Hellsing Ultimate

Fantastic vampire action and violence; but dull characters, erratic pacing with too much melodrama and an overpowered main character.

★★☆☆

It has all the flash and gimmicks to trick you into thinking it’s good. It has vampires, action, blood, swearing, violence, gore, sexuality, darkness—everything that’s just “cooool” and “matuuure.”

Let’s not forget its “badass” hero Alucard—whose name is “Dracula” spelled backward, by the way. Goddamn that is so fucking cool I’m hurting. He’s so powerful no one can beat him. Except… that is the problem. Because none of his enemies can even touch him all his fights are boring filler. You’re actually left rooting for the villains.

The main ... characters are supposed to be the one putting up a struggle, not the other way around. The only time I was excited about a fight was when the villains felt like they could pose a challenge. But then Alucard whips out a power up, and I’m left saying “Oh.”

For a show with gorgeous animation and fantastic action it’s dull and forgettable. It’s like an attractive person without a personality. There are pacing issues where it slows down to be melodramatic and rambles about nonsense philosophy. I get that you need to let us know character motivations, but giving 10 minute speeches isn’t exactly keeping me awake. It also tries to be funny with some lighthearted, cutely animated moments, but it only ruins the mood.

I still actually recommend watching this but only if you’re slightly interested. It’s helpful to watch good and bad shows. It’ll give you an instinct on why something is good or bad. I enjoyed this my first time, but I certainly wouldn’t watch it again.

*MINOR SPOILERS*

I say minor because: whether or not it's a spoiler is dependant on whether or not you've taken a moment to read the character bio's. Never the less i will try and keep the spoilers to a minimum.


If you want a basic idea of what hellsing ultimate (which i will refer to as HU from now onward) is all about then it's essentially Shakespeare meets Dracula meets Mien Kampf.


story:

I consider myself something of a fan of the more Gothic horror stories and HU certainly doesn't skimp out on the Gothic pizazz; the grim and gritty melodrama is certainly there but alas I never thought ... I'd see such an abundant overuse of melodrama, and that's where the problems with HU's story begin. The anime is trying so hard to be miserable, dark, dramatic and at the same time poetic that it forgets to ever hit the brakes and seems to go out of control in it's own narrative, to the point where at times characters will be doing something such as fighting or trying to reach a certain location and will forget to explicitly tell the audience why this is happening and on the rare occasions where they do explain they mince words and give explanations that make no sense or portray the characters as psychopathic sycophants thus preventing the audience from caring about the "good guys".

You could say that the characters are supposed to question the validity of good and evil but alas this is where the second problem comes in, and that is believability and limitation. In film, television. anime and other media there is usually an unspecified but well recognised line that usually should never be crossed. Now this line isn't to do with taboo subjects (although, there's plenty of that in HU) but rather limits of believability and audience tolerance for that lack of believability. Now, there are those in other industries that choose to turn a blind eye to this line or ignore it all together,
*cough*Michael Bay*cough*
but never the less the line is there for a reason because that line keeps your story under control and makes sure that nothing too ridiculous gets added to the media which ends up hurting your film/anime/tv show.

HU crosses that line with fine strides and then some, and this is primarily due to the decision of the director, producers and writers to challenge the concept of good and evil by using a character like Alucard, who, for all intents and purposes, is immortal, practically invulnerable, posses power enough that he has to be sealed away and is practically a walking WMD. Now, faced with a protagonist like that, the enemy he must ultimately defeat by the end of the series would understandably need to be able to match his own power.

Enter crazy Nazi fat-ass hell-bent on creating a vampire Nazi army, and in response:
enter crazy army of priests dressed like the Ku Klux Klan.
, it's like a joke you should never mention at a fairness and equality summit. And is probably just as poorly received

Thus we have plenty of enemy pie for Alucard to busy himself with, and if you didn't spot the moment where this got ridiculous you need your eyes and your mind checked. I honestly never thought I'd encounter something that was more ridiculous than Michael Bay's magnum opus 2012 in my entire lifetime, even 'surf Nazi's must die!' wasn't as ridiculous, and that was ridiculous. suffice it to say, the anime kinda goes off the rails after a few episodes and becomes so unbelievable that it's hard to take the show seriously although if characters could stop spouting poetic nonsense that has nothing to do with anything and stop glorifying every action they do by talking about it while their fighting it might have some semblance of tolerability.


Art

Criticisms aside, the art in HU is fantastic, and really gives off that Gothic feeling. The spectacle is truly impressive but alas so was the spectacle in 2012. The art manages to save this show to some extent and is somewhat reminiscent of black lagoon which I also felt had great art, and it makes it somewhat watchable. The battles are given an added sense of spectacle by the art and despite the ridiculous proportions of the characters particularly Integra and Alucard.


Sound

The sound has some pretty good Gregorian and choral tracks that fit the Gothic mood of the series but it suffers from a basic problem many Japanese anime that are meant to be serious tend to suffer from. I'm not sure if it's a difference in music tastes but a lot of serious anime tend to have one or two tracks that off-put the balance of the shows mood by playing during scenes they shouldn't. It's strangely hard to explain but when you watch the anime and pay attention to the backing music you'll be able to spot it.

