The "Hellsing" series (2001) is comprised of 13 episodes following the Hellsing Organization, a top-secret British taskforce whose mission is to protect Britain and the Crown from the legions of the undead, primarily vampires, freaks, and ghouls. Hellsing keeps the demons at bay with specially-trained top notch soldiers, an array of holy weapons, and their own enslaved vampires, Alucard and the recently-turned Seras Victoria.
The Organization has recently faced an upsurge in the freak population, a race of man-made, bio-engineered vampires that threaten the safety of the nation. More insidious is the implication that a powerful human foe is orchestrating this surge in freak attacks. Are the freaks somehow related to the Vatican's attempts to supplant the Hellsing Organization with their own force, the Iscariot Organization? Alucard's recent run-ins with Iscariot's genetically-engineered super vampire hunter, Paladin Anderson, suggest there may be a link.
But soon, Alucard and Seras run afoul of Incognito, a mysterious vampire amassing forces of freaks and ghouls, zombies created and controlled by vampires. Since Iscariot's policy prevents them from employing the talents of vampires, Hellsing surmises that their enemy is closer to home, perhaps seeking to discredit Hellsing's leader Sir Integra (don't let the "Sir" fool you; she's a woman) and seize the Hellsing Organization from her.
The series builds slowly at first. The first few episodes appear disjointed, but soon a pattern emerges. The audience is slowly brought up to speed with the political climate surrounding the Hellsing Organization, and the threat poseds by the freaks and their creator becomes clearer. The audience is also kept somewhat in the dark as to the complexities of the relationship between Hellsing and its pet vampire, whose continued existence is technically contrary to Hellsing's sacred mission. And that's not even to mention the nature of the relationship between Alucard and Sir Integra. Ostensibly, Integra controls Alucard, exercising the rights of an arcane contract between the vampire and Integra's ancestors. Yet, Alucard often operates by his own mysterious rules, and the "controls" over him seem tenuous at best. Puzzling over Alucard's motives and motivations is just one of many subtleties employed in this surprisingly complex series.
"Hellsing"'s animation quality is not bad. Not great, but not bad. It's a step down from the clips I've seen of "Hellsing Ultimate", whose animation is brighter, gorier, and hyperreal. And the prodigious use of blurring and haloing effects in Hellsing's animation is not only distracting, but kinda gives you a headache after awhile. The music, mostly done by Yasushi Ishii, is usually good, including the awesome jangly piano pop opening theme. Unfortunately, there are the occasional regrettable lapses into sickly sweet Japanese pop, and the truly unfortunate choice of end-credit music, Mr. Big's power ballad crapfest "Shine."
As a foreign-language film purist, I initially tried to watch the series in the original Japanese with English subtitles, but halfway through the first episode, I couldn't take it anymore. The English subtitles on the DVD were awkward and inaccurate. I figured that voice synch wasn't extremely relevant in an anime, so I took the chance and switched over to the English dub. MUCH better! This is no hastily-cobbled together dub. The voice-acting here is pretty superb, complete with appropriate British accents, except for Alucard and Icognito, who, as vampires, I suppose are immune to accents. Crispin Freeman is great as Alucard, veering from solemn and hollow to ragingly maniacal, all while maintaining Alucard's trademark smirking, sarcastic humor.
"Hellsing" is a complex, fun, and engaging anime series with fairly good music and an excellent English dub. I am not familiar with the corresponding manga, but I understand that it is much more complex, and I wish that the anime had more episodes so it could properly represent the manga source. I'm looking forward to the "Hellsing Ultimate" OVA so I can compare it with this series.
Storyline & plot: 8/10
Cinematography & effects: 6/10
Music & mood: 6/10
Performances: 9/10
The Reverend says: 7/10
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