Seras Victoria

Seras Victoria (セラス・ヴィクトリア, Serasu Vikutoria) is one of the main characters in the Hellsing series created by Kouta Hirano. However, in the anime, she acted less of a main character and served more of a narrative purpose for the audience. Seras is a Draculina, a term used to refer the female members of the Dracul bloodline, because she had been turned into a vampire by Alucard to save her from a would-be fatal gunshot wound in the chest. In both the television series and the OVA, her seiyu is Fumiko Orikasa. Seras' English voice actor in both series is K. T. Gray.

Appearance
Seras is a young woman with short blond hair and blue eyes, which turn red when she becomes enraged and permanently when she becomes a full fledged vampire. She usually wears a tight yellow Hellsing uniform with a short skirt, long white stockings, and tall brown boots (the uniform turned red due to the amount of blood absorbed into her body during the events of OVA 7). In the anime series, Seras wears a tight blue Hellsing uniform with a short skirt, long black stockings, and tall black boots.

Personality
Seras is a strong willed woman, and apparently had always been since childhood which is confirmed through her flashbacks. Seras is often considered a tomboy; a very brave, strong-willed and heroic young woman who often rejects following orders of her master that cross with her personal beliefs. Her devotion to morals and integrity is rather unusual, considering her horrid past. However, she is a loyal and trustworthy soldier who will diligently follow the orders of her commander, provided said commander has proven his or her worth. Her level of maturity in comparison to the other characters is somewhat questionable; she seems to be the child the others could not be, yet possessing a sort of worldly maturity and superficial intelligence that most other characters lack, as well as a sort of 'nature winning against nurture' mentality, as opposed to most other characters. She's the "light that stands out from the darkness" (quoting Kouta Hirano from a recent interview).

History
Seras' father, a police officer, "got in too deep" during an undercover mission. The group he had infiltrated traced him back to his home and brutally murdered him. Her mother hid Seras in a closet and then walked out to face the criminals, who immediately killed her as well. A distraught Seras charged out and stabbed one of the criminals in the eye with a fork before being shot in the gut and thrown against a wall. The flashback ends with Seras seeing glimpses of the criminals having sex with her mother's corpse. It was also shown that, after the ordeal in her orphanage, she threw a stone at another child for taking a toy she was playing with. Near the end of the flashback, Seras is told that she may be relocated if her violence continues, as the orphanage may not be able to care for her any longer. There, she expresses her strongest wish - to become a police officer.

Seras was originally a police officer who, along with the rest of her squad, was sent into Cheddar Village, where a vampire disguised as (or possibly was formerly) a priest had taken control of the town and turned its inhabitants into Ghouls (zombies). Taken hostage by that vampire, who used her as a human shield, she was given a "choice" by Alucard after shooting her through the lung in order to kill the vampire: she could either die as a human, or be turned into a vampire herself, and live. She chose to live, and so Alucard turned her into a vampire, her virgin blood allowed her to successfully make the transition from human to vampire (non-virgin or same-sex vampire victims become ghouls). She was employed by the Hellsing Organization immediately afterwards. Her actual age is not known but she is generally believed to be at least 18 and is popularly believed to be 19 or 20. The most possible, though, is the latter, since she had already joined the police force at the start of the manga, making the age of 18 unlikely.

Alucard
As stated by Hellsing's creator Kouta Hirano, in his interview in Otakon 2006: Her relationship with Alucard is very complicated, since "many things mix together", like being part of the same kind. Comradery, or, from Seras point of view, probably Alucard is the master, teacher. Certainly, of course, there is the feeling of love, but also, it could be something closer to the ties of familiship." When questioned about them having a father daughter relationship, the author answered "There's no one way to distinguish how they (Alucard and Seras) feel about it (their relationship). We cannot say it's just father and daughter." Moreover, the theory that is a master and simple servant/slave relationship was rejected by him, saying that "At first, they were saying it should be master and slave, but then they changed their minds because they said 'no, no, master and slave is the relationship between Alucard and Integra'. So, we cannot call Alucard and Seras master and slave."

