Hellsing

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Hellsing is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Kouta Hirano. Its central vampire is Alucard, the original and most powerful of his kind. He serves the family of the man who defeated him one hundred years before the story begins. That family leads a secret organization of its own.

  Who gives Alucard his orders, and who stands against him? How did Hirano's idea reach print, and how did it travel from the page to the screen? The answers start with the organization that gives the series its name.

  54

• 2. The Hellsing Organization

  ›

  The Royal Order of Protestant Knights, first led by Abraham Van Helsing, gives Hellsing its name. Its mission is to find and destroy the undead and other supernatural evil that threatens England. Today the order is led by Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing. She took over the role as a child, after she witnessed her father's murder. That event turned a kind, innocent young girl into a ruthless and determined woman, devoted entirely to her duty.

  Walter C. Dornez, the family butler, protects Integra faithfully and is a deadly fighter in his own right. Alucard guards her as well. Early in the story they gain a third protector, Seras Victoria, a former police officer. Alucard willingly turned her into a vampire to save her from certain death.

  Incidents involving the undead grow in scale and frequency, in England and around the world. Then Integra discovers that remnants of a Nazi group called Millennium still exist. They plan to revive Nazi Germany by creating a battalion of vampires. Millennium, Hellsing and the Vatican's section XIII Iscariot clash in an apocalyptic three-sided war in London. Millennium finally reveals its true goal, which is to destroy the vampire lord Alucard and end a feud that began during World War II.

  Hirano first imagined this setting for a very different kind of magazine.

  5267

• 3. From One-Shot to Series

  ›

  In 1996, Kouta Hirano published a one-shot called Hellsing: The Legends of Vampire Hunter in Comic Kairakuten. That magazine was issued by Wanimagazine and catered to hentai. Hirano later said he never meant to write in that genre. He had wanted a "somewhat daring" action story. He made the one-shot quickly, and his ongoing work in hentai helped it reach print.

  Hirano kept the setting, removed the erotic elements and built the idea into a new series. Because the premise was unconventional, he and the publisher Shōnen Gahōsha first tested how readers would respond. Hirano described the early result as "a little disjointed". Positive feedback then won the series approval for serialization.

  Gunplay was meant to sit at the center of the story, but Hirano felt a traditional vampire did not suit firearms. He gave Alucard a hat and a long coat instead. The new look made him "dark and ominous, but just more suited to his behavior". Hirano says character design comes before story for him.

  Seras Victoria came from a need for balance. Hirano wanted a female character who could bring warmth and stand out "from the darkness" of the series. The many references to history, mythology and pop culture did not come from formal research. Hirano calls himself an otaku who worked in elements from the media he loved most.

  Alucard's design drew comparisons to Vash the Stampede from Trigun, which ran in the same magazine, Young King OURs. Hirano came to regret adding the sunglasses.

  784910

• 4. Eleven Years in Print

  ›

  On the 30th of April 1997, Hellsing began its run in Young King OURs, a seinen manga magazine from Shōnen Gahōsha. The final chapter appeared on the 30th of September 2008. Across those eleven years Hirano produced 89 chapters. Shōnen Gahōsha gathered them into ten tankōbon volumes, released from the 24th of September 1998 to the 27th of March 2009.

  Dark Horse Comics licensed the series for English release in North America in 2003. Its ten volumes appeared from the 1st of December 2003 to the 19th of May 2010. In January 2020, Dark Horse announced a deluxe edition in three volumes, each running over 600 pages. Those volumes came out from the 15th of July 2020 to the 16th of June 2021.

  Chuang Yi licensed the series in English in Singapore. Madman Entertainment released it in Australia and New Zealand.

  The first three Japanese volumes also carried a bonus, a short side story that Hirano had written for a different publication.

  910111223

• 5. Side Stories

  ›

  Crossfire is a three-chapter one-shot that first appeared in a magazine from the now-defunct Hobby Japan. It follows Heinkel Wolfe and Yumie Takagi, a Catholic nun and an assassin who work for Iscariot. They call themselves "earthly agents of divine punishment". Alexander Anderson and Enrico Maxwell, the head of Iscariot, make cameo appearances.

  Over the three chapters, the pair face Islamic terrorists, communist revolutionaries and, finally, an obscure pagan cult. Hirano discontinued Crossfire as a side work, but it was republished as an extra in the first three volumes of Hellsing. It was also adapted into a drama CD, which was included with Hellsing Ultimate OVA 6 and 7.

  A prequel, Hellsing: The Dawn, ran for six chapters in Young King OURs Zōkan, from the March 2002 issue to the March 2006 issue. That magazine was later renamed Young King OURs+ before it ceased publication. The series remains incomplete.

  Its story takes place in September 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising. A fourteen-year-old Walter C. Dornez and Alucard, in the form of a young girl, attack Millennium's base of operations in Nazi-controlled Poland. The Dawn later reached viewers in a roundabout way. Each limited edition of the last three Hellsing Ultimate episodes included an episode of it.

