Dracula

I love Marvel Comics. I love all the shows (for the most part) and the movies (again, mostly). I find the characters incredibly interesting and love to know about it. I'm particularly interested in animation. I had read all about Marvel's modern animated movies, but learned that there were two relatively unknown movies: Dracula and The Monster of Frankenstein. Marvel and Toei Animation made a deal to make several of their properties, but those were the only two produced.

Dracula is inspired by The Tomb of Dracula. The comic features Dracula's grandson finding his body and encountering vampire hunters like Blade. I picked up a collected edition and it's quite...odd to say the least (it was the 70s). This film is loosely inspired by the comics and features a few of the characters, but greatly alters the story. Oddly enough, the comics weren't available in Japan at the time so it's an odd choice that this was made above Fantastic Four, Spider-Man, or Hulk.

The film follows both Dracula and his grandson Drake. Dracula meets a woman, falls in love, and has a child. Drake meets a team of vampire hunters and searches for his grandfather. Satan, angry at Dracula for stealing his bride, plans to destroy the vampire lord. The meeting of the three stories eventually leads to a big climatic showdown.

The tone is all over the place. There's a lot of late 70s and early 80s camp, silly hairstyles, plot devices that stretch believability, and other problems that were common in anime at the time. On the other hand, there's a lot of dark stuff. Early on, Dracula graphically kills two women on screen. There's a flashback to his days of Vlad the Impaler which is more historically accurate than most other screen versions (violence-wise). Some of the characters even take a side-trip to Hell. And one female character appears fully naked from the side. I wouldn't say it's scary, but there's a shot of birds picking at dead bodies on pikes (hence the real-life Vlad's nickname) that could be disturbing. I actually applaud the darker elements. That's something almost no one in animation deals with. The problem is, the campier elements make it too silly for adults but the sex and violence make it a bit much for children.

The voice acting is, again, standard for anime at the time. Unless it was Disney or Don Bluth, no one took animation seriously and certainly not anime (Akira being nearly a decade away). At the time, translations were done quickly and cheaply. It seemed that the same ten people did everything anime. The voices work for their purposes but not a one is anything more than adequate.

The animation is astounding. Anime has always featured terrific animation. Characters look realistic, not the oversized hands and eyes that American animation often has. There's a great richness to the images and backgrounds. Lots of interesting looking set pieces, even for tiny little scenes or just single shots. They do have the occasional problem, but it was typical to cheat every once in a while.

Dracula is an interesting tale. I would recommend it to anime and/or Marvel buffs looking for something different. There's actually a lot of interesting ideas. For example, Dracula resents his life as a vampire and his need to consume people, though Let the Right One In would do that idea better. If only this movie was simply a better movie. There's simply too many problems to take this seriously.

Anime made-for-television movie based on the Marvel comic book series from the '70s, Tomb of Dracula. It wasn't released in America until 1983, under the name Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned. This dubbed version is the one that I saw. The movie begins with some unintentionally funny scenes with a Satanic cult offering up a woman named Delores as the bride to (they believe) Satan. But it's not Satan, it's our old friend Dracula. When he sees Delores, he has to have her so he swoops her up and flies away. Meanwhile, a descendant of Dracula's named Frank Drake is recruited by vampire hunters Hans Harker and Rachel Van Helsing (yes, both are related to the characters with the same surnames from Bram Stoker's novel). The trio sets out to kill Dracula, but Satan might actually beat them to it as he's pretty PO'ed that Dracula stole his sacrifice. So he sends his worshippers after the vampire, who has now had a child with Delores and is living the good life.

A sympathetic depiction of Dracula is a large part of what makes this story interesting. But it's also melodramatic and corny with an overstuffed plot and a very talky script. There is a dog named Elijah who can track Dracula by scent, so points for that. The action sequences and sci-fi sound effects are really out of place for a horror story but I expect no less from anime. There's some blood and violence in this, as well as some other things that might not be suitable for all ages. I doubt most little kids would be able to sit through it, anyway. They'd probably be bored by it. The animation is nice, particularly for the period in which this was made. The point where a dead character is resurrected as a superhero, complete with costume and powers, is a bit too much. It's not a bad movie but it won't appeal to everyone. It's weird, for sure. Sometimes a fun kind of weird but sometimes not.

I've heard a lot of bad things about this movie. And is it really as bad as everybody says it is? Well, to be perfectly blunt, yes and no. For me, this movie is kind of a mixed bag. It's not the worst adaptation of Marvel Comics' "Tomb of Dracula", but it's not the best either. I've seen better, but I've seen worse. The film is at least watchable, but I do see how it could have been so much better in terms of its writing, voice acting, and overall execution. The animation is not bad for the early 80s, but the story is full of holes, the writing is a mess, the English voice acting is so bad that it's laughable, and there are some scenes in this film that don't really serve any importance to the plot. Some of the things that happen in this movie are so random and out of place that they just make me question "What's going on here?". Some of the characters had a lot of potential to shine, but are really not all that important to the grand scheme of the story (e.g. Janus, Lilith, Frank, and Torgo). So yeah, this movie has not withstood the test of time, and it really doesn't do its original source material justice at all. It could have been so much better.

But to its credit, the movie does have some redeeming qualities. For one, it had some dramatic moments, and it portrayed the character of Dracula in a more positive light as a tragic antihero with a dark and troubled history. And while that's not what I'm used to seeing when I think of Dracula, I think it was a rather bold attempt to explore Bram Stoker's legendary vampire in that sort of perspective. But while I didn't mind exploring him in that direction, I was not cool with how this film portrayed him as a wimp. Because that was NOT cool. But all in all, this was an interesting watch. And while this film is highly considered to be one of the worst animated movies of all time, it's definitely an interesting piece of history. Again, "Sovereign of the Damned" is not the best adaptation of "Tomb of Dracula" ever made. It has its moments, but the problems it has hinders it from actually being memorable. But I guess it could be considered a cult-classic if you are to look past its flaws. But I would only recommend this to you if you're into anime and if you're into vampires. But be warned, you may be put off by this movie's general goofiness and its hilariously bad dubbing. If you're genuinely curious about this movie, it has been released on DVD in recent years. But its very hard to find, and they commend ridiculously high prices for it on e-Bay. If you're willing to pay the price they ask for, then by all means, buy it. But again, this may or may not be a good choice. And if you intend on watching this movie, don't expect it to be of high quality because you will be disappointed if you do.

This is a great movie. 5.4 is underrating it. More people need to see this movie. It is a sequel to Dracula. It is very scary. Do not think that because something is Dracula that you would not bother with it. This movie has a great story line. It also has great acting. It also has great animation. I give it 8 out of 10. Do not think because something has vampires that it is not worth bothering with you are cheating you self out of seeing great film if you do not see this movie. Real talented people work hard on this movie. This a very scary movie. This is a great great film. This one of the best horror movie of all time.

Such a great classic Dracula animation! Loved the plot!