Manga4life's "Hellsing" review.

Hello there, I'm Manga4life and today I am going to be doing a review of "Hellsing", an anime series loved by many fans of the medium and one of the most revered vampire-esq series of the past 10 years. To kick things off I'll talk a little bit about the story, it starts off with a member of the Hellsing Organization named Alucard who meets a girl named Seras who was a member of the police force but soon became a member of Hellsing after allowing Alucard to become her master vampire. From there the Hellsing Organization gave Seras and her team a bunch of missions that seemed to drag on and on and sooner than later I stopped caring what they were after and I found myself waiting impatiently for the ending credits. Story wise Hellsing started off really promising but after a few episodes I began to get kind of bored with the dialog which went from fun and interesting to boring and predictable, the action was also sparse too and that caused 20 minute episodes to feel like they were well over an hour. I was kind of bummed out toward the end because a lot of people gave this series rave reviews and I was really excited to grab a cup and drink it's kool-aid, but what I find to be boring and bland many out there may find exciting and full of flavor, so check the series out for yourself and feel free to let me know what you think.

Even though the story was a little dull for my taste there were many things about Hellsing that I enjoyed, one of those things was the sound effects, they were excellent and really gave the anime a really gloomy and dark feel. Everything from gunshots to the sounds of the characters walking were very well done and little things like that made the dull story bearable while watching through it. The music throughout the series was enjoyable as well, nothing too top notch here but the score helped to set the mood and some of the tracks are download worthy (such as the opening theme), but I wouldn't run out and buy the soundtrack or anything, however it is worth noting for a job well done. One major selling point of this series is the character of Alucard, he has become iconic in the anime world and a lot of fans of Hellsing love his style of character, myself included, but other than himself no other character really stood out as being someone who could anchor this series and draw in fans. That alone is one reason I didn't connect with this series as so many others have, I usually enjoy many focal characters who are enjoyable and have some substance to them.



As far as the animation in Hellsing goes I do want to say that it's very well drawn and the animation is very good, it's dark and eerie at times and it definitely gives off the creepy look that the creative team was shooting for (being a vampire tale and all) so great job to the artists and animators who worked on this series. With all that was said about Hellsing, it's now time for me to tally up the scoring on my usual 1-10 rating scale, so without taking up anymore of your time....

Art & Animation - 8.75/10
Music & Sound Effects - 9.0/10
Story & Writing - 6.0/10
Fun - 6.0/10
Overall - 6.5/10

As always I want to thank those who took the time to read my blog, it's much appreciated and you can always check me out at www.twitter.com/manga4life as well as TZ and JD.

Take care,
***Manga4life***