Hellsing (original)
Hellsing revolved around an organization dedicated solely to the eradication of vampire kind and the ominous ghouls that spawn from vampire attacks. Loyal to the queen of Britain, the organization Hellsing bumps heads with the voluminous and unpredictable Vatican. Integra Hellsing stands at the helm of her organization, and she has one of the most powerful vampires in existence, one Alucard, at her beck and call. With Alucard at her side, along with his vampire servant former police woman Seras Victoria (plus a small yet lethal army of trained soldiers), Hellsing has made it clear that it is a force to be reckoned with.
I’m just going to be honest here, there were more things wrong with this anime then there were right. One of the things that annoyed me was the random cut scenes. They were arbitrary and at times out of place. Sometimes I would just sit back and think to myself: “what the hell was that?” Despite my bad mouthing, the random cut away scenes weren’t so bad that I was turned off from the anime.
There really was not much of a story line to speak of. From what I could discern from the sporadic action throughout this thirteen episode series, I deduced that the anime was about hunting vampires by using fellow vampires to do the dirty work. There was the vague goal of finding out how the ghouls, which can only be created by a vampire killing a human, were able to continue living after their vampire master died, but besides that, and a few other plot points, everything just seemed a bit random.
Character development wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t immaculate either. I did however rather enjoy Alucard’s character. Despite the fact that we were never given much of a back story on him, Alucard was one bad ass vampire. He was a sick, sadistic, demon who took pleasure in not only causing his foes pain, but receiving pain himself (so we can add masochistic to that list as well). The only other characters who were really given any sort of significant back stories were Seras Victoria and Integra Hellsing. In Hellsing’s defense, most anime that run in the 13 episode range tend to suffer in the character development area.
I can’t decide if I liked the music or if I hated it. Action scenes would be dominated by off-beat piano melodies and out of place music that would cut away prematurely and randomly. There were some pretty cool vocals at times, but even those would cut away at random times. The artwork was old, telling me that Hellsing isn’t all that recent. There was a lot of old school heavy shading, creating an ominous aura that fit Alucard’s character quite nicely.
Focusing on the action, there was a lot of gore (the head rolling, eviscerated body, blood splattered kind). I found it stimulating, though you may find it sickening. You’ve been warned.
In the end, for some strange reason, I just can’t seem to bring myself to hate this anime. I mean, there were just so many things that I found wrong with Hellsing. If there was one thing that Hellsing got right, it was its ability to entertain the viewer. I’m giving this anime 6 out of 10. I recommended Hellsing to the action and gore fans out there.