The other sound thing I had major issues with was the voice acting, which sounded like a high school stage play. The vocal work is overdone and lacks any clear emotion, or any emotion that is meant to be conveyed sounds so stiff that it's like listening to a child learning to read as they pronounce each sentence in turn. Honestly the vocal work was disappointing, but I don't blame the voice cast as much as the writers as they're the ones who came up with the ridiculous script for this show.

character

This is a show that heavily relies on its characters appearing to be bad-asses, unfortunately in the process they turn into self-obsessed psychopaths. This effectively numbs you to their suffering, which is meant to be traumatic but ultimately seems dull and forced on the audience who are expected to sympathise with a bunch of characters whose actions, dialogue and personalities are so ridiculously over the top that they become like parodies of themselves by half way through the show. The worst ones are Alucard and Integra, who both feel the need to explain every situation and revelation by mincing words and talking in general to the thin air (since most of the time no-one is listening) about figuring out what a persons reasons or intention for doing something is, however we never fully understand how she or he come to these revelations since they seem to come to them like a vision from Christ.The worst part is whenever Integra gives Alucard an order; she tends to give the order then give it again with different words then shout and repeat the order despite Alucard kneeling right in front of her; this ultimately makes her seem even more manly (not that I didn't wonder which gender she was through the first part of the series, since sometimes male characters are voiced by female seiyuu) and makes her seem like an idiot whose trying to look cool and sound cool, not that every character in the series isn't trying to do the same thing, but ultimately just sounds melodramatic, ridiculous and unnecessary.

bleach manages to make their characters look like bad asses without sacrificing their believability or integrity as a character so perhaps they should take a leaf out of their book.


Enjoyment

Usually for something like this I'd say it's a switch-off anime but for this anime the level of insanity and over the top ridiculousness will require you to switch off even more than usual, like go into a vegetative state switch off. Only then can you enjoy this anime truly. now saying that you can just watch the violence and spectacular fight scenes and just ignore the dialogue, if it isn't gnawing at your earlobes like a spider that's crept onto your pillow, then you might be able to get through all 8 episodes that are currently out. It would be easier if each episode was only 30 mins long because after about that long you start to wonder when it's going to end and you keep checking the play bar to see how much longer you have left. This series is tolerable at best.

I'll keep it sorta brief: this series was pretty shitty. When I started watching it years ago, I thought it was one of the coolest things I ever saw. That gradually shifted to "What's going on in this story?" and later "Why am I even watching this?"

- - - Story - - -
They made it seem like there's a story at first, but it's pretty much a lie. They start running out of ideas, so they throw in some necrophelia and boy rape. Really... just why? The ending is about as anti-climactic as possible, especially Alucard's final role. Did they really have to use such ... a shallow and disposable character to drag him off the stage so easily?

- - - Art - - -
It's distinct and well animated. The earlier fight scenes are especially cool, but they feel kinda dull later on. Occasional "humourous" scenes look like complete shit.

- - - Sound - - -
Some of the songs are cool, some aren't.

- - - Characters - - -
There's very little character development. Some of the characters stand around looking cool before they inevitably get killed off like the garbage they are. I felt no attachment to any of the characters.

- - - Enjoyment - - -
After years of waiting, I feel pretty cheated. This used to feel more exciting to watch, but by the end it all just feels pointless. The later episodes just feel nonsensical and boring, really. I used to recommend this to people, but I'll never do that again.

If there's one word to sum up Hellsing Ultimate, it's 'Style'. The art is gorgeous. The animation is fluid. The fight scenes are well executed with with lots of gore and body parts (as you'd hope for in an adult series about vampires), trash talk, and cool poses, and the imagery is breathtaking.

What Hellsing doesn't have is much of is everything else that makes for a good anime, beginning with a plot that starts and ends in 5 words: 'Undead Nazis bent on world domination'.

While the character designs are super intriguing and make the viewers want to learn more about them, they are wasted ... as there is literally no time devoted to exploring the backstories or motivations of interesting supporting characters such as 'Walter, the Angel of Death', 'Schrodinger' and 'Van Winkle'. This is why when there is a plot twist in the latter half of the series, the impact is lost because you don't really understand why the guy was motivated to act one way or the other.

Even the main characters aren't spared from this lack of characterisation. You never find out what happened between Alucard and the original Hellsing which lead to their contract, you never find out anything about his seal restrictions, you don't know what drives Alucard to do what he does. You don't even find out why he's such a badass vampire with a million more abilities than other vampires. He's just an enigmatic badass with no weaknesses, which makes for a boring one-dimensional character.

Our other main character, Integra, suffers the same fate. As far as I can tell, after some childhood trauma, she becomes a badass with a loud bark but not much bite to back it up and has about as much personality as the cigars she chain-smokes.

From various parts of the story, you get the sense that there is some world-building going on behind the scenes, but it is, again, never fleshed out. What are these other special powers which are not Vampire/Ghoul related? I want to know about the Werewolves. I want to know more about how the Catholic Church trains its paladins and the centuries long rivalry between Alexander Anderson and Alucard. Who was Van Winkle and her magic gun? What about that card dude? Is there some special school of magic which is separate from the Church and the Undead?

Hellsing starts off promisingly but decides to crank the meter up to 10 on badassery, cool art and visuals and forget everything else like plot and characterisation. In its defense though, its cool visuals managed to carry me, a disengaged viewer, through all 10 episodes, so there's that at least.

Overall, I would not recommend Hellsing Ultimate UNLESS you love shounen battle-type anime like Naruto or you just want something with a simple plot and nice fights to unwind.

If you're looking for a full-fledged fast-paced non-stop adrenaline pumped action anime (comparable to action movies like Die Hard or Crank (not story wise or anything just pace-ish)). Then you can stop looking, this is it, the ultimate action anime. Badass protagonists, lots BIG guns, wannabe super-villains who get their asses kicked, zombies, vampires, nazis (possibly a Indiana Jones homage, lol?) and spice it up with a little humor between the action scenes (are there other kind of scenes in this anime?).

Great, if you're looking for an anime for entertainment and willing to overlook the fact that there is no character progression at all and ... that the story is horrible. Basicly they skipped the story and extracted (and greatly improved) only the action scenes from Hellsing TV, later on it starts to shoot off though, but the story is still tremendously bad. It completely lacked lacked the criterias for a "superb" or "masterpiece" anime, that is in my educated opinion; thought-provoking, plot- or character-driven anime. But it wasn't trying to be anything like that. This anime is none other than pure entertainment. So shut off your brain and enjoy.

