Anime Impact. Chris Stuckmann
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half of Latin America with his M78. And that’s not going to fly for a lot of folks today. This is 2018, damn it, and we’re supposed to be woke! Yet Vampire Hunter D remains less woke than a narcoleptic on Ambien.
Take D, for instance. The film’s bad boy protagonist, D is everything heroes of 2018 aren’t supposed to be. He’s all strong, silent swagger, and his answer to virtually every conflict is to whip out his … wait for it … longsword and set to hacking. No articulate empathizer here. No, sir. D is a one-man army of stabby-stabby. D is a manly man’s hero. He’ll crush your spine or drive a sword through your spleen, but don’t be looking for him to express his insecurities.
Then there’s Doris Lang, Vampire Hunter D’s resident heroine/damsel in distress. Right from the get-go, we watch Doris from an up-skirt perspective as she stalks down the road on a midnight werewolf hunt. Now, to be fair, it would be hard to view Doris from any other perspective, given that her skirt isn’t long enough to cover her undergarments. I’d chalk this up to a sweltering sub-Saharan setting, but D goes about in a full cape and cloak. Maybe Doris has issues with underperforming sweat glands that leave her overheated? Or maybe Vampire Hunter D is more interested in the letters “T” and “A” than in any realistic portrayal of feminine dress.
There’s more, of course. I haven’t even started on the mayor’s son, Greco Rohman (seriously!), that charming chap who tries to blackmail Doris after she gets bitten by the vampire Count Magnus Lee. Oh, and then announces to the world that Doris got bitten when Doris won’t accede to his sexual demands, thus ruining her reputation with the townsfolk.
Yet before you strike Vampire Hunter D from your to-watch list, consider that this film, like boxing, has persevered over the years in the hearts of its not-insignificant fanbase. There must be a reason for that, right? And there is. Because, for all its inability to measure up to 2018 standards of what constitutes acceptable storytelling, Vampire Hunter D is wildly inventive. Its far-flung futuristic world is one of mechanical horses, space-warping mutants, and bloody mists that can strip the skin from your bones. And, oh, the wondrous creatures! There’s more biological creativity on display in just the scene where D first enters Count Lee’s castle than there is in most Hollywood blockbusters!
Vampire Hunter D even manages to be narratively adventurous in a way that few blockbusters would ever dare. It goes to great lengths to humanize Count Lee’s daughter, Larmica, despite the fact that she’s an unambiguous villain and racist. It even ennobles Larmica by the story’s end. And, let me tell you, making a self-righteous fascist seem noble is no mean trick.
But really, what Vampire Hunter D does best is tap into that river of machismo that soaked us in the ’80s. Here is an anime that invites you to take pleasure in your primal impulses. “Why should I judge you?” it growls in your ear. “I come from the age of Commando and First Blood Part II. So my protagonist isn’t a feeler. John Matrix wasn’t a feeler. John Rambo wasn’t a feeler. You still love them, don’t you?”
And I do. God help me, but I still do. Matrix, Rambo, and yes, even D. I love them all.
Look, I could try selling you on the notion that Vampire Hunter D is of an artistic par with many of the anime described in this book, but I won’t. It’s a throwback, a luddite cloaked in gothic sci-fi garb. Yet don’t write it off. Because, while it’s certainly not woke, it’s inventive enough to worm its way into your mind and primal enough to strong-arm its way into your heart, if only you give it the chance. And if watching it inspires you to tear off your shirt, beat your chest, and howl at the moon? Don’t worry: it probably just means you’re a werewolf.
John Rodriguez is a personal trainer whose devotion to physical fitness is exceeded only by his fervor for all things film and literature. John is currently finishing his first novel—a fantasy that’s sparked fantasies of a challenging new career.
1985 • GoShogun: The Time Étranger
Sengoku Majin GoShōgun: Toki no Ihôjin
— Chris Stuckmann —
We stared at the collection. The collection stared back. Two large shelves filled with anime. More anime than we could ever need. Perhaps that was the problem.
Have you ever sat in front of your collection, scanning each title, searching for one to watch? Maybe you’ve scrolled through Netflix for an hour, still not finding anything. You know you want to watch something. But what?
This was the dilemma facing my friend and me that night. Both of us agreed we felt like watching an anime, but the plethora of animated entertainment in front of us made that a daunting task.
My eyes skimmed both shelves twice, and on the second pass, they stopped at GoShogun: The Time Étranger—a forgotten film from 1985—directed by Kunihiko Yuyama, who later became known for directing the Pokémon films.
Why do I own this? I pondered, removing the Blu-ray from the shelf. Glancing at the back of the slipcover, I recalled purchasing it after seeing an advertisement from Discotek (a company that primarily distributes anime from the ’70s, ’80s, and ’90s). Upon reading the plot, I instantly remembered why I bought it.
The Time Étranger is set forty years after the events of GoShogun, a “giant robot anime” from 1981 that spanned twenty-six episodes. The show follows a team of pilots who operate GoShogun, a large robot that is formed from multiple parts to battle enemies. Like many anime of that era, it was renamed for American audiences as Macron 1, which spliced footage from GoShogun and Mission Outer Space Srungle to create an entirely new continuity. Étranger wisely forges a new path, presenting a daring story unlike anything I’ve seen from this specific genre.
Remy Shimada is a former member of the GoShogun team, now much older. On the way to meet her colleagues, she gets in a deadly car accident and ends up in the hospital on life support. Before long, her old friends stand over her bedside and receive the grave news that Remy is not expected to survive more than a couple days. While she lies in bed, comatose, Remy finds herself caught between life and death.
In her nightmare state, she awakes in a hotel room overlooking a dilapidated city. The buildings seem to rise in elevation, leading to a towering monument. This town is inhabited by shadowy figures and portrayed with a dull, gray color palette. They bow before the monument in submission, heads against the ground. Soon, it becomes clear that their subservience isn’t out of faith, but of fear. This is the City of Fate, and their god is not one of love.
Remy discovers her fellow teammates are in the hotel as well, and everyone—including herself—looks young again. Cryptic letters arrive for each of them, detailing in gruesome ways the manner of their deaths. Remy is told that in two days, Fate will come for her, ripping her to shreds. She’s even supplied photographs documenting her final moments.
Over the next two days, Remy and the team fight against the zombie-like horde. The emotionless mass plows forth, barely affected by Remy’s gunfire. Grenades, machine guns, and explosives are no match for the advancing mob. Fate is coming to collect its due, and it seems that nothing can stop it.
Shuffled within this horrific nightmare are flashbacks to Remy’s youth. An encounter with three young hooligans shows that her tenacity manifested at an early age. After the bullies offer money to remove her dress, she slips off her belt, and the boys think they’ve won. To their shock, young Remy wraps the belt around her fist, and decks each one of them, leaving them in tears on the pavement.
But the main focus of this flashback is Remy’s time spent at the bottom of a cavernous pit. The ground caved in beneath her feet, trapping her in the dark. Alone and terrified, she begins to hallucinate. Ghostlike visions of other children plague her delirium, their voices echoing in her subconscious. Or … could these visitations be literal? I admire Étranger for leaving this—and many other plot points—up to interpretation.
On more than one occasion, my friends and I have fantasized about the possibilities of franchise sequels. Do they all have to be the same? For instance, what if the next Star Wars film took place solely at a