HELLSING (manga)

HELLSING (ヘルシング,) is a manga series written and illustrated by Kohta Hirano.

It first premiered in Young King OURs in 2nd of May 1997 and ended in 30th of September 2008. The individual chapters are collected and published in tankōbon Volumes by Shōnen Gahōsha. The series was licensed for English language release in North America by Dark Horse Comics. This series consists of 10 complete Volumes on which both TV Series and the OVA are based upon. A short gaiden series was released throughout 2001-2006 titled as "Hellsing: The Dawn." Dark Horse Comics later compiled 10 volumes of the manga into 3 completely deluxe editions.

Summary
Hellsing is named after and centered around the Royal Order of Protestant Knights originally led by Abraham Van Helsing. The mission of Hellsing is to search for and destroy the undead and other supernatural forces of evil that threaten the Queen and the county. This organisation is currently led by Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, who inherited the leadership of Hellsing as a child after the death of her father. She witnessed his death which turned her from a once innocent and shy little girl to a tough and deadly force. She is protected by the faithful Hellsing family butler Walter C. Dornez, a deadly foe in his own right, and Alucard, the original and most powerful vampire, who swore loyalty to the Hellsing family after being defeated by Van Helsing one hundred years before the story takes place. These formidable guardians are joined early on in the storyline by former police officer Seras Victoria, whom Alucard turned into a vampire.

As the scale and frequency of incidents involving the undead escalate in England and all around the world, Sir Integra discovers that the remnants of a Nazi group called Millennium still exist and are intent on reviving Nazi Germany by creating a battalion of vampires. Millennium, Hellsing, and the Vatican Section XIII, Iscariot clash in an apocalyptic three-sided war in London, and Millennium reveals its true objective: to destroy the vampire lord Alucard, ending a feud begun during World War II.

Main Characters

 * Alucard: Alucard is a mysterious figure. A supernatural vampire of untold age and power, he acts as the Hellsing Organisation's secret weapon. His reasons for doing so, however, as well as his motivations, remains unknown. His position within the Hellsing Organisation is one of unique status. He is the agency's ace in the hole, answerable only to the Organisation's Chairman.
 * Seras Victoria: Seras was a member of the D11 elite police response unit until she was mortally wounded by Alucard in his destruction of a vampire masquerading as a priest. On the verge of death, she chose to allow Alucard to turn her into a vampire. Serving beneath Alucard, she now works for the Hellsing Organisation and deals with the consequences of her decision.
 * Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing: A young noblewoman, she is the head and last member of the Hellsing family. She doubles as the leader of the Hellsing Organisation, and Alucard's "Master." She inherited the Hellsing Organisation at the age of thirteen upon the death of her father. Although she often seems strict and domineering, she is respected and admired, even among her sworn enemies.

Profile
This work was serialized in Shōnen Gahōsha's Young King OURs magazine from issue 27 (released on May 2, 1997) to issue 164 (released on November 2008). As of March 2009, the total circulation has exceeded 4 million. In 2005, the sixth and seventh Volumes of the Hellsing manga series ranked among Diamond Comics Distributors' list of the top 48 manga Volumes sold in the United States for the year. In November 2007, the ninth Volume was among the top 10 Volumes sold according to Japan's monthly sales rankings. For three consecutive weeks, the tenth volume of Hellsing managed to sale 97,352 in its first week, 76,479 in its second week, and 22,749 in its third week; dropping from #4 to #24 in charts.

On the profile page of Volume 5 on Dark Horse Comics' official website, it was stated that there are 20k copies shipped since Volume 1's initial release. The sixth and seventh volume of Hellsing managed to rank 11 and 32 respectively on Diamond Comic Distributor's manga-related chart in 2006. The profile of Volume 10 on Dark Horse Comics' official website stated that there are over half a million copies of the Hellsing series in print. For five consecutive weeks, Hellsing's tenth volume was listed on New York Times Manga Best Seller List on May 30 until July 3, 2010.