Hellsing Ultimate is not very enjoyable series to watch. I really liked Hellsing anime, but this one is just waste of my time. The characters except few are quite boring and/or undeveloped enough. The development of the story is done in a weird way. The action for the sake of action. They spill a lot of blood as if they do not know how else they could attract the viewers... The "dramatic" confrontations of the characters are just silly. The series are not funny (even though at some points they tried their best to make it a bit funny).

The "traditional" villains in the story ... are acting for their reasons which we would describe as madness.

The art of the anime is not very good either (most of the time) and the same goes for the sound.

I had seen quite a few scenes from Hellsing Ultimate before I actually watched it, and I wasn't expecting much for story or emotion, but I was expecting a lot of action. There actually ended up being more story and emotion than I figured, and even though there's a couple scenes of characters displaying sorrow that seem drawn out and overacted, I still felt it added to the anime. But what I did not expect was the excessive amount of chibi.
The first half of Hellsing Ultimate isn't really all that great. The story plays out pretty standardly, no big plot twists, with the action amounting ... to nothing real special. But the big problem is that Hellsing Ultimate seemed to just keep trying to sabotage itself. It just absolutely REFUSED to allow you to feel something. Almost every time things were getting tense, whether it be from an emotional moment or a good action scene, it would kill the mood by either showcasing one of its MANY chibi moments, or someone would just keep rephrasing a line and repeat it over, and over, AND OVER. I don't know if they thought that was supposed to make what they were saying seem more important, but it didn't.
The second half of Hellsing Ultimate is where things get good. The story progresses nicely and turns out to not be as shallow as you were first lead to believe. The action gets ramped up, and we end up seeing a lot of good battles. And the biggest thing of all, Hellsing Ultimate actually allows there to be tension! The chibi moments get cut way back...although, there's still enough of it to annoy you.
As for the final episode, I can't just flat-out say that it's good or bad. It does the most important objective of a finale well by putting an end to a lot of things, and doesn't really leave any cliffhangers. However, it does not give sound answers to explain why things ended the way they did. Instead of giving solid explanations, EVERYONE just kept talking around the answers with philosophical gibberish. I eventually gave up on trying to piece together full-proof reasons and just decided to go along with it. The final episode will also give you one of the biggest WTF moments when an almost solely chibi-based character, with little story behind 'em, is ultimately responsible for the defeat of the biggest badass. Near the end of the final episode, you'll also be given the biggest chibi sequence out of the whole series.
So when it's all said and done, I give Hellsing Ultimate a 6/10. It's entertaining to watch, but nothing really sticks with you, and it amounts to little more than a cheap thrill.
P.S. - I couldn't really find a spot in my review to say this, so I'll say it here – Even though the music for moments throughout Hellsing Ultimate is usually suiting, there are some where the music used just didn't fit at all and makes you wonder what they were thinking when they used it.

First things first: I have never read Hellsing manga in it's entirety. I've heard that Hellsing Ultimate remains rather faithful to the source material, but other than that, I can't really comment on the issue. Therefore, I'm gonna review this as a standalone piece of entertainment, rather than reviewing it as an adaption of the manga. I have watched the original anime numerous times and it was the series that really got me into anime, so it goes without saying that the Hellsing franchise is very dear to me.

The production values of Hellsing Ultimate are great. The animation is fluent and the style is pleasant ... to look at. There are some lazy shots here and there: a character's hair might be frozen in place or a movement animation might be just a short loop that's repeated over and over, but that is to be expected. The show in it's entirety is just a slight step away from movie quality. The voice acting and the soundtrack were great as well. The only thing really worth complaining about are the cartoonish comedy scenes, which really don't blend in with the dark tone of the rest of the material.

I've always found the setting of Hellsing really appealing. Hellsing is an organization that's protecting humanity from monsters while employing monsters. They're fighting fire with fire essentially. It's not really an original idea, but during the early 2000's, when I first got in touch with the original anime, it wasn't exactly beaten to death either. Taking place during the modern era also works in the show's favor. I especially like Hellsing's rivalry with their colleagues at Vatican. The catholics in the series are pompous pricks and they despise the methods of their protestant counterparts. There was so much more that could have been done with this rivalry and I'm really sad that the series didn't venture deeper into it. This leads me to the main problem I had with Hellsing Ultimate...

The story is awful. Absolutely atrocious! An army of nazi vampires that has been in hiding for the past 60 years decides to attack England. I could probably stop right there, but there's just so much more to it than that. I think that the goal of Kohta Hirano (the creator of the manga) was probably to be as over the top as possible, but this ”thing” he has come up with crosses the line of utter ridiculousness by a mile. Every single twist feels like it's there just because the writer thought that the story needed one. They feel very sudden and they don't amount to much. It's almost as if Kohta was getting bored of telling this story and was trying desperately to spice things up with something. All in all: the series really rips itself apart when it comes to it's storyline. It's terrible.

The character/monster design is, without a doubt, one of the strongest points of the series. Alucard, Integra, Walter and Anderson are all pretty much iconic anime characters. I wouldn't go as far as calling them archetype defining, but they are all certainly very memorable. Even the fodder characters – the ones that exist only for their single fight scene – are rather well done. They do not only look cool either. The abilities and the personalities of most of the characters are well defined and interesting. The same can't be said for their motivations though. The reasons these guys have for their actions range from far-fetched to downright stupid. There's nothing inherently wrong with insane characters taking insane actions, but – in a good story – there should always be a crumb of logic behind that insanity. Hellsing Ultimate completely fails in making the audience see that logic. Some of the sobby backstories that were given to these guys towards the end of the series felt really forced too.

The action, while admittedly very cool, is rather predictable. The end of the story is basically just a big barrage of action scenes and while I didn't foresee every ”pairing” that eventually happened, I was never actually surprised by the outcome of any of these fights. The fights are very much guilty of the basic anime syndrome of ”the hero falls down but we all know he is going to get up again”. We all know it's gonna happen! Please get on with it! The fights are very entertaining, but there are no surprises here.

