dragonballk

STORY:

 Hellsing is the story of Alucard, the vampire hunting vampire, and his adventures serving as guardian/assassin for the Hellsing Organization, a secret, protestant group who's job it is to protect england from supernatural threats. Hellsing is led by Integra Hellsing, a hard women who inherited her role when her father died, and was forced to release Alucard to defend herself from her Uncle who wanted undeniable control of the family.

In the beginning of the series we meet Seras Victoria, a young female police officer caught up in an attack by a horde of Ghouls. Alucard arrives on the scene, and is forced to shoot Seras in order to kill the ring leader of the attack, but saves her life by sucking her blood and turning her into a vampire. 

 We are also introduced to Father Francis Alexander, Alucards centuries old rival, who performs the same tasks as Alucard, but instead he works for the Vatican.

 As the story unfolds, the main Antogonist in the story is revealed to be an army of Nazi Vampires known at first as Millennium, and later as the Last Battalion. I cant really discuss their motives as it would be too much of a spoiler for the end of the series. 

 I actually did enjoy Hellsing, but I'm gonna start with some faults it had. It lacked exceptional dialogue. Many, many times a character would repeat the same word or phrase 2 to 5 times. The conclusion to the climax was boring. A whole lot of talking going on between people that I didn't feel were the most important characters in the show. There was a few times when they got silly and cutesy with their animation and portrayal of some of the characters. It wasn't so bad that it ruined the anime for me, but it did come close. And finally, keeping in mind that I'm not religious, I can't help but feel like there was some sort of religious bias written into the show, what with portraying Catholic priests as rapists, and a large amount of their soldiers wearing garbs similar to the KKK.

 All that being said, i did enjoy the story. It was well paced, there was nothing that felt like unnecessary filler, and despite what i said above about the climax being boring to watch, I do feel like it was well executed. There was lots of little twists all through out, including the fact that, if you really think about it, the bad guys kind of are in a way victorious (and this is why I couldn't mention their motives above). Even the ending of the final episode, after the climax to the final battle really ties things up nicely and gives closure to to the story and everyone in it. 

ANIMATION:

 The only reason I gave this a 9 instead of a full 10 is because all the characters seem to have the exact same evil grin thing going on, eventually that started to bug me. And also the occasional CGI which I just don't appreciate. 

 CHARACTERS:

A large assortment of characters, with time spent on back stories for all the main characters and even some of the minor characters.  Alucard, Seras, Alexander Anderson, Maxwell (who is essentially Integra Hellsing for the Catholic side) develop well. Could have used some explanation on the reasoning behind a certain someone's betrayal.