Many of the characters (regardless of name or appearance) are borrowed from Hirano's past works, and prototypes of settings such as Nazi remnants and the Iscariot Organization can also be seen.

The names of the characters were written in Katakana (a Japanese phonetic script used to transcribe and approximate English sounds), which led to name translation being a subject of controversy among the Hellsing community. When he was asked by the producers who handled the English dub of the OVA, Hirano simply stated that he made up the name to sound foreign.

Hirano is a big fan of video games, and the subtitles of each chapter are derived from the names of famous video games. The range is wide, from arcade titles to PC games, consumer titles, overseas ported software, etc. Minor titles of fairly old domestic and foreign PC games are also included. On the back cover of Volume 2 onwards, there are surreal gag illustrations that overturn the serious developments in the work. Characters such as Alucard were tampered with, but among them, the Major had established himself as a typical otaku character, participating in Comiket with his subordinate Doc and others. In the final Volume, all the characters competing in a cosplay contest.

Kohta Hirano himself aimed to publish one Volume a year, but in reality, the publication of the Volumes was often delayed. In the bonus afterword chapter at the end of Volumes 6 and 8, the Valentine brothers made a joke about Hirano's publication pace.

Hellsing has been adapted into an anime twice, one by studio Gonzo and one as an OVA animated by multiple studios. In 2001, the Hellsing anime aired from 2001 to 2002, lasting 13 episodes, and later in 2006; the Hellsing OVA was officially released in Japan, animated by studio Satelight. After producing Volumes 1 until 4 of the OVA, studio Madhouse stepped in and officially became the new studio to animate the Hellsing OVA until OVA 7, OVA 8, and onwards was animated by studio Graphinica.

Volume Guide
During publication, 95 chapters were submitted and released in multiple issues of Young King OURs. However, these 95 chapters would later be condensed into 10 tankōbon Volumes and the chapters were also condensed into 89 chapters instead. Combining the total number of condensed chapters with the Crossfire special released in Volumes 1 - 3 of the manga, the total number of chapters is 92. The wiki uses the tankōbon Volumes chapters numbering, not the magazines.

Publication
Hellsing ran in Shōnen Gahōsha's magazine, Young King OURs, where it stayed there until it ended in 2009. During publication, Hirano stated that there are times when he couldn't make it to deadline, so he submitted "half-assed" manuscripts. Due to the chapters being too short to be in a tankōbon format, Gahōsha would most of the time condense the submitted chapters, which led to the total of 95 submitted chapters to be lowered to 89 chapters instead. In addition to condensing the chapters, Gahōsha would also completely alter the colors of the colored pages included in the magazines, and turn them into a typical black-and-white pages.

Production
Originally in 1996, Hirano created a one-shot, hentai manga titled "Hellsing." It is however, now known as "The Legends of Vampire Hunter," which Hirano commented on to an interview stating that it's a mistake as in reality, it's simply titled "Hellsing" and not anything else. The title of the one-shot and the eventual manga he'd go on to create was titled "Hellsing" specifically because of the main character, Integra specifically, being a descent of Van Helsing. Jokingly, he said that he also calls himself "Hell."

Hirano stated that it was not his intention to do an erotic/hentai register manga, rather, it's instead his intention to create a somewhat "daring action story." The concerning reception of the one-shot and when it was considered to be a erotic/hentai manga, led to the short story become canceled and being considered a "failure" by Hirano himself, so shortly thereafter, Hirano said that he thought to himself: "why not remove the daring side and continue to show this strange universe by focusing more on the action?," and that's the start of the Hellsing series.