Hellsing Ultimate is certainly a fun watch. There are no boring moments. If you don't let yourself become stuck with it's absurdities, it's a blast. I just feel like there could've been a more tasteful way to use this setting and the characters.

Does Hellsing Ultimate Want to Suck Your Blood or Just Suck in General? 🤭

When it comes to anime I’ve seen my fair share of OP heroes, but Hellsing Ultimate takes the cake. The series is an OVA update on Hellsing which aired in 2001 and ran for 13 episodes. Here’s where things get interesting, while it might only be 10 episodes long it took 6 years for this series to trickle out. The big question is if the wait was worth it and the short answer is, not really.

Hellsing Ultimate is a series that tackles the myth of Dracula in modern London. The main protagonist ... of this series is Alucard (True Vampire). While in most cases vampires tend to be the villains, the good guys, in this case, have this incredibly OP character on their side. Normally it would get pretty dull watching someone who can tear through every villain like they were tissue paper, but this series gives us some cannon fodder villains we can really boo. Of course, there are plenty of vampires and “evil” priests, but Hellsing Ultimate really kicks it up a notch by tossing in some Nazi’s in there. Because of that, watching Alucard might not be the most exciting, but who doesn’t enjoy watching Nazi’s getting thrown to a lion?

This anime had three different animation studios working on it. Starlight, Madhouse, and Graphinica & Kelmadick each worked on several issues, so it’s pretty incredible that the animation is so consistent through the series. I sat and watch every episode back to back, but I couldn’t tell when one of these studios took over from another. However, it wasn’t just multiple studios that worked on Hellsing Ultimate. There are a few stylistic choices I wasn’t a huge fan of, such as that gangly approach so many series take to their heroes. Many of the characters had absurdly long and narrow limbs and bodies, but given the fact that this is a “horror” series the absurd anatomy added much more than it detracted. However, it’s the use of line weight that I appreciated most. There’s a lot of depth that’s added because of the varying thickness used in the animation.

Besides multiple studios working on this series, it also had three directors, Tomokazu Tokoro, Hiroyuki Tanaka, and Yasuhiro Matsumur, as well as two writers, Hideyuki Kurata, and Yōsuke Kuroda, so it’s a wonder that this series wasn’t a total mess. That being said, Hellsing Ultimate is far from a masterpiece, even when it comes to horror anime. There are some pacing issues that can be seen during a few changing of the guards, but on a whole things could have gone much worse for Hellsing Ultimate. Of course, this isn’t exactly a high art series. It monologues a bit too much at times and so many of the characters are nothing more than simple eye candy thrown in for a good fight scene or two. There are even some structural issues with the story creating a mildly disjointed feel from one mini-arch to another. In other words, Hellsing Ultimate overcomes a number of huge obstacles, but only barely manages to limp away as the victor.

The one thing I will say is that this series sets a creepy tone for the most part. There’s a lot of history with a character like this and even though there are some clear-cut good guys and bad guys in it, you still have to wonder what the price is for having an irredeemable villain fighting the good fight. Over the course of Hellsing Ultimate, the line in the sand starts to blur. While I’m not one to sympathize with Nazis… Ever, I will say that the fact that the villain’s sole purpose seems to be destroying Alucard at any cost gives me pause. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not that these characters are doing a good thing for the sake of humanity. They’re still Nazi’s at the end of the day, but I appreciate the little bit of gray that’s tossed in there.

One of the biggest disappoints of the series though is the climax, the ending is about as anti-climatic as possible. As I said earlier, Alucard is way overpowered and that means there’s no risk involved for him when the series throws everything it can at him. I won’t spoil the ending for you, but this series does not handle it’s incredibly powerful hero in the best way. Needless to say, I was underwhelmed by Hellsing Ultimate overall. It just feels riddled with cliches and doesn’t offer an interesting twist on any of them. Then again, the story behind this anime makes it feel like it was set up for being average from the beginning. Despite having too many chefs in the kitchen though, Hellsing Ultimate is edible. I just don’t think I’ll ever order it again.

I write this review mainly because I'm very surprised by the rating that this has on MAL. According to the MAL rating, this anime is rated higher than some animes I thought were truly amazing. This anime has a higher rating than Higurashi, Mirai Nikki, and even Kingdom. I only really watched this because someone I know recommended it to me when I was just starting to get into anime and I saw its rating on MAL so I thought it must be good.

Now of course, all entertainment is subjective. But I must say that the rating it has here on MAL is pretty surprising ... to me. The main reason why it surprises me is because I fundamentally felt that this anime has no substance. The art style is admittedly pretty damn impressive. I'll give them that, the art is really cool looking. And that's about it.

How to sum up the story? Well, its pretty much a bunch of nazi vampires attack London because they love war, and then a bunch of KKK looking dudes join in on the fight. Its not really a spoiler because this anime has no real story. The anime feels more like an excuse to have a colossal bloodbath, just for the sake of having a bloodbath. And that's pretty much how all the characters act too. Explaining their reason for invading London, the Nazi general says "why do the means need an end?" Basically, the reason he goes into war, is just because he likes war. Alucard is not really much different in that he seems to fight vampires just because he likes fighting other vampires.

I think there's only one type of person who would really enjoy this anime. Someone who just wants to see as much blood spurting, dismemberments, decapitations, body mutilations, and guts spilling out over the street as possible. If you are that person, then this anime is your dream show, which is probably why it has such a high rating. For that particular audience, I can't think of an anime that is better suited to what they are looking for.

If you are anybody else, I'd probably recommend taking a pass on this one. Its surprisingly long. Its only ten episodes but each one is about 50 minutes in length which makes it feel like a much longer show. Towards the end I will admit I was actually skipping a lot of it. Think of this more as a 23 episode anime that has no substance to it.

