Question - answer. 

Gaallo - Kevin Leahy.

 

> Do you do translation of Kikuchi-sama's novels? Is it official?...

Yes, I guess it's official.  Kikuchi-sensei has mentioned that I'm doing the translations in the back of one or two of the novels, he's introduced me to the people in charge that publish VHD (Asahi Sonorama), his editor Susumu Ishii gave me the second and third books on floppy disk to make my translating easier, etc.  Also, when Kikuchi-sensei introduced me to the director of the Vampire Hunter D:Bloodlust anime, he told him that if the books were ever published in english, it would be my work.

 

>   Is D really son of count Dracula? If it is so - is Dracula the Valash count Vlad Cepesh or it is just a name of vampire king's dynasty?

Although the books never come right out and say for certain, it's clear that he can do things and go places that only someone of Dracula's direct bloodline could.  This Dracula is largely based on the Count as portrayed by Christopher Lee in the Hammer Horror films, rather than the historical Vlad Tsepes.  The name Dracula, in fact, has never been said completely in the books--someone always gets interrupted as they ask D if Dracula was his father.  Both humans and vampires refer to Dracula instead as the "Sacred Ancestor", which suggests he is the original vampire, or at least the oldest remaining.

*Notice by Cathy Crusberg - about relationship of D and Dracula was definitely said in the end of first novel.*

 

 > As i understand, Drakula is alive? And in some kind all vampires are  members of his bloodline - if Drakula is an ancestor... I suppose it  isn't said in the books - but how Drakula, the first vampire, became  undead?

Dracula seems to still be alive in the series, or at least part of him is still around.  In the second book, D has a mental conversation with his essence, and other vampires have apparently seen visions of him or felt his presence.  Since he's called the "Sacred Ancestor", I believe Kikuchi-sensei is trying to say that he was the first vampire, and all others came from him.  The second book suggests that the weaknesses of vampires and their thirst for blood is all tied to the genetic defect of one individual, which would be Dracula.  Also, the name "Dracula" has never been completely said in the books--in the first two books, every time someone starts to say it, they get interrupted.

 

> Hmmmm.... If vampires got their weakness from Dracula, who gave them their power and spesial abilities - was it Sacres Ancestor too? And what abilities, in addition to self-curing, transformation of body and clothers (as Meier Link in VHD: Bloodlust) or hipnotism (like Count Lee in OVA) can be used by vampires?

Yes, vampires get both their strengths and weaknesses from Dracula, as he seems to be the first of their species.  In particular, he seems to consider the bloodlust to be the real flaw in the vampires' nature.  He has made creatures with the power of vampires that could live in daylight, or never had to eat or drink, but they still wanted to suck blood, so he considered them failures.

According to the books, the powers of vampires vary from individual to individual.  Some can control the weather, or control animals.  Some can transform into wolves or fog.  Some, like Meier Link, can make part of their clothes or body into a weapon.  In addition, all vampires seem to have the following abilities: they can recover from any wound except decapitation or a stake through the heart, they have super strength (equal to fifty men) and super speed, their senses are very sharp and they can see in complete darkness, they can mentally control their victims from a distance.

 

> Moreover to the last question - can power of vampire rises with his age?

Yes, exactly.  Humans who are made "vampires" will have the same powers as their master, but their level will be much lower in all areas.  But with age, all vampires become stronger at the powers they have.

 

>   How old is D?

The books haven't said yet how old D is, and the Japanese fans I've talked to believe that it could be anything from a few hundred years old to ten thousand years old.  While other dhampirs age, he always seems to be about 19 years old.  In the books, the real turning point in the history of the vampires seems to have been 5000 years earlier--so my theory is that the birth of D changed everything.  So my very unofficial guess would be about 5000 years old.

 

> I suppose so long life is diffucult for D. in some moment he can leel  yourself tired of living... i understand that he has a very important  aims and purposes in life - but sometimes he can dissapoint in it.  forgive me if i said nonsense

I agree.  I think perhaps the reason D is always so serious and emotionless is because he's burned out from living so long--he's seen anything that can possibly happen, so nothing surprises him anymore.

 

> If he is so tired already, how can he keeps on his crusade?... What is D's sourse of power? Is it just feel of justice?... Is it some kind of promise or vow to somebody? I can't believe that D can't other occupation for youself... Sory if it is a rubbish - but if other bouthy hunters work for money, D is working for his own principles of justice...

D seems to be working for principles.  If the vampires had all given up and accepted the fact that their race was doomed, there would have been no need for Vampire Hunters.  But some choose to continue trying to rule the humans, so someone must destroy them.  Dhampirs are the ideal Hunters, and D is clearly much more powerful than the average dhampir.

