Salutations, traveler of The Internets! Welcome to William's Bloody Hell, so named after our founder, Sir Bloody William.
He is seen in the likeness above in a rare, 19th century woodcut. This
image was rumoured to have been
commissioned after a bout of unpleasantness
in the White Chapel district of London. Do enjoy your stay and peruse our many, varied offerings, much of which cannot be found elsewhere!
:: Hellsing ::
by William the Bloody
Welcome to the Hellsing organization. They covertly combat vampires, ghouls and undead freaks in the name of Her Majesty the Queen and God. Hellsing is run by the current heir of the Hellsing family and has been for a hundred years or so. The secret success of the organization lies with the employment of their very own vampire, Alucard. He is very old, fast, powerful and nigh impossible to kill; the perfect secret weapon to use against the unsuspecting undead.
A new breed of vampire has recently appeared on the scene: man made vampires. Unlike "true" vamps, these ones are NOT made from a Master vampire, but rather come about from the insertion of a microchip, thus artificially duplicating most vampire traits such as, speed, strength, blood drinking, regenerative abilities and seemingly immortality. Suddenly, the vamp population has risen drastically because of this innovation.
The series opens with an episode about a priest turned vampire who has nearly turned an entire town into mindless ghouls. A small police troupe investigate the scene, but are severely unprepared. By the time the Hellsing organization intervenes, the whole unit is also turned into ghouls, with the exception of one police girl, Victoria. She is trapped alone in a scenario she couldn't possibly have been trained for, against not only an entire village of flesh eating ghouls, but also her fallen comrades as well. Hellsing dispatches Alucard alone to deal with the situation, when he arrives, the priest has Victoria in his grasp, but now instead of feeding off her, the priest tries to use her as a bargaining chip to secure his own safety. Alucard gravely tells Victoria that he WILL shoot through her to kill the vampire priest, but that she needn't die. He could instead turn her into a true vampire, but the choice must be hers and of her own free will. She accepts and shortly, a large hole is fired into her and the vamp as well. He is dust, but she isn't so lucky. Alucard true to his word, turns her into a vampire right then and there. When the head of Hellsing, Integra Hellsing, shows up for him to make his report, he tells her of his success, and wants to give Victoria a job at the organization. Integra reluctantly agrees, and thus starts our show.
The Good: The animation is lovely. It's very stylized and dark, which gives the show a great mood. The characters are also great. They are each unique to themselves. Victoria's reluctant acceptance of what it means to be a vampire is a good watch. My favorite character, though, has to be Walter, Integra's personal butler, and retired Hellsing agent. His greatness really comes through when the organization is under attack and he must fight. He truly is elegant and deadly, and well earned his nickname "the Angel of Death." Also, the Vatican has a similar organization, and their chief agent made for some great fight scenes against Alucard. Alucard's firearms are very awesome. The incidental music was not what you'd typically hear in an anime series, and I really liked it. The English language voice actors were surprisingly good, especially since I normally loathe them.
The Bad: Unfortunately, this show did fall victim to cell reusing! BOO!! The idea of an organization created to fight vampires is not as unique as it once was, nor man made vamps. There was a slight continuity issue involving the deaths of vamps and ghouls. Most of them turned to dust, but some left corpses. What's up with THAT? Wouldn't they all die the same? And if not, it would just take one line of dialogue to explain it. The series was only about 13 episodes long and could have greatly benefited from a few more. It left way too many important things unanswered to the viewer, like who WAS manufacturing the vamp chips and why and who was the Judas that betrayed them? Instead the series caps it all with a writing on the screen that says the agency manufacturing the chips was caught and so was the Judas and they were punished. But WHO were they dammit! I was really hoping for a grand revelation and pay off that never came.
Overall, it was definitely fun to watch, especially if you like vampires and the related violence of vamp slaying. It has great use of shadow and a lovely dark mood. Action sequences took precedence over plot a little too much. The ending was a grave disappointment.
B
