This was the first anime series I ever saw, well, not counting the dubbed stuff like DBZ I'd seen before. I'm left with an irrational fear that even though this is my favorite anime, something better might eventually come along. Well, that's not too likely, although some come close, at least in certain aspects.
Ok, nothing short of an episode guide would ever do this awesome show justice. So, for your viewing pleasure, I'll go episode-by-episode and review this awesome anime.
Order 01 - The Undead
This episode introduces the three main characters. In order of appearance:
Integral Hellsing - A tough, independant woman who runs the Hellsing Institution. Inherited the job, and the title, from her father. This is why she is sometimes called "Sir Integral Hellsing." She doesn't work in the field, but is still capable of defending herself if the occasion calls for it.
Alucard - The main character of the series, Alucard is a vampire who puts most other anime heroes to shame. From the first frame he's in and the first line he says you know this guy's gonna kick butt. He not only rules with his special sanctified "Casull 454" but also has special vampiric powers. Unlike most vampires on the show, he's a "true" vampire, and is ancient.
Celes Victoria - Beats the me how you spell her first name, as accounts differ. Victoria used to be a combat medic for a special forces team until they all got turned into zombies.
The first episode is pretty basic. The villain in the episode is the pastor of the Chedars parish, who has been turned into a vampire and has turned the local population into ghouls (when you suck the blood out of someone but don't put back some of your own blood, they become ghouls, instead of vice versa like in Vampire: the Masquerade). Along the way Victoria is faced with the dilemma that'll haunt her for a while: what to do when her squad-mates are turned into ghouls. This time, the answer is "shoot one guy once, then run." She runs into Alucard, who's been sent in by Hellsing institution to fix the mess. She tries to shoot him, but he regenerates the wound and she panics and runs.
Then it's time for the butt-kicking to begin. Alucard shows up at the church where the pastor has Celes and is preparing to make her into a vampire. Alucard gets attacked by a whole mess o' ghouls and blows them apart, along with throwing around some nifty regenerative powers. He then kills the pastor by putting a bullet through Victoria's chest and into the pastor's heart (even though he could have probably hit the pastor in the head, but hey, this works out.) He then turns Celes into a vampire (big surprise) to save her life.
On an unrelated note, this episode has my favorite line of fansubbing Engrish: after Alucard has turned Celes, Hellsing tells him "Don't do selfish things." Hee.
Order 02 - Club M
Someone once told me to beware the canned laughter in this episode. Yes, it's bad, but unlike what this person seemed to think, it doesn't really ruin the episode.
This episode deals with two new "FREAK" vampires (vampires made with the FREAK computer chip). If I'm not mistaken this is also Walter's first episode, soooo...
Walter kum Dorne - The steward of the Hellsing family, Walter is infinitely patient. He used to be a field agent, but he gave that up to become Integral's bodyguard. Unfortunately in the anime he only gets a single fight scene, and it's not in this episode so I'll just shut up about it.
Anyway, all that this episode deals with is those two FREAK vampires, nicknamed Bonnie and Clyde, running around killing people, then getting wasted by Celes and Alucard. We see more of Alucard's awesome abilities, and Celes, who doesn't want to shoot a ghoul in the beginning of the episode, gets over her fear of killing to kill the female vampire later on in the episode.
Order 03 - Sword Dancer
Hellsing goes from good to better in this episode. There is a character so cool in this show that he only shows up in two episodes (three if you count a cameo that's about 10 seconds long), but he's still one of the most talked-about and best-loved characters on the show.
Father Alexander Anderson - An insane and insanely cool priest who fights using blessed swords. He's basically the one character on the show who can approach Alucard in coolness, and therefore is the one character who probably poses the biggest threat to his life (or unlife). But my ranting can't possibly capture how cool he is. He represents the Catholic church, when most other characters are Anglican.
Anyway, the plot of the episode (which, like so many other plots, only exists to throw together cool characters, let them fight, and advance the main plot). A gay pair of private school students tried to become vampires, but only one of them made it. He's caught and is thrown into a morgue with his FREAK chip removed. Because he's from Italy, Rome sends a special task force (no prizes for guessing who) to pick up the body. However, the body gets loose and kills a bunch of people in the morgue, so Hellsing is sent in to dispose of it. Celes is once again confronted with the task of killing her own teammates when they're turned into ghouls, but actually does it this time. Then a sword flies out of nowhere and kills Captain Galice, the last human survivor of Celes's team. Celes can't believe it and gets up to see where the sword came from, only to be zapped in the throat by another sword.
Surprise, surprise, it's Alexander Anderson, and he's decided to not only kill the vampire he came for, but these other vampires as well. Captain Galice apparently was just in the way, so he had to go. Alucard shows up just before Anderson kills the vampire-corpse and kills it himself. They then face off. At this point Anderson shows off his cool ability to nullify some of Alucard's powers by tacking up blessed pieces of paper on the walls. Anyway, this fight scene is totally wicked because it's the two coolest characters of the show going head-to-head. They end up with Anderson stabbing a pair of swords in Alucard while Alucard has the barrel of his Casull 454 against Anderson's head. Alucard says "Fall into the pits of hell by a bullet shot by a bloodsucker," and shoots Anderson in the forehead.
