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For
those of you who don’t know, Darkstalkers is based on the video game
series of the same name. The game is a beat ‘em up featuring many
of the types familiar to most horror fans such as the vampire, werewolf,
mummy etc.
Unfortunately I’ve yet to see an anime
based on a beat ‘em up that is any good, although this one is not
the worst. The producers seem to have followed the usual rules for
making a beat ‘em up into an anime – concentrate on a few characters
and put the others in the background.
The plot is set sometime in earth’s future when it has been taken
over by (mainly) evil beings referred to as Darkstalkers. The setting
seems a little confused, as we see cities full of heavy metal fans
attending Lord Raptor concerts, then we see small towns that appear
to have been lifted straight out of the middle ages – everyone seems
to be carrying pitchforks and flaming torches.
The story centres on Dimitri, a vampire who is apparently the big
cheese among the Darkstalkers. Apparently he was exiled to earth and
is now quite chuffed that he’s found a way to get home. His attempt
fails for no adequately explored reason, a lot of fights break out
and then the end credits come up. Well that’s a bit unfair, but there
really isn’t much more too it. I think this episode was intended to
set up the main characters, and then start on the story proper in
later episodes – at least that’s what I hope…
The animation was OK, which was handy as the only reason I bought
the tape was to see what the characters looked like.
How can I put this tactfully – If you see it for £5 and you like the
game, buy it. otherwise there are a lot of better tapes more deserving
of your wallet’s contents.
3/10 (and that’s only because it had Morrigan and Felicia
in it ^_^)
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If you like beat-em-up anime then you could try ADV's Streetfighter V
anime, following the lives of all the classic pugilists before they
were famous..