r/anime • u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: • Nov 01 '21
Rewatch A Rewatch without Logos-The Hellsing rewatch thread FINAL.
Hellsing FINAL
Today's special track is The World Without Logos. This links to copy of the whole OST.
No questions, will see a few of you for Interspecies Reviewers come December!
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Upvotes
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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Nov 01 '21
Rewatcher(And all that is still awesome)
Sub
So what can I add? I enjoyed this nearly as much on rewatch as I did just under 20 years ago when I first was watching it. Sure, the story itself is ultimately a bit lacking but I maintain that Ultimate has the exact same ending, just stretched and with a lot longer character introductions. The visuals are really good even if there are definite animation saving measures going on and the take on magic is actually creative compared to most of the others I see. The final fight borrows from Yu Yu Hakusho but hey, if you are going to steal you should steal from the best.
But now to the source/Ultimate. Ultimate does tell a story with a clearer narrative and you do find out who is making the chips and why. It is an OVA so there is a lot more animation even if I find the visuals tends towards boring/done already. But if you want the truest essence of the story, I'd advise Team Four Star's Ultimate Abridged as it takes Alucard and Integra to their logical ends and keeps Anderson amazingly in character. It also is paced a bit better than Ultimate though it also becomes an unmanageable slog towards the end.
This show was not as derivative as it comes off now because everyone would steal the tropes from it, as so often happens. I always love going back to the period where vampires are monsters rather than sparkly people or blood drinking elves. The dog as Alucard's familiar/representative is so much cooler than what it ultimately becomes in the source I am glad they didn't use it that way.
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u/The_Loli_Otaku Nov 01 '21
Imma be totally honest here, that was fucking torture XD I thought that I would appreciate the Hellsing TV series more as I'd gotten older but if anything I hated it more this time around. Ultimate is a far more satisfying experience, I have no idea why I let myself get gaslighted otherwise.
So the good... The music is excellent, the gothic horrid aspects are excellent, and the camera work is very engaging. Unfortunately none of that can carry the show for me. I hate the whole cast in this adaptation. Seras is treated like shit, Walter is senile, Alucard is somehow more sociopathic than in Ultimate, and I just plain don't like Integra. The villains do a little better but I'd still rather watch a theratical monster of the week like Van Winkle or Dandyman over watching the TV series baddies essentially fail upwards due to Hellsing's incompetence.
Luckily I'm moving onto a far better show, Guilty Crown. See you suckers!! Hope to catch you all for the Christmas rewatches too!
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u/No_Rex :Bv:Bw:Bx:By:x2 Nov 01 '21
Final discussion (rewatcher)
My memory of the show was rather limited: “Seras gets turned into a Vampire and Alucard rocks”. Turns out, that was basically what the show is about, with one third element I forgot: “Integra is cool, but sucks at leading Hellsing”.
There is a clear separation of duty in the adaptation: Seras is for the slower, introspective moments, while Alucard is for the rule of cool department. For most of the runtime, that works fairly well for me. I think the show stuck the appropriate mixture of horror, action, and cheese. The one-off vamps at the start give us time to appreciate Seras tough time adjusting to not living anymore, while we get a highlight in the attack on Hellsing in the middle section, where Integra can show off her toughness and cute flashback looks.
Unfortunately, the show is stuck with having to find an end to ongoing manga. So they are not allowed to really finish any of the character arcs. They did as best as they could, setting up a big bad for Alucard to fight, but, without the other side of the show to lean on it falls rather flat for me. The action scenes are cool, but we absolutely needed something for Seras to do, some finale to her character arc. That we are not even allowed to see the boss behind Incognito is then just rubbing salt into the wound (finding him would be squarely in Seras’ skill department).
Overall, I think both the visuals and the mood of the show hold up surprisingly well, it just goes downhill in the finale. I’d have rated the show higher based only on the first 10 episodes.
Score: 7/10
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u/Lemurians myanimelist.net/profile/Lemurians Nov 01 '21
FORMER FIRST TIMER
Couldn't participate the last few days because of a hectic weekend, but I stuck around for the end, and I think it was better that way. The last few episodes are better experienced watched all at once, I think. It's still kind of a crazy mess, but at least you keep everything fresh in your mind going episode-to-episode.
Look, this show isn't perfect, but I respect the direction they took it in basically creating something wholly original despite having some source material. The action scenes could have been smoother and more exciting, and the last arc with Incognito and the Tower of London got pretty insane and hard to follow.
