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.