  51724625

• 6. The Television Series

  ›

  Between the 11th of October 2001 and the 17th of January 2002, Fuji TV broadcast a thirteen-episode anime adaptation of the manga. Gonzo produced it. Yasunori Urata directed under the chief direction of Umanosuke Iida, and Chiaki J. Konaka wrote the scripts. The series uses the same characters and settings as the manga but tells a different story.

  Yasushi Ishii composed the music, including the opening theme. The ending theme was "Shine" by Mr. Big. Two soundtrack CDs followed in Japan. Raid was released on the 22nd of November 2001, and Ruins on the 22nd of February 2002. Both reached North America in 2003.

  Pioneer Entertainment, later Geneon USA, first licensed the series in North America. Four DVD sets appeared between the 23rd of July 2002 and the 21st of January 2003. Starting in October 2003, the series aired in the United States on Starz!'s Encore Action channel, in a late-night block called Animidnight. Funimation acquired it in 2010 and issued a complete DVD set on the 13th of November 2012.

  In the United Kingdom, ADV Films released four DVDs from the 21st of July 2003 to the 19th of January 2004. Manga Entertainment later licensed the series and put out a four-disc box set on the 12th of August 2013. Madman Entertainment handled Australia and New Zealand.

  But a different group of producers was already dreaming of a version that stayed closer to the manga.

  2829303137

• 7. Hellsing Ultimate

  ›

  In April 2005, an announcement revealed a second adaptation, Hellsing Ultimate, to be released by Geneon Entertainment. In Japan it is still known simply as Hellsing. Producer Yasuyuki Ueda, a fan of the manga, chose an original video animation format over a television series to escape time limits. He wanted to adapt the source thoroughly and believed the format offered more creative freedom. Writer Yōsuke Kuroda agreed to join him.

  Blending CG with traditional animation was slow work. Ueda noted, however, that the OVA schedule gave the team room to use CG for realistic weapons and gunfire.

  Three studios shared the ten episodes. Satelight animated the first four, directed by Tomokazu Tokoro, and released them from the 10th of February 2006 to the 22nd of February 2008. Madhouse animated episodes 5-7 under Hiroyuki Tanaka, released from November 2008 to December 2009. Graphinica animated the last three, directed by Yasuhiro Matsumura and Kenichi Suzuki, released from July 2011 to December 2012. Kuroda wrote every episode.

  Hayato Matsuo composed the music. Extra CDs came with limited editions, among them Warsaw Recording Selection, Nazi CD and Somehow, Iscariote. The original soundtrack, Black Dog, was released on the 21st of March 2008.

  Geneon released the first three episodes in North America from the 5th of December 2006 to the 16th of October 2007. Geneon then announced it would stop self-distribution in 2007. Funimation took over select Geneon titles in 2008 and later licensed the remaining episodes. Its Blu-ray set of all ten episodes arrived on the 4th of June 2019, after Adult Swim's Toonami block aired the series from the 13th of September to the 13th of December 2014.

  In 2022, Funimation was unified under the Crunchyroll brand, and both the television series and Hellsing Ultimate moved to that platform.

  3940545672

• 8. Reception

  ›

  Four million copies of the ten Hellsing volumes have sold worldwide. In 2005, volumes six and seven ranked among Diamond Comics Distributors' top 48 manga volumes sold in the United States. In November 2007, the ninth volume placed among the top 10 in Japan's monthly sales rankings.

  Critics noticed the graphic violence, the distinctive art and the darkly comic tone right away. Animerica said Hirano "does violence right". Publishers Weekly called the series "mostly a fun, violent romp" with "goofy details" that added charm. Sequential Tart found the violence repetitive, while AnimeOnDVD enjoyed the steady action and Alucard's blasé manner.

  Later volumes earned stronger praise for storytelling and character design. Anime News Network called Hirano's narrative craft "impeccable", and IGN declared it "the best vampire manga around", crediting its "seething wit". Some critics still found the plot derivative or too reliant on shock.

  The finale divided reviewers. Active Anime and PopCultureShock celebrated its relentless energy. Anime News Network criticized the rushed ending but still praised its "demented ultraviolence". Jason Thompson's Manga: The Complete Guide gave the series 3.5 out of 4 stars and called it a "masterpiece of fetishistic violence". His later retrospective praised its nihilistic vision as "sincere and original". Otaku USA, reviewing the first deluxe volume, admired Hirano's intricate art.

  In March 2021, Amazon Studios was announced as developing a live-action Hellsing film, with scripts by Derek Kolstad. He is among its producers, alongside Brian Kavanaugh-Jones and Fred Berger of Automatik, Mike Callaghan and Reuben Liber of Ranger 7 Films, and Jason Lust of Soluble Fish Productions.

  8586888990