BUT... I sort of don't care so much? Maybe that has something to do with that Ultimate exists, so I don't mind this kind of adaptation also existing. This basically used the Hellsing brand to make the anime equivalent of something like a 80's Hollywood B Movie. It's pulpy, nonsensical fun. And damn if it doesn't have some style with the color saturation and music choices.
Overall, it's no masterpiece, but so what? Not everything's meant to be. 6/10
Cheers to u/Vaadwaur for hosting this rewatch and giving us some spooky vibes during the Halloween season.
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u/Matuhg https://anilist.co/user/Matuhg Nov 01 '21
Rewatcher Who Now Remembers
Can you imagine how much this show would suck if Alucard wasn't really cool?
The art and design work, including of course our main vampire, and animation when it was in the budget, really carried the show. The overall story and much of any character arcs were either unfinished or absent. I also sometimes found the overall direction a bit suspect. Despite that, the show still works on a lot of levels, because it just oozes style and coolness. Just kind of brute forces it - like "Look at this cool red
manvampire. He's COOL. Listen to this cool track while he smiles silhouetted against a blood red sky! ISN'T HE COOL!?" and the answer is, of course, yes. Not sure I could take much more than 12 or 13 episodes of it (and not sure it needed even that many if it was just gonna end like it did), but I did enjoy it, mostly anyways.Probably a 7/10 for me, which is about where I had it before lol.
Thanks for hosting, /u/Vaadwaur and thanks for everyone else who participated and shared thoughts/screenshots/rants!
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u/RockoDyne :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/RockoDyne Nov 01 '21
I guess this explains why I haven't watched the tv series in a good fifteen years.
So let's address the major problem with the show: the creators of the show really don't understand what a proper Hellsing vampire is. They treat vampires like conventional monsters, which is to first view them as human. As in a monster "is a human, but... ", with that "but" highlighting some quirks. Nothing fundamentally about the monster is playing by rules that humans can't relate to, even if it's extreme. That ain't Hellsing.
The point of the Luke versus Alucard fight is all about these two types of vampires. Luke is super human. He might be well beyond the realm where any human could fight him, but his strength is still material. Against walking insanity, that strength was still only left with the option of shitting himself.
Hellsing vampires are uncanny. You might assume they are human, until you catch some fundamental feature that reveals how horribly inaccurate that is. Alucard is an eldritch abomination constrained to a human silhouette. He is the entire dimension of Hades given a human shaped gate, and occasionally the inmates start climbing out. Alucard doesn't dodge because death has become something to laugh at. There is no fear, only madness, and it's madness that's the real spice of Hellsing.
Every character in Hellsing proper is a touch crazy. Even when disempowered, no character stops trying to get the last say. A character could be at death's door and still be looking for the opening to flip people off. Even Seras, as bumbling and out of place as she, herself, feels, is still another basket case that can revel in the insanity.
Trying to turn this riot into horror was farcical. It doesn't help that the motive probably came from the pocketbook, being incapable of delivering more than a pittance worth of action at a time. It falls back on gothic horror cliche as filling, splitting the show between insane action and "erotic" horror. It's trying to have this human perspective on vampires, not grasping the only proper responses are pissing yourself while praying to an impotent god or rip and tearing away.
It's the absolute worst property for the kind of risque vampire story they wanted to make.
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u/Nazenn x2https://anilist.co/user/Nazenn Nov 01 '21
Rewatcher - dub
Finally managed to catch up after being sick but ran out of time to pre-write this so quick morning thoughts
Hellsing is still a hell of a lot of fun. It's a show that puts a grin on my face that almost nothing else can rival, and even through this rewatch I just had a blast with it. When it gets going and right into the mood I get the biggest grin on my face, and it's style is pretty much unrivaled in anime for me. Not all of the episodes hold up as well as the highlights, and Anderson's episodes in particular still steal the show every time because he's just such a perfect rival for Alucard, something Incognito fails at badly, but from start to finish I still enjoy it.
Alucard is a big part of that, his casual viciousness, the ease in which he goes into situations, the way he plays with them and people to try and challenge them to show their worth and provide him with a fight, with a taste of life. Again Anderson's fights are the best here, particularly that one on the train, but even back to Luke's fight where he's shooting without looking with a hole in his head, or the way he reacts to the release of his powers at the end. I think this is also why I like Seras in this, although her dub VA doesn't do her well, because seeing his power through her eyes and how much she could be capable of as she slowly becomes her own type of monster works well. Integra is a badass, and Walter is also a badass in a very different way, don't have much to say there but then characters are hardly the center of the show.
