Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (anime)

Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (originally titled Vampire Hunter: The Animated Series (ヴァンパイアハンター THE ANIMATED SERIES) in Japan) is a four-episode Original Video Animation anime series by Madhouse Studios in association with DR Movie under license from Capcom, directed by Masashi Ikeda and originally released in 1997. Toshifumi Yoshida and Trish Ledoux produced an English-dubbed version for Viz Media in 1999. The series was released on the VHS, DVD and Universal Media Disc. It is based on the Darkstalkers series of gothic-themed fighting video games by Capcom. Characters were designed by Shukō Murase and the animation was done by Asami Endo and Yoshinori Kanada. The ending theme for the series, "Trouble Man" by Eikichi Yazawa, was also used as the opening theme in the Japanese home port of the video game Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors. In this series, the succubus character Morrigan Aensland appears.

Plot

In the midst of a war between the families of Demitri Maximoff and Morrigan Aensland for control of the Demon World, alien invader Pyron arrives on Earth and plans to take it over by taking out those who stand a chance of stopping him, namely the Darkstalkers. Meanwhile, dhampir Donovan Baine seeks to rid himself of the cursed blood which runs through his veins. Four of the original Darkstalkers, Anakaris, Rikuo, Sasquatch and Victor are not featured in the OVA's main storyline, apparently having been killed by Pyron in a flashback sequence shown in the beginning of the fourth episode.

Characters

Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
Cover of an Italian DVD complete series release
Anime
Directed by	Masashi Ikeda Animation directors: Hideki Takayama Hiroyuki Tanaka Satoshi Tasaki Takafumi Hoshikawa
Produced by	Masayuki Miyashita Kenichiro Zaizen Masao Maruyama Toshiki Oonishi
Written by	Tatsuhiko Urahata
Music by	Kow Otani Eikichi Yazaw] (end theme)
Studio	Madhouse
Licensed by	Australia & New Zealand Madman Entertainment Canada & United States Viz Media
Released	March 21, 1997 – March 27, 1998

Character	Japanese Voice Actor	English Voice Actor
Demitri Maximoff	Akio Ōtsuka	Paul Dobson
Donovan	Unshō Ishizuka	Ari Solomon
Felicia	Yukana	Janyse Jaud
Gallon (Jon Talbain)	Fumihiko Tachiki	Alvin Sanders
Hannya (Bishamon)	Masashi Ebara	Don Brown/Michael Dobson
Huitzil		Ward Perry
Lei-Lei (Hsien-Ko)	Yūko Miyamura	Nicole Oliver
Lei-Lei and Lin-Lin's mother	Kumiko Takizawa
Lin-Lin (Mei-Ling)	Maya Okamoto	Jane Perry
Morrigan Aensland	Rei Sakuma	Kathleen Barr
Anita	Akiko Yajima	Andrea Libman
Pyron	Shinji Ogawa	David Kaye
Zabel Zarock (Lord Raptor)	Kōichi Yamadera	Scott McNeil

Episodes

1. "Return of the Darkstalkers"
2. "Blood of the Darkstalkers, Power of the Darkstalkers"
3. "Pyron Descending"
4. "For Whom They Fight"

Reception

It was featured in the 2009 book 500 Essential Anime Movies by Helen McCarthy.

See also

• Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, a video game of the same title

External links

• The source of this article at Wikipedia
• Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge (anime) (OVA) at Anime News Network's Encyclopedia