srenner - 2017-06-30 12:00:43

Cancer

irma00 - 2015-10-17 18:21:24

Critic’s Log - Earthdate: October 13, 2013. Review #59: Hellsing

The Horror genre. It often has disturbing and disgusting imagery, It can be used effectively if it scares the viewer, but there are times when horror contains a level of schlock along with it. Case and Point… Hellsing!

Alucard, an anti-hero vampire turns the police girl, Seras Victoria, these two vampires are employed by the vampire-extermination group of England, the Hellsing Organization. Slowly but surely, through their active duty, they find a new breed of vampires beginning to arise.

To be technical, this is a Studio Gonzo production. and Bloody hell, it is a damn mess. The show does look decent at first, but that’s just the icing of this blood cake. The character designs are okay but the backgrounds and design look awful. Studio Gonzo is known for its criticisms and boy, this show is one of those poorly made Gonzo productions. Hellsing’s animation is pretty inconsistent at times as well and it really looks bad, Unlike its successor.

The music by Yasushi Ishii is actually listenable with the show, but it’s not extremely memorable to say the least. The jazzy tunes really are a nice touch on the show. It’s a nice soundtrack to listen to without the show. The opening theme is pretty catchy, and the closing theme is an interesting choice. The closing theme “Shine” is by Mr. Big, An American rock band. I never heard of this song or this band until I saw Hellsing. I don’t think this band was big, and this song may have not gotten high recognition, so… why was this song picked as the closing theme? I will say that it may be hard to see this closing theme as a fitting choice. The lyrics may have been why the song was picked, but the tone may feel out of place. This may be a questionable call on Studio Gonzo, but the song’s okay I guess.

The Japanese cast is pretty damn good in this show. Jouji Nakata is terrific as Alucard. Fumiko Orikasa is pretty good as Seras Victoria, Yoshiko Sakakibara is great as Integra. Motomu Kiyokawa is also pretty good as Walter, and the late Nachi Nozawa is alright as Anderson. Kazuya Nakai as Jan Valentine, and Takehito Koyasu as Luke Valentine. In regard to the English dub. I will say just one thing before I go over the English Dub cast. If you are an Anime purist. Consider watching this anime dubbed if possible. There was one advantage that the English Dub took that the Japanese cast were unable to do. and that is giving the characters a British accent. It isn’t perfect but bloody hell! The dub deserves the praise and the credit for it. Crispin Freeman nails Alucard and this is undoubtedly the most badass role he ever got. Like Nakata-san, He gives Alucard that cool badass voice, and even manages to give him a scary side that most of us viewers can’t deny the badassery that Alucard has. K.T. Gray was an interesting choice and she doesn’t do much anime roles to begin with. She is also terrific as Seras Victoria. Victoria Harwood is bloody fantastic as Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing and she even has a badass moment herself. Ralph Lister is fantastic as Walter and is one hell of a butler, and Steven Brand is pretty good even if he gave Anderson a scottish tone which was actually an interesting choice in the dub. Worthy voices in the dub are Josh Philips as Jan Valentine, Patrick Seitz as Luke Valentine. The dub is fantastic and worth listening to. The only flaw with the dub is that there is some fake british accent roles that is easily noticeable. but the ADR direction proves that Taliesen Jaffe knows how to make the voices match.

 One of the big problems with Hellsing are the characters. The development is shot to hell halfway through. Alucard hardly ever develops even though his past was a bit interesting. Seras Victoria is a bit interesting but her development is small in this show, Integra on the other hand has some development going on (until near the end). The Super Valentine Brothers get a pass. Luke is cool until he gets his ass handed to him and Jan was a fun foul-mouthed mother******. They did serve a purpose in the plot in the manga and this show’s successor. But in this version, they are sort of just there. But they were memorable. The one character that is so damn shallow is Incognito. He is very cliched and is a very lame villain.The fact that he has a master (who was never revealed in the show), and he has only one henchman by the name of Paul Wilson (who is also a bit shallow as well) does make him a bit lame. Incognito is just a poorly-written character who is only exclusive to this anime.

