The episodes of the Hellsing anime series premiered on Fuji Television on October 10, 2001, and ran for thirteen episodes until its conclusion on January 16, 2002. [1] Produced by Gonzo, directed by Umanosuke Iida and written by Chiaki J. Konaka, [2] the episodes are based on the characters and settings of the Hellsing manga series by Kouta Hirano but lead through a different story. The episodes as a whole detail the works of the Hellsing Organization, a secret anti-paranormal unit under the command of Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing, and its various operatives including the vampire Alucard and his fledgling partner, ex-policewoman Seras Victoria.
The series is licensed for English language release in North America by Geneon Entertainment, in the United Kingdom by ADV Films (although it is no longer licensed since the closure of the company) and in Australia by Madman Entertainment. Geneon's English dub of the series aired in the United States on Starz!'s Encore Action channel from October 4 to December 27, 2003.
Satelight and Geneon Entertainment began production of an original video animation (OVA) series in 2006. Entitled as simply Hellsing in Japan, and Hellsing Ultimate internationally, the OVA episodes more closely follow the source manga and differ from the first series with the divergence of the former based on the latter's episode 5 and 6 as the source manga had not been completed by the time Gonzo produced the TV series. [3] In addition, the Ultimate series includes The Major and his Millennium officers as the main antagonists. [4] The first fifty-minute episode was released to Region 2 DVD in Japan on February 10, 2006, with eight episodes released, and two more announced as of August 2011. [5] It is licensed for release in the United States by Geneon USA, with the first episode released on December 5, 2006. [6] Geneon USA stopped self-distribution of its titles in 2007, [7] but remains the series' licensor with Funimation Entertainment taking over its North American distribution of the episodes. [8] Funimation released the fourth episode and re-released the first three episodes on September 23, 2008.[ citation needed ] [9] In 2010 Funimation Entertainment announced that they have licensed three of the new OVA episodes 5-7 & the original TV series and in 2011 have licensed episodes 1-4 & 8 and these will be released in the USA starting in 2012. In 2014, Hellsing Ultimate aired on US television via Adult Swim's Toonami programming block, starting on September 13. [10] Initially, there were difficulties securing the broadcast rights to the final two episodes, [11] leading to the show to initially be pulled after episode 8 [12] but the rights were eventually cleared up in time to air episodes 9 and 10 a month later in December. [13]
Two pieces of theme music are used for the first Hellsing anime series. "Logos Naki World" (meaning "World without rationality") by Yasushi Ishii is used as the opening theme while Mr. Big's "Shine" is used for the ending theme. For the OVA episodes, the ending of each episode features various instrumental pieces composed by Hayato Matsuo and performed by the Warsaw Philharmonic Orchestra all the way up to OVA Volume V. OVA VI and VII both feature vocal ending themes performed by Japanese rock group Suilen, including their song "Magnolia" for OVA VI, and "Shinto-Shite" for OVA VII.