As he turns to take care of the sword in Celes's throat, Anderson gets back up and pincushions Alucard full of swords. Anderson, you see, is a regenerator, meaning he can regrow lost body parts and keep fighting. Most excellent. They face off, Alucard ready to fill Anderson so full of holes he can't possibly regenerate, and Anderson ready to fill Alucard with even more swords. Then Hellsing shows up and breaks up the boys' fun by relaying to Anderson an archbishop's summons to get out. Anderson isn't too pleased about this, but he leaves with some appropriate threats. The episode ends with Alucard revealing to Celes that she won't be truly free until she drinks some of his blood by her own choice. She can't get herself to do this, however, since she hasn't drank any blood since becoming a vampire anyway.
Order 04 - Innocent as a Human
Episode summary: Celes finally drinks blood.
Longer episode summary: This episode deals with leaks in Hellsing who have been making the institution's actions known to the world over the Internet. The person who is responsible turns out to be Victoria's new captain, working with a newscaster girl who was attacked by the ghoul Victoria couldn't kill in Episode Two. Hellsing is pissed off about how the organization is being shown to the world, but Alucard, Victoria, and Hellsing herself manage to shut down the leaks. Celes watches Alucard as he drinks the newscaster's blood, then goes home and drinks up the medical blood that was prepared for her... finally. Oh, and along the way is a vampire who shows himself drinking blood on live TV and gets taken out by Alucard for his efforts.
Order 05 - Brotherhood
The first part of the "attack on Hellsing" episodes, this episode introduces the Valentine brothers, two vampires who seem to be tougher and more important than the weenie vampires who have been beat up before. They get together an army of ghouls and break into Hellsing mansion, killing all the opposition and moving their way up the floors. At the end of the episode, Fergusson, the old bald dude who commands the Hellsing forces, seems to get shot to death.
Order 06 - Dead Zone
No wait, Fergusson wasn't killed, only wounded. Celes comes in and saves him after shooting up Yan, the potty-mouthed Valentine brother with tons of metal in his face. Then we see Alucard fight the other Valentine brother, who claims to be a true vampire like Alucard. Well, he's better than the others were, but when Alucard actually believes his claim to be a true vampire and releases more of his abilities, he gets destroyed super fast. Meanwhile Victoria and Walter go fight Yan and his army of ghouls. Walter shows off his very cool ability to pull strings out of the air and use them to chop people up. In this case, he slices through a ton of ghouls, proving why he was called "The Angel of Death." Victoria gets a chance to show off her new gun by killing the ghouls once Yan re-summons them. Did I forget to mention that Alucard and Victoria got new guns? Well they did. Anyway, Yan tries to run away when he sees how brutally effective the new gun is, but Walter snags him around the elbow with a string. Yan chooses to tear off his own arm to escape. Meanwhile Celes gets attacked by Hellsing ghouls, and yet again she has trouble killing them until one of them drools on her and she frenzies, breaking them like so many bad habits?. Then Yan shows up outside the Round Table (all the major English legal organizations, who were meeting in the Hellsing mansion) and tries to kill Hellsing. But she fills his face full of special bullets, and demands to know who made him. Instead of telling her he chooses to self-immolate.
Order 07 - Duel
There's a quasi-plot in here about the Hellsing guys chasing a vampire to a subway station, but that's just there so Anderson and Alucard can meet again. That's right, this is Alexander Anderson's other episode. He shows up on the train just as Victoria and some Hellsing troops meet up with the vampire and the ghouls. Anderson kills the vampire and ghouls so quickly it took me a few watchings to figure out why one of them gets hit by so many more swords than the others (because he's the vampire). Meanwhile Integral meets with some Vatican guys who came to England when they heard about the attack on Hellsing mansion. The Vatican guy tells Hellsing that Anderson has Victoria and is waiting for Alucard. Surely enough, Victoria's about to get killed by the priest, but naturally Alucard shows up in the nick of time and we get another excellent Alucard/Anderson fight scene. But first, back to Hellsing and the Vatican guy. The Vatican guy insults Hellsing and says she can't do her job, calling her a England's female swine. Well Alucard shows up with a gun pointed at the guy, and he all but fills his trousers at the sight. Hellsing doesn't let Alucard kill the guy though, so Alucard goes off to fight Anderson. Now the fight scene. Unfortunately this episode has some lapses in animation, and that shows up once or twice in the fight. Despite this it's still a nifty scene. At one point we're treated to the "toilet paper attack" of Anderson, which I guess is supposed to be some kind of blessed Bible that Anderson uses to restrain Alucard. During the fight Alucard shoots off both Anderson's arms, but the priest still tries to kill the vampire by picking up a sword in his teeth. Then when he realizes he's beaten he disappears in a flurry of pages. What I don't get is why Anderson could regenerate most of his head in Episode Three but can't wait for two arms to regenerate in this episode. Oh well, it helps the episode end in time. The episode ends with Hellsing getting her own back at the Vatican guy by returning the insult now that his flunky's been beaten by Alucard.
