Vampire Hunter D - Not For Kids

My fondness for the 1985 animated film Vampire Hunter D has always been a bittersweet one. I first saw the movie late at night on TBS in 1994. I absolutely loved the animation style, the very dark subject matter, and silent and deadly main character. When I tried to describe it to people, words failed me. I spent more time than I can remember pouring through TV guide hoping to see that it was coming on again so I could tape it. Unfortunately, I didn't have Internet access back then. No Internet=no Google. No Google=how the hell did we ever find anything back then?

Well, I used to use the phone book. I called every store in the yellow pages under "Video Rental/Sales" until I found a Suncoast that actually had a copy of it in their "Japanimation" section. Yay!

So I bummed a ride to Suncoast and bought it right up for the handsome sum of $30. (Man, I can't believe how expensive anime was back then!) Unfortunately, the copy I purchased just happened to not have the "Not for Kids" warning label on it. I had no inkling or warning about some of the "Adult" content that the unedited version of the movie contained. And right on queue, my mother walked into my room as a shot of full-frontal nudity popped onto the screen, surprising me as much as her. That did not end up well...

Now, don't get me wrong, I admire the form of the female body as much as any red-blooded boy ought to by nature, but I don't need it spilled into my dark-hero anime. In fact I don't need it spilled into my TV screen whatsoever. If I want to see a naked woman, that's what my wife is for. Of course I was only about 16 at the time, so I wasn't married yet, but I knew I'd get to see as much of the female form as I wanted to once I was.

So I was embarrassed and angry all at once because the version of Vampire Hunter D that I had fallen in love with contained none of this gratuitous nudity. And make no mistake, I really loved that movie. I returned the video to Suncoast. They tried to refuse on the grounds that the sticker had warned me ahead of time, but I showed them the cellophane wrapper sans-sticker and they had no choice.

Over the years I have made numerous attempts to "clean up" Vampire Hunter D. First by some creative editing with a pair of VCR's. When the DVD was released, I purchased a copy and made an edited version on SVCD (DVD writers weren't yet available to consumers), but in the process I lost the menus, extras, alternate audio, subtitles and all of the other fun stuff.

Thanks to a remarkable program called DVDRemake Pro, last night I was able to remove the offensive content from the DVD without losing any menus, audio or subtitles. And now I have a full-quality, full-feature version of the movie that I can share with friends and family. Yay!