Count D

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“	Since you have breached the terms of the contract, the pet shop accepts no responsibility for what happens next.	„
	~ Something of a catchphrase for Count D. A variation of this is used in almost every chapter of the manga when a customer of his ignores the plainly stated rules of ownership for one reason or another.

“	Don't forget, this is a pet shop. We only deal in animals.	„
	~ D when his customers are awed by the humanoid creatures and claim some variation of "you tricked us."

Count D is the villainous main character from the 1999 manga Pet Shop of Horrors and the four episode anime adaptation of the same name. D owns a mysterious pet shop, located in Chinatown, where he deals with mythical creatures. He always possesses whatever "pet" the patrons desire most. However, he also gives all of them strict advice on what not to do. When the customers do inevitably break the deal and are in danger, D simply informs them, that breaking of the contract is none of his concern.

Appearance[]

Count D has dark straight hair, that covers some of his face. His his right eye is yellow and the right purple, as a result of him being a clone with a few minor errors. D has very pale skin and is overall very slender and feminine. He wears purple lipstick, has long sharp nails that almost resemble and always wears colorful Chinese clothes with a flower pattern or something similar, typically a kimono.

Personality[]

Count D is very calm, gentle and kind as well as compassionate since he shows condolences his customers have experienced something tragic (which was basically all of them). He cares a lot about his animals and he also wants to help people. Towards patrons he is very friendly and hospitable. He also has an enormous sweet tooth and can be quite silly and cheerful.

He always warns his customers of what they mustn't do, when he sells them a creature and generally has little compassion when they disobey and get killed. D does not see himself at fault at all and acts very cold towards those people, as he thinks they should learn their lesson. He also is somewhat mischievous and mocks Leon for being overly irritable.

Despite his often smug and slightly superior attitude, D is a very intelligent and law savvy individual since he always made his clients sign non-disclosure agreements that absolve him and his store of all responsibility. Even Leon Orcot, a trained murder investigator, failed to find a single flaw in his contract multiple times. Despite his standoffish and smug attitude, D can be very kind and compassionate as seen with in "Dice" when he somewhat took pity on a homeless poor man and gave him a cat (who was actually the literal representation of Lady Luck). In fact, Dice was one of the only tales in the manga to end hopefully since "Lady" decided to stay with the homeless man to try and make him less miserable.

Biography[]

Count D was born from an ancient family who had a very close connection with animals and mythical creatures. Owning this shop seems to have been a tradition in the family and was passed down from generation to generation, now for him to take over that legacy. He is actually a clone of the real Count D and for him it is just a title. The real Count D studied bio genetics and created a duplicate of himself that could lead the shop for eternity and was immortal. So that clone opened up the shop anew in Chinatown.

He is on the phone talking to one of his customers, who broke a contract and is attacked by the tiger from a tapestry. D informs him, that since the rules were broken, he isn't obligated to help him. He then greets a pair of parents who have recently lost their daughter. He shows them a rabbit in the form of their girl. He sells her to them and warns them, it is still just a rabbit and that they should not feed her sweets no matter what. They break the rules and he disappointingly watches their house become overrun by murderous bunnies. He tries to lecture the mother, since her lack of will towards her real daughter also caused her death before (by giving her drugs, she begged for) and when all the bunnies start dying, he leaves her in her misery.

CountDLeon — D denying Leon's accusations

A local detective, named Leon Orcot, becomes suspicious of him, since many deaths link back to him, as the victims bought something from his store shortly before their death. He denies any direct fault, although openly admits, that his animals are dangerous if one doesn't follow the guidelines. A man who recently lost his wife comes to buy a pet. Count D shows him a mermaid, who looks exactly like his dead wife. He warns her not to become tempted and go into the water with her. D also invites Leon to drink tea with him, where he tells him about his shop. The man also broke the rules and was devoured by the shape-shifting mermaid.

Leon continues to investigate him and bribes him with candy for some information. D reacts stimulated due to the rarity of that candy. He informs Leon that he sold a beautiful Medusa to a famous actor, telling him not to take off the blindfold she was wearing. The actor fell in love with her and took it off, knowing he would die. The Medusa then became filled with sorrow as she loved him to and committed suicide by looking in a mirror. Leon refuses to believe something like that exists, to which D only responds that he would be innocent if the creature was harmless, much to Leon's annoyance.

D's statement never changes no matter the situation and Leon slowly realizes the shops and D's destiny to judge people in need, whether they are ready to let go, since usually grieving people come to his shop. They become friends until the police find out and immediately goes after Count D, trying to arrest him. He escapes and tells Leon that his lineage came into being in order to protect and avenge the animals, for suffering that was brought upon them by the humans. The real Count D appears and reveals how they want to eliminate mankind. Leon tries to convince him to stop. When the real Count D is killed, D seems to ascend on an arc full of animals leaving Leon behind. When he goes to visit the pet shop again later on, it is run by a new Count D.

Trivia[]

Despite technically being responsible for dozens if not hundreds of deaths, Count D is a very controversial villain since his pets kill almost exclusively horrible and awful people. For example, in perhaps the most well known story of this little franchise, he sold a "rabbit" to a wealthy couple with a heavy resemblance to their late daughter and told them not to feed her anything but veggies and water. They gave her sweets after some begging but she began sprouting hundreds of rabbits and killed her father. It was later revealed that they cared too much for her, letting her gorge herself and indulge in drug use. They ended up giving her some on her deathbed and the overdose did her in.
- The only significant case where his pets led to the death of someone who wasn't horrible was Robert Hendrix (who was essentially a Mark Hamil expy since he was the lead in "Space Wars"). He bought a lizard from D but committed suicide after losing his last chance at a film role to a younger actor by looking into the lizard's eyes (since it was a Medusa).
  - Even then, both D and Hendrix were close friends and the death was clearly unintended on D's part although it's hard to gauge D's reaction since he was only saddened by the loss of the Medusa who killed herself by looking into a mirror after Hendrix's death.
Count D is, by design, a very strange and unusual villain. Instead of being a cackling megalomaniacal villain or a torturous one, he is a very calm if to the point and slightly heartless businessman. After all, the entire reason that Leon Orcot was unable to arrest D for his many crimes is because, legally speaking, he can't be tied down to any crime since his contracts are airtight and legally binding and thus the various crimes tied to his animals couldn't be
- According to series creator Matsuri Akino, this was an intentional design decision since she felt too many villains in popular media were black and white and boiled down to two real archetypes. Either they are so over the top that they couldn't be taken seriously or are so irrefutably dark and evil that they're generic.