Slayer as Monster in Blood+ (2005–2006) and Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997–2003)

Abstract

Japanese Anime and Manga have cross-fertilized with American mass media for decades. As Susan Napier says, “By the late 1990s it was clear that anime both influenced and was influenced by a plethora of Western cultural products.”1 Particularly in regard to the vampire motif, Japanese horror has been heavily influenced by occidental vampire fiction and cinema, since nothing exactly like the European vampire exists in Japanese mythology. For instance, Hideyuki Kikuchi, author of the Vampire Hunter D novel series, acknowledges the Hammer Dracula films starring Christopher Lee as a primary source for his fiction. The title of the anime and manga series Hellsing alludes to Bram Stoker’s vampire hunter Van Helsing, and the name of a major character in the series, Alucard, is, of course, “Dracula” reversed. Numerous other anime and manga use fangs, aversion to sunlight, capes, bats, crosses, and other images from Western vam-pire fiction. The increasing popularity of anime and manga with American mass audiences, rather than only a specialized fandom, entails an increase in reciprocal influence. In network television, Buffy the Vampire Slayer pioneered several tropes and narrative techniques relatively new to American television at the time this series premiered but were already common in anime. Notable among these are the teenage girl in a high school setting as a monster-slaying heroine with a hidden identity, continuity with complex plotlines and character arcs extended over multiple seasons, frequent deaths of major characters, and the mingling of disparate genres such as horror, romance, comedy, fantasy, and science fiction within a single series.