A devastating attack has left Integra at deaths
door. As the leader of Hellsing fights
for her life, Alucard and Seras find themselves locked in their own desperate
struggle against Incognito and a new breed of undead enemy. When Hellsing finds itself lured into a trap
and set up as a terrorist organization, all bets are off. Incognito unleashes his endgame and the quest
for his masters becomes more imperative.
Is this an enemy not even Alucard can stand against? London is burning and it’s the perfect stage
for the hellish showdown to come.
Confusion.
Unfulfilled potential. Missed opportunities. Total
Disappointment? Maybe that last ones a bit harsh. There is a fair bit to like about these last
4 episodes of Hellsing. But it cant save
it from the sad truth that this is one serious let down of a finale.
So after slicing her throat open cause she got bit by a
Vampire, Integra gets rushed to surgery and survives? Yeah, anyone expecting the head of Hellsing
to bite it and add some more tension to the final events of the series might’ve
been disappointed by that…or not cause Integra is an awesome character. It still feels a little like a cheat. Integra hanging onto life by a thread did
give us probably the best episode of the whole series: the history of young
Integra and how she met Alucard. It
almost feels wrong to call young Integra cute but it’s true. But you definitely weren’t calling her cute
when she made her bold declaration of never giving up to Alucard. That moment was when the Integra Wingates
Hellsing we have seen from Episode 1 until now was born…and it was glorious. Equally glorious was seeing Alucard tear her
traitorous Uncle and his bodyguards to shreads.
Once Integra was back on her feet, though, the rest of
the series took a nosedive down hill.
Everything else in the last three episodes is a jumbled mess of a
plot. An unseen traitor? Events moving so rapidly you don’t know what
the heck is going on? The deaths of
characters we barely knew and therefore feel little remorse for (Ferguson
bitting it sucked the most though). And
watching Hellsing find itself undone so swiftly it makes no sense
whatsoever. It’s as if the writers
themselves realized the wall they had hit going into this “original storyline”
in lew of the ending material they didn’t have and just decided to write the
laziest ending they could just to get it over with.
And do we find out who this illusive traitor who sold out
Hellsing is? Nope, in fact, following
the final battle, we merely get a couple of mini text blurbs about how events
wrapped up. There’s no explanation as to
how or why Integra was arrested or the fates of Walter and Seras. No hints at a sequel or continuation are
given. The series just kind of ends with
a scene of Alucard offering Integra his blood.
Ugh, this second half of the series had some potential but few can match
Fullmetal Alchemist when it comes to veering away from the source material in a
way that’s still true to the material itself.
Speaking of missed opportunities, I’m pretty peeved we
never got to see some rapid fire action with Alucard dual gunning his way past
a pack of mutant SAS soldiers. This is
the mother of all Vampiric bad asses and it seems like this adaptation held him
back on a very tight leesh. I don’t know
if it’s because this was a TV series and thus had to tone down the violence and
graphic images heavily. But if you’re
not going to let Alucard have his fun, then Studio Gonzo shouldn’t have tried
to make this series in the first place.
Nevermind his final battle with Incognito is as dull as it was building
up to be. No depth was given to the
naked, grey demon, and again we don’t know the identity of his “Master” who is
probably the Hellsing traitor. Incognito
could have been a prime candidate for the greatest foe Alucard has ever
faced…and he just doesn’t do a thing.
Most criminal of all, the brief glimpse of Anderson in the London crowd
overlooking the battle at the tower. I
doubt we’d ever see him and Alucard team up.
But after two appearances that made the show highly entertaining,
Alexander Anderson only gets a 10 second cameo to remind us he’s still around…frak
that noise.
I know I said there was some stuff to enjoy about this
finale…maybe I should have rethought that.
I think ive gone on a pretty extensive rant about how poorly handled it
was. I don’t know, was there anything I
did like? Well the English Dub has
Integra delivering the cool line, “There’s a Judas in our midst.” That’s always been a personal favorite line
of mine. Alucard wandering around with
his dual guns in action was decent, “REVEL IN THE MASSACARE” (oh if only). Losing Ferguson was sad and so was Integra’s
farewell to him. Some of the better
music made it’s way into the last battle scenes and id kick myself if I didn’t
mention Seras’ cute little red outfit.
Man, now I feel like im really trying to dig around for good things about
this ending, it is tough.
In a way, I feel the same about the Hellsing Series as a
whole. I really wanted to like this
Anime and I like parts of it in some respects.
The voices from the English dub are eternal (especially Alucard,
Integra, Seras, Anderson and Jan Valentine).
The soundtrack is perfect (hence why it got featured on my Top 5 Best
Anime Series Soundtracks recently. The
character and weapon designs are top notch (I WANT A JACKAL!!!). And some of the Animation and imagery isn’t
bad, it fits the world for sure. That’s
about it though. Once you get to the
half way mark of the series and you get into original territory, everything
goes south and never really recovers.
The bloodfest that is Hellsings war against the Nazi Vampire Unit, Millennium,
is never touched, never hinted at, never setup to be seen. Instead we’re left with a weak storyline that
was cooked up in five minutes to cover 13 episodes worth of material. If you ask me, you could have ended it at the
Valentine attack and just kept the door propped open for another sequel down
the line once the Manga was finished (Berserk did it, though I hear the
continuation of the Anime is more miss than hit). This Hellsing had some horrific images fitting
of a horror/action Anime. But man was it
handled with kid gloves. And Alucard
should NEVER be handled with kid gloves.
Final Score is
5/10
Well now that that’s done. Couple of quick announcements. First, our next series on the docket is the
TV series adaptation of CLAMP’s apocalyptic showdown, X. The first review will be popping up Next
Tuesday, yes Tuesday. Reason for this
being is announcement #2. Seeing as it’s
Halloween next week, I was thinking about what to review that’s a bit more
fitting than X (which isn’t really horror).
I made up my mind but I’ll leave it a surprise. The only hint I’ll give is that it is a
double feature but I don’t know if im going to do it as two separate reviews or
a combined one.
Anyway, that’s the plan.
See you all next week.
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