
Can we talk about the vibes
Emily: there?
It's called Yoshitaka Amano.
Have you seen the character
Amanda: designs for Final Fantasy 6?
I have not.
I am not a
Emily: Final Fantasy person.
Yeah,
Ben: you know what,
that's what Kyle gives.
It gives big FF6.
You're
Emily: right.
Oh yeah, no, he's like Saban.
He's like Saban.
Um, Amanda, you've heard the
terms train suplex, right?
Yes.
Okay, that's from Final Fantasy 6.
The guy that does the train suplex.
Is Sabin and Sabin looks like that.
He is fully like Sabin and like
what the fucking the thief guy.
I can't remember the name,
but he's like one of the lock.
Yeah, Sabin and lock both have like
rat tails, like everybody all like
your Chaka motto is like rat tails,
rat tails, rat tails, rat tails.
Because you can't have it all short.
You gotta have one little,
everybody is some kind of Padawan.
Ben: I don't even know where
he got the rat tail, like.
Was that like big in Japan at the time?
Like, was it a stand by
Emily: me?
Like, oh, okay.
Yeah, it was big in the 80s.
Like, rat tails were
pretty big in the 80s.
I knew several dudes with rat
tails in elementary school.
Ben: I don't know why it ever was
a thing, but Amano really likes
Emily: it.
Amano loves it.
I feel like
Amanda: they're better to
draw than to see in real life.
Emily: Uh huh.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Adam Ant did rock like little, little
braids and the little ponytail which
was kind of like a new romantic, like
based off of, I can think some of
the, the rat tail thing also sort of
evokes, the, uh, 17th century and 18th
century, like little ponytails and stuff.
Yeah, the dudes would have
because they would be business
on the top and party in the back.
Amanda: I think it's all of
that in combination with his
name being Kyle that gets me.
Yes.
Kyle.
Yeah.
I
Emily: mean, Layla is a
pretty common name too.
Yeah, but it still, it
Amanda: suits the sort of gothic
aesthetic more, like a little bit.
It still feels kind of
modern, but you know.
Emily: It does mean darkness.
Yeah.
Layla is a textbook strong
female character, though.
Like,
Ben: straight up.
Yeah, she's always getting, say, like, she
uses her big giant pistol once and misses.
Emily: Yeah.
Yeah.
She's always getting got, like,
she's, someone's, some, like,
even God has to save her with
that fucking lightning strike.
Like, everybody's.
saving her from I forgot
Amanda: about that deus ex machina, like
the literal deus ex machina that happens.
Yeah, I think
Emily: it's supposed to be implied
that when she puts the dagger in
Caroline's, like, tree head, then
like that attracts the lightning,
but That's, this isn't Breath of the
Amanda: Wild,
Emily: yeah, that's not don't remind me,
Jesus Christ, I'm getting like flashbacks.
Ben, have you played Breath of the Wild?
Ben: No, no, the only Zelda games I have
played are Oracle of Ages and Seasons.
Wow, like, again,
Emily: I just want to, we need
to preserve you like this.
Amanda: Yeah, we need to
put you in a time capsule.
It's, it's freaking me out.
Ben: No, it's like Lincoln
is kangaroo friends.
Yeah, what are you doing?
I think
Emily: there's a bear.
It's like the Brian David Gilbert making
a Sonic the Hedgehog religion after not
seeing any never playing a Sonic game.
Amanda: We just It's reminding me
of, um, I have a friend who would
never engage with any Pokémon at all.
Until she was like 18 and then she
played a Pokemon game for the very
first time and she caught a Magikarp and
she's like, Oh, it only knows Splash.
This thing is useless.
And she fell for the trap that
Pokemon sets up in tricking you
into thinking Magikarp's useless.
And we all had to tell her,
no, it evolves into Gyarados.
And she was like, baffled by that.
And it was so interesting to see
someone who didn't already know that.