What is for certain is that Alucard expresses trust and patience for her development as a vampire (such as telling Walter she was "more interesting" than she looks and confident that she will drink blood). However, he can be rather harsh with her too, like in volume 3 when he yelled at her about slaughtering "just humans", even if later he regretted it, telling her "Let's go, Seras! In spite of your fear... Follow me into the darkness, as far as you can". In volume 8, Alucard greets her with a gentle smile, and pats her on the head, saying only her name: "Seras... Seras Victoria." as opposed to the usual "police girl." In chapter 71 he stated that her "voice is calling out for" him, recognizing it. Seras, on the other hand, feels rather nervous and uneasy around him, even if she does not hesitate to help him in his battle with Tubalcain Alhambra and Alexander Anderson (Hellsing), or to talk back to him at times. Later on, Seras develops as a vampire, but her uncertain behavior towards him does not change despite her better aid in combat. After stopping the strike by Anderson, Seras' alarmed calls bring Alucard back from torpor. The last visage in his dream was Seras' face, ending the flashback and chapter with the words: There is a voice. There is a voice calling out. It's...you?. Before facing Anderson he compliments her: Why so loud, Police-woman? Your voice sounds fine regardless. Like fragments of shattered melody. By volume 9, Alucard recognizes fully Seras' growth and tells her: "Go with our master. Go and conquer, Seras".

Integra
Her relationship with Integra Hellsing is strained and professional in the TV series. It's purely employee-employer with a degree of tension. But in the manga and OVA, the two main heroines interact very well. Seras is dedicated to her and Integra herself trusts her and has expressed sympathy towards the young Draculina. In volume 2, when Seras loses control of her vampire instincts during the attack of the Valentine brothers and kills ghouls in a berserker rage, Integra, who had been looking with horror at her, doesn't hesitate to run to her and embrace her, pleading for her to stop. Seras after this, finds herself again and feels remorse for her actions. In volume 4, chapter 8, seeing that Seras refuses to drink blood, Integra cuts her finger, ordering her to lick it, for both avoiding infection and helping Seras drink blood to become stronger. Seras hesitantly obeys and feels "relief", as Integra says, having drank blood. In volume 7, chapter 10, Seras is the one who saves her from the Iscariot priests, creating a protective barrier all around her with her shadow-shifting abilities of her left arm. Seras does not even have to say that Captain Bernadotte has died before Integra realizes it.

In chapter 82, Integra and Seras face the Captain and Seras suggests that Integra go on to face the Major while she faces the Captain. Integra calls her name, her worry for her obvious and doesn't go further in the ship, unless Seras assures her that she will be alright. Even then, Integra says that she "won't forgive her if she dies".

Pip
Seras also interacts a lot with her Captain, Pip Bernadotte, the leader of the 'Wild Geese' mercenary group. Hirano revealed that "if Seras wasn't a vampire and Pip wasn't a mercenary, they would be the perfect couple, everybody would be envious of".

This is quite clear from the manga: Seras shows genuine grief at the moment of his death, thus she expresses feelings of love that had been developed earlier in the series (confirmed in the title of the chapter: The Man I Love). Along with many humorous fights, both had shared trust and fondness they feel for each other, in volume six, saying to each other "don't die" before a fierce battle with Millennium. Especially from Pip's side, in volume 7 he tries to kiss her twice, only the second try being successful, after the deadly blow by Zorin Blitz. He offers his blood and life to her when she's mortally wounded, suggesting that from now on they will "fight together" to "crush them all." Seras accepts and, since that incident, Pip exists within her and they become one when Seras is in need of help for a combat (such as Zorin or the Captain-in chapter 86, Pip is revealed to be Seras' familiar). This relationship is absent in the TV series as Pip does not appear in it.

Weapons
For more information, please see Harkonnen and the Harkonnen II.

Victoria's preferred weapon is the Hellsing ARMS Anti-Midian Cannon Harkonnen. (Although notably, because its weight of 120 lbs. or approx. 60 kg, she is probably the only one who is able to use it anyway.) With the Harkonnen in hand, Seras serves perfectly as long-range fire support. Before gaining the Harkonnen, Seras used a relatively smaller rifle, firing 13.7mm rounds, as is seen written on the gun in the OVA. In the manga this gun is unnamed but the letters BAERLKS are spelled out on its side; in the OVA, however, the gun has Harkonnen written in the same place.

Later on, for the purpose of defending Hellsing HQ, Seras was given the cannon-like firearm, the Harkonnen II. Although she loses her weapons during the confrontation with Zorin, relying instead on her "Shadow Arm," Seras makes use of firearms again during the confrontation with the Captain, using a pair of MG-42 Machine Guns salvaged from dead Millennium soldiers.

