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.