Genuinely be
Ben: tricked.
I know.
Ger Uno.
Yeah.
Emily: Well 'cause magic harp's the Uno.
Yes.
And OSes Doss.
I'm all for the integration of
Spanish in these, uh, Western
adaptation of Pokemon names.
Um, you know, art Arto, Erdos
Ben: mult.
You who'll never beat Hall Lucha.
The lucha hawk.
Well, yeah, like
Emily: that one, that one is like a
pretty, like that one is D is absolutely.
Intended to be a luchador,
Ben: but Oh, Ludicolo?
Amanda: Yeah.
Yeah, I was gonna say, don't
get me started on Lombre.
Emily: Lombre.
That's Sometimes Pokemon is a It's a
bit dicey with that, but, interesting
Amanda: little world.
So Oh, a favorite scene with the old man.
We should talk
Emily: about that.
Yes.
So the old man I didn't catch what he
said in the, in the Japanese dub so much.
It was not as direct, but he
did like in the Japanese dub,
he referred to D as handsome.
In the English dub, He actually is like,
I would hit that if I was young enough.
And D is definitely, like,
just being a vampire.
Yeah, we talk about, like, vampires, so.
There's queer, it's all, there's no
such thing as a straight vampire.
the rules.
D is, D is definitely asexual.
And it's not really like, but he's also
very sexy, which I, I think is cool.
But, d is there
Ben: to be desired, not to desire.
Emily: Yeah, It's interesting
because in the original film, things
get a little bit more horny with
D but he still is, super asexual.
Ben: You know what I think of D?
The fucking gay sex trap
from They Slash Them.
Emily: Oh my god!
Yeah.
Holy shit.
Ben: Yeah.
That otherworldly beauty.
Emily: Yeah.
He was, he had a whole like anime madhouse
body and face and everything like,
Amanda: He's very pretty, but he's
also very very quiet and see I feel
That sometimes when a piece of media
is trying to make a character stoic
and cool by being quiet all the
time, they kind of accidentally code
them as a little neurodivergent,
and I got that energy with D.
Emily: Oh, totally.
I think yeah,
Ben: only friend is the old
man who lives in his hand.
Talk about the old man
that lives in D's hand.
Yes,
Amanda: literal is literal left hand man.
Yes, the left hand.
So
Emily: D's left hand is a demon?
Question mark.
And this is all I haven't read the books.
I've just seen the original Vampire
Hunter D movie, which is very low, low fi.
I mean, the, the animation quality is
not, Anywhere close to this one, but
it is it does have a certain vibe.
Um, it has some really interesting
stuff going on with it.
There are a lot more nipples,
and it's almost hilarious and
how just kind of clunky it is.
But I think there's a scene, if memory
serves correctly, there's a scene where
the woman tries to come on a D and he
does get like hungry in a vampire way,
but he's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.
So I think he has a little bit
more there's more tension with
him and everything, but the hand.
The hand, there's a point where
D is like taken out fully and the
hand fully like saves him by eating
dirt and like demons and stuff.
So there's this weird symbiotic
relationship where essentially
the hand has a chance to eat the
stuff that D, some of like the
weird magic shit that D encounters.
I don't know what else I
don't know the details of how
he got the hand or whatever.
It's just
Amanda: kind of there.
It's not really explained.
Yeah, it's got like a, like a
face on his hand and it talks to
Emily: him.
Ben: But it has, like, they just
needed somebody to, it's just like they
needed something to bounce off of D.
Emily: Yeah, well,
Amanda: yeah, they bounce off
of him while he walks around
and is just completely silent.
Ben: It's the fucking, like, it's the
little fairy going, hey, listen, it's a D.
Emily: Yeah, it's, it's D's Navi.
Yeah,
Ben: this could be a video game.
Like, D could easily be a near silent
protagonist in a video game, where
you just move through, like, Devil
May Cry esque, like, Devil, like, the
world is Fallout meets Devil May Cry,
fighting, like, crazy vampire bosses.