 

> I heard that D's locket has some spesial behaviours, like suppressoin of his blood lust. Is it true? Maybe D has some else artifacts?

D's pendant has the power to render any of the vampires' mechanical defenses inactive.  So it protects him from hi-tech devices like robots and lasers, but won't save him from falling into a pit trap or something primitive.  In the Bloodlust anime, there shouldn't be a need for him to uses rocks against the laser defenses on the "resting house."  In the same part of the book, the defenses don't even start up until D has left the area.  But he doesn't seem to have any other special equipment.

 

>   Is D alone or he has some relatives? (exept Alukards from Castlevania and Hellsing, surely... :)))

Dracula seems to have been obsessed with creating vampires that could live in the daylight, with all the strengths and none of the weaknesses or bloodlust.  Over the thousands of years, he used as many as a million women in his attempts to create the perfect hybrid, but he is also rumored to have told one of these women that she would bear him children, he would kill them, and she would bear him more.  He seems to have destroyed the others.

D is often referred to in the books as his "only success."  Still, the story "Twin Shadowed Knight" is about the "False D" who looks exactly like D and has almost all his abilities (except the face in his hand).  In "Jaoh Seidan" (sorry, I still haven't decided the english title for this one yet), he goes up against the "ultimate vampire" Lawrence Valcua, who also seems to be descended from Dracula.  And the girl named Tae that he helps cross the desert in "Pilgrimage of the Sacred Demon" is pregnant with a vampire's child--she was a prisoner in a vampire's castle, and Dracula was one of the vampires there who might be the child's father.  So he probably has some more relatives around somewhere.

 

> Well, male vampire can be a father. But can dhampiles and female vampires have children?

Both male and female vampires can be the parents of dhampirs.  Although most cases mentioned in the books so far are about male vampires and human females, Kikuchi-sensei said at a "talk live" event one night that female vampires are also attracted to male humans.  The most recent book, and some of the others, mentions the "Sacred Ancestor" using vampire women, too, in his experiments to create the perfect vampire--one who could walk in the daylight and wouldn't want to drink blood (dhampirs can walk in the daylight, but they are also tempted to feed on humans).

 

> So, dhampirs are half-humans and half-vampires. But how new Noble Vampire can be create? Is he a child of vampires - both Aristocratic father and moter - or it is a human who was bited by vampire or iniciated for spesial rite? All this ways was mentoined in vampire legends, movies and novels - what of that was lesected by Kikuchi-sensey for D'world?

In Kikuchi-sensei's world, vampires can be created in two ways.  First, a vampire can change a human into a vampire if they want to by drinking their blood.  The important point is, the vampire must WANT their victim to change, it doesn't just happen by accident.  The second way vampires are created is that they are born like normal babies when both their parents are vampires.  They seem to age at a normal rate until they reach adulthood, since a vampire named Baron Balarge was only 20 years old and seemed to be an adult already.  But there was another vampire girl named Lady Anne who was hundreds of years old and still had the body of a child (it seems her father did something special so she would stay that way).

 

>   Did vampires really come from space? What means the ruinous space ships near Earth in the beginnind of Bloodlust?

I don't think the vampires came from space.  Rather, they are excellent scientists and inventors, and when they ruled the world, they travelled to other planets.  In fact, earth was attacked by creatures called the OSB (for "outer space beings"), and Lawrence Valcua led the attack on the alien's homeworld.

 

> Outer space beings... What is it? Why did they come to Earth?

The Outer-Space Beings seem to be like the strange gods and creatures in the stories of H.P. Lovecraft.  Supposedly they came to earth long ago, and when they came back to reclaim the planet, they found the vampires in charge. The vampires and aliens fought for thousands of years, and then the aliens suddenly left.  I hope the series will give more information on exactly what happened.

 

>   Why D's hate to vampires is so strong? He creates an empression of a calm and steady human, in my opinion he looks like more a monk than a warrior... Is he just a fanatic or it has a reason?

Actually, D doesn't hate vampires as a whole.  Though the books never let us know his thoughts, he seems to be about balance and justice.  He destroys vampires who prey on humans, because with their artificial blood supply they don't really need to feed on humans.  But he also defends innocent vampires from humans who would destroy them simply because of what they are, instead of for something they'd done.  We haven't really seen that side of D in the two anime stories yet, but in the books he often travels in the company of both vampires and humans.

 

> I always was interested in attitude between D and Dracula. Would you tell me a few fords about it? What does D think about Sacred Ancestor and his doings?