Powers
Although she primarily uses weapons such as her Harkonnen, Seras is well-trained in hand-to-hand combat and can easily take down opponents using brute strength, as shown in Episodes 12 and 13 when facing against the powerful FREAK zombie. It isn't stated how well-trained she is or what techniques she knows, although she states that she received basic self-defense training in Volume 2 of the manga when she became a police officer. She demonstrates some maneuvers and attacks such as kicks and karate chops that suggest that she is taught in some kind of martial arts. Specifically, she put Jan Valentine in a hold, preventing him from moving. She has strong legs and can run very fast, even faster than bullets. But without a doubt, the biggest example of her unique strength (before drinking Pip's blood) is in episode 6 of the TV series or episode 2 of the OVA when, while in a berserker rage, she destroys almost a few dozen ghouls in mere seconds, after temporarily letting loose her strength. Her abilities greatly increase during Volume 7 of the manga (when she becomes a true vampire) when she decimates an entire row of vampires in a single move.

After being fatally wounded by Zorin's scythe, Pip tells Seras, who was blinded and crippled, to drink his blood so they can win together; he dies before she can respond. She does drink, however, and becomes one of the "True Undead." Her eyes regenerate and she regains the use of her legs. Furthermore her left arm, which had been severed at the shoulder, is restored as the same type of shadow-matter that Alucard can manipulate. It seems that upon becoming a full vampire, Seras has inherited some of Alucard's powers, and perhaps whatever modifications Hellsing had made to him as well. After she kills Zorin, Seras uses her new powers to fly to London and defend Sir Integra from the treacherous Iscariot priests.

After drinking Pip's blood, Seras displays a few changes. Not only are her powers enhanced, but it is also evident that she is no longer afraid to use them. Some of Pip's self-confidence seems to have rubbed off: after descending upon an armed party of Iscariot soldiers who are about to kill Integra, Alexander Anderson notes her change, declaring her an unholy creature (while Anderson displayed his characteristic hatred of vampires towards her before, he was convinced of Seras' status as a "rookie", and favored confronting Alucard to concentrating on her). Seras, in response, calmly smiles and says that she's "not afraid of anything anymore".A very well-known and respected group of fan-translators known as the Birds of Hermes have stated that the memories seen in Seras' mind are a Ricean metaphor in which blood carries and transmits memories (essentially fragments of the soul) that act like film negatives, but lack the original consciousness, creating a copy of the mind. One scene relates particularly well to this issue. After killing Zorin, Seras walks up to the remaining Wild Geese with a smile, telling them that she would fulfill her promise and crush the Nazis. A shot of the place Pip died but with his body nowhere to be found is shown and the Geese, catching on to something, stand to attention, salute, and say "Yes Sir!" as she flies off to Sir Integra's aid. In chapter 85 - Warcraft (3), Pip's spirit speaks to a wounded Seras after an assault from the Captain. At the end of the conversation, it's implied they are going to fight "together" against this foe once again. Due to mistranslation, in the German edition of the Hellsing manga, Seras affirms to Integra that she turned Pip into a vampire.

Around the end of volume 8 and the beginning of volume 9, Alucard appears to be on the losing end in his battle against a god-like Anderson. Alucard is nearly sliced in two by Anderson's bayonet and can't seem to regenerate the damage. Seras appears at the last second and grabs the blade to prevent further damage to Alucard, but the thorns and flames start to consume her. This gives Alucard enough time to shift into a more powerful form and resume combat against Anderson. Following Anderson's defeat, she boarded the Hindenburg II with Integra in order to finish off Millennium.

After protecting Integra from Waffen SS vampires, she engaged The Captain in battle. After a vicious battle which demolishes Hindenburg II's main hanger, Seras kills her nemesis with help from her new familiar, Pip.

In the TV series, she doesn't portray much power beyond superhuman endurance, strength and senses as well as a slight clairvoyance ability. She does bend a machine gun barrel with ease in an episode, showing that she does possess strength. However in the manga she demonstrates considerable power the extent and range of which is unknown. In a manner consistent with vampire lore in popular culture, Seras's powers seem to be derived from those of her sire.

At first, she displayed superhuman strength (presumably she can lift at least 6 tons), superspeed (she can dodge bullets at close range), a "third eye" ability like clairvoyance that lets her penetrate illusions and see things from afar as well as sense auras by the look of it, and regeneration (at whose level is unknown but it is quite potent despite the fact that she only drank blood once before Pip, when it was offered by Integra). She can also make her teeth very sharp, like most other vampires. After consuming Pip's blood, the effectiveness of her abilities sky-rocketed and she learned how to dispel Zorin's magic with a thought. (Zorin saw a mixed series of memories, memories contained within the minds of both Pip and Seras...then Seras grabbed her.)

