Hellsing Review
Feb. 5th, 2006 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
skysailorI just finished the "Hellsing" anime last night, and I must say, it's one of my favorite series to date. It has a funky, artistic style, and I think to understand it entirely you have to run through the whole series at least twice (which I haven't done yet). Serious battle scenes and views of horrifying mass murders are coupled with loose jazz music and, in one case, a demonically clowny children-type song. There's also, in places, some nice Spanish guitar mixed in with Japanese singing that sounds like the Backstreet Boys, and a German trance/rock remix of the Lord's Prayer.
The biggest problem? Well, it's confusing. You can sit through the whole series and not entirely get all or even most of it. There's apparently random scenes at the beginning of several episodes, and dreams that you don't know are dreams until everything gets weird - and even then you're not sure. Unlike the Hellsing manga, the "rules" for the vampires in the anime series aren't very well-defined, and you see apparently contradictory things like Integra saying vampires can't be out in sunlight and Victoria wandering around in the full bright for a couple of episodes in a row (granted, it DOES take place in England, and it's so cloudy and dim there maybe that's the reason).
But if there's something that Hellsing does well, apart from its awesome action scenes, creepy villains, sense of color, and delightfully offbeat style, it's characterization. The characterization in this series is amazing. I have never seen such a smooth yet total development of character as I have in this series, in regards to Ceres Victoria. She changes completely as a character over the course of 13 episodes, but it's so subtly done you barely notice it. While Alucard, what some might call the "main character", doesn't change much in the series, it's because he's already brilliantly developed, and the series shows off his complexity in place of developing it (which is fine by me because he's awesome... and psychotic). Sir Integra Hellsing, too, is well-characterized, and ends up doing a mix of characterization and demonstrating her already existing complications. Her odd sort of relationship with Alucard is fascinating to watch, and seeing her go all commandingly freaky-obsessive-psycho (which she does often) is great.
I would say that it's the characters you don't notice at first that really shine, but the fact is that everyone shines. Nonetheless, the "minor" characters are nearly as well-developed as the main ones ("nearly" because not as much time can be spent on their development). Ferguson, Walter, the random people Ceres works with... the only people that aren't really well-developed are the ghouls and the Council. And who knows, the Council could be well-developed and I just didn't pay enough attention to them the first time I went through the series.
Anyway, as long as you don't have a problem being confused, I definitely recommend this series. Oh, though if you have a problem with a ton of blood and some gore, maybe you shouldn't watch... every ep's a bloodbath, basically. But other than that, 'tis mighty good.
The biggest problem? Well, it's confusing. You can sit through the whole series and not entirely get all or even most of it. There's apparently random scenes at the beginning of several episodes, and dreams that you don't know are dreams until everything gets weird - and even then you're not sure. Unlike the Hellsing manga, the "rules" for the vampires in the anime series aren't very well-defined, and you see apparently contradictory things like Integra saying vampires can't be out in sunlight and Victoria wandering around in the full bright for a couple of episodes in a row (granted, it DOES take place in England, and it's so cloudy and dim there maybe that's the reason).
But if there's something that Hellsing does well, apart from its awesome action scenes, creepy villains, sense of color, and delightfully offbeat style, it's characterization. The characterization in this series is amazing. I have never seen such a smooth yet total development of character as I have in this series, in regards to Ceres Victoria. She changes completely as a character over the course of 13 episodes, but it's so subtly done you barely notice it. While Alucard, what some might call the "main character", doesn't change much in the series, it's because he's already brilliantly developed, and the series shows off his complexity in place of developing it (which is fine by me because he's awesome... and psychotic). Sir Integra Hellsing, too, is well-characterized, and ends up doing a mix of characterization and demonstrating her already existing complications. Her odd sort of relationship with Alucard is fascinating to watch, and seeing her go all commandingly freaky-obsessive-psycho (which she does often) is great.
I would say that it's the characters you don't notice at first that really shine, but the fact is that everyone shines. Nonetheless, the "minor" characters are nearly as well-developed as the main ones ("nearly" because not as much time can be spent on their development). Ferguson, Walter, the random people Ceres works with... the only people that aren't really well-developed are the ghouls and the Council. And who knows, the Council could be well-developed and I just didn't pay enough attention to them the first time I went through the series.
Anyway, as long as you don't have a problem being confused, I definitely recommend this series. Oh, though if you have a problem with a ton of blood and some gore, maybe you shouldn't watch... every ep's a bloodbath, basically. But other than that, 'tis mighty good.
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Date: 2006-02-05 09:02 pm (UTC)please don't kill me or get offended. T_T