D seems to be looking for the Sacred Ancestor, but it's unclear what he'll do when he finds him.  Most of the good things the vampires did are probably thanks to the Sacred Ancestor, but since he created their kind and was like their leader, he probably could have done more to control them.  In the most recent book, a vampire asked D why the Sacred Ancestor took that vampire's mother away for experiments, and D told him that sometimes the Sacred Ancestor did some strange things, and even he (the S.A) didn't know if it was always for the best or not.

 

> So, it seems like D is a defender of justice as for vampires as for humans. I suppose it is a very disadvantage position - vampires dislike D because he is half-human, humans hate him because he is half-vampire... D is loser in any case. If he can't be a human in whole meaning if this conseption - maybe it would be easier to be a vampire. but he resists of bloodlust very strongly. Why? Does he prefer to be a half-human instead to be a a vampire?

D recognizes some of the good things vampires did, and the fact that some of them have left the humans alone.  He has artificial blood tablets that he can put in water when he needs to feed, and apparently he has never drank the blood from a human (that's what his left hand said in the second book). But both he and the "Sacred Ancestor" seem bothered by the vampires' nature, and the fact that they want to drink blood.

 

>   What creature is D's Hand? Is it a parasite, a simbiot, a clot of energy, a product of forgotten tecnologies or by magic?...

We don't know yet how the thing got into D's left hand, but we do know that it hasn't always been there, and that the "false D" didn't have one (he was otherwise a perfect physical double of D with a very different personality). In the third book, "Demon Deathchase (this is the basis for "Bloodlust"), Mashira actually had something similar in his body that could move from person to person.  D's left hand uses the basic elements of water, air, fire, and earth to generate life force, which is why it can bring him back from the dead.  Basically, it's a life force generator.

 

> It seems like as some kind of agreement... D's body allows Hand to move, and in some kind it makes D quite invincible. It is a very good corporation, but... Has D's hand some demerits? In my opinion it is too garrulous...

Yes, D's hand really like to talk and joke.  Part of the reason Kikuchi-sensei added the hand was to give D more character.  He's so serious and unemotional, and after the first two or three books he doesn't talk very much, either, so it would be kind of boring without his left hand there. The hand always teases D, and D's usual reaction is to squeeze his fist until the voice stops, or often until blood drips out of his fist.  The hand can use a lot of power doing some things, and that might leave it in-active for a few days at a time.  It also needs one or more of the elements--wind, water, fire, and earth--depending on what it wants to do.  In the third book, the hand said he could only heal D's wounds, and not other people, but in the latest book D makes him heal someone else.

 

> If Hand makes D so nervous (irritable, angly, ets.) - indeed D never tried to get rid of it? In some cases Hand's demerits can have more value that his provity, I think...

Well, if D is serious about staying around to fight vampires for a few thousand years more, he'll probably need the hand's help to heal and come back to life, as well as absorbing various attacks, acting as a lie-detector, and so on.  And it seems pretty easy for him to get the hand to shut up simply by squeezing him enough.

 

>   In reality D never can takes out his two-handed sword from scabbard - it is impossible... How can he do it?...

In the books, D has an "elegantly curved longsword" that he wears on his back or holds in his right hand.  Being curved, it might be easier to draw, but it does seem like it would be difficult.  The sword itself is not magic, although with D's speed, strength, and skill it does things that would seem impossible.

 

> I haven't some doubts about D's abilities!... But it is very unusual to hold a long sword in the csabbard. Usually it kept in the scabbard which not-sealed by one side, wear out in clothers or not-covered at all... Nobody, even D, could pull out the two-handed sword from scabbard - nobody has so long hands... It looks exelent, but i suppose it isn't comfortable for D. But, it isn't my case...

I think Kikuchi-sensei likes having the sword on D's back because it's more dramatic that way.  He writes a lot of details about how he starts moving to draw the blade, or the sound of it coming out of the sheath.

 

> Some else strange question - was D sometimes in love? I saw the picture named "Love" in Amano-sama artbook about D, but I can't understand what does it mean... Can D really love for somebody?... O___o.... i'm "in drop"...

As far as I know, D was never in love.  Someone once had me ask Kikuchi-sensei if D had loved Doris, but he said no.  If D didn't love Doris, then he probably hasn't loved anyone.  It might be like the movie "Highlander" where the immortals learn not to fall in love with mortals, because they will only have to watch them grow old and die.  Amano seems to draw D as he thinks the readers want to see him--in exotic arms, in somewhat romantic situations.  It certainly helps sell books.  

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