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Fan Fact:

While the TV series of Hellsing was very popular, many people felt that the series deviated too far from the manga. It also, at times, was a bloody mess.

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HELLSING

IMPURE SOULS

Review by: Matthew Anderson

Company: Pioneer

Running Time: 75 minutes

Region: 1

Rating:R (Language, Graphic Violence, Sexual situations)

EXTERNAL EXAM

In England, a secret war is being waged between humans and vampires.

On the side of the humans is the Hellsing Organization, led by Sir Integral Winsgate Hellsing. Daughter of a great vampire hunter, she and her army fight a never ending battle with the creatures of the night.

Now, a new breed of vampire has appeared. Created by microchips imbedded under the skin, they are called "freaks" and their numbers are increasing.

However, the Hellsing has a secret weapon. A true vampire named Arucard. Armed with a longslide .45 and utilizing fantastic powers, he can succeed where others have failed.

Vampires are not the only problem Arucard and Hellsing Organization faces. The Vatican's Section 13 has send their own vampire killer, a blade wielding psycho named Andersong. Now with fake vampires everywhere, and Catholic killers interfering with their business, things can't get much worse.

Can they?

DVD VISION TEST

VIDEO: The transfer is fantastic. There are no pixels, wrinkles, or blemishes anywhere to be found. This is the benefit of digital based animation. Many of the technical errors of the past are nonexistent when you are transferring from a digital source to a digital medium.

AUDIO: The Japanese 2.0 audio track is pretty sharp and clear. It is also louder than the English dub 2.0 track. It has some directionality, but for the most part, its pretty center speaker based. Then English dub track has a higher pitch, and better directionality.

EDITS: None to the actual episodes. The clean animation is used with the opening and closing segment.

EXTRAS: For this volume, we get the clean animation, the "music video" trailer (subtitled), concept art, and a preview of an Arucard action figure.

WIDESCREEN REVIEW

STORY: The story is excellent. Scriptwriter Chiaki J. Konaka hot of the success of "Lain" and "The Big O" has written a series that will definitelybecome a cult classic. The plots are quite interesting with plenty of action to keep things from getting dull. Taking the tired vampire genre and making it seem fresh and new is a tough trick. Not to say that every episode is perfect (episode 3 is kind of hard to follow), but they do come close.

ACTING: The Japanese cast does a good job, but it is a little hard to adjust to a bunch of Brits speaking in Japanese. George Nakata is great as the cool, butt kicking Arcuard. Also, it is wonderful to hear Bubblegum Crisis star Yoshiko Sakakibara back in the realm of anime.

The English cast does a great job, with Crispin Freeman matching George Nakata's deep voice for Arucard. KT Gray is a better Seras Victoria than her Japanese contemporary. The entire cast does a great job at mastering the English accent (if they don't actually have one to begin with.)

Max Headroom fans might recognize the voice of Hellsing Army Chief Fargason. The actor is Morgan Sheppard, who played the character of Blank Reg in a few episodes of "Max Headroom".

FAN SERVICE: None to really speak of, except for shots of Seras in her tight uniform. No panty shots though.

FINAL EXAM

Vampire Anime. It's everywhere. From the cute Vampire Princess Miyu, to the beautiful Vampire Hunter D, you would think that there is nowhere else to go with this popular, but tired genre.

You would be wrong.

Hellsing is fantastic. It is well paced, excellently plotted, and a very fresh take on the vampires vs. humans anime.

What makes Hellsing so fresh is that they take the standard conventions of Vampires, and updates them. For those who may know the story of Dracula, on of the powers he has is the ability to turn into a mist. Arucard uses this power as a way for him to, literally, pull himself together. No stakes for this one. Hellsing uses bullets made from a melted down cross that can turn a vampire to dust with one shot to the heart. As far as vampire slaves, the vampires in "Hellsing" turn their victims into Ghouls, undead zombies that eat everything they can find.

Another interesting addition is the new type of chipped humans. These bio-chips have the ability to turn normal people into vampires, which has the potential of causing an epidemic. This is the one thing that Hellsing and the British Government are terrified of. That and the whole Catholics with knives thing.

The blend of CG and traditional animation looks great. The characters move with fluid motion, and the trademark Gonzo "shatterwave" look is there in every fight. The colors are perfect, and there are no blemishes or errors.

This anime is one of those that can cross boundaries. Fans of movies ("Blade" and "Razor Blade Smile") or TV series ("Ultraviolet"and "X-Files") that feature vampires can really get into this series. It's stories and sharp dialogue really show that you don't need to do everything live action. What also helps is the fact that the voice acting on both ends is fantastic. Even those who prefer Japanese tracks will find nothing wrong with the English dub.

Personally, when I am working on a project, I prefer the English track. The only real down part of this series is the fact there is only three episodes per disc. Since this is a Pioneer release, this is not a big surprise. The extras make up for the short running time.

Overall, I strongly recommend"Hellsing" for everyone. The acting, writing, animation and the disc itself are almost perfect. This is one that should be a major part of your collection.

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