The Bloodbath Begins!: Hellsing Ultimate
Hello ladies and gentleman! It’s Sunday again, so here I am. As many of you are already aware, Halloween
is coming soon. So to commemorate the
occasion, I will be doing some Halloween inspired posts-one of them being a
long overdue discussion post. So anyways,
onto this week, I will be reviewing by far one of the goriest, grittiest, and
most graphic animes I’ve ever seen. But
it is also one of my all-time favorites.
So, I’ll keep you from waiting and get on with my review on the bloodbath
of anime, Hellsing Ultimate.
Hellsing
Ultimate takes place in modern day England.
The Hellsing Organization, a secret program run by the Queen of England
to kill monsters-particularly vampires-, has been dealing with a series of
bizarre vampire attacks. In one of these
attacks, Hellsing’s top agent Alucard-who happens to be a vampire and is also
one of the most bad-ass characters in anime-kills a police woman named Seras
Victoria and turns her into a vampire.
Seras finds all of this new arrangement very difficult to adjust to. She even refuses to drink blood. Yet despite this issue, the cases start to
become worse. But everything comes to a head
when Hellsing discovers that a secret Nazi organization known as Millennium is
responsible for the attacks. Hellsing
also finds out that these attacks are in preparation for an all out attack on
London. So from vampires to Nazis, this
anime is pretty crazy. But, it’s crazy
good!
Now as I stated earlier, Hellsing Ultimate is one of my favorite
animes of all time. So it’s no surprise
that I have a lot to say about it. Well,
among other things, I give Hellsing
Ultimate a four and a half out of a five star rating. Why?
Cause it’s my favorite? No-okay, maybe.
But in all seriousness, animation is fantastic, the story is too, and music
is also something to note. Now I say
this about the music because in the first four episodes, the end credits are
performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra.
The music in that sense, is pretty good.
However, what makes Hellsing
Ultimate a close-to perfect masterpiece is the story. The story follows the plot of the original
manga written by Kouta Hirano. However,
what many people who watch Hellsing
Ultimate do not know is that this was not the first attempt at Hellsing. In the late 90’s and early 2000’s, there was
an anime that was also based off of the manga.
But at the time, the manga was not yet complete. So for the remainder of the thirteen-episode
series, it went off with its own plot. Now
fast forward about ten years later, Hellsing
Ultimate comes out. And it’s also by
this point that the manga is completed. So,
in comparison to the original anime, Hellsing
Ultimate follows more closely to the manga, which is a big plus. However, this can also be a disadvantage to
viewers. (And don’t worry, if you liked
this chat on the orginal Hellsing
anime, I will be bringing it up again later this month. ;) )
One huge negative aspect to Hellsing Ultimate is content. Though it’s good that Hellsing Ultimate follows the plot of Kouta Hirano’s manga more
closely, this can be a bit of a problem for those who are interested. In other words, the gore, the violence, and a
few other disturbing details may turn viewers away. If that’s not enough to explain it, here’s
another way to describe this. Imagine Hellsing as being a brand new sports car-we’ll
call it the 2014 Ford Hellsing. Now picture
Kouta Hirano getting into that nice car.
While sitting in the car, Mr. Hirano notices something wrong. He leans down, pulls out the breaks, tosses
them out the window, and says, “I don’t need these!” So my point?
There is no limit to what you’ll see in Hellsing Ultimate. So as a
fair warning, you will see and hear everything from heads flying off, to
horrible profanity, to rape. And all
uncensored if I might add. But like I
said earlier, this anime is crazy, but it’s crazy good!
Now, before I finished, there was
one other detail that I forgot to mention that I should have been brought up
earlier. Hellsing Ultimate is what’s known as an OVA. What’s an OVA? OVAs are like straight to DVD shows. It’s still anime, it’s just different. And here are some of those differences:
·
OVAs tend to be shorter than most anime
shows. A typical anime show today will
be anywhere between thirteen to twenty-six episodes. OVA maybe only two or three episodes. Hellsing
Ultimate is ten episodes long.
·
OVA episodes are longer. One episode in an anime show is usually
twenty-four minutes long. OVA episode
can be anywhere between thirty minutes to an hour long. Hellsing
Ultimate episodes, for instance, run between forty-five minutes to an hour
long.
·
An OVA series is released sporadically. That is, each episode is released one at a
time months at a time. At least in Japan, this was the case for Hellsing Ultimate. When the English dub came out, the first four
were released separately over a two year period, and then collectively in
2012. Episodes five through eight were
also released collectively later in 2012.
The last two episodes will be released collectively as well later this
fall-but I’ll get to that later.
So yes, Hellsing Ultimate is an anime, there’s no doubt about that. It’s just a different kind of anime.
So to wrap up this week’s post, Hellsing Ultimate is a bloodfest that is
not to be missed, even though following the original manga to a tee is both a
good thing and a bad thing. Now, to
catch this show, you can do one of two things.
Number one, you can buy the series.
It’s available in store and online.
Also, Hellsing Ultimate fans
like myself have been waiting on the edge of our seats waiting for the last two
episodes to be released October 28. And finally,
you can also watch it on TV. Toonami has
recently been airing the OVA series at 1 a.m.
This may sound late, but it was better than it airing at 2 a.m.- I would
know! Well, I believe that’s all that I
have for this week. So as always, please
stay tuned for more! And remember, it’s
Halloween, so expect another review on another horror anime!
-Hanime
on Anime
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