Order 08 - Kill House
This episode is miserably bad. The animation inexplicably shifts for this one episode, and all the characters temporarily get new looks, all of which look like garbage. The episode deals with a FREAK chip plant being destroyed in China, and the appearance of a new vampire in England who looks like he might well be as powerful as Alucard. Alucard is just about beside himself with joy at the thought. In this episode we get some foreign language. In China they speak Chinese, and in a short shot of America we get to hear some English. Hey, just because the English in England speak Japanese doesn't mean we Americans have to, too. Anyway, this episode seriously made me worry about the quality of the future episodes.
Order 09 - Red Rose Vertigo
Even though the animation's back to normal, this episode is nothing to get your hopes up over. It deals with Integral's "sister" Laura coming to visit. Along the way it turns out the Integral has no sister, and this is naturally a vampire come to kill her. Walter gets mind-controlled and he flicks Celes's cheek with a single wire, the last combative use of the power that we see. The Laura vampire starts to suck Hellsing's blood (through her breast, for some reason), but Alucard shows up in time to save the day. Realizing that she's been impurified by the vampire, Hellsing shoots herself. If the last episode made me worry about the show's future, this one definitely didn't do much to help.
Order 10 - Master of Monster
Thankfully, this episode came along and saved my opinion of the show. It's the last good episode, and I think it's the third best, coming in behind the two Anderson episodes. It deals with Integral's first meeting with Alucard.
The premise of the episode is that Integral is in critical condition, getting operated on to get rid of the vampire's taint and replace her blood. Integral meanwhile is flashing back to her childhood when her father died and left the Hellsing Institution to her. Her uncle, however, wanted the institution to himself, and decided to kill her for it. She was told by her father that if she were ever in trouble she should go to the basement. "There is something there that will protect you." Sure enough, she makes it down there and lo and behold, it's Alucard, sporting an earlier look. He's not wearing his usual coat, hat, and shades, but is instead tied to the floor and wall in a sort of straightjacket that shows off how long and thin his limbs really are. He's also got long hair, which looks pretty cool. Anyway, little Integral is running from her uncle and his stoogies, and gets to the room where Alucard is. Before she can free him she is shot by her uncle. The blood spatters over the floor and as the uncle prepares to finish Integral off, he stops as he hears lapping. Looking up he sees that Alucard, who he had assumed was dead, is bent over and drinking up the blood. As can be expected, the uncle and his cronies get duly perished and Integral shows off her independent pride, impressing Alucard and affirming her role as his master.
Episodes 11-13 Transcend Force, Totally Destruction, Hellfire
I'm not one hundred percent sure what's going on in these episodes, since the plot suddenly becomes very complicated. Well, maybe it always was and I just didn't notice. It deals with some sort of ceremony with the Queen getting moved around, then cancelled, then re-scheduled at a different location. It also deals with some new vampires, led by Incognito, the tough "real" vampire we've been seeing bits of in the last few episodes, including episode 11. Then in 12 Hellsing mansion is attacked again, and everything looks bleak as Alucard gets sliced to pieces by Incognito's "slicey purple stripes" attack. Episode 13 wraps it all up. Incognito summons an ancient devil, Shet, into his body, raping Integral in the process (which made me rather upset, lemme tell you.) Integral finally says that she gives permission for all of Alucard's abilitites to be used. For a moment it looks like Alucard's really dead and won't respond, but then the Alucard symbol shows up over Southern England and you see the multi-eyed dog from the intro sequence running along. You also see Anderson's cameo, as he looks up at the power shifting around the battlezone and grins. Then it's time for Incognito's clock to be punched, and with good measure: Alucard gets his gun broken, but then melts a cross and fires it into Incognito, impaling him. Because, after all, Alucard is Dracula backwards, and Dracula is Vlad the Impaler. You see for a second Alucard's face switching to Vlad's, then Incognito is nice enough to die.
The series ends with Alucard visiting Hellsing where she is being held. She has sort of rubber handcuffs on, but other than that appears to be living well, as we can guess from the banquet laid out before her. Alucard offers to turn her into a vampire, and she seems to accept. The end.
Quick thoughts:
The character of Incognito was made up entirely for the anime, to give Alucard something comparable to himself to fight. This might account for some of his lameness.
There's still no accounting for Episode Eight.
I saw on one web site that they're going to make another season of Hellsing as soon as the second manga's out. I don't want to get my hopes up, but it's too late for that. My hopes are definitely high that this will happen and we'll be treated to some more Hellsing.
Dark Horse comics has started releasing the Hellsing manga (that's kinda like a Japanese comic book that the anime is based on) in English. Must get manga...