Emily: Yeah, I feel like, there
was a D, Vampire Hunter D video
game, it just wasn't very good
and it's been done, I mean, like,
Castlevania exists, Bloodborne exists.
The Devil May Cry exists.
Fuckin the other one with the chick.
Uh, uh, legally blonde.
Yes, but also the one with,
she's a witch and her hair.
Legally blonde too.
Um, there's a witch
Amanda: and her hair.
Her hair is her,
Emily: her outfit.
And she's like, Bayonetta.
Bayonetta, yeah, okay.
Sorry.
Yeah, I was wondering if you
Amanda: were talking about Bayonetta,
but like, I could not tell.
Emily: Sorry, I smell toast.
I don't know what's going on.
Amanda: there actually toast
being made or are you having a
Emily: stroke?
I don't know.
Okay.
Just got off rails.
Bayonetta, all these, all these games
have existed and they're really cool.
The the D and his hand dichotomy
definitely has, like, you know,
you need, the hand is there for
levity and also an extra, like,
ace in the hole if, if D needs it.
Again, There's some, some translations
I think the Japanese translation
is slightly more like questionable
in terms of like what is the true
relationship with D and his hand, but
the fact that D seems very asexual.
I'm just gonna
Amanda: say, why do you word it like that?
Yeah, well, I mean, like having
a mouth built into your hand is a
Emily: little, anyway.
I don't know what, I don't want
to know what that mouth do.
That might be a reason that
Dee is asexual, it's like nah.
This is Yeah, imagine dealing with that.
Nothing's worth, like No.
It's too, there's, it's not
something I'm interested in you guys.
Dee is definitely like a game protagonist.
Now the old man in D's hand, between the
old man in D's hand flirting with him,
and the old man in the movie flirting
with him, I'm not very comfortable
with, like, a lot of this it's not
great to have the only real, like, queer
coded dialogue in this movie be for
laughs and be, like, essentially from a
pervert old man but, it's, Again, this
is not a movie with the real estate to
really like talk about these issues.
I think if we had another Vampire D
movie, I would love to see, I think,
we're at a point where we can, that we
don't have to raise eyebrows at like
any sort of characters being queer.
Ben: the romance definitely would
have been better if it was queer.
Yeah.
Yeah it's by default.
Emily: Yeah, absolutely.
I'm trying to think if there's anything
else with the, with the monsters.
I mean, a lot of the monsters
were, I mean, like, they were
their own thing that you can The
Amanda: monsters are all there
as their own thing, but are they,
because there are a bunch of different
kinds of monsters, but they were
kind of referred to as, like, one
group or one species or whatever?
And, like, how does that dichotomy
work with the vampires being monsters
too, but they're, like, nobility?
Ben: To be different monsters, but
I think it was just an excuse to
have fight scenes with different
Emily: powers.
Oh, no.
Yeah, for sure.
Yeah.
Well, I think that the, the,
yeah, in world, you know, you
have the society of monsters that
are not quote unquote nobles.
Because I think that there's a
difference between the noble vampires,
like Meyer Link and Queen Carmilla.
And then there's the ghoul vampires
that like what the whole village became
like vampire ghouls that did not have
powers to like heal their clothing
and turn into like blades and stuff.
Yeah.
Amanda: Where do we draw the line
between like monster characters
and like human characters too?
Because we've got like a literal half
vampire and then we've also got a human
that like an astral project into a ghost.
So where are we drawn
the humanity line here?
You know?
Emily: I think it's deliberately fuzzy.
Yeah, that's what I that's
what I was thinking.
Yeah.
I mean, D has a weird monster
hand and he's also got powers
and fangs and stuff, which, you
know, fang, D with fangs, so hot.
So hot.
Even in, like, the original with
a very, like, flat colors and
everything, it's just like, mm.
but, the monsters seem to have
Kind of a community, like, they
look out for each other.