 The big bloody mess with Hellsing is the plot. It’s decent until you get halfway. Once you are in the second half. The show goes downhill fast. There are plot holes in this show and there are also unresolved plot elements that really hurt the show. I know I have used the word “Bloody” a bit in this review but… The plot is a bloody mess. Even more messier than the other factors I went through. If you think the animation was bad… The plot was worse. Like I said, it is decent until halfway. It does build up to something, but once the halfway part kicks in. There are more things going on and once it’s almost over, it forgets what the show was going over in the first place. There was this “Freak Chip” subplot that was never resolved. Yeah! That’s how bad it got. Don’t expect a decent ending either as it also adds to the disappointment. But here’s something that I will admit… I sort of think it has some appeal. This anime is a mess, but if you are used to Horror B movies, you might not have much of a problem with this anime since it looks like a low-budget Anime. This anime is also an adaptation of Kouta Hirano’s manga of the same name, so this anime may be seen as a commercial for his manga. If you’re into Horror that has some schlock in it, go right ahead and bite into this one. If you don’t like it. that is understandable. It wouldn’t hurt to view this as a guilty pleasure.

 Hellsing was available by Geneon until they went under. It was out of print until Funimation came along and rescued it. Hellsing is available by Funimation. The manga by Kouta Hirano is available by Dark Horse Comics. the first four volumes of Hellsing Ultimate were available by Geneon and then they went under until it was rescued by Funimation. the rest of Hellsing Ultimate is available by Funimation.

With all that said, Hellsing is a bloody mess with it’s poorly written plot and hardly developed characters, but even though the animation is inconsistent and not all that great. It wasn’t as messy as the characters and plot. The music is surprisingly the only good feature that doesn’t really suck. This is a kind of anime that you would get if you know what a B movie is mixed with horror.

I give Hellsing a 4.6 out of 10, it is NOT REALLY GOOD!

Feel free to leave a comment, now if you’ll excuse me. I got some work to do.

sidney22 - 2014-08-12 10:07:37

People who do not like excessive violence and religious refrences should stay away from this one, but if you like vampire animes you should give it a look.

woodrow17 - 2013-09-15 01:43:53

Not a complex storyline, lots and lots of action. Great voice acting, both Japanese and English. Excellent musical track and great visual artistry. Worth watching multiple times

laury.nicolas - 2013-08-16 02:11:13

Hellsing is a fairly bad anime in general. The main issue is with the plot, which is completely nonsensical. When the plot began to differ from the source material it all fell apart. The schlock that was given to us from that point on was very hard to follow and made no sense. The worst offender of this was the last two episodes that completely threw out the previous plot and ended with a giant action scene that had nothing to do with anything.

The only saving grace of the show was it's phenomenal voice acting in the english dub and the Alucard. This is not enough to save it though as both are done much better in the Hellsing Ultimate OVAs.

My final verdict is a 4/10

zcarter - 2013-07-08 23:55:00

I really don't know how this has gotten popular and liked to the point that it has.

Let's get started...

Story:

Probably the one thing I don't really have problems with. Story here is pretty straightforward stuff, organization wants to kill all evil/undead things but would be incompetent at doing so without the help of the things they are fighting.

Animation: Kind of a mixed batch. Characters tend to be drawn decently. but backgrounds are about as simplistic as you can get. It could be worse.

Sound: The voice acting in sub is decent, with the exception of Seras Imo who sounds so stereotypical and entirely like she is reading monotone from the script. Seras in general I really dislike, as I'm sure you will gather in the next section. The opening doesn't impress but neither does it disappoint. The ending theme is the same.

Characters: Very unbelievable characters. First you have Seras she is supposed to have strong morals, yet because Alucard says otherwise - she drops all that rather quickly. Later on she has a breakdown of sorts (not an emotional kind, she doesn't really show emotion at all) and goes on a rampage - afterwords not feeling guilty at all or even seeming to care. If it weren't for the fact that she always is saying how wrong everything is, I wouldn't even know she had these morals.

Then there is the Major. Probably the most believable character in the show, yet even she fails in that regard. I can't really say how without spoilers and going into her history, so I will just leave it at that for now.

Finally we have Alucard himself. Nothing wrong with his personality (well ok there is lots of things wrong, but nothing unbelievable =P) but he never struggles in a single fight and anytime you might think he could be in trouble he just develops a new ability on the spot. This is far worse in this show than any shounen or mainstream thing like naruto or bleach than I have seen. There is literally zero explanation for his abilities other than he's a bad@$$ vampire I guess.

Of course there are other characters and Ironically enough the minor characters in this show are the best ones in my opinion since you can't ruin a character who doesn't have that much to them in the first place.