So, I remember some years ago LOVING Hellsing Ultimate. The action, the waiting for what was to come, the soundtrack (well, I still really like the soundtrack, but the original can sound much better in some tracks).

Thing is, yesterday I saw the last episode on a whim while browsing Netflix and... dear imaginary reader, I really didn't enjoy it. Surely I changed a lot over those years (feels like about a decade), but still, I can only share my current opinion and try to explain the overall feeling behind it, hoping it will be useful to others. After all, despite not having many episodes they ... are quite lengthy.

For starters, the character's animation feels wonky and overreacted, despite the overall good looks. I really didn't enjoy seeing them going on, regardless of the kind of scene. It pretty much felt like an overdone animation from the manga. Not to mention it feels unrealistic: there is a scene where a literal normal human be barely fazed by the waste of an eye, only twitching their face a bit.

Secondly, the character's personality is shallow, their dialogue is nonsensical both to the scene and the overall plot. Sometimes a character makes a pseudo-philosophical or even philosophical comment that might be claimed as nonsense in sequence, by a much worst train of thought. That combined with the weird animation makes watching it even worst.

So, that was my re-review of Hellsing Ultimate from only the final episode. It might be less worst on the previous episodes? Maybe, maybe not. I really hope it is better, but I'm not going to try and find out.

Personally, if you enjoy something that has the least good logic behind the plot and ending, I'd stay out of this anime. If you're interested in the soundtrack, give it a try in youtube. It's not like the context of the music will make much of a difference anyway, since context and coherence were thrown in the garbage can.

Oh, where to begin... Hellsing Ultimate is an anime I am truly conflicted about. It's very clever but executed poorly to the point of being terrible. And after much thought, I think this show errs on the side of just being bad. All main aspects of the show - the story, the art, the characters - are both wonderful and just painful to watch. But even if there are qualities about the show that are good, the fact remains that if it's painful to watch, it missed the mark. To start with the story, the story is really bad. In part, I think that is ... intentional because Hellsing does not take itself too seriously and I think that that reflects the manga too. The story is beyond ridiculous. A vampire and the church of England take on the reemergence of Nazi Germany and their army of lab-created vampires while fending off the Catholics in their attempt to reconquer protestant land. And the show with all of its gore, gains something from this ridiculous story because it provides some comedic relief. However, an intentionally ridiculous story is not enough to make a good show. The main character, Alucard, in all of his badass, psychopathic glory seemed to balance out the ridiculous plotline. But even then, with Alucard absent for a couple of episodes and the pacing thus being skewed, the show kind of fell apart. As clever as the story was, I think in the end it was executed poorly. The comic relief just turned into me laughing at the cringe of it all. It was not good laughter. The art style was clean although fairly gorey and exaggerated. The style fit both the genre and the mood of Hellsing. My only critique is that many of the noteworthy scenes art wise revolved around Alucard and all of the other scenes had pretty mediocre animation in comparison. The characters were alright, yet I felt they were incomplete. Alucard was the only character who really shown in the show and he didn't have any emotions so there was no need for character development. However, Seras lacked character development and I think that was a missed opportunity. With Integra, you don't get nearly enough of a back story and Walter, while he may be cool stand-alone, acted out of character. It was supposed to be played off as intentional, but it wasn't very convincing. I think that was the issue, that the show didn't convince me of anything. The characters, other than Alucard, weren't believable and neither was the plot. There were too many weak points and plot holes. Overall, I both loved, hated, and was utterly disappointed by this show. There were so many things I loved about it, but so many things that I hated and I was left disappointed because I felt like this show had so much potential.

An incredibly entertaining show that starts with both a strong story and atmosphere. The action and characters only grow incresingly interesting, but the story turns into absolute mush towards the end. If you like action, or the aesthetic, or cute and badass female characters, it's definitely worth a watch. If I could get an entire series just about Seras, or even Walter's history, or other members of the Hellsing family, I would pay good money for it in a hearbeat. I would say that it's an incredible work of animation and development, wrapped around a terrible and almost completely incoherent story.

I should have liked Hellsing Ultimate more, but I can't overlook the glaring problems with the storytelling and character development. If you want some over the top action, violence, gore, style, and macabre, then Hellsing Ultimate delivers all of that and more. If your like me and need a good story in order to enjoy an anime, then you can watch many other better animes first. Come back to this one later when you want a good dose of vampire violence without much substance.

Story 4/10
The story starts with much promise, but ultimately never delivers anything satisfying.

Art 8/10
The art is very enjoyable for a ... vampire anime. It is macabre, imperfect, gritty, and captures the feeling of death. This is an extremely gory anime.

Sound 10/10
The sounds and OST are phenomenal! Loved every second.

Character 6/10
The characters were so intriguing, but they are never properly fleshed out to much chagrin.

Enjoyment 7/10
There were many enjoyable, epic battles. Undeniably, it has some unforgettable moments.

Overall 6/10
It was fine, but it felt so incomplete and left me wanting more.

Since their inception, vampires have been one of the most popular supernatural creatures in horror. Their imposing status is backed by their array of powers, from their ability to fly to turning others into vampiric servants of their own. I remember back in the mid-to-late 2000’s when series like Twilight and True Blood were around. They wanted to seek out drama and romance in the world of the undead. Hey, if you got the right actors, even vampires could be sexy! I never bothered with either, but I remember seeing a lot of backlash against this move, criticizing the stories for poor writing or overdramatization. ... Maybe it was a call from the purists or enthusiasts against the newfound trappings associated with their beloved undead. However, another series was also introduced in the mid-2000’s (or earlier for the manga readers) that would give the extreme qualities back to the bloodsuckers – Hellsing Ultimate. Granted, a 13-episode series by Gonzo was produced in the early 2000’s, but it branched off from the original story due to lack of material. Hellsing Ultimate, a 10-episode OVA by beloved studio Madhouse, stays truer to the manga. Each episode is roughly 50 minutes in length, giving a volume’s length worth of material per episode. Though it may be the “ultimate” adaptation, is it a worthwhile watch?

