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I just finished watching the original Hellsing series. (Not the one with the Nazi vampires, that would be Hellsing Ultimate, which I have yet to see).
Wow, that was trippy! Not as trippy as Revolutionary Girl Utena, quite. Some of the weirdness was, I am pretty sure, due to it being a Japanese take on European culture and religion. I mean, I finally figured out that the Hellsing types kept offering brief prayers to "God and the Queen, Amen" because in Japan, the monarch is considered divine. The crazy vampire hunting priest's signature move being stapling pages of scripture(?) to everything with silver knives is, I assume, based on Shinto/Buddhist anti-demon charms, which are strips of paper you attach to your walls.
The rest of the trippiness was because anime, of course. Horror anime. With really big guns. The protagonists really like their guns, when they aren't busting out the ninja moves.
As for Alucard... Sir Integra Hellsing does not have a "mere" B-movie vampire at her command, she has freaking Sauron, or the next best thing. And Sauron likes her. He's also fond of really big pistols and Seras "Police Girl" Victoria, the cute policewoman he "rescues" from death in the first episode. ("Rescues" == makes her into a mostly free-willed vampire). Seras seems to be the relatable character for the audience: she's more like a B-movie vampire, and she's almost as confused as the audience as to what the hell is going on. Unlike some cute girl anime protagonists, she actually grows some backbone over the course of the rather short series; I like her.
This first version of Hellsing manga-to-anime was rather short, only 13 episodes, vs, say, the neverending stories like Inu-Yasha or One Piece. One of these days, I'd like to see Hellsing Ultimate. Note that these are horror anime, which means blood, gore, body horror, bad language, and generally disturbing stuff everywhere.
Wow, that was trippy! Not as trippy as Revolutionary Girl Utena, quite. Some of the weirdness was, I am pretty sure, due to it being a Japanese take on European culture and religion. I mean, I finally figured out that the Hellsing types kept offering brief prayers to "God and the Queen, Amen" because in Japan, the monarch is considered divine. The crazy vampire hunting priest's signature move being stapling pages of scripture(?) to everything with silver knives is, I assume, based on Shinto/Buddhist anti-demon charms, which are strips of paper you attach to your walls.
The rest of the trippiness was because anime, of course. Horror anime. With really big guns. The protagonists really like their guns, when they aren't busting out the ninja moves.
As for Alucard... Sir Integra Hellsing does not have a "mere" B-movie vampire at her command, she has freaking Sauron, or the next best thing. And Sauron likes her. He's also fond of really big pistols and Seras "Police Girl" Victoria, the cute policewoman he "rescues" from death in the first episode. ("Rescues" == makes her into a mostly free-willed vampire). Seras seems to be the relatable character for the audience: she's more like a B-movie vampire, and she's almost as confused as the audience as to what the hell is going on. Unlike some cute girl anime protagonists, she actually grows some backbone over the course of the rather short series; I like her.
This first version of Hellsing manga-to-anime was rather short, only 13 episodes, vs, say, the neverending stories like Inu-Yasha or One Piece. One of these days, I'd like to see Hellsing Ultimate. Note that these are horror anime, which means blood, gore, body horror, bad language, and generally disturbing stuff everywhere.