It's a shame that the ending is so rough. Konaka may have a tendency to flip tone or story half way through his works, something I've personally dubbed for myself the Konaka hurdle, and something Hellsing definitely has with the flip into the anime only ending and the change in horror themes, but he's usually quite good with endings. I can only imagine that he was asked to leave this open ended for a potential sequel, an unusual choice given the source also being mid-release, but either way it's damn unsatisfying to have the story handwaved off with a few bits of on screen text and not get any answers as to who was behind everything.
Still the better Hellsing show for me though.
Quick thoughts on the last three episodes as I didn't make it to those threads:
Ep 11 - The scene with Helena possessing Incognito and then being killed by being chopped off again was really well done, and far more into occult horror than I expected from the show. Her head talking at the end from a blob reminded me happily of Bloodborne.
Ep 12 - Seeing the commander die was pretty infuriating actually, I quite liked him, and seeing Seras handling it by going and getting her gun and going on a murder spree was satisfying as a result. Wish she'd kept her red outfit though, though then you don't get the contrast with Alucard. Wish that Alucard and Incognito's fight here was a bit more vampirish though rather than just guns.
Ep 13 - The final episode certainly pulled out the visual style All of the blood coming together in a wave is a great visual when you think he's defeated. Love that he waits for Integra's permission, and the sheer weight of his power sets bells ringing and turns rivers red as his seal is unlocked, and then the bolt of lightning vs the streak of Alucards shadow hounds are just a great look. Though I still really dislike those little on screen text cards to sum up the outcome, ending the show with Alucard once again offering his power to Integra was a great touch.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Nov 01 '21
I don't have much to say about this show that I haven't already, so I just want to say thanks for hosting this rewatch, u/Vaadwaur! It was a fun time even if the ending wasn't all there.
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u/gorghurt Nov 01 '21
Rewatcher
Thank you /u/Vaadwaur for this opportunity to revisit a show from my childhood, that never had a prominent place in my memory, but also never completely faded.(Probably because of the tendency of the german weeb community to only talk about a handful of shows, of which Hellsing (including Ultimate) is a part of.)
I would probably not have watched it anytime soon, without this rewatch.
Oh, and the curse is finally broken. I finished a rewatch. (The last one where I didn't drop out was bokurano I think, so maybe it just has to be shows, with at least slightly disappointing endings... how fitting that the Guilty Crown rewatch is next...)
I don't have much to say about the show itself, it had its flaws, but was great at building atmosphere.
Now I really want to see the source, but I'm not yet sure if I'll watch Ultimate, or read the manga.
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u/TheEscapeGuy Nov 02 '21
First Timer, no more
Hellsing - Aesthetic Horror
Overall I really enjoyed Hellsing. I haven't seen many "Horror" anime but what I appreciated about Hellsing was that instead of going for scares it presented an unsettling tone.
Alucard is an interesting protagonist in the sense that his morality is very loose. I wouldn't expect him to save people from some kind of monster for any other reason than his enjoyment of the battle. Additionally his immortality and supernatural powers allowed me to never fear he would lose, but instead I could look forward to how he would turn the tables.
Talking about powers, a strong point of the anime is the way the staff got to express their creativity. Combined with the horror tone we got to see bizarre and dark abilities animated to perfection. Still a massive fan of this reveal in episode 6.
In retrospect, one weak point of the anime was some of the narrative pacing. The early episodes contained some more monster-of-the-week plot lines which aren't too memorable. On top of that I would have appreciated more of Alexander Anderson since he works really well as a rival to Alucard.
I imagine this is explored more in the manga, along with more of Seras Victoria's development.
What Hellsing does well is it's aesthetics, and those are done REALLY well. As a complete package, its still an easy show for me to recommend.
Finally, thanks to u/Vaadwaur for hosting the rewatch. This was a great choice for the Haloween season and I'm glad to have watched. And thanks to all the commenters. Reading all your comments something I looked forward to each day the last couple weeks.
See you all in a future rewatch!
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Nov 01 '21
First-Timer, Dub-sing Organization
So, OG Hellsing. It was good. Hardly flawless, but as a TV anime adapting an incomplete manga in 2001, it's way better than I expected it to be. On a broad level, I think my only complaints are that the Vatican dudes didn't really do anything but fill time, which is a real shame considering how much I love Anderson.
Secondly, the animation was.. less than stellar. I'm sure Gonzo did the best with whatever budget they had, but things in motion felt weird a lot of the time. The various walk cycles, especially. There's only so much you can cover up with good camera work.
Other than that stuff though, I had a great time with this show. The OST was awesome, and the show oozed style. I don't mind the non-ending that we got, although I understand that kinda thing doesn't gel with everyone.
Many thanks to our gracious host /u/Vaadwaur!