Dark Wars released yesterday. It’s a new novel by Hideyuki Kikuchi, the famous author of the Vampire Hunter D novels. Kikuchi is prolific, to say the least; while he’s got several novels out in the U.S., he’s written at least 50 books in Japan. And it helps that he’s such a good writer as well. The first review (that I’ve found, at least) is up at Active Anime, and here’s their conclusion:

“The Dracula of this tale will seem very familiar to most viewers of movies and readers of the original Bram Stoker novel…rather than rehashing a previously done and well known tale, the author has managed to present an all new and intriguing take on Dracula’s personality, inner desires, and true nature. The combination of Meiji Japan and Gothic atmosphere has made for a wonderfully dark and alluring tale.

“Told with a compelling style and intense characters by the author of Vampire hunter D, Hideyuki Kikuchi fans cannot afford to miss this original and all new vampire tale from Japan’s Master of Horror.”

Here’s a bit of behind-the-scenes trivia for you. The original title of this novel in Japanese is simply Tale of Meiji Dracula. The word Meiji, of course, refers to the Meiji era of Japan during which Emperor Meiji reigned from 1868 to 1912. But let’s face it, while that’s common knowledge to the Japanese, most Americans aren’t going to get the reference. (Myself included. God bless you, wikipedia.) We thought a lot about what the title should be here. One of our guys had a suggestion that Ali Kokmen wanted to run with: Dracula-san! (I just called him to ask about it, and he said it has to have the exclamation point or it’s just no damn good.)

Eventually I suggested to Kodansha that we should go with Blood Wars, which seemed appropriate, given that Dracula faces off against a master swordsman in the book. But Kikuchi didn’t like that one, and he suggested Dark Wars instead. It works, and it looks good on the cover.

 

It’s a good book, and fans of Vampire Hunter D and action/horror should definitely check it out. Dark Wars: The Tale of Meiji Dracula is in stores now.

I’ll try to write another installment of my career in comics tomorrow night. I’ve got to dig up that fanzine, first. I’ve always wanted to show people that damn thing.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 30th, 2008 at 3:17 pm and is filed under New Releases. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.