They're looking out for Meyer link.
You know, they have pretty.
Chill conversations, he doesn't
treat them like thralls.
They're there to protect him and he is
there to help them and it's, you know,
a little bit more of a humane depiction
of that rather than something like.
all the underworld shit where,
like, all the vampires versus
werewolves or vampires versus X.
Amanda: If it's okay bringing it up.
Please.
Um, I kind of wanted to talk about the
themes of like, the cycle of violence.
Yeah.
Because that was, like, something about
the scene with the old man tied into.
Because, like, as a child, Dee saved him.
He protected this person from harm.
He protected him from, like,
the ramifications of violence.
Emily: Oh, yeah, this
is the human old man.
Yeah, the human old man.
Engineer.
Amanda: And then the, that
he bought a horse from.
And then later in life, this old man,
having lived his life and been spared
from violence by Dee, grew up and
in turn protected him from violence.
And that sort of echoed in,
uh, what happens with Layla.
She's like the only one of
the main cast that lives.
And multiple times Dee saves her
life and she doesn't kill him
because she doesn't, you know,
she realizes it wouldn't be moral.
Like, she doesn't feel right doing it.
And she's the only one of all her
siblings that lives, to old age.
Yeah.
And has a grandchild.
And, um, I find.
It interesting that all those
characters that held off on violence
in some way or protected from violence
are the ones that lived and get
some sort of camaraderie out of it.
And it's, um.
I think that's
Emily: a big theme of the movie.
Yeah, that is definitely, I mean, I see
that a lot especially like anime movies.
There's a lot of, discussion of
like, cycles, how to interrupt a
cycle of, something toxic or whatever.
Amanda: It's, it's very he who lives
by the sword dies by the sword.
Emily: Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of
action movies that also have that things
like that going on the more modern
action movies, or I should say more
contemporary action movies even though
there's, there's a lot of but Layla
did decide to spare Charlotte, See And
Meyer link, even though she had no there.
I mean, Charlotte was essentially dead.
Although I think that there
is there's some room to.
There's some room for interpretation.
Yeah, like maybe Meyerling
was like, ah, chomp.
And then she's undead now.
I mean, there's all sorts of magic
and there's a fucking gothic rocket.
Yeah, either, either
Amanda: Meyerling is just in space being
a sad dude forever alone or there he's
with his hot vampire GF on the moon.
Emily: Yeah, they did show some of that.
That, that moon city, or it's not on
the moon city, it's like floating.
It's like a floating space station,
like vampire space station, they
showed in the very beginning during
the, title crawl, when they're
talking about how bounty, people who
want bounties are bounty hunters.
I didn't notice that.
Yeah, yeah.
I'll have to look at that
Amanda: again.
It was in the background.
Yeah, I just, I find it interesting
that most people who Try made active
steps to stop their own cycle of
violence or protect others from
violence were rewarded in some way.
Karmically.
Emily: Yeah, yeah, that's yeah.
I mean, like, yeah, that's a big karma
is a good thing to bring up with this 1.
Also, when you talk about,
uh, Layla and her brothers.
Uh, I'm pretty sure that's a found
family, which also has some nice, like,
kind of Fast and the Furious queer found
family vibes, although They're definitely
Ben: not biological
siblings, definitely a found
Amanda: family.
No, yeah, definitely
found family siblings.
They
Ben: all really did care about each other.
Emily: They did, and they, in the
Japanese at least, they called
each other brother and sister.
There
Ben: was a lot of anarchy in
Emily: Nissan.
Yeah, there was, there was a lot of
Amanda: that.
Yeah, which for a while I
was like, are they siblings?
Like, like, are they, do they think of
each other as like adoptive siblings?
Or is it because they're
all wearing crosses?
So I'm like, is this sort
of like a congregation?
Is this a priesthood of
vampire killers, you know?
