Hellsing: Nazi Vampires!?

I did want to talk about Drifters but I felt like it would be easier to discuss the topic with context from the mangaka's previous work which is pretty much laid down the groundwork for his writing style and made a name for himself: Hellsing. Now, I know Kouta Hirano's (the mangaka) first published work is the 4 part one shot "Gunmania" which did get a continuation in the form of "Assassine" but Assassine has not be translated any further then 6 chapters and I'm not a fan of Gunmania plus Hellsing is pretty much his break out title as a big name so that's my reasoning.

I will be talking about the manga and its proper anime adaption, "Hellsing: Ultimate" and I was planning to discuss the original Hellsing anime but it is a FMA issue anime (don't worry if you don't get it) and therefore is non-canon and its been a while since I watched it and all I can say for it is that I vaguely remember liking it for being more horror focused unlike Ultimate's over the top action and ridiculousness.

The general synopsis for Hellsing is simple: Hellsing is a anti-supernatural organisation who has a vampire called Alucard (very subtle, I know), Alucard makes a virgin girl called Seres into a vampire after saving her from another vampire and makes her his servant, their main base of operations gets raided by two "vampires" working for another organisation who is quickly to be revealed to be the nazis who then continue to raid England with their Nazi Vampires and Hellsing has to stop them and while this all happens, the Catholic Church is being a bunch of knobs as per usual since they are coming to do another crusade on these poor heathens. Now, if that sounds incredible stupid, well; 1: Welcome to Japan, 2: It's get way more stupid then that, and 3: that's what makes Hellsing great.

Point number 1 is obvious to anyone who watches anime/read manga but point number 2 might not. I mean, my synopsis was pretty brief for a reason and that's because I can't describe everything that's just so downright stupid to the point of being unbelievable in a rough 2K word review. Like, when one of the heads of the church watched London burn from the distance on a lounge chair, casually has a nap who then continues to assembly an army to have a crusade on the "heathens" who are currently being slaughtered by the Nazis (who are still vampires and maybe also zombies) while electing himself as the new pope which he then leads the crusade from his pope mobile which is getting airlifted by a attack helicopter and is screaming catholic insults into his mic as his forces mow down everything in their way. Oh yeah, did I mention that everyone in the crusade is dressed like the KKK? Hellsing is over the top and it rebels in its silliness and that's why I think this is what makes up one half of the greatness that is Hellsing.

To finish off point three, we will need how it looks or in short hand, its style. Being a wannabe manga writer, I like analysising manga, especially mangas made by the same mangaka to see if I can find their comfort zone which can be referred to as their style which can vary from the writing, over lapping character types and even their drawing style. Sometimes it’s easy to see right away and sometimes it’s harder to find if they haven’t developed their style yet. Hellsing is in the latter category since Hellsing is where you can see his style coming which is over the top action with gorgeous art which is then cut with bad drawn joke scenes which is complimented by the surreal predictions of real life figures which is a style that doesn’t really stand out until Drifters, but I will save the Drifters praise for the review on it so back on topic. When I say gorgeous art, I seriously mean gorgeous art or to be accurate, Gore-geous art because what’s more better then to pair with the ridiculous concept then the ridiculous amount of gore. I am a massive gore fan since when done right, the splatter of blood is so beautiful in manga’s black and white stylings and considering this manga started its publication back in 1997 and still looks amazing compared to both 90s and modern manga because of its drawings and predictions of gore, it’s just gore-ious which gets even better in the anime where the action is just at the max of goreness, it’s just fun to watch which is where I have to end my praise because I do have some personal problems with this series.

I feel like to address my problems, I should give a little history lesson. I was first introduced to Hellsing with the original non canon anime series which I all remember being a very creepy take on the manga, it didn’t have the Nazi Vampires or the church being knob ends, it was Alucard and Seres solving supernatural mysteries as part of their job as a agency made to deal with the supernatural. While yes, the ending was bonkers, it wasn’t on the same level of bonkers of the entirety of the source material. I did immediately jump onto the Ulitmate version right after the original but ended up stopping at episode 8 because it just got so confusing and stupid for me to watch. Admittly, this was still in my early phrase of weebdom and I wasn’t use to this sort of stuff. I didn’t jump back in and start enjoying the series after I finally got used to it all and I remembered that the series even existed when I watched the hilirious “Hellsing Ultimate: Abridged” by TeamFourStar which finally convinced me to read the manga and rewatch the ultimate series properly and you wonder what’s the point of this little story, it’s my long way of saying the series is isolating to new people, especially the ones who still don’t have the mentality of “Anime/manga is gets weird at times” and is why I have a hard time recommending this to anyone who is a casual viewer or don’t have that mentality yet and the other problem I have with Hellsing is the fact that Drifters just one ups this whole manga. This is a point I will be explaining in much more detail in the Drifters review but in short, everything that Hellsing does that can be considered to be good and unique, Drifters takes it and improves on it, leaving Hellsing in the dust with the title of “Drifters Prototype”.

Despite all that negativity, Hellsing is still a solid series which is why I’m giving it a 8/10 and I am willing to come back to and read/watch again and again and recommend to any anime veteran who still hasn’t watched it and hey, I even would recommend it to you, the reader if you this review peaked your interest and you can read the series or watch the animes on various websites but it’s always good to support the creators (although I do sense a bad omen with a rumoured 11th episode). If unfortunately you don’t find the series appealing, don’t feel bad because anime/manga is a broad sea and I will be crossing it to review more of this wonderful sub genre of animation. After all, this is only the start of my anime reviews and I already have plans to talk about many popular series but first, I think it’s time to go back to games so next time, I will be talking about a certain Valve game so I hope you like gore-ious fun (I should really stop with the puns).