Demitri Maximoff (デミトリ・マキシモフ Demitori makishimofu) is one of the main protagonists of the series, debuting in Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors akin to most of the franchise's characters.
Demitri has been voiced in almost all his notable video game appearances by Nobuyuki Hiyama. In the English releases of Namco's Cross Edge, he is voiced by Richard Epcar. In the Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge OVA, Demitri was voiced by Akio Otsuka while in the English version he was voiced by Paul Dobson who also voiced Demitri's servant.
Demitri has been featured as a playable character in several crossover games such as Namco × Capcom, Project × Zone and its sequel, SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos, and Capcom's very own Capcom Fighting Evolution.
Background
Deep within the mountains of Romania lies a castle that appears only on a full moon. The castle, named after the owner of the land, was called Zeltzereich. This castle belonged to a Makai Vampire, Demitri Maximoff.
100 years ago, he had challenged Belial Aensland for power. He lost the battle and was exiled from Makai for his crimes against its ruler due to his goal for domination. Sunlight was something that was troublesome for the vampires of the realm of the Makai, especially for Demitri. If he were to be directly exposed, his body would be destroyed from the inside and would disappear.
To avoid the sunlight, he used his supernatural abilites and created a field to cover his castle. He used this field to recover his strength. For 50 years, he stayed within his casket. As he slowly regained his strength, he would step out only once a full moon to hunt for blood.
By this time, there were already people that would wander into the castle. They would somehow hear rumors of treasure's within the castle. They would bring crosses, stakes, garlic, holy water and silver bullets thinking they were safe and attack Demitri. To Demitri, humans were food as enjoyed their blood. To him, it was like drinking the best wine of Makai. Those who were bit by Demitri had turned into vampires that would become loyal servants to him. Currently, 40 people settle in Demitri's castle and care for him.
When Demitri recovered 80% of his original power, he was able to temporarily create an aura around him that would grant him the power to walk on a cloudy day. Demitri had conquered both night and almost day. After 100 years of humiliation for his loss, he had gained a lot of experience. He acquired various knowledge from studying humans. The Vampire steadily readied himself to take over the realm once again.
The presence of an alien life form on Earth was an unexpected event for Demitri. Demitri seized this opportunity to further gain strength, fighting against Pyron and consumed the alien life form in a weakened state. He was confident that he was strong enough to challenge and defeat the ruler of Makai, Belial.
When he returned to Makai realm, he discovered that Belial's daughter, Morrigan Aensland, had become heir to the Aensland family and the ruler of Makai. As Demitri prepared himself to challenge Morrigan for power, he and his castle were sucked into the realm of Majigen by Jedah Dohma. Believing that meeting Jedah was an important step, he went off to meet Jedah for help and a deal.
Personality
Demitri Maximoff is a villainous and power-hungry vampire who, like Dracula, sees humanity as an inferior race and only cares for their blood. His favorite type of blood is from innocent and beautiful girls, who seem to be loyal to Demitri and admire him (although this could be the work of hypnosis, as most vampires are capable of such ability). His preferred blood type to consume is AB. He also prefers blood from virgins.[2]
Demitri seems to value beauty, for his Darkstalkers 3 taunt he can be seen spraying himself with perfume while posing to admire his appearance. He also has respect for strong opponents and finds anyone he personally deems interesting enough to be one of his servants as seen in SNK vs. Capcom: SVC Chaos.
In other portrayals particularly in the western cartoon series, he also seems to respect his fellow vampires such as Dracula, the king of vampires, and is an enemy of the vampire-hunting Van Hellsing clan.
Powers and Abilities
Demitri is one of most dangerous vampires in the Darkstalkers series, second to only Dracula himself. This power stems from the fact that he gave Belial an intense battle despite losing against him due to his arrogance. After many years of gaining power by drinking the blood of humans and gaining knowledge throughout history, he has become wiser than ever since his war against Belial. He is able to turn people into vampires like himself for control, summon supernatural bats to attack his foes, transform into a vampire version of himself or a small bat, fly throughout the night, as well as turn his opponents into women, both human or supernatural alike.
Weakness
Like most vampires, Demitri must feed on blood in order to increase his strength. In turn, his power remains limited by the amount of blood he has available. He has an aura that offers limited protection from the daylight (only on a cloudy day), which is dependent on his power. Similarly to classical vampires, if his body is exposed to sunlight, the heat will cause harm to his body, and can be fatal for him.
Romanian Inaccuracies about Demitri's portrayal
As is the case with the vast majority of vampire fiction, Demitri's portrayal as a Romanian is inconsistent with the actual cultural background of that region.
First off, neither of his names are Romanian. "Demitri" is an Americanization of the Russian name "Dmitriy" (Cyrillic: Дмитрий), which is in turn derived from the Latin name Demetrius and the Greek name "Demetrios", which are both masculine forms of the feminine "Demeter", the Ancient Greek goddess of the harvest. If the character were Romanian he would alternatively be named "Dimitrie" or "Dumitru", since both are more localized forms of the same name. "Dimitrie" being the Moldavian (North-Eastern Romanian) variant, and "Dumitru" as the Wallachian (South-Central Romanian) variant. Neither "Maximoff" or "Maximov" are native family names of the Romanian language, not even in the further Moldavian region, where in Slavic influences are at their highest.