The story is fairly straightforward. Alucard, our vampiric protagonist, is the underworld mercenary to the Hellsing organization. He deals with all things related to the undead, mostly vampiric. An abnormal number of vampires in the town of Cheddar have started to spring up, alerting the Hellsing organization of someone planning something behind the scenes. This story unfolds to a battle of epic proportions, involving old foes from Hellsing’s past in a brutal bloodbath. This is a series that wants to be known for its action and violence, so naturally the story aims for whatever can provide the most extreme outcome. Almost every twist and turn in the story is meant to drum up emotion or shock. This can be a good and bad thing, as will be explained later. The first few episodes are a good way to introduce the story and some of the key characters of the tale. It’s a necessity, as the primary focus of the series is an all-night battle royale in London. Blood is shed to an absurd degree and, with each episode acting like 2 or 3 episodes of a normal viewing, it may become a bit tiring to watch. That said, the show is not nearly as gory or extreme in its display as one would think. It smartly “self-censors” some of the more brutal aspects of the show to keep its more curious viewers hooked while not letting down the blood enthusiasts. This isn’t an 80’s style OVA, but it sure will provide more barbarous moments than your average action show.

Of course, what separates good action from the bad is found in its characters and Hellsing has quite a few. The protagonist Alucard is what you’d want out of a lead. Cool, cocky and charismatic, this vampire has a knack for getting in his opponent’s head as much as he gets his bullets in their body. You read that right – in addition to being a vampire, he also brands 2 guns that soften up the enemy before he has his way with them. Contrasting him is the stoic Integra Hellsing, the daughter of the late Arthur Hellsing. As the head of the organization, she orders Alucard and others to learn about and destroy all the vampiric foes attacking the local areas. She is fearless in all manners, not breaking away from her sternness in even the direst situations. Their butler, Walter Dornez, is an older gentleman who once bore the nickname “Angel of Death”. Though he does not possess any vampiric powers, his use of razor-sharp, near-invisible strings catch enemies by surprise and lead them to their demise. The last of the main troop is Seras Victoria, a former policewoman saved by Alucard. She has a friendly personality and provides more of the humorous or sweet moments on the show. Don’t be fooled, though: when she gets going in battle, her more vampiric personality traits start to show and she becomes far more aggressive. She provides a decent reference point for viewers as the newly formed vampire on the team to introduce us to the world of Hellsing.

What’s probably the best part of the show is found in the character interactions and personality traits of each character. A hierarchy is found in the Hellsing crew, with Integra on top, followed by Alucard and Walter, and then Seras. It’s rather strange to let the member with the least battle-ready skills be on top, yet this paves way to some deeper meaning the show aims to scratch at. Alucard won’t attack unless given permission by Integra and these conversations reveal the true power dynamic at play. Alucard gets a strange sort of pleasure poking at Integra’s cold demeanor, aiming to make her as much a monster as he is. With such a deadly force at her disposal, one has to wonder if an enemy could be saved or if someone innocent could get caught in the crossfire. This is more lightly touched upon and, if given more time, would be an interesting look behind necessary sacrifice or war crimes. Other themes of humanity are explored, such as what qualifies as human in a show filled with supernatural creatures and body modifications. Even topics such as religion and their duties are explored in a strangely mature way. Yes, there is endless amounts of violence and irrational hatred driving some points, but some characters question their methodologies and what is right even if it’s what they’ve been told to believe. Father Anderson, the rival to Alucard, is a great example of this. Though an impassioned man hellbent on sending vampires to Hell (as well as an extreme dislike of Protestants), he grows more mature as he realizes the extremes his cohorts will go to. Coupled with his holy blades, he provides a great clash against Alucard and is always a joy to see on screen.

Though the show is over-the-top and as bold as one could want, the show suffers from a few big problems. The pacing of the show is one of the first I could think of. The first few episodes are good to introduce what the show is about and its characters, but the meat and potatoes of the show is an all-night battle in London. So many opponents come into the mix, with millions of lives lost, that it becomes quite ridiculous to take in. The point is made clear by the villains that their efforts have been leading to this one-night blitz, but it often feels like more characters and fights are introduced for the sole sake of continuing the series. If this was a war anime with strategies and larger time spans between fights, it’d be more understandable but here it often comes off as mindless. As if it wasn’t enough, between these moments of action are rather long monologues, often repeating what’s already been said or known. It’s a sort of paradox – when you want action, they’re monologuing, but when you want a break, they’re adding more bodies into the mix. It comes down to a sense of timing more than anything else and other viewers may not see this as a problem.

The biggest problem of the show I can see is in its development. The show has so many cool ideas, themes to explore, characters to introduce and yet does little with them. This is a show that’s begging for a prequel to explain character origins more clearly (which it technically did but was cut short for reasons that escape me). As a result, a lot of depth is lacking from the show and adds to that mindless feeling I described earlier. Some villains are a footnote in the show’s story despite being labeled as big threats – one villain treated as a major threat doesn’t even speak! This is honestly one of the few cases where a manga/anime is justified into needing more episodes. Maybe creator Kouta Hirano wanted to focus more on the action or felt he’d add on to certain details later but didn’t get around to it. Whatever the case, it really hurts what is otherwise a cool show brimming with ideas.

Almost as a fallback to expanding out on these ideas is the final problem with the series: Alucard’s overpowered status. Now, it’s to be expected that the members of Hellsing need to be naturally tough to combat their enemies – after all, there’s only 4 main members of the group compared to the squadrons of the enemy. That said, it often makes me question how he was taken down in the first place. He has so many abilities and attributes that you often need a nation’s men to even think about tackling him. Even just having a regeneration ability can be busted as it makes any battle against him (or any opponent with a similar ability) the equivalent of fighting a wall. While that may be the point to this endeavor, it often makes each situation he’s in predictable and loses out on potential edge the show could have. It’s almost humorous trying to see what other busted powers the opponents have. What is usually a dominant force in any other show is treated as the bare minimum to keep up with the protagonist. This is the case for many unmoderated supernatural works. To give credit where it’s due, it often is displayed as “rule of cool” and those who enjoy the imagery or quips of Alucard will probably not mind this point as much.

