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12 people found this review helpful
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10 of 10 episodes seen
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Hellsing Ultimate is defined by its style and the Rule of Cool. It's brilliantly action-packed and gory, and when you take it this way, it's incredibly enjoyable brainless fun. Best watched on full moon nights so you can go outside and stare at the reddish moon while decompressing from a long episode.
The OVA adaptation does everything it's supposed to, and IMO obsoletes the TV anime and the manga - when it comes to showing action and fights, manga simply isn't the right medium to use. (The OVA doesn't quite outperform when it comes to the comedic sections used for breaks from the dire action; manga does comedy very well.)
When we point to the OVA's strong points, we can refer to the animation in fights and explosive scenes. Most are done well, and with enough diversity in angles, weapons, and effects that one could conceivably marathon _Hellsing Ultimate_ without growing disgusted and bored. Even when it differs from the manga's visual approaches, it's not necessarily inferior. (For example, in the final London sequences, I recall the manga showing Alucard's 'fortress' in some extremely striking static black-and-white compositions; the OVA does nothing similar, but we do get CGI'd blood-rivers with zombiefied soldiers which are disgusting and striking in their own right.)
The music is no slough either, with many pieces that set the mood and further help the style with tons of random shallow Christianity references.
All in all, a very satisfactory OVA indeed.
You'll notice what I didn't mention: the plot, the characters, or the worldbuilding. I didn't mention them because fundamentally they're irrelevant to why _Hellsing Ultimate_ is so great: what counts is what's *awesome-cool*, not whether the world makes a lick of sense or whether the plot conveys any message or whether any characters feel real.
But I might as well say something about those parts...
The worldbuilding is completely broken and doesn't make a bit of sense, and there are constant aspects that make one go "huh?" - Alucard turning into delicious loli, the Crusaders dressing up like Ku Klux Klanners, Alucard's original defeat (how was it possible when he can single-handedly eat London?), how one becomes a vampire (licking some blood on the ground is no mythos I've ever heard of), where random characters' powers come from like Anderson (why does the Vatican have only one 'Regenerator'? What *is* a Regenerator anyway, Alucard regenerates because he's eaten lives but that doesn't work for Anderson, and while we're at it what the deuce is Walter supposed to be/do‽), lack of use of suicide explosives (Iscariot's commonsensical use of them merely raises the question why they aren't a standard precaution when fighting hordes of the dead), Major's gibberish speeches (quick, can you explain the difference between a 'dog', a 'human', and a 'monster'?), Walter's completely unmotivated betrayal (he had the hots for girl-Alucard? I don't even), the lord's failure to notice Walter's failure to protect Integra (hey, if you warned the butler Walter to protect Integrate, wouldn't it strike you as a *little* odd that she got shot?), why other vampires never have servants or voices in their head despite sucking tons of people's blood (?), the last-minute info dump on Mina Harkner (where did that come from? why did the mangaka feel the need to dump that in there?), the Schrodinger deus ex machina (it's not good plotting when the climax is completely and utterly unpredictable an episode before it happens, or heck, the minute before it happens and the Major explains the plan), how can Integra claim to be a human who kills monsters when her monster servants kill 99.9% of the other monsters... These are just the parts I remember, I'm sure one could come up with dozens more if one took notes while watching the series. I will admit that there are some nice touches tying in Vlad Tepes, the Turks, impalement, and the plot of Bram's _Dracula_ particularly with the derelict ship.
The characters are cardboard. Alucard doesn't change, Integra just chomps cigars (the first time Alucard tests Integra's resolve and is told "search and destroy!", it's cool and feels like you learned something about Integra; the fifth time, not so much), Seras changes a little bit in learning to drink blood and kill (not that she seems much different in the epilogue), characters are not given any kind of real background (the asspull involving Walter has been mentioned, but what about the werewolf? the Major? Anderson?), Maxwell descends into cackling idiocy with no better explanation than 'he's drunk on power', etc.
The plot is bizarre. So a bunch of vampires led by a mechanical-clockwork man flee to South America to plan their assault on England in the service of defeating one particular vampire, succeed in doing so via some technogibberish named Schrodinger, and it fails and the vampire survives to return 30 years later. Uh, OK... What was the point of all that, exactly? Heck if I know. I paid close attention to the Major's constant speechifying, trying to glean the ideas being espoused by this obvious authorial mouthpiece, but failed entirely. Something about monsters wanting to die and humans killing them out of duty, or something.
