The planet, once terrified by the elegant but cruel vampires known as Nobles (貴族, Kizoku), ancient demons, mutants, and their technological creations, is now slowly returning to a semblance of order and human control—thanks in part to the decadence that brought about the downfall of the vampire race, to the continued stubbornness of frontier dwellers, and to the rise of a caste of independent hunters-for-hire who eliminate supernatural threats.

The society eventually stagnates when vampire technology perfects scientific prophecy, which determines they are at their zenith of existence and doomed to fall, overthrown by humans.

Otherwise, D does not appear to suffer from other vampiric weaknesses usual to dhampirs, being able to physically restrain opponents with his aura and having godlike reflexes surpassing even those of Nobles.

His symbiotic left hand states, in Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust: "The Herarchy of us became impatient with the heartless David and impaled The Lord on 'The Sword'".

D always wears a mystical blue pendant; it prevents many of the automatic defenses (such as laser fields and small nuclear blasters) created by the Nobility in past millennia from working properly and allows him to enter their sealed castles.

Besides providing a contrast to D's reserved demeanor, Left Hand is incredibly useful, possessing many mysterious powers such as psychometry, inducing sleep, hypnotizing others, determining the medical condition of a victim, absorbing matter, energy, and even souls and magic, healing and reviving D and himself, and the ability to size up the supernatural powers or prowess of an enemy, even beyond D's keen senses.

After absorbing four elements, Left Hand can use them to generate powerful attacks, regenerate D and himself, and to transform D into full vampire state rivaling Sacred Ancestor.

In the first and second novels, Left Hand can also revive D when his physical condition is suffering, by consuming the four elements and converting the resulting energy into life force.

Left Hand has its own mind and will, and acts as D's guide and sole permanent companion, providing a reservoir of knowledge pertaining to the lost Noble culture.

The Sacred Ancestor's role in the novels is very mixed, appearing both as the bane and savior to isolated towns, and deified as a legendary god-king to the vampires, many of whom have never even met him in person.

[2] Having written the Vampire Hunter D series for 40 years, the author has previously admitted that he does not remember all of its mythology, only that of a couple of volumes, and therefore one might find some contradictions in it.

From December 2007 through January 2008, Asahi Shimbun Publishing reprinted the complete Vampire Hunter catalogue under the Sonorama Selection label.

In December 2021, Dark Horse Comics in partnership with GraphicAudio began publishing dramatized audiobook adaptations of the Vampire Hunter D novel series featuring a full English voice cast, soundtrack, and sound effects.

Asashi Sonorama created audio drama adaptations of three of the novels, in five parts: Most of the voice cast for the original OVA reprised their roles.

Originally released on cassette tape, in 2005 they were re-released as a special edition, five-disc Vampire Hunter D Audio Drama Box, including a small supplemental booklet with a new short story by Kikuchi and an "art cloth" with an illustration by Amano.

The campaign's stretch goals also include an official Vampire Hunter D Pathfinder Roleplaying Game supplement written by F. Wesley Schneider.

[5] Following the first issue the series was placed on temporary hiatus due to a serious medical emergency in Broussard's family, resuming production in early 2018 with new artists Ryan Benjamin and Richard Friend.

[7] As of December 2020 all production work for the five-issue run is complete, but publication plans were placed on an indefinite hiatus due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

[9] In June 2015, a new animated series tentatively titled Vampire Hunter D: Resurrection was announced, produced by Unified Pictures and Digital Frontier.

The series was currently in pre-production, and is developed as an hour-long serial drama with the intent of being broadcast on a major American cable network or on-demand provider, with Japanese distribution to follow.

[13] In February 2018 it was announced that the pilot episode would be written by Brandon M. Easton, writer for the Message from Mars comic book series.

[18] In 2010, it was reported in Japanese horror magazine Rue Morgue that Hideyuki Kikuchi was in talks with one of the producers for Capcom's Resident Evil video game series to develop a live-action Vampire Hunter D adaptation.

Theron Martin of Anime News Network called the first novel "a competent vampire-hunting story with enough strong points to balance out its weaknesses" and gave it a B rating.

However, he called the plotting "fairly rudimentary" and a standard tale of a hero and heroine struggling against colorful opposition coming from different directions, where even the few twists are hardly unique.

[21] His colleague Rebecca Silverman also strongly praised the world and setting of the first three Vampire Hunter D novels, finding it to clearly be a post-apocalyptic "version of our reality" that in many ways is just as much a character as D. She wrote that the books are "practically dripping with atmosphere" as the story's descriptions are florid and detailed.