Donovan Baine

Donovan Baine (ドノヴァン・バイン, Donovuan Bain) is a complex and conflicted character from Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, introduced alongside Hsien-Ko. Both characters are dedicated to hunting Darkstalkers, but they are neither fully human nor fully monster, embodying the struggle between light and darkness. Donovan is known for his protective relationship with Anita, a young girl with immense supernatural potential, who mirrors his own emotional turmoil.

In Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection , an alternate version of Donovan—named Dee—appears as a secret character, representing a hypothetical future where Donovan succumbs to the darkness he fights to contain.

Background

Donovan is a Dhampir—a half-vampire, half-human hybrid. Raised by his mother in a remote village, Donovan faced fear and hatred from the townspeople due to his vampiric lineage. His father, a full-blooded vampire, left a shadow over his life, and one day, Donovan’s dark nature awakened unexpectedly, triggering a massacre. Under the influence of his vampire side, he slaughtered the entire village, including his mother, and drank their blood.

Horrified by the atrocity he committed, Donovan vowed to suppress his vampiric side and sought redemption. He immersed himself in spiritual practices, traveling to Asia and studying with monks and ninjas to cultivate inner peace and temperance. His goal was to control his dark urges and pursue justice through discipline.

During his travels, Donovan met Anita, a young girl with powerful but dormant supernatural abilities. Her empty, emotionless eyes reflected his own inner struggle, and Donovan took it upon himself to protect her and restore her soul. Together, they set out on a mission to hunt down the Darkstalkers—supernatural beings who prey upon the innocent.

Donovan sees Anita as a reflection of himself—emotionally scarred and burdened with immense power. His journey is not only about protecting her but also about restoring her lost emotions, symbolizing a hope for redemption for both of them.

Personality

Donovan is a noble and wise character driven by a sense of justice. However, his past haunts him, making him serious and introspective. Having tasted the darkness within himself, Donovan understands what it means to be feared and despised, which deepens his compassion for the innocent and reinforces his determination to fight evil.

Unlike characters such as Baby Bonnie Hood, who relish the thrill of hunting Darkstalkers, Donovan views his role as a burden and a sacred duty. His mission is not one of vengeance but of redemption and protection.

Donovan is deeply caring toward Anita, spending time with her and recognizing her significance to both the human and Makai (demon) worlds.

Powers and Abilities

As a half-vampire, Donovan possesses enhanced strength, speed, and supernatural abilities, but also faces the constant threat of his darker side. Unlike full vampires such as Demitri, Donovan can travel in sunlight due to his human half, making him a daywalker.

Donovan has many supernatural abilities such as using his blade to fly in the air for traveling, pryokinesis, aerokinesis and hydrokinesis. He uses a torturous device called the Iron Maiden (sometimes named Brad Abrude) to imprison the Darkstalkers he defeats. Inside this device is the severed head of the doll that Anita carries—a grim symbol of her past.

Donovan's iconic sword, the Dhylec sword, was discovered in the Tibetan mountains. The blade grants him further supernatural abilities, such as elemental control, but its power is dangerous. To maintain balance, Donovan also carries large prayer beads to help contain the immense energy he channels through the sword.

Donovan suppresses his vampire nature as much as possible, but in desperate moments, he can access this monstrous form, greatly increasing his power at the cost of losing control.

Anita plays a pivotal role in Donovan’s life. Her supernatural powers, tied to her emotions, give her the potential to suppress dark magic. However, her powers also mark her as a danger to both humans and demons, which is why the demon lord Jedah views her as a threat.

Weaknesses

Lack of Control: Donovan's Darkstalker form is a constant threat. If released, it can lead to catastrophic consequences, just as it did in his youth when he massacred his village. He has no desire to nurture this dark half of his, and despises it.
Absorbing Darkness: With every Darkstalker he defeats, Donovan risks absorbing their darkness, making it harder to maintain his humanity. This struggle ultimately leads to his downfall in some endings, foreshadowing his transformation into Dee.

About dhampirs

The name given by the Slavonic Gypsies to the child of a vampire. Dhampirs possess certain unique powers in combating their supernatural sires and relatives, though their title and characteristics change from region to region.

Traditionally, a vampire has an insatiable need to breed with their mate, doing this before anything else. It was possible that their mate could become pregnant, giving birth. The offspring was often called a dhampir but was also known to other Gypsy groups as the Vampir, if male, Vamuiera, if female, and Vampijerovic or Lampijerovic in either gender. Some believed that the child was always a male. Others claimed it was short-lived because of a jellylike body or that it could not come from the family of an Orthodox or Muslim cleric or that it was a normal human.