Enjoyment/Overall: Other than seeing some cool moves from Alucard I felt I was just wasting my time. I have heard Hellsing: Ultimate is better - but unless someone tells me that all of the above issues are resolved, this show has soured my experience to it.

cormier.alysson - 2013-05-18 10:39:35

When I think of "Hellsing", the word "stylish" and "badass" come to mind. With its music, its characters and its animation, "Hellsing" is a series that oozes style and badassery from its every pore. Ok, the story may not be incredible (to be frank, the story telling is a bit of a mess), but hey, if you've come "Hellsing" expecting to served up a great story, then someone must have grossly misinformed you of the nature of the show. "Hellsing" is all about kicking ass, vampires, vampires kicking ass, and er, vampires getting their ass kicked. What it lacks in story, it makes up for with its moments of dark atmosphere and whirlwind panache. The action is full blooded and stylish, and for the most part, entertaining for all the right reasons, though there are moments of shoddy/bizarre production, making it sometimes entertaining for the wrong reasons (werewolf wearing pants, anyone?).As anyone who's watched this will tell you, the star of the show is Alucard, who carries the show on his back and who pretty much represents what the show is all about. He's a deviation from the classic portrayal of the aristocrat vampire with traditional dress code and exquisite manners, nor is he like a modernised wussy vampire heart throb found in many recent TV series/books aimed at teenagers. No, Alucard is has his own unique style, with his extravagant red outfit and swagger that reeks of coolness and attitude. He has such a gigantic, overbearing presence that he seems to gravitate everything around him whenever he appears.It's a pity then, that the main character is actually Seras Victoria, whose meekiness and blandness makes her one of the most forgettable characters in the show. This is especially disappointing considering the fantastic characters that are found in support. There's Integra Hellsing, who is one of the few cases of a good, strong female character; there's Alexander Anderson too, who is Hellsing's counterpart from the church faction. Armed with his own set of tools, ability and kick ass demeanor, Anderson is a worthy adversary to Alucard, and it's always fascinating to see the sparks fly whenever the two meet.Like Alucard, the music in "Hellsing" is something that's too good for me not to mention. For one thing, "Hellsing" is pretty bold with its music selection. It doesn't go for the mediocre jpop/jrock found in many other anime, nor does it play it safe with generically pleasant sounding classical instrumental tracks. Instead it goes for a more unconventional, jazzy kind of sound, and pulls it off spectacularly with an OST that not only fits the cool swagger of the series extremely well, but is also strong enough in its funky melodies for me to listen to the tracks by themselves (which is more than what I can say for 90%+ of the tracks on the "Cowboy Bebop" OST).Overall, "Hellsing" is a series that knows its own strengths and plays to them well. It's an over the top action series that likes to casually throw around an abundance of blood and gore, posturing, trash talking and profanity, and rarely does it deviate from this blueprint. It was one of the first anime I'd watched as I was trying to get into anime, so I might be viewing it through rose tinted glasses, but I honestly found the whole thing to be a very enjoyable ride. And did I mention Alucard is totally badass?

xtreutel - 2013-04-25 22:18:23

I'm not enclined to be bias towards the original - I simply search for a good story.IMO, this is a good story - a rear example of a decent gecko ending.Story...A vampire working for a human organisation rescues and recruits a young police woman whilst maintaing composure; facing off against vampire threats for his human master.This could have followed a number of cliche's, such as; the 'tough guy' looking after the 'little girl', which I half expected, as I for one have seen too many cases of a 'vampire guy' taking a shine to the impressionable young girl, but no; the girl is undergoing a learning experience, yet still establishes herself, she was already motivated in her career, doesn't cling on to the main and simply does her job.What stands out about this story is it's formality; the mains are always busy, they don't hang around eachother when they don't need to, character progression is importiant and enough information is left to the imagination to leave the viewer interested in the 'Hellsing' franchise in general.Art...Nice - dark and mellow, plenty of gothic scenery (the scenery changes enough) and great visuals in motion.Characters...The characters are generally great - the likeable mystery 'cool' supernatural male, the 'masculine; organisation leader, the skilled and knowledgeful butler and the hard working not-so-clueless rookie to the situation - all pretty likeable indivuals who receive reasonable spotlight.Decent characters don't simply stop with those who headline, it would be easy to smply focus on the mains, yet numerous characters get their fair share of attention; the dodgy news reader, Victoria previous team, the snipper teacher who worked alongside Victoria, Integra's army - pretty much minors; they have some place within the story and we get to view the what the main(s) think of them.Enjoyment...I personally enjoyed this series as it's characters were pleasant; they didn't fit the 'typical' character traits we come across regular and their stories were put forward in a suttle manner. Furthermore, we aren't spoonfeed information the average viewer could otherwise figure out on thier own. Overall...Definately worth the watch - a short series with its fair share of action, mellow drama and well developed characters.