Hellsing Ultimate: All About the War

There is good anime and there is poor anime; Hellsing Ultimate falls between the two. This show is one of those turn-your-brain-off kinds of anime where there's no need to think in any depth about what's going on because there simply isn't any. At all. The focus of this show is solely on the action and the impressive visuals; the story itself is rudimentary and the characters are pretty much cardboard cutouts with only a couple notable exceptions.

Let's start with what I really liked about the series. First off, I enjoyed the visuals greatly: the animation is top quality and obviously high budget. This makes the action in the show look incredible and detailed. There are some pretty cool powers that some characters possess and the visuals can give you the full scope and scale of what is going on.

This show certainly operates on the "rule of cool" philosophy and the show's main character and resident badass, Alucard, exemplifies this. A virtually immortal vampire who hunts other demonic creatures while not giving a care in the world who they are or why they're there is both awesome and intimidating. Every time Alucard is on screen, his presence is felt. That said, although Alucard is the most famous and the most "cool" character in the cast, he is not my personal favorite. Such an honor goes to Seras Victoria, who is a police girl that Alucard turns into a vampire after fatally shooting her. The reason why I find her to be the most interesting character is that there is a good bit of screen time devoted to her trying to come to grips with being an undead creature of the night. She goes through the full spectrum of emotion, from wonder to woe. I wish they delved a bit more into this, but unfortunately it tends to be played a bit more for laughs than to be seriously considered.

There are only 10 episodes in this OVA series, however, each episode is about 40 minutes long. The longer episode length isn't burdensome at all, however, it does feel a touch unnecessary considering the relative lack of substantive story present in the show. The silver lining is that it doesn't break up the fight scenes as much; this allows for much more fluid action scenes.

There are many problems in this show that make themselves manifest. Too many, in fact, for me to give this show a great rating. The biggest problem for me was the over-indulgence in gory violence. Even when it didn't feel necessary, the show was overly violent. I understand that in these kind of shows violence is to be expected, but that doesn't mean I want to see blood flying everywhere and every sinew in the human body being ripped apart. It can come across as being gross rather than cool or exciting.

Another serious problem with the show comes in the form of its characters. I've talked about the two characters that I particularly liked, but that's where it ends for me. The villain in this show, known only as "the Major," isn't given much motivation besides a simple love for war and violence. So basically he's just... evil. And that's all you need to know. Besides the Major, the other characters seem like archetypes that simply do as the plot demands whether or not it makes any sense.

That's another thing; the plot feels like it was written by a third-grader, albeit a very clever third grader, with an active and twisted imagination. It seems to just bounce between action scenes with not a whole lot of context given to get there. 

The breakdown of this show is very simple. If you like action, but don't care about plot or character development, then you will greatly enjoy this show. If not, you will likely want to skip it. I personally would rate this show 52%. Watch the first episode. If you can get through it and enjoy it, you'll probably like the show.

BY: Logan Christensen