Given the atypical universe at the beginning of Hellsing, Hirano and OURs wanted to test the reception with readers; if it's not positive, obviously it'll be cancelled but if it turns out to be a hit, then it'd be continued. Hirano stated that this is mainly why the start of the series was a "little disjointed." Much to his surprise as he does not expect any kind of success, the first few chapters of Hellsing turned out to be a hit, so it became a real series. Up to chapter 3, these filler chapters are only meant to be sort of an introduction to the world of Hellsing, which is confirmed by Hirano himself who said that those chapters were "very generic" due to the chapters itself being a "monster-of-the-week" type. Adding a powerful organization that's the Hellsing's rival was thought on during the development of chapter 4, so the "Iscariot Organization" was created to be Hellsing's rival.

Writing the series, Hirano thought that it was best to write the series in an eccentric style rather than an orthodox style given the narrative setting in which the series is set in. Hirano has since been writing vampire-type stories since he was student; first expanding on his ideas and images about a vampire. Explaining the structure of the story, Hellsing first starts out with Seras' point of view but would later change into an all-out battle with no focus on a specific character. Yet however, the root of the story was about Alucard being defeated at the hands of a human. The ending of the story was coherent to his plan at the beginning, although he initially planned for the characters of Section 13 to be killed off, yet the organization would live. But because he had grown attached to them, one character survived in the end.

Feeling like that there were too much characters, when Yumie and Heinkel appeared; the other personality of Yumie, Yumiko, did not because it would be too complex for a side character to have a complex personality. The flow of story, including the last scene, was decided on from the beginning although changes were present. After the introduction to Iscariot, the story of Hellsing would start, with Anderson being Alucard's rival decided on from Anderson's first appearance. Although Anderson was always planned to die. Trying to avoid stereotypes, Hirano's motives were that he cannot tolerate an ending "in which the two fight together, become friends, and live happily ever after," rather, Hellsing's resolution is death, and it is not the kind of work that keeps the defeated alive after the resolution has been reached.

When asked why he chose England as the main location for Hellsing, Hirano said that it has to be England if you want to talk about vampires; later stating that it doesn't make any sense anywhere else; especially America, stating that he would rather make a story about Cthulhu rather than vampires if he's going to create a manga set in the United States. Hirano later said that he had always thought about putting Nazis in his work long before Hellsing. Because of the existence of the Vatican, Hirano stated that the main setting has obviously got to be England as it wouldn't make much sense anywhere else.

When asked about Hellsing being a homage to the famous "Dracula" novel created by Bram Stoker, Hirano said that it's not a sequel or anything, but in Hellsing's world, the events of Stoker's novel took place. Hirano also mentioned in said interview, that he actually went to England for vacation to take pictures for references in order to draw certain famous landscapes. The popularity in oversees surprised Hirano very much as he thought that the manga would only appeal to Japanese viewers, stating that he drew many things that are not considered "taboo" in Japan but taboo in others, so he does expect things to be revised in many other countries. When asked about the historical references and characters being present in his manga, Hirano said that it's complicated as he doesn't consider himself as someone with a lot of culture, and said that he's just an "Otaku" and all these references come from what he sees and reads out of "otaku passion." He also said that he does not do any specific research on the references he displayed throughout the Hellsing series.

When asked about his art, Hirano said that he draws them how he likes them to be drawn. He stated that he did what he did because of one interview from Yasuhiro Nightow and another one from Akihiro Ito, Yasuhiro Nightow said, "If you're going to plaster a shade in your comic, then might as well paste it unsparingly", while Akihiro said, "If you're going to draw gunfights, then don't worry about the amount of bullets and so on." Hirano also said that he has an assistant to help him with the drawing, to which, the interviewer made fun of sarcastically. When asked about why the background is always black, Hirano said that the setting is mostly at nighttime, of course, it'll be black. He continues by saying that he has this nagging feeling if the background art is not filled in, and later sarcastically says that he thinks he has this sickness called "paranoia disorder," which only works when the picture is completely filled that he feels that the work is complete.

