It all began with a British horror film, barely ninety minutes long, called Dracula (1958).
When I saw it for the first time, I was in the fifth grade. I was completely taken by the film, possessed just as if a vampire had drunk my blood.
Playing the part of Count Dracula was Christopher Lee, who is still featured in many films today, most notably in The Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Lee’s Dracula was such a hit that the film spawned several sequels. The final film in the series was The Satanic Rites of Dracula (1974). Honestly, it was a flop, and it had been too heavily influenced by the action-packed spy movies so popular at the time, but still I was drawn to its portrayal of Dracula that was so completely different from the way the character had been portrayed before.
In the film, Lee’s Dracula is the CEO of big a corporation who tries to create a biological weapon that will wipe out all humankind. That was all well and fine (Actually not. Has the vampire no pride?), but Dracula’s unusual motive was a refreshing twist on the old story.
Toward the end of the movie, Count Dracula’s eternal adversary, Dr. Van Helsing, denounces him: “You want to destroy humankind just so you can put an end to your cursed life.”
In other words, Dracula had grown weary of immortality.
It was a sign of weakness. Or a kind of sadness. This was what I focused on… perhaps a person who had become tired of eternal life might envy mortals.
Perhaps he might love those mortals who lived their fleeting lives passionately and to their fullest.
In Bram Stoker’s original Dracula, Dracula is based on Vlad Țepeș (Vlad the Impaler), a real historical figure who was a military general in fifteenth-century Transylvania. This was something I retained in my own novel. In which case, the one who could win Dracula’s affection could only be himself a warrior.
This was how Minazuki Daigo was born.
It was the middle of the Meiji era, a time when the once-obsolete Japanese martial arts were finally experiencing a revival. If everything had gone smoothly, Daigo might have established his own school and might even have become a master swordsman for the modern age.
However, he could not accomplish those things because a different, more violent destiny awaited him. I hope you’ll be able to imagine what that destiny was from the novel’s ending.
The battle between Daigo and Dracula was not meant to be depicted simply as a battle between a human being and a devil, but was rooted in something more fundamental.
I believe humans are not alone in this world, so I tried to depict a battle with a being that is not human. Although I still don’t know what awaits at the conclusion of this battle, I think that any reader of the novel can tell which outcome I desire most.
Also, I deviated a bit from historical fact to make the story more entertaining. For example, the judo versus jujitsu tournament organized by the Tokyo Police Department, which Saigô Shirô won, actually took place after the time period of the novel. The detail about how Kanô Jigorô studied medicine, although it’s entirely possible that he did dabble in it, is also a fabrication. Please forgive those liberties.
I’m pleased with how this novel turned out. I hope you enjoy it.
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October 2004,
while watching Love at First Bite (1979),
Hideyuki Kikuchi