Hellsing Review

Now it’s time for some real bloody vampires, no pun intended.  If you like vampires the way they were meant to be, Hellsing is for you.  Hellsing is a manga, anime, and OVA series by Japanese mangaka Kouta Hirano.  It’s filled with vampires, crazy Catholic priests, and the greatest villains ever, Nazis.  Vampires SS Nazis with massive zeppelins.  And a girl vampire with big boobs wielding anti-tank rifles. So, yeah, it’s that kind of anime.

Hellsing tells the story of the vampire Alucard.  No bonus points for guessing who he really is.  Alucard isn’t a whiny, brooding vampire who bemoans his fate.  Well, he is a little bit, but that would be spoiling.  He revels in the death and destruction he causes and has no issues with killing anyone, human or otherwise who stands in his path.  And he’s the protagonist.  Essentially, Alucard’s a chained vampire.  He’s forced to work for his master, Integra Helsing a descendent of Abraham van Helsing of Dracula fame, as a go to monster hunter.  Alucard is a badass, no doubt about it.  He has seemingly endless ammo, improbable healing, and the ability to kill just about anything that’s thrown at him.  He’s awesome.

The rest of the cast is rounded out by Seras Victoria, a former police officer turned vampire by Alucard, Walter C. Dornez, the Helsing family butler and former master vampire hunter, and Integra, the leader of the Helsing organization.  Every one of them is well fleshed out and a great character in their own right.  The series also has a few recurring antagonists.  Father Alexander Anderson is a Catholic priest and member of the Vatican Section XIII, the Iscariot Organization.  He is essentially the Catholic equivalent of Alucard, a true badass who wields seemingly limitless blessed bayonets in battle.  Now would be a good time to mention that the Iscariots and Helsing don’t get along basically because of religious differences.  Iscariot’s Roman Catholic and Helsing’s fiercely Anglican.  But that’s neither here nor there right now.  Because the ultimate baddies of the series: The Millennium Group.  Millennium is an organization made up of Nazi SS vampires left over from the Second World War who  were supposedly destroyed by Alucard and Walter.  They’re back and they want one thing: war.

The series is great with fantastic artwork, a moving story, intriguing characters, and plenty of blood and violence.  The series’ level of said blood and violence only goes up as it progresses to literally rivers of blood in the later volumes.  The manga is out completely in English and is ten volumes long and worth picking up.  The OVA series, Hellsing Ultimate is only out up to episode 4 in English, about volume 4/5 in the manga, and the release of the other five has been delayed several times.  Funimation however claims that episodes 5-7 will be released later this year, so fingers crossed.

Hellsing was also a thirteen episode anime series that varies wildly from the manga.  There are no Nazis, and the story is mostly from Seras’ point of view.  It’s still pretty good and worth a look at.

Overall this is a great, great series and perfect for any vampire fan.  I definitely recommend checking it out.

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