Hellsing Ultimate

In one word I can describe Hellsing Ultimate and that word my friends is badass. There's been a recent thread in retaking old anime series and re-doing them in a more respective take with the manga and the original writers of that said manga. Before hand I thought that changing the story line a bit so a series it could personify itself apart from the manga was great. In that way you could please the original fanbase with a new adaptation all while pleasing another anime only fanbase, all in the same time interesting minds into the franchise, then theoretically can make more money this way with both sides wanting too see what differs and eventually bitch about it on the internet. Now, doing the only sane thing with the insensible bitching from the fans, original writers, companies not being able to milk the series anymore, a lot of series started getting revamp holding more light towards the manga. Now, I for one tottaly accept this, only when they make things of incredible quality like Hellsing Ultimate and there are a few others I could name. So in the wake of the crazy vampire craze going on and wanting to wash out the voices that told me that some vampires sparkle when in sunlight, I decided to start two new animes featuring vampires, first one Trinity Blood a mix of Trigun and the original Hellsing. And of course I started watching Hellsing Ultimate; one of the most visually interesting animated feature I ever saw.

First off, the first Hellsing anime iteration was good for what it wanted to be, an anime featuring a badass anti-hero taking blood and kicking ass. It's about the Hellsing organization; an organization that focuses on paranormal investig--well more or so extermination, complete extermination for the matter of fact. They have one ultimate weapon which is the vampire hunter Alucard, which he himself is a Vampire, which I would say is one of the most iconic anime characters ever. Another character is Seras Victoria, after an incident she is turned into a vampire from Alucard and she faces some human complications, blah blah blah, nobody cares, its like a vampire having teenaged angst. It didn't feature much of an interesting story really, each time they seemed to catch on something plot worthy the new character seemed to die or simply not important after the next twist (bend really). But what it did feature is pure concentrated badassery from Alucard, if anything everyone watched it simply to see if Alucard could beat his own awesomeness. They also created their own world and mythos behind vampires which is always irresistible for me.

Now they decided to revamp Hellsing, well because quite frankly the original series sucked ,besides Alucard, and maybe wanting to milk it out some more, also the original writer never liked the directions the production took on the anime, which is completely understandable. Furthermore, I'm always weary of people utilizing words like "ultimate", "epic", "super" without merit, kind of my pet peeves people blurting out epic at everything. Acting as my own Ultimate worthy deciderman (inventing words is fun), I pronounce Hellsing Ultimate to be worthy of wearing the title of Ultimate, extended episodes each 50 minutes long and totally new animations.

I'm currently watching the dubbed editions, and for one I prefer dubs, yes shocking, please don't hurt me you bunch of subtitle tyrants! I like anime just as much as you do and don't believe that I need to watch it in the original language that I don't understand! Anyways back on topic, for once they did a brilliant job at the dubbing, since it is set in Europe, mostly england, there's something very interesting in seeing all the different accents of the characters. The first protagonist we meet is Father Anderson a priest, and man that Irish accent for me personally added so much more to the character! I watched the original series in japanese so right there I couldn't tell or even know if there's such a thing of a Irish accent in Japanese. As for Alucard first encounter with Father Anderson, it started out with what I though would be a maniacal grin battle but it escalated into something so much more, all while retaining those awesome maniacal grins on their faces. Seriously now those accents give them all some more personality, even the guy who uses the phrase "First we'll kill you, then skull fuck you!" Sadly an accent isn't enough to save Seras Victoria from lamedom, she even manages to ruin the mood of the anime for some small bits, even her oversized boobs are enough to save her in my eyes, kinda tragic when I think about it.

My favorite part of Hellsing Ultimate is definitely the visuals, I've seriously never seen anything this cool anywhere else. If the series and characters and story don't interesting simply watch it for it pure style of it all. Stylized is a word I'll use to describe this show, because sincerly I don't know how to describe it, everything is hyper stylized and every characters seems to hold on to their respective camera angles, closeups and beyond. One particular scene really stood out for me, with was simple but oh-so-cool. Simple drop of blood fell and splatered and you quickly saw it rise upwards outside the screen view, I would gladly tell you the after effect, but revealing this simple visual effect feels like a complete spoiler for future audience. Incredible how I started describing this little visual treat and immediately thinking that it would spoil the experience for anyone wanting to watch it in the future. I'm telling anyone reading this, you must watch this series if not for story but for the sake of the visual and style of the series, some things in there I could only wish hollywood would at least attempt of recreating.

I'm only at two episodes and already it diverges form the original series with a great pacing, also hints of a nazi appearance? SOLD! (even if I was sold after the first few minutes). I'm not even finished and I'm highly recommending it to anyone out there!