Ep# | Title | Original air date | English air date | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "The Undead" | October 10, 2001 | October 4, 2003 | |
Integra Hellsing took command of a small Hellsing unit in Cheddar after hearing reports of people in the village going missing. After D11 teams were deployed to investigate with several deaths, Alucard is deployed. Seras Victoria, a female D11 operator, is fighting her ex-D11 colleagues that turned into ghouls. Alucard eliminates the ghouls and their master, a vampiric priest. But Seras is critically wounded in the gunfight, and Alucard turns her into a vampire to save her life. | ||||
2 | "Club M" | October 17, 2001 | October 11, 2003 | |
Seras Victoria struggles to realize that her former life as a D-11 officer is over, and that she is now a vampire. However, her thoughts are interrupted as she, Alucard and a unit of Hellsing commandos are deployed to track down and kill two vampire teenagers who murder families with small guns. Seras has a crisis of conscience when she is ordered to kill one of the two teenage culprits. | ||||
3 | "Sword Dancer" | October 24, 2001 | October 18, 2003 | |
Hellsing Intelligence has reported that a mysterious computer chip implanted on a human allows them to be artificially turned into vampires. A foreign college student, already deceased, comes back alive after having the chip removed. After armed policemen were killed in the morgue, Seras goes along with a Hellsing paramilitary squad to take him out. A Vatican-based priest named Alexander Anderson appears in the scene and murders the entire unit and incapacitates Seras before Alucard comes to save her life. | ||||
4 | "Innocent as a Human" | October 31, 2001 | October 25, 2003 | |
A Snuff film featuring a man being killed on screen by a Vampire also has a Hellsing soldier in the background, which forces Integra to deploy Hellsing and Seras to investigate the film and find out who is responsible for broadcasting the film and end further snuff film broadcasting before widespread curiosity can be incited regarding the Hellsing Organization. | ||||
5 | "Brotherhood" | November 7, 2001 | November 1, 2003 | |
Seras and a team of Hellsing commandos raid a warehouse district after reports of a supposed cult emerge, with a dead vampire and a bomb trap intended to reduce their manpower. Integra attends a covert meeting with a secretive government organization known as the Round Table when two vampire brothers named Luke and Jan Valentine launch a surprise attack on the Hellsing mansion with a large ghoul army armed with guns and shields. As they overwhelm the mansion, Hellsing soldiers with Alucard, Seras and Walter fight off the vampire hordes. | ||||
6 | "Dead Zone" | November 14, 2001 | November 8, 2003 | |
Alucard, Seras and Walter continue to fight on the Valentine Brothers, despite having the deceased Hellsing commandos rise as ghouls to add up to their ranks. Luke fights Alucard with the latter defeating him. As Seras and Walter continue to eliminate the other ghoul soldiers, Jan faces Integra and the Round Table but decides to commit suicide after Integra shoots him with mercury-filled bullets. | ||||
7 | "Duel" | November 21, 2001 | November 15, 2003 | |
Integra attends the funeral of her dead Hellsing commando subordinates after being forced to euthanize the dying Hellsing commando ghouls. As she and Walter try to figure out how to increase their manpower, Enrico Maxwell invited Integra to meet him in a museum. Meanwhile, Seras Victoria and a Hellsing squad led by Mason Fox engage in battle against a vampire after he turns the civilians in the London Underground into ghouls to hold them off. Alexander appears again and kills off the vampire and several Hellsing soldiers, when Alucard intervenes. | ||||
8 | "Kill House" | November 28, 2001 | November 22, 2003 | |
A Hong Kong factory producing the chips dubbed as FREAK chips was destroyed after Royal Hong Kong Police officers raided it. Integra and Walter were forced to train new recruits from non-British special forces personnel, instead of going to British special units such as the SAS and D-11, in order to maintain the manpower of Hellsing security forces due to their issues of the FREAK chips. Seras and an MI-5 secret agent investigate on their own, regarding the rise of cases involving FREAK vampires. | ||||
9 | "Red Rose Vertigo" | December 5, 2001 | November 29, 2003 | |
While several Hellsing squads were raiding a castle, the SAS's 22nd Regiment arrives in their Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) gear and orders them to pull back. Soon after, Seras couldn't help but shake the feeling that something was wrong with the sudden arrival of the SAS. Integra's sister Laura had arrived, but Seras and Alucard discover that something was wrong when they find out that Laura was a Baobhan sith and was trying to assassinate Integra. Meanwhile, the SAS squads in the castle were then converted into monsters by an unknown party. | ||||
