It’s been some time since Hellsing bowed out, with its manga, polarizing anime adaptation, and better-received OVA (original video animation) series – Hellsing Ultimate – all ending around the 2010s. For better and worse, the whole franchise was emblematic of its decade and there’ll never be anything quite like it for the foreseeable future.
As anime only gets more mainstream, some older fans have gotten to revisiting nostalgic titles, and Hellsing provides them with that gory seninen catharsis that not all newer anime can provide. But before doing so, learn more about mangaka Kouta Hirano’s magnum opus here.
10 Kouta Hirano Is A Character In Highschool Of The Dead
In Highschool of the Dead, there’s no one better than Kohta Hirano when it comes to gunning down the undead. If it weren’t clear enough from just his looks and deep obsession/understanding of firearms, Kohta is literally just Hellsing’s creator in a zombie apocalypse.
The way Kohta smiles whenever he sees a new gun wouldn’t feel out of place in Hellsing, especially when put beside Seras’ reaction to first seeing the Harkonnen. The only real difference between them is age and name spelling. Hirano approves of the tribute, ending a Hellsing afterword by saying he has to go kill some zombies.
9 Alucard Inspired Solomon In Sym-Bionic Titan
Ever since his first appearance and especially thanks to Hellsing Ultimate, Alucard has gone on to become one of the most definitive vampires in all of fiction. While the idea of a leatherclad vampire and/or vampire slayer isn’t the most original, Alucard all but dominated the trope and became its poster boy.
Alucard’s popularity was so great that his influence spread over to works with very little in common with Hellsing, like the American mecha cartoon Sym-Bionic Titan. Solomon, the leader of the Galactic Guardian Group, is a walking homage to Alucard, but he takes his name from classic monster slayer Solomon Kane. Aside from hair color and a lack of bloodlust, a key difference is that Solomon’s color scheme is a reversal of Alucard’s.
8 There Are Tons Of Hollywood References
Hellsing is heavily Western-influenced, seen clearly in how many references and homages there are to Hollywood movies. For one, Zorin Blitz owes a lot to the James Bond movie A View to Kill, which had a Nazi-affiliated villain named “Zorin” (Max Zorin), an intimidating dark-skinned henchwoman (May Day), and a zeppelin. Hirano also revealed that The Major’s mannerisms and look were based on Philip Seymour Hoffman.
In a manner not unlike Bleach and its zanpakuto, some guns in Hellsing have souls. The personification of Alucard’s hand cannon, The Jackal, looks like Bruce Willis. Coincidentally, The Jackal is named after The Day of the Jackal, which Willis starred in the remake of. Sera’s anti-tank cannon Harkonnen is named after the Baron Harkonnen from Dune so unsurprisingly, its spirit resembles the Baron from David Lynch’s movie.
7 There’s A Prequel
Given the success of Hellsing, it only made sense for Hirano to continue it. This birthed Hellsing: The Dawn, a prequel set in World War II featuring Millennium, a young Walter, and Alucard. Notably, Alucard takes the form of the teenage girl seen in his decisive battle against Walter, hinting at a big revelation and more. The problem is, The Dawn stopped just after six chapters.
For whatever reason, Hirano abruptly dropped it, instead moving on to his next major work, Drifters. Oddly, Young King OURs never officially declared The Dawn canceled or otherwise, indefinitely leaving it on hiatus. At best, The Dawn was animated into three episodes and released with Hellsing Ultimate entries 8 to 10.
6 There’s A (Sort Of) Spin-Off Manga
Hellsing focuses on the eponymous Hellsing Organization. Its closest rival is Vatican Section XIII aka Iscariot, whose hatred for Hellsing is as bottomless as its resentment for Nazi vampires. Thanks to the short-lived Crossfire, Iscariot got some limelight, specifically the assassins Heinkel Wolfe and Yumie Takagi. Other familiar faces include Alexander Anderson and Enrico Maxwell.