Hirano’s art style is accurately portrayed here, with its sharp outlines and big ringed eyes. Everyone seems to carry a cocky grin to boot, giving each character some form of assurance of their victory no matter the odds. Things can get bloody, but they never get too graphic as to turn your eyes away from the screen. Often, it’s a whole man in one frame followed by their limbs everywhere in the next. Despite being backed from Madhouse and given the OVA treatment, the animation isn’t always of the best quality. It can sometimes appear a bit choppy or make characters look a bit off in mid-shots (though this latter part can also be found in the manga as well). Most controversial will be the show’s use of CG for weaponry and large crowds. It’s not the worst but, like most CG, it sticks out like a sore thumb. The music department will be a real gem for most. Hellsing Ultimate has a varied soundtrack, ranging from rock to choral pieces and everything in between. Some songs will get you pumped, while others reminisce of stereotypical war songs. Sometimes the songs can be mashed-up, such as in ED 8. It starts off with a choir before plunging straight into a distorted boogie blues piece. I was recommended the English dub for this anime, a move that’s a bit out of my element as I usually watch subs. Crispin Freeman is the star of the show, with a deep menacing voice that shines as Alucard. It was a bit strange to hear at first and some lines felt a bit too “straightly spoken”, but by the end I could imagine no other voice. Other voice actors tried to match the setting by having varied English accents. Though there is some danger as to being “phoned in”, they all felt believable. Katharine Gray is as bubbly as you’d want for Seras while Victoria Harwood gives the voice to Integra’s commands. Sometimes the anger or tenderness is a bit misplaced, but they did a great job overall. It could be a bit of bias: after all, it’s easier to recognize atonal voice acting when it’s your native language.

Overall, I give Hellsing Ultimate a 5.0/10. With enough time, this could’ve been the definitive vampire, horror and possibly action series. As it stands, it’s a treat for the fans of the manga and perhaps adolescent audiences, but not for me. Despite my rating, I still would recommend it to those who are looking for an action series that delves into the supernatural. My only condition would be that the viewer is looking for over-the-top action/powers but not anything more than that.

Do you like or dislike this anime? If you haven't watched it, are you encouraged to watch it or not? Leave a comment on my profile telling me what you think of the anime and/or my review.

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day!

Vampires are a common trope in both TV and movies, and vampire-based media can be either good or bad. Some may find vampires to be overused, but I find that vampire shows always have the potential for being great action/horror entertainment. However, I cannot say that Hellsing Ultimate stands out to me as being a good or even entertaining show.

Hellsing Ultimate is the adaptation that most directly follows the Hellsing manga. I have not read the manga or seen the original anime adaptation, so I cannot compare it to those two, but this show on its own has too many flaws that outweigh that positives.

Pros:
Action ... scenes are fun. This is probably the aspect of the show that most people flock to and praise like they are unrivaled masterpieces. I do agree that the bloody action is exciting but not a masterpiece.
The characters, for the most part, are fairly interesting. I would have to say that Seras Victoria is most interesting character due to her having the most fleshed out character arc.

Cons:
The story is terrible. It's awful and drawn out ad nauseum. Many people seem to excuse this fact by claiming that the story is not important; it's the action that's important. However, the show relies quite heavily on a story to maintain interest. Having undead Nazis is all well and good, but the motivation and plans of the main antagonist are so ludicrous to the point of disbelief. And surprisingly, this show can get boring. Action scenes are separated by scenes of uninteresting dialogue and very poor comic relief. I have to mention the comic relief because those "funny" scenes are so out of place, so tonally inconsistent, and so not funny to the point of cringe. Alucard has so much plot armor that it's hard to even be invested in his fight scenes because you know he's going to win.

You do not have to have a show that purely violence for the sake of violence. If you really want just pure action, there are so many better shows out there that execute action so much better. You don't have to lose a story in order to have action; in fact, if done correctly, action can often enhance a story and make a show much more entertaining. However, that's not true for this show. I honestly really wanted to like this show because there is so much potential in its ideas, but it does not make the cut. Hellsing Ultimate is decent in the beginning but by the end reveals itself to be a mess.

The Poster child of Carnography.
All the imagery of demons and Nazis and stuff flying around is pretty uncomfortable, I see why this would be interesting or something people would watch. Its essentially just a big and fat middle finger and everything that shouldn't be shown is shown.
Middle fingers, gore, Nazis, demonic imagery, etc.
The art direction and animation is quite impressive for its time ignoring the small stints of abhorrent CGI. It very well suits the nature of the show and enhances it. However, there is something a little unnatural about some of the gore, so over the top that it
struggles to get that stomach curling ... real life gore effect.
The soundtrack is over the top militaristic which fits perfectly.
The fights follow the same structure where a bunch of non important personnel are just absolutely trashed even though we know they will be. Yet the characters are surprised repeatedly. Then when the goat drops in, he is first shot to bits by the enemy, releases
his limiters and just overwhelms them with insane power.
While I understand the fights are supposed to just be a demonstration of his dominance, I feel like it could have been done
in a more interesting way. It just feels like an uncensored episodic power fantasy with extra steps. However, I will give it that it does not feel stale despite repeating what is essentially the same structure repeatedly.
There are several loose ends that keep you guessing that are eventually answered throughout and thus some form of subtlety and great storytelling elements are at hand which somewhat keeps your interest as the mysteries unwind.
The villains themselves are not interesting at all... absolutely unremarkable. The only somewhat interesting character, Alucard, is one who dances all over the idea of evil and good. His motivations and character is much more subtle and complex.
However, the same cannot be said for his direct antagonists, who in turn follow the same 1 dimensional over the top nature as the show itself. Villains for the sake of just being evil is a little uninspiring most of the time.