Another ability whose presence is analogous to Anderson's 4-dimensional status is telekinesis, or more accurately tactile telekinesis. Despite having a slight frame and little weight, she has phenomenal lifting strength and load-bearing abilities, but her limbs come under none of the normal strain of such weight and such objects do not crumble when carried. Furthermore, extremely high-recoil and normally turret-fixed weapons afford no such problems to Seras, even though powerful muscles would afford her little help without a strong footing. In addition, her wings do not flap. Instead, she soars much like a bullet.

She can also absorb souls (or at least memories) carried in the blood of others. Her most dramatic power, however, is the use of solid shadows from which she makes a bat wing that emanate from the stump that was her left arm, allowing her to fly at enormous speeds and then later use it as a non-lethal weapon against Iscariot. Her overall power level remains under question; Anderson seems to regard her as a true nosferatu who still conceals herself in human visage and the Major calls her 'one of the fighters in the final tragedy of Walpurgisnacht'.

After becoming a true vampire, the stump of her severed left arm now produces a solid shadowy substance which Seras can manipulate into various shapes. She first forms it into a wing for flying, and she also used it in this form as a non-lethal weapon against a group of the Vatican's soldiers who were holding Integra "prisoner". In chapter 82, we see her forming it into an arm in order for her to be able to wield two guns at once, and in Chapter 85 it is shown that she can turn them into normal shadows, which snake along the ground similar to Zorin Blitz's tattoos and form them into sharp spikes for stabbing, lethal attacks. Her fully vampiric form might lack a human left arm, as it was severed by Zorin Blitz just before she became a true vampire.

Like Alucard, her transformation was completed upon her truly embracing her vampiric nature and brought about the enhanced effects and access to the higher-level powers; subsequent souls would thus serve only to increase her overall power level and regenerative abilities without changing the nature of her powers. For instance, 30 years after the Millenium incident, she has such control over her shadow matter that she can mimic Alucard's entire outfit by transforming it, but she still cannot shapeshift any part of her body besides her arm. The overall progression of her abilities and combat prowess is best depicted by the fact that Seras (with Pip's help), managed to not only do battle with the experienced Captain, Millennium's greatest soldier (besides Dark Walter) on nearly equal terms, but best him. Prior to drinking Pip's blood, Seras could not walk in the sun without a hooded jacket and overcast skies. However, after she does, she is able to stand sunlight and has a shadow, as depicted in Chapter 73.

TV show
The TV series version changes numerous details of Seras' backstory, and changes her importance: while Alucard, Integra, and Seras are the central characters of the manga, the anime focuses more on Seras' point of view, and her struggling to come to terms with her new life as a vampire. Her darker side, seen in the manga and the OVA series, is not present in the anime series. However, it is notable that her eyes become red as soon as Alucard makes her a vampire. She also starts drinking medical blood after watching Alucard feed off Kim, but no difference is seen in her appearance or behaviour, other than her suit color, which is yellow with white stockings and brown gloves in the manga and OVA, and a blue uniform with black stockings and white gloves in the TV series.

Her affiliation with the English police is also different. In the manga, Seras is a solitary constable assigned to Cheddar, but in the OVA, Seras was partnered with two male officers, Simon and Eddie. Both men were turned into ghouls by the priest vampire.

The TV series, however, has Seras placed in Division 11, the precursor to SO19 team sent to Cheddar to combat the vampire. Seras' D-11 teammates often watched out for her, affectionately referring to her as "Kitten". Sadly, Seras' entire D-11 team was turned into ghouls, either by the priest vampire or the other ghouls roaming Cheddar. In the manga and OVA, Seras confronted the priest vampire outside, while in the TV series Seras confronted him inside the village church.

Owing to the vastly different TV series continuity after episode 7, the interaction with Pip Bernadotte is not present. Instead, Seras must struggle with the temptation to drink Alucard's blood, thus fully realizing her vampiric powers, something she does in the last episode of the anime. She drinks his blood, but does not show the power increase that she showed in the manga.

Trivia

 * Seras' signature weapons, Harkonnen and Harkonnen II, are named after the main antagonist of Frank Herbert's novel Dune, Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. This is further reinforced by the appearance of the gun's "spirit" during dream sequences in the manga (and thus OVA) and episode previews in the anime, who bears a strong resemblance to Baron Harkonnen from David Lynch's film adaptation of the book.


 * A character similar to Seras was present in Hirano's earlier work, Hellsing: Legend of the Vampire Hunter, called Yuri Kate, who is also turned into a vampire and taken in by a prototype Alucard.