Hello everyone, this week I wrap up my month of horror manga reviews by looking at one of the most well known horror themed series around, Hellsing. Hellsing is the creation of Kouta Hirano, and no, I don’t mean the Kota Hirano from Highschool of the Dead, the first series I looked at this month. The series follows the titular Hellsing, an organization created by Bram Stoker’s Abraham Van Helsing, in their battles against the creatures of the night. Under Hellsing’s command are Walter C. Dornez, an aged expert user of razor wires, and the vampire Alucard, who is not too secretly Dracula himself. Hellsing is headed by one of Abraham Van Helsing’s descendants, Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, who despite the title of “Sir”, is actually a woman.
Could have fooled me.
On a mission to hunt down a priest who was turned into a vampire, Alucard comes across the priest about to turn a young police woman named Seras Victoria into a ghoul. After Alucard dispatches of the priest’s nearby ghouls, the priest uses Seras as a human shield, thinking Alucard wouldn’t shoot through her. Alucard responds by asking Seras if she was a virgin, and after repeating the question a few more times, Seras tells him that she is a virgin, and Alucard proceeds to shoot through her.
Well . . . this is awkward.
Alucard then finishes off the priest and walks up to a dying Seras and turns her into a vampire. Back at the Hellsing headquarters, Alucard begins training Seras in the use of her new abilities as a vampire, such as how to shoot a gun on instinct, instead of aiming like a human. This particular ability comes to a head on a mission where Seras and Alucard are sent after a vampire couple who are murdering families for a ritual. Alucard easily dispatches of the male vampire, but the female vampire makes a run for it and it is up to Seras to kill her by accurately shooting her in the heart from over 5600 meters away with a rifle that has no scope.
Obviously she missed.
The next mission that Alucard and Seras are sent on is in the town of Patrick in Northern Ireland. The building their mission takes place in is overran with ghouls, meaning their target is yet another vampire. In the process of taking out the ghouls, Seras runs out of ammo, so she proceeds to pummel the remaining ghouls to death in a fit of blood rage. As Seras begins to lustfully lick the blood from the ghouls off of her hand, out of nowhere a bayonet is thrusted through her neck.
Looks like Seras got the point.
Several more bayonets are thrusted into her back and we see that her assailant is Father Alexander Anderson, a member of the Vatican’s own monster hunting organization, Vatican Section XIII, also titled Iscariot, after the apostle who betrayed Jesus Christ. Anderson was sent to take out the same vampire Alucard and Seras was sent to deal with because the vampire was in Ireland, a Catholic location, and Hellsing works under Protestant ideals. Anderson retreats after a lengthy fight with Alucard and the appearance of Integra to intervene with the fight.
As the series advances, we learn that the source of all of these recently created vampires that Alucard and Seras have been fighting is Millennium, a sect of the Nazi party that hid away in Brazil for over 50 years that uses supernatural creatures such vampires, werewolves, and a catboy named Schrodinger that can be everywhere and nowhere at the same time. Hellsing fights the forces of Millennium for the rest of the series, during which Seras has the recurring conflict of giving up what is left of her humanity and embracing her vampirism.
Hellsing lasts for 95 chapters, which have been broken up into 10 tankobon volumes and has been published in North America by Dark Horse Comics. There is also a prequel series called Hellsing: The Dawn that covers Alucard and Walter fighting Millennium back in World War II in which Alucard oddly takes on the form of a 14 year old girl. This form has been dubbed by fans “Girlycard”. Hellsing has also spawned two anime series, the first is a 13 episode anime that diverges from the story of the manga about halfway through the anime, and the other is Hellsing Ultimate, a 10 episode OVA that is a much more faithful adaptation of the series.
Interestingly enough, a good majority of the named characters in Hellsing weren’t created for Hellsing. Kouta Hirano use to create hentai manga and several characters from Hellsing made their first appearance, in some form, back in these hentai works of Hirano’s.
I really like Hellsing. It is an entertaining series, albeit a very gory one, though not as gory as many of the other series I have covered. I’ll admit that my first exposure to Hellsing was the first anime series, but after reading the manga, if there is one way to experience this franchise, the manga is the way to go hands down.