The Vampire as a Character of Japanese Animation of the 1980-2000s in the Contaxt of Hybrid Cultures

Since the XIX century Gothic novel to the contemporary popular cinema, the vampire has always been one of the most visually appealing and narratively flexible fictional characters. It is no wonder that in the globalized world of today, it gained popularity not only within the Western culture, but also travelled abroad and made its way into Asian popular culture products. This paper is dedicated to the vampire character in Japanese animation (anime) of the 1980-2000s, where the immersion of new visual language accommodating the new character is especially observable. The aim of the study is to reveal the mechanisms of the character’s transformation, localization and, eventually, screen execution in the context of global cultural processes as opposed to the specificity of the Japanese visual tradition, which is not initially acquainted with the vampire mythology.