Review:
Based in England mainly London (don't expect hyper accurate recreation of London), this
anime is about a branch of the British secret service known as the Hellsing
institution who deal with vampires and the paranormal. Their lead agent is a
vampire known as Alucard (which is Dracula backwards, no relevance just a
point). In the first episode, to kill a vampire he must first shoot through a
hostage police woman, so he offers her the choice to die then or live on as a
vampire and she chooses to become a vampire. Alucard as her saia (person who
made her a vampire) becomes her master. As the series progresses, she adapts to
becoming a vampire. At first she refuses to drink the medical blood in her room
each night, but things gradually change.
The Hellsing institution is run by Ms. Integral Wingates Hellsing, descendant of
the famous vampire hunter Van Hellsing who was Alucard's master, yet she is not
a vampire just a human. The extent of their relationship is revealed slowly
throughout the series. The other characters include Fergusson, leader of the
Hellsing's main body of troops and Walter, the butler of Integral-he possesses
strange powers but it is not revealed whether he is vampire or human.
The main story starts with an unusual increase in the vampire population, or at
least the amount of paranormal crime involving them. They are not pure-blood
vampires but F.R.E.A.K. vampires created synthetically. I'll say no more about
the plot otherwise I'll spoil it.
Final Comments:
I rate this anime very highly-it has a very unique style of animation, Alucard's powers are
imaginative and amazingly animated. The characters are of good design both look
and personality-wise. This is the best anime i have seen in a while and i have
started watching quite a few new ones recently. It has a cool gothic style, and
while all the characters have been speaking Japanese in the version i have seen,
it was not entirely unconvincing in its portrayal of Britain.