Hirano since then has switched to digital drawing since Volume 5. The digital software he uses is Photoshop, commenting that he "worked his ass off to learn that program on his own". Initially, Hirano drew it with a pen, and he scanned the image for digital coloring and when he feels like it was hopeless, it means that it was done. Hirano also said that Zorin Blitz was his least favorite character to draw. However, he mentioned that he had to put tattoos on Zorin so that she could stand out as a character; but later complains about how hard it was to draw her, because of the fact that half of her body is covered in tattoos and wondering how he was supposed to draw her when she stretches out a hand on the wall or floor.

Oddly enough, Hirano later in an another interview stated that his favorite character was Alexander Anderson, favorite character to draw was Walter, and the hardest one to draw was The Major.

When creating Alucard, and in the original one-shot Hellsing, he portrayed Alucard as a "vampire hunter who wore a trench coat up to his neck." However, he actually meant that to be a neck protector, and the rest that covers his whole body acts to block punches and bullets. Saying that he pretty much tried to make an invincible character. However, he said that the character ended up looking bad, so he switched the trench coat with a long coat instead and in addition, he made him "really powerful" that he doesn't even need any kind of bulletproof vest to cover him anymore. In another interview, he said that when creating Alucard, he wanted to do a story with gunplay, so making a vampire with guns just doesn't work with this formulaic vampire. He added the hat and the long coat, saying that it's still dark and ominous, but however, just more suited to his behavior.

Given the critiques viewing Integra and Alucard being described as an "anti-hero," Hirano confirms this as they will take no chance and give no mercy in battle, and in order to get what they want; they'll take any means necessary to do so. However, Hirano noted that in creating Integra, it was his intention to make her the most "human-like" character of the series. Wanting to add a character that'll make the series a bit "warmer" given the dark, isolated story Hellsing takes place in, so he created Seras Victoria; describing her as a "light that stands out from the darkness."

In an interview, Hirano praised his publishing house; Shōnen Gahōsha, because of their allowance for creators to have so much freedom in creating the manga; later stating that if he told another publishing house besides Gahōsha that he was going to do a manga about what was left of Nazis going to blow up England, the idea would not be accepted. Hirano said, "For a mangaka like me who has such an... atypical universe, it's something very precious."

When asked about if he had planned to end the series with the tenth volume, Hirano confirmed it. He later predicted that it would take him around 2 - 3 years to finish Volume 9 - 10.

In the May 29 issue of the Puff magazine on 2009, Hirano said that Hellsing was never intended to be serialized for 10 years. While the story did end according to his plan, looking back, Hirano did regret something along the way. However, most of his regret were how he portrayed certain characters like Anderson and how the fight between Alucard and Anderson had played out, saying that he was a little too hasty. This was likely due to the scheduling and such. Because of this, he thought that the fight between The Captain and Seras had played out much more smoothly and better than Anderson and Alucard's.

Character Prototypes
This series includes Kohta's old works before he started Hellsing, which features the characters' prototypes.


 * Hellsing: The Legends of Vampire Hunter: Alucard, Seras Victoria, The Valentine Brothers
 * Strike Back of Love: Enrico Maxwell
 * Angel Dust: Alexander Anderson
 * Coyote: Pip Vernedead and The Major
 * Desert Guardian: The Captain
 * Führer's Paradise: The Professor and Schrödinger
 * Hi-and-Low: Sir Integral Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing and Yumie Takagi
 * Magic School: Renaldo
 * The Tale of the Great Doubles: Walter C. Dornez and Heinkel Wolfe
 * Advance! Secret Studies of ​​the Cybernetics Research Division: Makube

Trivia

 * The longest period without any Hellsing Volumes released is 1 year, and 7 months. The serialization of tankōbon Volumes in Japan also started a year and 4 months after chapter 1 appeared in an issue of Young King OURs.
 * At the start of the chapter, on top of the chapter names written in English, is a word written in katakana; and the katakana appeared in every chapter until Volume 5, where it was dropped for a bit, brought back, and once again dropped. The last time the katakana appeared was in chapter 53.