Darkstalkers

Ah, yes. "DarkStalkers". Yet another attempt to capitalize on Capcom's overwhelming success in the 90's. Another example of this was the superior Street Fighter animated series loosely based on the movie, the story was altered a bit; but that series had much better production value.

The problem with "Darkstalkers" was that in pre-production Kenzo Tsujimoto (Capcom's Marketing, Producing guy)wasn't quite sure how to go with the show in terms of its target audience. The US.

Thus we were given a sometimes hammy perspective on the Capcom game in which monster archtypes beat the crap out of each other. The animation was sub-par, as befits Graz Entertainment; the team responsible for a great animated series show called "X-Men". To the dislike of many fans of the game, the introduction of an original character named Harry Grimore (The descendant of a powerful sorcerer)made the show even more hammy.

Also, they were numerous odd lines and undertones in the show; some of which were always funny to hear. Lines like "Even though you are curiously attractive...for a fish-man" were constantly uttered even by male characters such as Donovan, Anakaris.

In the end, the show turned out to be a failure lasting only one season, although there are a few fans out there such as myself.

Darkstalkers is another Capcom fighting classic in the vein of Street Fighter, only instead of normal people who can do crazy feats like throw fireballs and even sonic booms, we have monster inspired by classic novels and horror movies beating each other up. This cartoon is another adaptation, after the Mega Man and Street Fighter cartoon, and the only reason it scares people is because of how horrible it is.

Basically, the cartoon tries to be like the Street Fighter cartoon (which was done as a follow-up to the movie of the same name), as it is a fight between good and evil. Pyron, an evil alien, has come to conquer Earth, and to do so, he recruits monsters, whom he calls the old races, to restore the balance he set long ago, when Earth's ancient beings saw him as a god. Recruiting the vampire Demitri Maximoff as the general of his army, he aims to have the humans serve the old races, but soon, they have competition, as Felicia, a catwoman, saves a boy named Harry Grimoire, a descendant of a wizard, and teaming with Jon Talbain, Rikuo, Victor, and Bigfoot (known as Sasquatch in the games), the good Darkstalkers fight Pyron and Demitri's plots.

Yeah, this is a horrible cartoon. While some changes I can understand due to it being a cartoon aimed at kids (which means Felicia and Morrigan need to cover up more and Lord Raptor is changed so the missing parts of his body are now tattoos), there are some things they did that go against the source material (Demitri and Morrigan are villains, while the games have them as anti-heroes and the main protagonists, and they plot against each other for the rank of general) and some changes are downright insulting (Jon Talbain is basically Scooby-Doo at times, being a coward and a glutton, and Anakaris spews nonsense, making him the moron of the evil Darkstalkers), but the worst character of all is Harry. Created exclusively for the cartoon, the kid is the perfect example of a Gary Stu, as he is a descendant of a sorcerer, and is learning to use magic, and most of the episode has him saving the day.

The only good thing about this is having some good VAs like Scott McNeil, but sadly, they cannot save this from the fate of being cancelled after only thirteen episodes and seen as nothing more than a joke. If you want a good Darkstalkers show, I recommend the Night Warriors anime OVA.

It had more time to develop. Alright, so the new wizard character was...horrible. But, all the same, most shows don't follow their game context. Especially in old 90's fighting games. Honestly, how much depth did those games REALLY have? Enough to entertain us when we were kids...but they were hardly profound works of art. Still, I adored the show and think that if it had had a bit more run time then it would have developed into a damn fine series. All the same, give it a watch and decide for yourself.

As a footnote, please don't take my word or anyone else's as gospel writ. Go and see for yourself and make up your own mind.

Just to give you an idea about how bad this series was, it was on at like 5:00 AM on Saturdays in the NYC Metro market. Ironically, I was actually dumb enough then to actually watch it at that early time. Looking back on it, that was time I could have spent preparing a bowl of Capn' Crunch.

"Darkstalkers" is supposed to be based on the popular arcade/console game Vampire Hunter (known as Darkstalkers in the US) by Capcom. Vampire Hunter was a one-on-one fighting game that pitted creatures of the night such as Dimitri the Vampire, Morrigan (a succubus) and even Frankenstein against each other to decide who was the greatest night dweller of all. The game met with great commercial success internationally and spawned a Japanese anime. Sadly, the series the United States saw was not the anime, but a lousy original series.

"Darkstalkers" the original series was I believe produced by DiC, who in their heyday produced some of the best animated series. This series is decidedly a shoddy piece of work though. It features one of the game's foremost characters - catgirl Felicia. Of course, they had to "tone down" the in-game costume which is understandable. But the direction they took her character is just terrible. They teamed her up with some stupid little boy - Willy or something who goes on adventures with her. Not only that, they made it so that sometimes she turns into a REAL cat. Lame.

Felicia and said little boy trek the globe and sometimes encounter (and battle) characters from the game. Animation quality was decent, and some of the character designs are good enough, but it definitely lacked the fluidity you expect from American animation. Voice acting was extremely hammy and the two main characters had REALLY annoying voices. I remember some voice-acting being passable, including Dimitri, but overall the acting was quite bad. The highlight of the soundtrack was the show's half-decent rock theme.

Fans of the game and animation fans otherwise should all STAY FAR AWAY from this series. Fans will be disappointed by the series' bad adaptation of the game story and animation fans will cringe at its cheesiness. Try Vampire Hunter - the anime instead.