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Vampires
Are Fun
Review:
Hellsing
Anime/Fansubs/Music/Manga/Fandom/
Merchandise
Title
rating: The walls bleed; keep
the children away from this one. PG-13/R
-13-episode anime
(animation) series (2001-2002), complete
-Manga (comic) series of at least 4 volumes (1998+), complete?
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Vampires are
cool, no? I mean, they can just go around and suck people
blood whenever and wherever they feel like it. Do they ever
have a boring night? Never; they can just hit the local
club scene, pick up a few unsuspecting virgins, and boom--you
have an army of the undead. Now combine this with the local
charm of London--rainy days, fish and chips, annoying young
orphans asking to clean your shoes, their cruel headmaster--and
you've got Hellsing.
Anime
The opening
animation of this show oozes style like the New York City
sewers ooze the toxic waste that gave us the Ninja Turtles.
This isn't some standard GQ-like style; this is real, Bebopesqe
style.
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Smile, you're on Candid Camera
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In Hellsing,
England isn't just overrun by whiny orphans, it's overrun
by vampires of all sorts. I know, I know, leave it to the
British to let the dead walk again. In order to combat this
influx of the living impaired, the Queen uses an agency
called The Royal Order of Protestant Knights Hellsing, most
often referred to simply as Hellsing, to fight the undead
off. Sure this agency has hundreds of the best soldiers
England has to offer, a giant castle, and unlimited funding,
but its members don't have much effect. What they do have
is the vampire Arucard.
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See, he's a
real vampire, like the ones you see on TV, except he has
a big-ass gun and can be shot to pieces but like mercury
or T2 will come back together again. When Hellsing's army
fails (or more often, fails and gets its members turned
into ghouls), Arucard comes in, and with his giant gun filled
with silver bullets blessed by God he kicks ass and takes
names; not in that particular order.
Then there's Celes Victoria,
the only character that comes close to comic relief in the
series. She's a police officer who in the first episode
has a very bad night. Not only does her squad go to investigate
the mysterious disappearance of townsfolk and is killed
off by a farm-league vampire-and-priest, she gets shot through
the lung (what's she complaining about--she's got two, don't
she?) by Arucard's big-ass gun and then is turned into a
vampire by him for reasons never adequately explained.
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The show is nominally about
Celes's transformation from human to vampire, and some of
the early episodes have very touching scenes where she refuses
to drink the medicated blood given to her. The show, however,
doesn't really focus on one person: some of the episodes
are on her, some are on Integral Hellsing (the über-bitch
who runs the organization which bears her name), some on
Arucard, and then some on other random people. One of the
show's major weaknesses is this lack of focus--it tries
to develop so many characters in a 13-episode series that
no one is properly developed.
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Have I made it clear that I loathe
the undead?
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The plot, if confusing, is
well thought out. In addition to regular vampires, who,
you know, suck blood, there are also FREAKS. No, these aren't
those weird kids who dress in all black and hang out at
your local mall, they're regular people like you and me
who get implanted with a FREAK chip to become vampires.
Only they aren't real vampires--they're like the Hong-Kong
bootleg vampires who are not as powerful or as suave. Then
the show moves onto the problem of real vampires coming
in from the continent, and then mixes things up a bit with
some political infighting within the government. You get
the idea; the show bounces from plotline to plotline without
really resolving anything. Bottom line, don't
watch this show for its intricate plot or character development.
Watch it for vampires attacking other vampires.
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Cool=(1/glasses) when glasses <0
but not when Cool=Token Nerd
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At this time I would also
like to introduce a little theory called "Bad Jew's
Law of Glasses." I propose that the coolness of a character
is inversely related to the size of his/her glasses, the
only exception being when glasses=0, and when the person
in question is a Token Nerd, i.e. Joe from Digimon (I'm
not a math major, but I date an engineering student, so
I hear all about this "mathematics" thing). For
instance, Vash from Trigun: very small glasses, very cool.
I should also note that Taishi from Comic Party wears Trigun
glasses, but I suppose we could have already expected that.
I bring this up because there's
a character in Hellsing with a monocle. A corollary to Bad
Jew's Law of Glasses is that anyone with a monocle is automatically
the coolest person in the show. Walter Kum Donne is that
character. Not only is he a kickass butler (he's smart enough
to put the milk in last, so the tea won't scald it), he
designs Arucard's big-ass guns and Celes's even bigger-ass
gun. And beyond all this, if you didn't think he could get
any cooler, he's a master assassin who uses garret wire
like a watchmaker uses, umm ... gears (hey, they can't all
be golden). Oooh, he's cool and a half. Think of him as
Alfred from Batman, if Alfred could kill people left and
right.
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Still, in some ways
I feel cheated by this show. When I first saw it, I thought
it was going to be the next Cowboy Bebop--it had good music,
a dark atmosphere, nice fight scenes, the works. But after
that first episode, Hellsing just sorta forgets how stylish
it can be. Sometimes it makes a valiant effort to come back,
but it's never very consistent. Also, Spike was so cool
that he made me want to smoke. Arucard may be cool, but
not cool enough to make me want to feast on the blood of
the living.
Fansubs
I usually don't review the
fansubs of a show, especially when the show has been licensed
as Hellsing has been ... but I saw Hellsing digisubbed,
and the one thing that struck me was the number of groups
that subbed it. Far be it from me to question these gods
among men that humbly call themselves fansubbers, but 5
groups subtitling the same, short show seems a bit extraneous.
Many of them showed signs of being rushed, with bad translations,
bad grammar, and bad font and color choices. I remember
reading an essay by a former member of Elite-Fansubs bemoaning
the state of digisubs, and judging by this, I would have
to agree: too many people worked too fast to get this show
out. Do yourself a favor and get the DVDs as they come out.
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Music
Like I said before, the music
is on and off. Sometimes it's great, reminiscent of the
30's-style jazz sound of Bebop, then sometimes it's just
bad, weird modern techno that doesn't help anything. There's
one soundtrack released for this show, not licensed in America
yet, but you should be able to pick it up from CDJapan.
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Manga
The manga is like the show--there
are a few plot changes between the anime and the comic,
but Lianne has promised to kill me if I write too many spoilers.
The only other major difference I've seen is that Celes
gains about 2 cup sizes. That's shounen (boys') manga for
you--everyone gains breast size. Hell, I would be
about a C cup if I were in shounen manga. The manga hasn't
been licensed yet, so you can pick up the scanlations at
Crunchycheese.net;
Kouta Hirano is Hellsing's mangaka (manga artist/writer).
Fandom
4 words: Hellsing/Harry Potter
Crossover. You may just want to skip this fandom. Just kidding--though
vampires make for some unusual fanfics, so watch yourself
when checking out the 70-odd fics at FF.net.
There are also some great Hellsing fansites on the web including
Hellsing
Headquarters, with its fantastic information and links,
and Hellsing.nu
with its beautiful layout and nifty extras.
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Silly Vampire, you can't get blood from a gun!
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Merchandise
There's not a whole lot out
there: some models and random vampire paraphernalia made
of pewter, among other things. If there are posters and
wall scrolls, I haven't seen them, but there are still a
good number of things you can blow your money on.
Overall
Hellsing's a good anime to
watch late at night with friends, but if you're a shoujo
(girls' anime) fanboy like me or someone whose idea of a
good time doesn't revolve around drinking the blood of the
innocent, get your Goth friends to pick this title up while
you spend your hard-earned money on Fruits Basket.
Who would I kill as a favor
to the people who made this show?
Mary Shelly
In other words: 3.5 stars
out of 5. 
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