Dhampirs were known to be very effective in detecting and destroying their vampiric families. They were found in Serbia and elsewhere in parts of Yugoslavia, many making comfortable livings as vampire hunters. Only they could see the Nosferatu, Serbian undead being invisible and Dhampirs being allegedly the only people who were able to see invisible vampires.

They performed rituals, whistling, running about, undressing, and using shirtsleeves as a kind of telescope. Wrestling furiously with an invisible foe, the dhampir finally declared dramatically that the feared Vampire was destroyed. The last known dhampir ceremony was held in the 1950's in the Yugoslavian province of Kosovo.

Appearances

Vhunt2001 — Donovan in the Vampire Hunter 2 intro

Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge
Vampire Savior: The Lord of Vampire (Console ports only)
Darkstalkers Chronicle: The Chaos Tower
Darkstalkers Resurrection

In Japanese only games

Game	Original plateform	Release
Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo	Arcade	1996
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters' Clash	Neo Geo Pocket	1999
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters 2	Neo Geo Pocket Color	2001
SNK vs. Capcom: Card Fighters DS	Nintendo DS	2006

Game	Placement
Pocket Fighter	Donovan and Anita appear on the Dhalsim's Toy Shop stage.
Marvel vs. Capcom: Clash of Super Heroes	Appears in Anita's assist as a corpse or unconscious body.
Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3	Appears in Doctor Strange's ending.
Street Fighter V: Arcade Edition	Appears as a DLC costume for Urien.

Darkstalkers (comics) by UDON
Street Fighter VS. Darkstalkers

Trivia

Donovan is known for the following distinctions:
- Donovan is the only main character whose voice has never been the same in any two given incarnations. He is voiced by Nobuyuki Hiyama in Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, Ryotaro Okiayu for the Vampire Hunter dramas, Tetsuya Iwanaga in Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo, Jurota Kosugi in Vampire Savior, Garry Chalk in the Animated Series, and Unsho Ishizuka and Ari Solomon in the respective Japanese and English versions of the OVA.
- Donovan is the only character in the game that cannot be dismembered at all, whether sideways or vertical, even in mirror matches. He is however capable of doing so when it comes to other characters, including his dark side. In standing slashes, it's Dhylec that instead shows being sliced.
  - Dismembering opponents using the ES version of his homing killshread attack has been much harder since Vampire Savior, whereas in Night Warriors, being killed by it always results in dismemberment. To guarantee the enemy being sliced, the attack has to be done while under Dark Force.

Donovan's iron maiden makes an appearance in the Pocket Fighter stage, Demitri's Moving Castle.
In the UDON Comics, Donovan's blade Dhylec has a connection to the Satsui no Hado, it is also revealed that not only it has affected Ryu and Akuma's body, it has also affected their blood too. Dhylec carried immense energy that it energizes Akuma's alter ego, Oni.
Donovan's transformation into a Vampire in the comics is actually an incomplete transformation, as he has yet to master his inner supernatural power, something he is not willing to do and actually loathes, being the cause of the deaths of innocents, including his own mother.
Donovan and Anita's fate is meant to only be up to the fan's interpretations and that the two characters don't have a confirmed definite fate but that there are multiple possibilities. This means that him becoming a vampire as Dee, and dying at Anita's hands are not canon events at all.
In addition, his proposed endings (both as Donovan and Dee) that were unused had more dire outcomes awaiting him;
- He would've sent Anita back to the human world while his corruption progresses.
- In another proposed ending, his vampire blood nearly consumes him totally, stopping himself before he could harm Anita with Dhylec. Fortunately, this encounter made him regain his senses and power.
- Used as the staff roll sequence in Vampire: Darkstalkers Collection, this ending had him, as Dee, confront Anita and is slain as a result, with Anita seemingly developing a power that appears to be sinister in nature.
- A darker fate awaits Dee in another unimplemented ending; Jedah defeats Dee and assimilates Anita into his being, eliminating the threat he hinted at in his own ending.
Akin to Dee Jay from Super Street Fighter II and Jon Talbain, Donovan is one of the characters that had their original concept created from and named by Capcom USA, with several aspects of his design being shaped up by their opinions.^[2]