Secondly, Demitri's attire was nonexistent in the timeline in which he would have initially lived in, as in the late 14th century and early 15th century. The character wears a formfitting and hyper-masculine variant of a typical French Baroque outfit, which would have been a stark contrast to the Oriental style of Nobility in Wallachia, the Slavic Moldavia, or the Hungarian and Germanic clothes of Transylvania. French Baroque clothes did not come into fashion within the Romanian Countries until the 18th century, after it had been imported by the younger generations of Phanariot bourgeoisie.
Thirdly, the nationality of "Romanian", and as a direct corollary the country of "Romania", did not exist until the 19th century, on December 1st, after the two Romanian Countries of Wallachia and Moldavia, alongside the historical region of Transylvania, were finally united under the Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen royal dynasty into the Romanian Kingdom. The name of the castle in which Demitri resides, Zeltzereich, is of an obvious German cognate, which would imply it being located in the strongly Saxon (Romanian: Sas) influenced land of Transylvania. This is further emphasized by the fact that the mountains surrounding castle Zeltzereich would likely have been one of the three mountain ranges of the Carpathians: Meridian, Oriental or Occidental, which formed the natural borders of Transylvania.
Appearances
- Darkstalkers: The Night Warriors
- Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
- Darkstalkers 3
- Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower
- Darkstalkers Resurrection
In Japanese only games
Demitri appears in Darkstalkers the Animated Series, where he works for Pyron along side Morrigan. In the series he is the nephew of Dracula. Demtri also appears in the Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge OVA where his castle becomes under attack by Pyron's Huitzil units.
In Udon Entertainment's Darkstalkers series, Demitri is on earth waiting to regain his strength and return to Makai to fight Belial. His first appearance in the series was in Capcom Summer Special 2004 fighting Morrigan in a vision seen by Belial.Trivia
- In the Darkstalkers series, Demitri is voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama, who is mostly known as the voice of adult Link in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the Japanese voice of Bass in the Japanese version of Mega Man 8, Joe Higashi from the Fatal Fury and The King of Fighters series, Hiei from Yu Yu Hakusho, by starring twice within the Brave Series franchise as Maito Senpuuji of The Brave Express Might Gaine and Gai Shishioh of the King of Braves GaoGaiGar. He also voiced Viral and Old Coco in Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann.
- In the American cartoon series, Demitri is voiced by Michael Donovan, who also voiced Guile in the Street Fighter cartoon series. He is also given a Romanian accent to match his nationality.
- Richard Epcar, Demitri's English voice actor in Cross Edge, had previously voiced characters of supernatural origin ranging from Franken in The Monster of Frankenstein (originally known as Kyofu Densetsu: Kaiki! Frankenstein) to Myotismon from Digimon. Epcar later voiced an ironical character who hunted a particular vampire and was killed by such (and later revived through timely intervention): Joseph Joestar from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stardust Crusaders.
- Demitri's date and place of birth are shortly after the defeat of Count Dracula and the land that Dracula once ruled, respectively.
- The girls on Darkstalkers and Night Warriors Demitri's stage named are Patricia, Elizabeth, Francoise and Angelica.
- In Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3, Vergil was given alternate colors based on Demitri.
- For Monster Hunter Frontier, Capcom released costumes of Demitri and Morrigan for the game. Their costumes came in 4 different colors; Demonic Series featuring their regular colors, Shadow Series featuring reds, Chaos Series featuring light blue and Soul Series featuring white.
- Demitri was planned to be a playable character in the cancelled game Capcom Fighting All-Stars: Code Holder.[3]
- Maximoff is the latinized surname of Maksimov which is of Russian origin, meaning "son of Maksim".[1][2][3] Curiously, in SVC Chaos, his surname was spelled as Maximov instead of the usual Maximoff.
- It is implied that Demitri's family is an enemy of Van Helsing in some Darkstalkers media such as the cartoon. it should be noted however, that the Graz cartoon, much like the OVA, Manga, and comic books, is a different continuity, as it was never featured in the games, although other vampires have been mentioned in the realm of Makai.
Sprite
Official Artwork
The full image gallery for Demitri Maximoff may be viewed here. |
Videos
External links
- Demitri at Capcom Database
- Demitri at Project X Zone Wiki
- Demitri at Strategy Wiki
- Demitri at Mizuumi Wiki
Darkstalkers cast |
Main cast |
Anita • Anakaris • Baby Bonnie Hood • Bishamon • Dee • Demitri Maximoff • Donovan Baine • Felicia • Hsien-Ko • Huitzil Jedah Dohma • Jon Talbain • Lilith • Lord Raptor • Morrigan Aensland • Pyron • Q-Bee • Rikuo • Sasquatch Victor von Gerdenheim |
Secondary cast |
Belial Aensland • Dark Talbain • Le Malta • Marionette • Mei-Ling • Oboro Bishamon • Ozom • Shadow |
Other cast |
Baraba • Computer • Deeres • Dracula • Dragon • Elijah Grimoire & Merlin • Hairball • Harry Grimoire • Heinrich Bauer • Hendrick Farr • Irving I. Irving • Jack • John Stately • Klaus Schmendrick • Lex • Lily Lemay • Majorette/Thomas • Morgan le Fay • Mrs. Grimoire • Terramon |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 Capcom, (2008). Darkstalkers Graphic File. Udon Entertainment Corp, pg. 28. ISBN 1897-37604-9
- ↑ Capcom, (2008). Darkstalkers Graphic File. Udon Entertainment Corp, pg. 142. ISBN 1897-37604-9
- ↑ Street Fighter V Treasures: Fighting All-Stars Materials (Demitri is shown by clicking the Shadaloo mark)