But even if it stars Hellsing characters, Crossfire isn’t canon. Crossfire was published alongside the first three volumes of Hellsing, acting more as a testing ground for Iscariot’s members than a side story. When Heinkel and Yumie emerge in the main story, they underwent drastic modifications, like Yumie being more bloodthirsty compared to her original depiction. Additionally, Crossfire’s events are never mentioned in Hellsing.
5 It Took Nearly 10 Years To Finish Just 10 Volumes
Despite being a seinen title released on a monthly basis, Hirano took nearly a decade to finish Hellsing's ten volumes. The first chapter was published in 1997 and closed in 2008 after 89 chapters. While this may seem normal, keep in mind that One Piece also began in 1997 and had more than 500 chapters by 2008.
Hirano is notoriously lazy – something he himself admitted – and this was painfully clear during Hellsing’s final stretches. Here, Hirano submitted chapters whenever he felt like it. Worse, his chapters would sometimes be 10 pages long when the expected count was 25 to 30. At the very least, he completed Hellsing unlike The Dawn.
4 Kouta Hirano Didn’t Like The First Anime
As was common at the time, the Hellsing anime had a filler arc because the manga didn’t have enough chapters to animate. The anime-only arc brought in new characters and even completely excised Millennium. Unsurprisingly, Hirano didn’t like this adaptation.
This led to halting more Hellsing adaptations or sequels until there was enough material to work with. As such, the more faithful OVAs started in 2006, four years after the anime’s end. Even so, Hirano liked some of the anime’s ideas, like Alucard cocking his gun with his mouth and Incognito’s design, which greatly influenced Zorin Blitz’s look.
3 Hellsing Ultimate’s Production & Release Were A Nightmare
Regardless of its quality, Hellsing Ultimate became rather notorious in anime circles due to the inconsistent gaps of time in between each episode’s release. This wasn’t intentional on the creators’ parts since the fault fell on the producers’ feet; or rather, whoever was producing and licensing the episodes at any given time.
To keep a long, complicated legal story short, the rights to Hellsing Ultimate kept switching. Hellsing Ultimate was animated by three different studios and dubbed first by Geneon then Funimation Entertainment. The American broadcast and distribution didn’t fare better, with DVDs taking forever to get released and Adult Swim accidentally forgetting to confirm that it had the rights to show all ten episodes instead of just eight. Meanwhile, The Dawn has yet to see an official American release.
2 The English Voice Director Approves Of The Abridged Series
One of the most enduring impacts Hellsing had was getting its own abridged series, made by none other than TeamFourStar. Popular anime getting abridged isn’t anything new, but Hellsing Ultimate getting parodied by one of the premier dubbing groups on YouTube was an honor other anime will never know.
This is something that Hellsing’s localization crew agreed with, especially voice director and Critical Role star Taliesin Jaffe. In the anime’s DVD commentaries, Jaffe often mentioned and quoted the Abridged Series fondly. In Hellsing Ultimate IX’s commentary, he even got Sera’s official English-language actress (Katie Grey) to say Abridged Seras’ famous catchphrase, “B****es love cannons.”
1 Many Characters Were Recycled From Hentai
Some mangaka started out as hentai artists; that’s just how the industry goes. Hirano is no different, but he made quite the killing in the erotic front. Before Hellsing, Hirano made doujinshi along with a lot hentai. Surprisingly, this is where most of Hellsing’s characters and ideas came from.
Early versions of Alucard, Seras, and even the Valentine Brothers starred in the erotica series The Legends of Vampire Hunter (above; left and center). Similarly, Alexander Anderson and Enrico Maxwell headlined Angel Dust (above, right), Pip Bernadotte and The Major were rivals in Coyote, and Doc’s Story (a hentai starring Adolf Hitler) featured The Doc and a female Schrodinger. Concepts about vampirism, immortality, militant religious organizations, highly detailed firearms, and World War II were also present in all his early works, with Hellsing being the culmination of his interests.
