Yami no Teio: Kyuuketsuki Dracula

On a seemingly normal night in Boston, a satanic ritual is taking place: a bride is to be offered up as a sacrifice. However, Dracula, the King of Vampires, swoops in and steals her, with the intent of depriving the woman of both her blood and her life. And yet, despite his earlier motives for abducting the bride, Dracula is astonished by her beauty and decides to keep the woman as his wife.

He and Domini, his spouse, lead a fruitful life together, bearing a healthy son by the name of Janus, with Dracula's crime against Satan fading from memory. On the other hand, Satan hasn't forgiven him for stealing his rightful bride and is plotting to ruin his happiness when the time is right. Another group, the Vampire Hunters, similarly wish to destroy Dracula as vengeance for the souls he has taken to feed himself.

Now carrying the burden of a family, Dracula must protect himself from Satan's plots as well as from the vengeful Vampire Hunters in a desperate fight for survival and forbidden love.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Dracula Main

Utsumi, Kenji Japanese

Harker, Quincy Main

Hisamatsu, Yasuo Japanese

Janus ing

Sogabe, Kazuyuki Japanese

Prince of Darkness, Satan ing

Shibata, Hidekatsu Japanese

Tomo ing

Tanaka, Yasuo Japanese

Voice of God ing

Fujii, Toshiyuki Japanese

Malissa ing

Nakano, Seiko Japanese

Layla ing

Katsura, Reiko Japanese

Lupeski ing

Takiguchi, Junpei Japanese

Domini ing

Suzuki, Hiroko Japanese

Okazaki, Minoru Director

Yamano, Satoko Theme Song Performance

Yokoyama, Seiji Music

Nagaoka, Akinori Assistant Director

Reviews

Oct 21, 2017

BansheeNeet

Recommended

The joy I get from watching "Dracula:Sovereign of the Damned" is the same I feel watching "The Room" or the best parts of "Garzey's Wing". To me it is the best of all the famously "so-bad-it's-good" anime because it is consistently so (specifically the dub, the most ideal way to watch).

My problem with watching bad anime or movies is that a lot of times it's just actually bad rather than enjoyably so, and at some point it's just an hour wasted. But this 1980's interpretation of the Dracula story is so ridiculous and over-the-top throughout and becomes a delightful sight to witness.

In this movie, Dracula ... pretends to be Satan because he hates Satan, and steals a beautiful women who was meant to be a sacrifice for Satan and then falls in love with her. The story from there mostly involves Dracula constantly whining about being Dracula and performing more and more ridiculous acts in the hope of not being Dracula, only to start performing even more ridiculous acts in order to be Dracula again.

Meanwhile, a group of completely inept Dracula hunters follow Dracula around and eventually both God and Satan get involved and the shenanigans continue from there.

All the comedy comes from both the absurdity of the entire plot as well as the nonsensical dialogue and hilarious voice acting from the dub, which once again is the only right way to watch this. Something to watch with friends while making fun of it, and honestly way better than "Garzey's Wing" in of being a bad anime. Also, if you think I spoiled too much in this review, I promise you I did not reveal any of the best parts.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Mar 6, 2008

GreatSG

Mixed Feelings

A classic of bad anime s at various conventions, Dracula: Sovereign of the Damned as it was titled for it's US release in the 80s by Harmony Gold is an example of how not to adapt an American comic book into film, especially a low budget anime one.

For one thing, this movie mostly takes place in Boston, and it's quite obvious that the creators have not only never been to Boston but didn't even research the city at all, which is why modern day (circa the 80s) Boston looks like an old European city with O'Hare International titled 'Boston Airport'. Even worse is ... New York City, which not only looks like Columbus, Oh instead of the Big Apple but also has gas street lamps and empty streets everywhere.

The story itself isn't too grand either, Dracula steals away a girl being sacrificed as Satan's Bride for his own greed but instead falls in love with her, has a kid, gets screwed over by Satan and God both and then has to deal with a group of idiotic vampire hunters going after him.

The dub is another mediocre bumble from Harmony Gold featuring a plodding narration throughout, flat performances, and goofy and awkward dialog like most
of their works.

If you're in need of something to torture your friends or anime club with or like to do homebrew MSTing of bad movies, this title is choice for that, as the horribleness of the movie makes it a fun watch. Highlights include the antics of the crazy old professor trying to kill Dracula and Dracula mugging a guy to get money to buy a hamburger, truly the greatest scene ever in a vampire anime!

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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May 3, 2014

ggultra2764

Not Recommended

Dracula: Sovereign of the Dracula appears to be an attempt at compressing the events of its source material into a 90-minute film, resulting in really sloppy storytelling and rushed pacing of its events.

The major element of the film that was rather confusing was how the title attempted to depict Dracula. Sovereign of the Damned tries making efforts at depicting him as a tragic figure who wanted to live happily with his family, wanted to be left alone and experience life as a mortal man. Yet at the same time, he had no qualms with sucking on the blood of humans or killing others who threaten ... him and he tries regaining his immortality later in the film when he loses his vampire power.

Other sloppy elements to the film have to do with the implementation of its storytelling. The title's logic with elements to its world get messy, deus ex machina is employed quite often, questionable plot directions take place, certain characters who seem relevant in the film are actually mostly worthless, plot twists occur without any prior foreshadowing and an anti-climactic ending takes place with Dracula's fate. Adding more to this fun mess is that Toei attempts rendering a Western animation style with its character designs, yet this makes them appear more stiff and lifeless in appearance compared to conventional anime designs of the time period.

The English dub for Sovereign of the Damned is also a nice example of the rather low standards of anime voice acting in many 1980s dubs with two different types of acting from the voice cast: either bored and flat acting or over-the-top in an attempt at being dramatic, such as the case with Dracula's dub actor in many of the film's moments. Scenes in the film are also usually accompanied by a narrator who acts just as over-the-top as Dracula in attempting to give Sovereign of the Damned's events any sort of meaning or emotion.

Overall, Sovereign of the Damned is mostly worth a look just to see how laughably bad it is. Otherwise, don't waste your time seeing it if you are expecting any kind of decent quality to it.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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