10 | "Master of Monster" | December 12, 2001 | December 6, 2003 | |
During an emergency operation to save Integra after she stabbed herself to prevent herself from being turned to a vampire, she recalls on how she had met Alucard and what had happened between the two of them before she assumed command of the Hellsing Organization. | ||||
11 | "Transcend Force" | December 19, 2001 | December 13, 2003 | |
When Integra hears about the Queen's secret visit to Hellsing HQ and the meeting of the Round Table, she secretly gave the order for Hellsing commandos to be deployed to the Tower of London to give her enemies a false lead to follow. | ||||
12 | "Total Destruction" | January 9, 2002 | December 20, 2003 | |
Integra learns that Hellsing commandos in the Tower of London were being attacked by assassins wearing CRW uniforms of the SAS's 22nd Regiment. Despite the odds, some of the surviving Hellsing commandos, Alucard and Seras team up to fight back against them, revealed to have been turned into a different kind of FREAK vampires. The entire Hellsing Organization was declared to be armed terrorists with the British Army on the scene arriving to quell the Hellsing soldiers and end the FREAKs in the Tower of London. | ||||
13 | "Hellfire" | January 16, 2002 | December 27, 2003 | |
Alucard, in the Tower of London, faces against an undead named Incognito. Integra and Walter try to head out there, but were facing trouble from the British Army. Despite being overwhelmed by Incognito, Alucard manages to defeat him. |
Ep# | Title | Runtime | Original release [5] | English release | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
1 | "Hellsing I" | 51 minutes | February 10, 2006 | December 5, 2006 | |
Ten years ago, young Integra Hellsing ascends to the head of the Hellsing Organization after the death of her father Arthur. Her jealous uncle Richard Hellsing attempts to kill her, but in doing so awakens a dormant Alucard, who proceeds to kill Richard's men. It is Integra who shoots and kills her uncle, thereby becoming the last descendant of the Hellsing bloodline. Alucard declares his allegiance to Integra and becomes her loyal servant. In present day England, Alucard is called to duty to eradicate a vampire priest and his ghouls. However, a young and fascinating policewoman responding to the disturbance named Seras Victoria is gravely injured in the process, and upon giving her a choice to live or die, Alucard turns her into his vampire servant. Later, on a mission to hunt down a vampire in the town of Badrick in Northern Ireland, Alucard meets and fights Father Alexander Anderson for the first time. | |||||
2 | "Hellsing II" | 43 minutes | August 25, 2006 | June 12, 2007 | |
Alucard has a dream about his defeat at the hands of Abraham Van Helsing. While Sir Integra holds a round table conference to report her findings regarding the current wave of vampire attacks, vampire brothers Jan and Luke Valentine launch a covert sneak attack on the Hellsing compound with the help of a ghoul army outfitted with military gear and small arms. Almost all of the Hellsing soldiers are killed in the process and turned into ghouls before Alucard, Seras and Walter C. Dornez (who shows why he was once known as the "Angel of Death") are able to turn the tide. Jan reveals the name of the group responsible for the attack as Millennium. Integra hints to Walter that surviving Nazi officials could have been responsible for the attack. | |||||
3 | "Hellsing III" | 47 minutes | April 4, 2007 | October 16, 2007 | |
In a bid to increase manpower following the devastating attack on Hellsing headquarters, Walter recruits the mercenary group known as Wild Geese and integrates them into Hellsing's security forces. Integra receives information from Enrico Maxwell, the fanatical leader of Iscariot, that confirms her suspicions of Millennium's origins. She soon deploys Alucard, Seras and Pip Bernadotte, leader of the Wild Geese, to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to find the whereabouts of Millennium. Alucard and Seras are later attacked by BOPE units of the Brazilian military police after being declared in public as international terrorists, a ruse perpetrated by Brazilian officials in exchange for immortality promised by Millennium. After receiving orders from Sir Integra, Alucard massacres the BOPE officers and faces off against Millennium officer Tubalcain Alhambra. | |||||
4 | "Hellsing IV" | 56 minutes | February 22, 2008 | September 23, 2008 | |
