Hellsing revolves around the Royal Order of Protestant Knights, currently led by Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing. This organization specializes in killing vampires. When Seras Victoria, a D11 member, is dragged into a life-or-death situation against a vampire priest, she is forced to become a vampire or to end up in the soil. Alucard, a vampire who works for Integra, finishes the job against the vampire priest, and saves Seras in time, thus turning her into a vampire. Now she fights alongside Alucard. There is also an element of mystery, as there are these vampire chips that turn people into vampires. Now the Hellsing Organization needs to figure out who is responsible for these chips.
The problem with the show is that it never goes anywhere. It pretends to have a story, and the story isn’t all that great in the first place. The last episode ties no loose ends, and to be honest, plot points are dropped completely altogether. For example, the organization captures this vampire who they believe is responsible for the creation of these vampire chips. Integra mentions how she won’t kill him until he answers her questions. You see him once again in the next episode, but they never conclude what exactly went down between them. It renders the previous two episodes focusing on him pointless. Then they also have this rivalry with the Iscariot Organization, but that’s not really elaborated on well, either. The biggest problem is that these episodes aren’t just episodic “villain-of-the-week” filler; they pretend to be necessary to the plot. Plot points come up, and are dropped immediately. The show is jam packed with pointless scene after pointless scene. Nothing gets solved. The viewer will never figure out who is responsible for the chips, and before the last episode, the show practically drops that whole plot line.
In terms of enjoyment, I think that was the worst part about it. Going into this, I figured maybe the show will have a weak story, but at least the action would be good. This isn’t the case; the show has a tendency to get really dull, and actually really boring. So, we’ve got a show that has a pointless story that never goes anywhere, plus it can also get really boring. We are off to a great start!
The characters in this show are unbelievably shallow. Alucard is a character that likes to kill, however his character is never explored throughout the show really at all. He is also the definition of a Gary Stu. You thought Kirito was bad? Anytime it looks like Alucard is going to lose, he pulls out some random new power and defeats the enemy. It’s even worse than in Sword Art Online, because they at least try to explain how Kirito became stronger, while here, they give absolutely zero explanation on how Alucard keeps getting new powers and attacks. Seras is an extremely bland character with no defining personality other than her loyalty to Alucard. Episode 2 was an attempt to show Seras starting to adjust to life as a vampire. This episode, however, fails at what it is trying to do, because you never exactly get a good idea of how she was before getting turned into a vampire. So, it really doesn’t work. The only character with a decent amount of development is Integra, however her story is pretty basic. Then again, I’ll take it over every other character in this show.
The villains in this series come and go. We never find out about their motivations, their backstories, or really anything about them. They are shallow, one-dimensional, and generally have no point to the story. The last villain was simply pathetic, as they don’t even explain why he looks so freakishly weird. Me not mentioning a single name to any of the show’s villains is a testament to how forgettable they truly are. Overall, characters in this show are unbelievably shallow and bland.
It is animated by Studio Gonzo. This means that the animation gets progressively worse as the show goes on, and to be honest, it never was that great to begin with. The character designs are alright, except the skin tones are really wacky. Why is Integra gray? A gray skin tone is intended to be mutually exclusive to vampires, but to also have human characters with gray skin really confuses your audience. The backgrounds, on the other hand, are downright dreadful. They are too dark, the colors aren’t very appealing to look at, and it just looks really ugly. I do like somewhat the gothic scenery, but it isn’t well animated, and the action scenes don’t look good, either. Overall, Studio Gonzo did a poor job animating the series.
This is actually a department that this series gets right. The music is great to listen to. The opening, the ending, the background music; they are all fantastic. The placement of the music, on the other hand, is extremely poor. There are times I think music should be playing, but isn’t. Then there are other times upbeat, rock music was playing during serious moments. It was rather absurd.
The dub to this show is hit or miss, but mostly hit. The voices for the main characters are quite good, except for Seras, whose voice actually sounds more Australian to me than British, but maybe that’s just me. The background characters can get pretty horrible, as some people can pull off the British accents better than others. Crispin Freeman is great as Alucard, and I really like Steven Brand as Alexander Anderson of the Iscariot Organization. Victoria Harwood as Integra also stood out to me. The banter the characters have, though pointless, is occasionally fun to listen to. Overall, the voices for the show are pretty good.
I wasn’t expecting Hellsing to be particularly good, but this show is the definition of pointless and shallow. There’s not very much redeeming about it, and in terms of content, it is actually somewhat offensive. I don’t recommend you check this out, as you don’t need to watch this in order to know what’s going on in Hellsing Ultimate. So, just skip this and check out Ultimate instead.
