Yeah, the Hellsing TV series still has my heart. I mentioned Helena last time, but there's a lot of filler characters to love, and some to hate. It's honestly as hard to judge it in comparison to the manga as it is to avoid making the comparison in the first place, because, as I mentioned, the Hellsing anime is tonally different right off the bat, being much more subdued, slow, and serious.
The TV series' ending and ideas are mostly interesting, just cut short. I'm not about to hate art for being bleak, but it's still a surprise that the chiller, filler-filled Hellsing TV would end on such a sad note. Original Hellsing, full of gore and Nazis, has a more positive ending than TV Hellsing being abandoned by their own government.
And I still can't decide if Integra would have become a vampire or not, even abandoned by the people she gave her life to protect.
In fact I'm going to go out on a limb and say that I don't find Alucard or Integra's characterizations all that different from the manga. It's more a tonal difference.
The most notable and possibly unwelcome change to Integra is the very realistic mountain of shit that she gets from the otherwise all-male Convention of Twelve (most of the dialogue actually came from the character that would turn out to be Penwood, of all people). The OVA mostly overlooked this possibility except when Irons/Islands made her kill the Hellsing Ghouls. In a way that's a relief.
I can't be angry at Integra being damselled in the last few episodes, because it's still Integra and her injury was ultra-metal, but I won't defend it either, because fiction doesn't suffer from a deprivation of female vulnerability or a distrust of it.
As for greater focus on Seras' transformation angst--I can sympathize better now that I'm older (though modern vampires make for probably the least convincing candidates, because they're the elves of the monster world).
However, Seras's angst in the TV series is a Chekov's Gun that doesn't go off. In contrast, Seras drinking Pip's blood and going sicko mode is payoff, the satisfaction of release after narrative tension. Nothing in a story HAS to pay off, but in that instance I prefer Seras with a climax to her worries.
Seras is fanservice incarnate in Ultimate, but the TV series instead choses a very real, very heavy portrayal of recurring sexual harassment and condescension towards Seras.
It is painful to see in an action series, doubled because the series has Seras working with Hellsing's human commandoes and still talked down to. It's the anti-fantasy of having power but still being treated like crap.
"Everybody wants a piece of Seras's ass" reaches its bizarre peak when Seras is stalked in her dreams by Paul Wilson, an ability that seems to bend the rules of the seris so that Seras can get an otherworldly stalker with a genuine ability to threaten a true vampire, with a very real misogynistic attitude towards his "crush".
There's a little more payoff here, as many of the men who pursue Seras end up dead, traitors, or killed by her hand. Still, it is rattling in comparison to Seras's Ultimate transformation, missing the joyfully violent power fantasy.
At least we have the barrel-bending scene, and fatherly Commander Ferguson/Fargason, who was the first time I'd heard W. Morgan Sheppard in an anime dub.
And honestly I don't expect a work to point out that resisting harassment is not a matter of being "strong enough" and that the problem is systemic rather than individual. I'd rather not have it at all.
The Rawhead Rex-looking "Bat-Freaks" and the juxtaposition of Paul's bishounen looks with his monstrous transformation would be cool under other circumstances, but his stalking of Seras is just Too Real. I asked once why the entire SAS squad would work for Incognito, but headcanon that Paul controls them as a Head Vampire, which is why he can run around in bike shorts and nothing else.
I should say there's no bishies in "OG" Hellsing, but that just sounds like a value judgement, and the debut of young Walter proved me wrong anyways. No bishies without a beautifully contorted art style, maybe.
But while Paul Wilson is the scum of the earth, I'll always have a soft spot for Enrico Stivaletti. Like Helena, he seems like he came from an entirely different vampire story, but his savage turn once awakening in the morgue suggests hidden depths, and that turning Mick might not have been as consensual as it appears. It's a lovely bit, and I'm always disappointed when lineups of Hellsing filler characters forget him.
Speaking of filler characters, Incognito's pretty cool. I'd even say that out of all the anime-only characters, Incognito comes the closes to capturing the bizarro spirit of the manga, despite essentially taking the place of the now-nerfed Anderson.
Incognito doesn't have much substance, but plenty of style. I love the Cheshire Cat tattoos, sprouting a gun from his flesh, the body horror of Helena clawing her way out of his innards.
The cheapness of the animation was so striking compared to my memories. It doesn't do as good a job as, say, Evangelion in turning its shortcomings into stylized and atmospheric representation, but sometimes Hellsing TV manages.
The music needs no introduction, but damn is it good. It's also comforting that Walter never betrays Hellsing (though his turn made sense. It was foolish, but characters should be foolish). And seeing so many Nazis hits differently these days, even if they get smoked, so their absence is also weirdly soothing.
