Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust

"When the human-aristocrat balance of power shifted, some aristocrats closed themselves up in their coffins for millenia of sleep where human eyes would not reach..."
(Author: Hideyuki Kikuchi, from the Yoshitaka Amano artbook, "Kanoke")

Meier and Charlotte. Believe it or not, I *still* havn't watched the new Vampire Hunter D movie. I want to, but every time I have a chance... I'm not in the mood. (*sigh*) But I love the character designs which are so close to Amano's artwork, and I love every Vampire Hunter D story I've be able to read, so I have no problem picking up a few cels. This one was available to buy for a long time before a sale and some overtime at work proved too tempting a combination. As a "vampire-phile" in general, I love the composition of this cel. The matching sketch is gorgeous enough to be framed alone. Actually, the only thing I would change about this would be to undo some of the line fading... Ah, curse thee, linefading... The arch enemy of the cel collector. Incidentally, the quote above is from Kikuchi's short story "Portrait of Ixobel", as it was translated for Amano's Vampire Hunter D artbook, Kanoke. This is the story on which I hoped they would base the new movie. Kanoke is a gorgeous (and unfortunately out of print) artbook that is worth every dollar of the hundreds it cost me, and I recommend it to any hardcore Vampire Hunter D fan who has both the money... and the luck to be able to find a copy.

Meier. Meier's design is fantastic, but I have a tough time finding Bloodlust cels I like. Most of it is because I'm not big on closeups to begin with, and I have a big thing about the tops of people's heads or their hair getting cut off at the top of the cel. Most "high quality" Bloodlust cels are so close up, the top of the head/hair is inevitably cut off, leaving the cel looking... sort of incomplete to my eyes. Seen here is *exactly* the type of cel of Meier I was hoping to get. The outfit is visible, the expression is solid, the composition breathes movement even as it sits still. Maybe there would be other cels I would like more if I knew the scenes, but this one is my brand of perfection for displaying the character. Better without a haircut.

Please do not take and use images from this site. My cels were expensive to buy and I have put a lot of time into scanning them for use here.
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