Hellsing

Hellsing is a new anime tv-series fansubbed by Soldats/AnimeParty. It depicts a near-future England terrorized by modern vampires and their ghouls. The main characters belong to the Hellsing Institution, lead by Integra van Hellsing, an agency whose mission is to destroy all undead creatures "in the name of God".

Despite the somewhat cliché theme, Hellsing is simply breathtaking. The visual style is refined and efficient, and the musical scores and sound effects are equally fitting. The viewer is given very little background in the beginning, and pieces start falling together one by one. This is where you will get hooked.

Hellsing succesfully combines action, strong emotions and mystery. Few anime shows have touched me like Hellsing has (no chance of an objective review from me, no sir). It's quite difficult to provide any more information without spoiling the show, but if you are an anime-fan, you can't go wrong with this one. Get it. Get it now.

Hellsing is a 13-episode anime series, with a dark motif: Vampires.

The show basically revolves around a secretive government organization in Great Britain, the Hellsing Institute. It's their job to track down and destroy vampires as well as the undead (ie. ghouls) who are a threat to the UK and the Queen. Not all vampires though, in fact, they have some vampires on their team. That's the simple plot, but the show deals with hunting down powerful vampires, a power struggle with the Vatican's own Catholic Vampire Hunter division; who hates the Anglican Hellsing organization, and someone "manufacturing" vampires.

The show is dark, most of the scenes are predominantly black and red. There's not much violence, but lots of blood visible at times (Vampires, what did you expect?). There is a kind of vampire-Noir present, battles, the undead. Plus, vampires are just cool.

The principal characters are:

• Sir Integral Wingates Hellsing - Daughter of the Institution's founder, she is the current leader of the organization. Obsessed with her work, she directs her people seemingly tirelessly. She's a bit ferocious, giving out commands, but not usually losing her cool. Her hair is gray, but not from age, and has circular glasses.
• Nosferatu Alucard - A Vampire. Not just any vampire, but perhaps the most powerful one alive. There is some hinting that he is perhaps Dracula himself. He's perhaps the main character of the series, the sort of good guy. Ms. Integral is his master, through reasons not entirely clear, she manages to keep him under control, limiting his powers. When unleashed, he has some pretty cool paranormal powers, what I can only describe as hound from hell. He wears a red trenchcoat, a flat round hat, circular sunglasses, and has a large Desert Eagle type gun. I like to think of him as a demented Vash the Stampede, a character on a totally different series, Trigun.
• Celes Victoria - A newbie vampire, starts off as a cop in the first episode, but was the sole survivor of a vampire attack. She gets bitten by Alucard, saving her life as a result. Since Alucard made her a vampire, she considers him her master of sorts, and acts like his protegé.

Hellsing is an excellent anime series deriving from an excellent manga. The series is usually considered to be a bit darker in tone than the manga, though the two only coincided in plot in the beginning. The manga has only recently been translated into English, and is being released by Dark Horse Comics. Dark Horse has kept the right to left styling of the original manga for the purpose of coherency. Several pages from the first issue would make little sense if the order were rearranged.

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Hellsing (the anime) has the distinction of having quite possibly the best dub of any anime series I've ever watched. The voices all sound quite natural, with correct British accents. The voice of Alucard I would consider to be one of the best bits of voice casting I've ever heard. Even better, with this dub, the voices are in sync with the animation better than most I've seen. It occasionally makes one wonder if the series were actually written in English.