And so they're like, oh, you
know, sister, sister, whatever.
Emily: Praise be.
I think it's more of a like a
Fast and the Furious found family.
Yeah, but it's
Amanda: more of a, I,
it's more of a sibling
Emily: sibling thing.
Yeah, they are family.
They're not like messing
around or whatever, maybe.
I mean, who knows?
But like, with a found family
especially the queer found
family, there can be partners.
So anyway I think it was about
time to start talking about
whether we recommend this movie.
Do you recommend this movie, everyone?
Ben: Oh, fuck yeah.
Gorgeous film.
Hell yeah.
Amanda: Um, yes, if none of the trigger
warnings get to you specifically, um, does
the Dog Dies website that's always great
to look up any film title on and see if
anything, uh, is triggering in it for you?
Yeah.
I would recommend it purely because
it's got such beautiful art.
It's got such beautiful animation.
It really is like a
masterful piece of the craft.
It is, it feels a little
lacking on substance at times.
Emily: But I still think
it's worth a watch.
Yeah.
Oh yeah.
It's, it's like, like we said, all
style, all thriller, all filler.
Do we have anything we would recommend
if, if our listeners like this movie?
Ben: Oh man, Trinity Blood,
Blood Gloss, Hellsing, Jojo's
Bizarre Adventure, Amanda,
Emily: Castlevania.
Oh, Castlevania.
Yeah.
Amanda: Ooh, I've got media wrecks
that don't really have the same vibe
as this movie, but, um, I do agree.
Uh, yeah, Castlevania.
Castlevania is a great one.
I really like Chainsaw Man.
I really love Chainsaw Man.
If you haven't read it or watched
it, go check out Chainsaw Man.
It's amazing.
It is actually amazing.
Emily: Uh, for my recommendations
I mentioned the voice
actor that played, Kahn.
Meyer Lincoln, the English
dub, also played the main
villain in the show Aeon Flux.
Now, if you can find
that show, it is so cool.
It is so ahead of its time.
Again, it's all vibes.
It's like, it's a show by Peter
Chung, who's a very prolific animator
who's also worked with Madhouse.
But this was a series of, uh, an
American animation series that
was released on MTV back in like
1996, 95, and it was super cool.
If you've heard of the movie
it's, the characters in the movie
are the same, and that's it.
Also some make some great, there's
some great AMVs of Aeon Flux if you
want to just see what it's about.
There's another one of those Japanimation
weirdo movies that you'd find on
the shelf in 1995, uh, at your local
movie store that I highly, I just,
holds a special place in my heart.
It's called Demon City Shinjuku,
and it's actually based off of the
novel series by the same author.
The movie itself, again,
is all killer all filler.
Like, it is, it's not a lot
to say, there's a guy, he
has a sword, there's a demon.
He's a demon guy, and he's got white
hair, and uh, if you haven't seen the
movie, you may have seen it playing
in the background of various scenes
of Johnny Mnemonic, although I realize
saying that, that people who are familiar
with Johnny Mnemonic that much, and
people who are familiar with Demon
City Shinjuku, probably that, that Venn
diagram is a circle, so, um, Anyway,
also watch, watch the Devilman OVAs.
If you want to learn more, we
have a whole series about those.
But yeah, so I think that that
just about does it for us.
Where can we find you online, Amanda?
Oh, uh,
Amanda: you can find me at
RoboFeather pretty much everywhere.
Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram.
Um, it's R O B O F E A T H E R.
My commissions are always open.
Emily: Awesome.
And then, um, you're
working on a new book.
Or you worked on a new book?
I
Amanda: worked on a new book.
I actually just got them in the mail.
I'm very excited about it.
Yeah, I got a, oh, actually,
oh, there's, there's another
one coming in the mail too.
I got, it's a new Dame's production book.
I got a bunch of copies
of Horns in the mail.
I was also just in, uh, Classics 3, which
is, uh, about recreating classical works
of art with a new queer gay twist on them.