As Hellsing and Iscariot hold a meeting with the Queen of the United Kingdom their conference is interrupted by a message from The Major (via live video transmission brought in by the ubiquitous Schrödinger) citing his intention to wage war on England, before Alucard shoots Schrödinger. Meanwhile, a VTOL aircraft carrier called the Eagle gets hijacked by First Lieutenant Rip Van Winkle and a small squadron of SS soldiers from Millennium, Integra sends Alucard aboard an SR-71 to take care of the perpetrators and Rip Van Winkle in which he ruthlessly kills all of them and has Rip Van Winkle turned into one of his many familiars while the major begins to move to London to drive England into another war. | |||||
5 | "Hellsing V" | 44 minutes | November 21, 2008 [14] | November 13, 2012 [15] | |
While Alucard remains trapped on the Eagle, Millennium starts attacking London. Zorin Blitz is told to head toward Hellsing HQ with a small group of soldiers, while the rest of the vampires attack London. They kill thousands of civilians and attempt to capture Integra. She manages to escape the vampire SS soldiers only after Walter sacrifices himself to hold them off; however, Walter is captured himself by The Captain. When the vampire soldiers manage to corner her, she is saved and later captured by a large group of pistol-wielding Iscariot priests, led by Alexander Anderson, Heinkel Wolfe and Yumie Takagi. After the credits, Alucard uses his powers to steer the Eagle towards London. | |||||
6 | "Hellsing VI" | 42 minutes | July 24, 2009 [16] | November 13, 2012 | |
As the battle commences, back at the Vatican Enrico Maxwell, the head of Section XIII Iscariot is given a major promotion, and with it he begins to mobilize the Vatican's fighters. Meanwhile, in the heart of London, while Integra is busy convincing the Iscariot members to escort her home, the Hellsing Mansion is under siege by Zorin Blitz and her forces. The only line of defense against this assault are Captain Bernadotte, his Wild Geese, and Seras. As the battle rages on, they must deal with the resilient vampire Nazi forces, as well as Zorin's mysterious power of illusion that almost destroys the Geese from within. The quick thinking of Seras frees them from Zorin's grip, but the battle is not over. After an attempted stolen kiss, the group splits up, Seras in one direction and the Geese in another, but not before promising each other they'll come out of this alive. OVA 6 features a drama CD of Crossfire. | |||||
7 | "Hellsing VII" | 45 minutes | December 23, 2009 [17] | November 13, 2012 | |
While Seras is successfully overcoming Zorin's soldiers, Bernadotte and his forces are being slaughtered. Seras comes to their rescue, and destroys most of Zorin's forces. Zorin then delves deep into Seras' memories, forcing her to relive her painful childhood, as she had to watch her parents be murdered by gangsters and her mother's corpse being raped after Seras was shot by one of the robbers. While Seras is trapped in the illusion, Zorin hacks off her arm, stabs her through the back, and cuts her eyes. Bernadotte tries to escape with the badly wounded Seras, but Zorin stabs him through the back. He kisses Seras in his agony, then tells her to bite him. Tearfully, she does so, healing most of her wounds except her left arm, which spews shadow matter. Seras destroys all of Zorin's forces, then attacks and kills Zorin. Seras then leaves the mansion and heads off to destroy the remaining vampires and ghouls in the city, as Vatican forces loom in the horizon. | |||||
8 | "Hellsing VIII" | 49 minutes | July 27, 2011 | November 13, 2012 | |
The Vatican forces led by Enrico Maxwell begin to attack the remaining Millennium forces along with the surviving citizens of London. Walter, now a vampire, joins forces with the Major. Alexander Anderson is enraged because he believes Maxwell has become drunk with power and is abusing God's power. The armed priests led by Heinkel Wolfe and Yumie Takagi come close to capturing Integra, but Seras saves her. Alucard, stands atop the Eagle as it floats down the Thames, now returns to London and joins the battle encountering the two other trump cards Anderson and The Captain. Integra releases his Control Art Restriction to Level Zero allowing Alucard to summon millions of Familiars to the battle. Enrico Maxwell and Anderson realize that Alucard is in fact Count Dracula/Vlad the Impaler, the first vampire. Alucard's forces easily overwhelm all of the Iscariot and Millennium forces and Maxwell is killed shortly after. Alucard meets up with Integra and Seras. Anderson and Alucard fight each other but Alucard has the upper hand and the remaining priests come to aid Anderson against Alucard. Anderson uses Helena's Nail to become a monster against Alucard, setting him and his familiars ablaze. With this episode was also released the first animated episode of The Dawn, a prequel to Hellsing. | |||||
