As vampire attacks begin to escalate, Hellsing sends out their most successful and deadly employee, Alucard, a vampire of untold and immense power who is capable of many more abilities and forms of magic than any other existing vampire. After single-handedly defeating a small contingent of ghouls, he is forced to shoot through a living human in order to defeat the vampire responsible for the attack. The policewoman he shot has moments to live when Alucard offers her a choice: she can die now, or (due to her virgin status) she can rise again as a vampire. (Deflowered humans who are bitten rise again as ghouls under the control of their maker.) Thus, Seras Victoria gains a second chance at existence, and Alucard gains a protégé. On their first mission together, they are taking down a building full of ghouls when a new challenger steps into the fray. It seems that the Vatican secret organization, Escariot, has taken an interest in the recent vampire attacks and sent their own challenger, Father Alexander Anderson, a murderous priest who has been genetically engineered to regenerate in order to be able to fight vampires.
However, after each side has neutralized the ghouls, Father Anderson decides to eliminate two more creatures of darkness while he’s at it: Seras and Alucard. As it turns out, the Catholic priest sees no reason not to add a few more vampires, and even their Protestant employers to the list of dead, despite knowing that this would destroy the truth between their two organizations. Can anyone even hope to destroy Alucard, even by beheading him or using blessed weapons? Will Seras be able to embrace her new existence and explore her new abilities without constant coaching by her master?
The art style of this offering is very close to that of the original manga, and is an extremely close translation from the book to the screen. Offered as an OVA, you can rest assured that the studio behind this series of movies intends to stay very true to the original story, without sacrificing anything (with the possible exception of toning down Father Anderson’s Irish accent to a more discernable lilt). Keep in mind that the integrity of the story does somewhat hinder the creative processes of animating these scenes, so while they’re very representativeof the manga, they can appear awkward when in motion.
The blood runs freely in this first offering of the series, conducted in a solid 58 minute format, with the smiling-est vampires and vampire-hunters you’ll ever meet! A must have for fans of the manga, (or religious persecution, I suppose) I highly recommend picking up this first disc today!
While not a fan of the original series, I have to admit that this incarnation is very interesting, and an excellent initiation to a classic of Anime culture. Definitely worth picking up in this more ‘X-treme’ version.