Hellsing Ultimate is so overblown and so stereotypically 1 dimensional. It's essentially gore and action for the sake of gore and action itself.
There's nothing extra to it and that isn't necessarily bad, but just like how a solid 1 dimensional shonen like demon slayer is just a solid 1 dimensional shonen and will never rank higher than a 7, this will not rank higher than a 7.
In this case not because its lacks quality compared to its compatriots, but its unsophisticated nature does not lend itself to multifaceted enjoyment. Those who will enjoy it will enjoy it to its maximum and those who wont will likely find it alright.

Hellsing does exactly what it is supposed to and does it to the fullest. Within its own category of what it is attempting to accomplish, it scores a 9/10. Sadly this is not what we are grading it on. From a more hollistic standpoint and my enjoyment
it cannot score more than a 7/10. Not for everyone but it is for someone. 6/10.

Gave this one up, I didn't feel engaged after six episodes into it. The true selling point of this anime are the battles as they're gory and truly brutal. Yet, all of this is shown in favor of relegating characters and story to a side, it leaves them completely undeveloped. I admit action is a lot of fun, but it's difficult for me to connect with characters that are devoid of any emotion or personality whatsoever, there are many parts where there are shown flashbacks to developed the character, but this technique is not only rushed, but belated too. I understand that, more than humans, ... these are monsters whom only find amusement in killing and fighting and I commend that portrayal as it's very fitting, but still. Plus, the first four episodes feature the same structure and, once again, the fights were cool, but it was hard to be excited when Alucard is constantly presented as invincible. Overall, the episodes drag a lot and center way too much on cheesy dialogues, don't even get me started on the "comedic" bits. Story wise isn't nothing new either: a villain whose sole purpose is to, aside for destroying an individual, take over the world. The animation was great and it was interesting to see themes (although touched very lightly) such as the viciousness of power and the incessant desire of war. Still, I find all of these combats and betrayals and references to trauma gratuitous to say the least. Not really my cup of tea. I'm feeling a light to decent five on this one.

I very much enjoyed watching this show. That said, it actually wasn't very good.


Visuals: 10
Hellsing Ultimate is remarkably well done. The animation quality and attention to details is top notch. The style itself is something that fan artists generally don't seem to be able to capture, which I find to be rather rare for anime; usually the fan art can come pretty close, but for Hellsing Ultimate they just don't seem to be able to quite match it. The detailed animations for Alucard releasing is powers and using them is lovely. It just holds and eerie tinge to it that is very uniquely Hellsing.

That's about ... where Hellsing Ultimate's strongest points end. Beside being a fun rush of blood, fights and explosions(for which I give pure entertainment value an 8). From a story telling and mood setting perspective, it was pretty poorly done on all accounts.



Characters and Story: 4

There was a lot of potential to build on and build up, which was thrown to the winds. Most of the characters have enough screen time and potential for their relationships and stories to have had an impact, but most of what we get with them is long monologues/dialogues that really strain to try and build up the mystery of the enemy or Alucard's character. Seras Victoria, for example, is just barely addressed and while we do know why she ended up as she did, it was done with such little ceremony or care by the character herself that it only served as a footnote summary of her life. Integra and Walter are much the same, giving the audience the essential information, but little sense of the worth of the information in relation to the characters and why they interact with other characters as they do.
With all of that said, if you focus on Alucard's story alone (which I'm left to assume we're supposed to exclusively, it was very well done. We are given a full sense of Alucard's being, a glimpse into the life of an immortal and a monster, his motivations and fears, his hopes and humanity. However, it takes until the end of the series to get the full picture.

They also attempt to throw in parts that can only be seen as attempts at humor, with goofy animations, however these scenes are neither funny nor amusing, they add nothing to the show, characters, or story and serve only to be an irritating break that nobody needed.


Sound: 6
Most of the sound was adequate, nothing to note in particular one way or another.
This however went out the window when they started trying to put scenes to music sitting in the foreground. The selections we are given to listen to are...questionable at best; failing to feel appropriate at all, much less set the mood or pace of the scene. There are at least two points that go on for minutes I could say are actually grating and cringe-worthy.



Overall: 6
Despite its flaws, Hellsing Ultimate is an acceptably watchable anime. It's mostly very lively and high octane fun, much like a 90s action flick. But outside of art direction, there is nothing particularly amazing about this show. Very enjoyable, but also overrated.

I'm still new to this whole anime thing [coughs in boomer], but I can at least dissect what makes a good production. Unfortunately for my journey into this medium, Hellsing was a big hit-or-miss experience.

Visually it's outstanding. Leering glow-eyes and menacing smiles permeate every character's expression pretty much at all times and it sets the atmosphere very well. Everything is suitably dark and moody--at least before the rivers of blood start erupting from every available vein. I did have some trouble with hearing dialogue at certain points over the music, but I don't know whether this is an inherent issue, something with my 7.1 headphones, ... or just the particular version I watched.

My big gripe with Hellsing is the pacing of the second half. The final two episodes specifically are 90% "le ebin evil speeches" which drag on for an eternity, to the point I just went over to a different tab while half-listening to the same crap the characters have been repeating ad nauseam. Towards the beginning of Hellsing I appreciated the lengthy diatribes and thought it lent a dramatic flair, but they just kept happening and happening...and happening. I hated the Major not because of any nefarious plan or masterful characterizations, but because he just didn't shut his stupid mouth. Like, ever. Alucard is barely better, and even minor characters just keep talking and talking and talking.

If Hellsing was a 7- or 8-part series with 75% of the soliloquies removed I think it would have been tremendous. But all the cool side characters or Nazi vampire vs. hunters vs. the Vatican plots couldn't save my enjoyment.