9 | "Hellsing IX" | 48 minutes | February 15, 2012 | October 28, 2014 [18] | |
A dying Alucard envisions his past as Vlad the Impaler, recalling how he was raped as a child by the Ottoman Sultan. He then envisions himself during his war against the Turks, stating to his knights that praying to God is pointless unless you are willing to work for your prayer, otherwise it is just begging. He is shown eventually being carried off to execution, but before being beheaded, he drinks the blood of the battlefield and becomes a vampire. He is then awoken by the pleading of Seras, who is trying in vain to help him against Priest Anderson of the Vatican. Alucard manages to rip Anderson's heart out, and crushes it, removing Helena's Nail. The priest hears the laughter of children, and says a final "Amen" before dying. Suddenly, Walter appears, crushing the remains of Anderson. Shocked at the newly vampirized Walter, Integra and Seras question him. Walter kills Yumie and replies that he now stands alone as the Angel of Death. Heinkel is shot by the Captain and badly injured, but is spared. Alucard and Walter prepare to fight, while Integra and Seras are invited aboard the Major's zeppelin to face him. As their fight goes on, Walter is growing unstable from the vampirization procedure but Walter pierces Alucard's heart with a pipe, only for the body to be revealed as a decoy. Alucard then appears from behind and punches Walter, the damage forcing his body's age to regress to the young boy from 60 years ago. Alucard fully reveals himself in the form of the girl he assumed during the war, calling Walter a child who has not changed in 60 years. With this episode was also released the second animated episode of The Dawn, a prequel to Hellsing. | |||||
10 | "Hellsing X" | 68 minutes | December 26, 2012 | October 28, 2014 [18] | |
Integra and Seras board the zepline as Schrödinger greets them before being shot once more as the two women battle the remnants of Millennium until the Captain intercepts them, with Seras staying to fight while Integra proceeds onward. Outside, Alucard begins to absorb the rivers of blood from the dead, though the Major had planned on this moment to defeat him. Elsewhere Seras struggles against the Captain, who turns out to be a werewolf. Seras seems outmatched by the Captain, but is eventually aided by her familiar Bernadotte, who uses a silver tooth to slay the werewolf. Integra reaches the Major, but a shield impedes her attack, which leaves them both to witness Alucard's defeat. Schrödinger then decapitates himself on top of the Big Ben clock and allows his body to be absorbed while the Major explains his power of omnipresence: as long as Schrödinger is self-aware, he is alive, but that the millions of lives within the rivers of blood flowing into Alucard negate his awareness/existence. This negation spreads to Alucard, which forces him to disappear. While Seras rejoins Integra, outside Walter is attacked by Heinkel, though the wounded Walter escapes into the zeppelin. Inside Seras is eventually able to pierce the shield and damage the Major. It is revealed that he is actually a cyborg, though he defends his humanity while challenging Integra. The resulting shootout kills the Major and blinds Integra in her left eye. Meanwhile Walter confronts and kills the Doctor before dying. Acknowledging his death, Integra orders Seras to bring them home. Thirty years later, Iscariot visits the new Hellsing headquarters but is turned away, while Heinkel as the new trump card and the new chief Makube contemplate the next Crusade. That night, Alucard reappears at the older Integra's bedside. He explains to her and Seras that the reason he was gone for so long was that the millions of lives within him were clouding his awareness. He killed them all except one, saying "I have returned here. But I am also always nowhere... The truth of it is, I am everywhere," alluding that Schrodinger is the one soul he didn't kill. Integra offers the starving vampire some of her blood, and they all accept his return. With this episode was also released the third animated episode of The Dawn, a prequel to Hellsing. |
Ep # | Title | Original release | |
---|---|---|---|
1 | "Hellsing: The Dawn Special 1" | July 27, 2011 | |
During WWII, a much younger Walter is sent by Hellsing behind enemy lines with a giant casket to eliminate a new threat from the Nazis. | |||
2 | "Hellsing: The Dawn Special 2" | February 15, 2012 | |
Walter interrupts The Major's dinner, who gives him an interesting proposal. | |||
3 | "Hellsing: The Dawn Special 3" | December 26, 2012 |
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