or uncounted years, the Hellsing organization, created and maintained by the Hellsing family, has protected England from "freaks"—supernatural, inhuman creatures of legend, such as vampires and ghouls. Bringing a private fortune, military training, long tradition and monumental arrogance to the task of serving "God and the Queen," Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing directs her organization like a cross between a private security force and the CIA.
But she has another weapon that few know about: a vampire named Arucard, who calls her master and gleefully takes Hellsing's side in battle. Gloating over his own power, he revels in killing newly bred lesser vampires (which he refers to as "instant vampires"), usually after allowing them to shoot him dozens of times, then subjecting them to impromptu lectures on their own weakness, inexperience, sloppiness, ignorance and stupidity. But even the vampires that Arucard considers weak can do amazing amounts of damage to England's fragile human population, as policewoman Seras Victoria discovers when her investigatory unit is drained of blood and converted into an army of shambling, mindless ghouls. Arucard "saves" her—by shooting her to get at his true victim, then turning her into a vampire herself.
At Arucard's recommendation, Seras Victoria is absorbed into Hellsing, where she simultaneously learns about being a vampire and learns how to kill others like herself. But she learns very little about her mysterious master and creator, who periodically tutors and chides her telepathically—particularly about her reluctance to drink blood—but rarely seems interested in anything else, besides battling suitably powerful opponents. Hellsing's adversaries include a mysterious enemy that's using computer chips to create artificial vampires, a pair of scheming, powerful vampire brothers with their own ghoul army and a ruthless, powerful Vatican organization that wants to destroy vampires and the Hellsing organization at the same time. But Arucard remains smugly bored by most of it—until a vampire of his own vintage arrives in Britain with an unknown agenda and his own human master.
Style, substance and lots of spattered blood
Visually, Hellsing seems to have been inspired by equal parts Trigun and Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. Arucard doesn't quite have D's icy cool, but he does have his over-the-top sense of baroque style: His clothes look like they were ripped off a 19th-century pimp with a hat-brim fetish. Studio GONZO, the flashmeisters behind visual playgrounds like Gatekeepers and Blue Submarine No. 6, are as emphatically expressive as ever; they particularly went to town in the process of making Arucard as visually unique and intimidatingly evil as possible. With his wild hair, multitudinous red eyes, wide, fangy smirk and horrific crawling-shadow powers, he's less an anti-hero than a momentarily contained supervillain.
Hellsing wisely keeps the action pointed at Sir Integra, whose grim determination and frosty demeanor are far more than skin-deep, and on Seras Victoria, whose queasy but game attempts to serve her new masters provide a small, bright focus of sympathy in an otherwise brutally dark world. The two women stand in sharp ironic contrast to each other: Integra, though human, is far less humane than the vampiric Seras, who is treated a bit like a meek pit bull that might go rabid at any moment. As the series continues and Seras toughens up, she seems on a course to become more like her human model than her vampiric "parent," though it's not entirely clear whether that's a good thing.
As if the tension among the three principals weren't enough, Hellsing throws a constant barrage of outside threats into the mix, including a murderous Vatican agent who appears to be contending with Arucard for the Least Pleasant Serial Killer of the Year award. With all the conflicts, Hellsing generally zips along at a brakes-free pace, though it does briefly bog down in extended chatter from time to time. That chatter is delivered in a variety of national accents, which gives the dub track an appropriately international flavor. Between the ambitious dubbing, the unsettling animation, the multidirectional plot and the generally creepy story, Hellsing wraps up into a relatively unique and rewarding package. Too bad there's just one more DVD left in the series.
While watching this, I was periodically thinking about White Wolf Publishing's popular Vampire: The Masquerade game. This could almost fit into their world, albeit into a particularly bloody, savage
corner of it.
— Tasha
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