And I, yeah, I recreated a, uh.
An impressionist painting
is it's really cute.
And I, uh, secretly inserted
my girlfriend into it.
Emily: I, I love that.
I saw that.
I love that.
I got several cavities
because it's so sweet.
Yeah.
Amanda: Unfortunately.
Yeah, uh, preorders for did close
recently, but yeah, if anyone
listening to this happened to
support us for pride month.
Emily: Thanks for that.
Yeah, if we, is there any place
that we can find the books?
Like, are there people that
are selling them at conventions
Amanda: or?
Yeah, artists will be
selling them at conventions.
I know I'm personally getting 20 copies.
Okay.
But I think they will be reopening
their store and doing reprints in the
Emily: future too.
Oh, awesome.
So that's, uh, there was
horns and then what was the
Amanda: other one called?
Well, there was horns, uh,
by dames production, and
then there was, uh, classics.
Emily: Classics.
Okay.
Yes.
horns art book and classics art book.
Amanda: Yes.
And Dave's production.
We're doing a yet another book soon.
It's about magical nights.
So that will
Emily: be real fun.
Oh, nice.
And so Ben I'll let you do your
thing because, I mean, I could
tell everybody about you, but
Ben: You can find me on Twitter at
benthekahn, Instagram benkahncomics,
or check out my website, benkahncomics.
com.
Uh, you can find, uh, all three issues
of Griffin are out in stores now.
And my prose debut, the
middle grade novel, L.
Campbell Wins Their Weekend, will be
out from Scholastic on October 17th.
So, uh, reorder
Emily: that now.
Awesome.
Hell yeah!
We also, uh, so you have L.
Campbell and Griffin?
And then, where do I find a Renegade
Rule t shirt like the one you're wearing?
Ben: Uh, this one was actually
just made by my co writer, Rachel.
Oh, awesome.
So, I get to rep the brand.
Awesome.
But yes, you can always get Renegade
Rule, uh, from Dark Horse and You can
find that at comic book stores and online.
Emily: Awesome.
And I'm at Megamoth on Twitter, Mega
underscore Moth on Instagram, Megamoth.
net.
And Jeremy was at a million
conventions this week.
If you saw him there awesome.
He will be at conventions
in the future as well.
I know that he was at Table 1337
at ALA, which I think is great.
You know, he's a very elite hacker.
Speak there, but if you're looking
for Jeremy and if you miss him, um,
you can always hit him up on Twitter
and Instagram at J room 5, 8 and
his website, Jeremy Whitley dot com.
And you can check out all of
the stuff that he's writing.
And he's got, the new graphic novel
out the dog night which was recently
selected a New York Times list of,
books of graphic novels to check out
for Pride which is, the book is so
cute and it very much deserves to
be on all the good lists so check it
out, as does Renegade Rule and, and L.
Campbell.
if you want to support all of us
here on the podcast, you We're on
Patreon at Progressively Horrified,
and we also have our website
progressively horrified Transistor fm.
And we're on Twitter at prog horror pod.
We'd love to hear from you.
We can always chat about anime.
We can, we have a lot of
opinions about anime too.
You know, and Jeremy loves it.
He's just he's just a re the best to
Ben: admit it.
Just such a, such a
supporter of our anime love.
He's, he's
Emily: very good.
He's very good supporter.
He's our, our best.
Aniki, and I'm very arigatoful of him.
He's our, he's
Ben: the bocce though, he's the
bocce the rock of our group.
Amanda: He really
Emily: is.
Oh my god.
Uh, I'll check out bocce the rock too.
That's a really great series.
Anyway, so thank you, Amanda.
Thank you so much for joining us.
Thanks for having me.
Of course.
Thank you so much for coming on.
And thank you, Ben.
And thank you for being rad.
We also, we, we all love you.
And thank you listener for listening.
And be well and always stay horrified.