The OVA adaptation does everything it's supposed to, and IMO obsoletes the TV anime and the manga - when it comes to showing action and fights, manga simply isn't the right medium to use. (The OVA doesn't quite outperform when it comes to the comedic sections used for breaks from the dire action; manga does comedy very well.)
When we point to the OVA's strong points, we can refer to the animation in fights and explosive scenes. Most are done well, and with enough diversity in angles, weapons, and effects that one could conceivably marathon _Hellsing Ultimate_ without growing disgusted and bored. Even when it differs from the manga's visual approaches, it's not necessarily inferior. (For example, in the final London sequences, I recall the manga showing Alucard's 'fortress' in some extremely striking static black-and-white compositions; the OVA does nothing similar, but we do get CGI'd blood-rivers with zombiefied soldiers which are disgusting and striking in their own right.)
The music is no slough either, with many pieces that set the mood and further help the style with tons of random shallow Christianity references.
All in all, a very satisfactory OVA indeed.
You'll notice what I didn't mention: the plot, the characters, or the worldbuilding. I didn't mention them because fundamentally they're irrelevant to why _Hellsing Ultimate_ is so great: what counts is what's *awesome-cool*, not whether the world makes a lick of sense or whether the plot conveys any message or whether any characters feel real.
But I might as well say something about those parts...
The worldbuilding is completely broken and doesn't make a bit of sense, and there are constant aspects that make one go "huh?" - Alucard turning into delicious loli, the Crusaders dressing up like Ku Klux Klanners, Alucard's original defeat (how was it possible when he can single-handedly eat London?), how one becomes a vampire (licking some blood on the ground is no mythos I've ever heard of), where random characters' powers come from like Anderson (why does the Vatican have only one 'Regenerator'? What *is* a Regenerator anyway, Alucard regenerates because he's eaten lives but that doesn't work for Anderson, and while we're at it what the deuce is Walter supposed to be/do‽), lack of use of suicide explosives (Iscariot's commonsensical use of them merely raises the question why they aren't a standard precaution when fighting hordes of the dead), Major's gibberish speeches (quick, can you explain the difference between a 'dog', a 'human', and a 'monster'?), Walter's completely unmotivated betrayal (he had the hots for girl-Alucard? I don't even), the lord's failure to notice Walter's failure to protect Integra (hey, if you warned the butler Walter to protect Integrate, wouldn't it strike you as a *little* odd that she got shot?), why other vampires never have servants or voices in their head despite sucking tons of people's blood (?), the last-minute info dump on Mina Harkner (where did that come from? why did the mangaka feel the need to dump that in there?), the Schrodinger deus ex machina (it's not good plotting when the climax is completely and utterly unpredictable an episode before it happens, or heck, the minute before it happens and the Major explains the plan), how can Integra claim to be a human who kills monsters when her monster servants kill 99.9% of the other monsters... These are just the parts I remember, I'm sure one could come up with dozens more if one took notes while watching the series. I will admit that there are some nice touches tying in Vlad Tepes, the Turks, impalement, and the plot of Bram's _Dracula_ particularly with the derelict ship.
The characters are cardboard. Alucard doesn't change, Integra just chomps cigars (the first time Alucard tests Integra's resolve and is told "search and destroy!", it's cool and feels like you learned something about Integra; the fifth time, not so much), Seras changes a little bit in learning to drink blood and kill (not that she seems much different in the epilogue), characters are not given any kind of real background (the asspull involving Walter has been mentioned, but what about the werewolf? the Major? Anderson?), Maxwell descends into cackling idiocy with no better explanation than 'he's drunk on power', etc.
The plot is bizarre. So a bunch of vampires led by a mechanical-clockwork man flee to South America to plan their assault on England in the service of defeating one particular vampire, succeed in doing so via some technogibberish named Schrodinger, and it fails and the vampire survives to return 30 years later. Uh, OK... What was the point of all that, exactly? Heck if I know. I paid close attention to the Major's constant speechifying, trying to glean the ideas being espoused by this obvious authorial mouthpiece, but failed entirely. Something about monsters wanting to die and humans killing them out of duty, or something.