Now that moment of seriousness is out of the way, lets get to why you're here. Presenting now is the review for one of the rarest animes out there, Nightwarriors: Darkstalkers Revenge.
Directed in 1997 Masashi Ikeda, and dubbed between 1998 to 2003 by VIZ Media, Nightwarriors tells the story of a Earth covered in darkness. With nothing but shadow covering every inch of the planet, the creatures of myth and legend surfaced. Now, vampires, werewolves, catgirls (thank you god), and many other entities now share our world with us. Unfortunately, there isn't much love between Darkstalkers and Humans, and violence between the two groups is common place, with a few certain exceptions.
This all leads to our cast. Demitri Maximov the Vampire and Morrigan Aensland the Succubus are leaders of the Vampire & Demon worlds. Demitri wants to take over the Demon world out of a desire for revenge, while Morrigan simply wants to enjoy the human world, and isn't necessarily the best ruler of the Demons. Felicia the Catgirl just wants to get along with Humans and make them happy, and goes on a singing tour to bring that joy to as many as she can. Donovan, who has the blood of both Humans and Darkstalkers in his body, wanders the land killing everything that is evil. Lin Lin and her vampiric sister Lei Lei became dark ones to avenge the death of their mother, and they wander around killing evil. These characters, along with the appearance of many others, eventually run into the fiery alien entity Pyron, who desires to rule the world after everything is destroyed. Lots of fighting ensues, along with some of the greatest story in anime.
Speaking of story, that is one of the positives of this show. In actuality, there are numerous stories. There is the main story of Pyron and his world-taking plots going on throughout all the episodes, yet there are a few side-stories going along with the main one. Somehow this works, as the side-stories supplement the main one, and even interact with the main story at certain points. I was a little confused with all the stories, but only at first. By the time I got to about (emphasis on about) half-way through the second episode, everything melded together. In addition to this, the show in general is about of the the best fighting game to anime adaptions that I've ever seen, and I'm not the only one who says this.
Nightwarrior's second positive is the visuals. The show is outright f!@#$%g amazing! The characters, whether primary or secondary, look positively stunning. When the fighting scenes (of which there are many) appear, everything is fluid and beautiful. Even the world looks impressive, as the bleak landscapes instill a feeling of hopelessness. If you think that this is just my opinion, you're wrong. Just about every positive review of this show that I've come across has stated that the looks of Nightwarriors is one of it's high points.
Which leads me to the next positive, the dubbing. During the 90s, voice acting tended to fluctuate. Some shows had good dubs, others had okay dubs (Sailor Moon, I'm looking at you), while a few others had some of the most horrible dubbing in the world. Nightwarriors is in the good dubbing category, as I had no desire to punch the TV screen. The voice actors that they picked for this show fit the characters that they played. Kathleen Barr provides a sultry, sexy voice to the succubus Morrigan, and Janyse Jaud creates a perky, happy tone for the equally perky & happy Felicia. Just like the visuals, the dubbing is one of the high points for the reviews that I've seen.
The 4th positive of Nightwarriors is the length. This is another 4 episode show, which is pretty standard for some anime out there. What makes this one a bit different is the episode length, as each episode clocks in at 45 minutes. This makes the episodes into miniature movies, and actually stretches things out. I kinda like this, as I watched Nightwarriors over the course of two days, thereby increasing my enjoyment of watching it.
However, all is not good in the land of Nightwarriors: Darkstalker's Revenge. There are some pretty big negatives that are attached to this show, and the first is the rarity. This show is based on one of the most successful fighting franchises of all time, and because of that popularity, the DVDs were bought up quickly. Finding a copy of the DVDs (there are 2 episodes on a single DVD), is incredibly hard to find. You have only two options if you want this show:
A) Go to Amazon. I found my copies here, but I had absolutely no choice but to buy used copies. When I bought the both of them, the total price came to a little over 70 dollars (thank the heavens above for gift certificates). As I'm typing this, a few more used copies have come in on Amazon, lowering some of the prices. Guess I should have waited.
B) Download. I know, with all of the downloading issues that are circulating right now, that sounds stupid. However, giving how hard it is to find physical copies, it is a possible option. I won't say what sites would be useful in this venture, but I will say that there are a bunch of sites where you can find this show.
The second negative is the amount of characters. If you remember from my Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie review I said that some characters were giving a lot of screen time, while the others had only a little bit of time. This show has the exact same problem. Demitri, Morrigan, Felicia, Donovan, Lin Lin, Lei Lei, and Pyron receive the majority of the screen time, while a few of the equally iconic characters receive just a few moments of on screen time (although to be fair, John Talbian the Werewolf does have a good chunk of screen time in episode 3).
Nightwarriors: Darkstalker's Revenge gets a 8 out of 10. The main & side-stories work together, the visuals are out of this world, the dubbing is equally out of this world, and the length of time for each episodes makes for a longer enjoyment, but the DVDs are rare, and some characters don't show up much.
Until next time, stay Otaku!
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