THE DAWN: A supplementary of HELLSING

The Dawn
Information
Director(s)	Hiroyuki Oshima
Writer(s)	Kohta Hirano
Character Designer(s)	Ryoji Nakamura
Composer(s)	Hayato Matsuo Yasushi Ishii
Studio	Graphinica

The Dawn: A supplementary of Hellsing 《ヘルシング: 外伝, Herushingu: Gaiden》 is a short supplementary based off of the eponymous prequel of the Hellsing manga, Hellsing: The Dawn, where it's included in Hellsing: Ultimate's 8, 9, and 10 DVD set.

The series was included in each volume, with one episode included respectively; between July 27, 2011, and December 26, 2012, in Japan, and July 4, 2019, in the United States, and many other countries. The entirety of this special was animated by studio Graphinica, the studio that replaced Madhouse after Hellsing: Ultimate VII.

Summary

It is September 1944 and World War II is raging in Europe. To get an advantage on the field, Nazis are experimenting with artificial vampire technologies, they are still far away from achieving their initial goal, but even the intermediate stages of such researchers are possessing a great threat to The anti-German coalition. In an attempt to stop the Nazi project and to protect England and The Allies current head of the Hellsing Manor, Sir Arthur Hellsing, is sending his best agents — Walter C. Dornez and Alucard — into German-occupied Poland where monstrous experiments are being conducted.

Main Characters

• Sir Arthur Hellsing: Cunning, wise, and the son of the great Abraham Van Helsing, he's yet a cocky person and pretty much a ladies' man. Confident in every way, smiling even when his task is quite hard to do, he believes in himself; and that's what makes him formidable. His decision to send Walter, a 14-year-old, inexperienced member, however, remains ambiguous; either he had a completely different reason untold, or he was just confident in the organisation's new, strong young member.
• Walter C. Dornez: A 14-year-old superhuman, Walter C. Dornez is the Hellsing Family's butler, as well as the organisation's new member. Arrogant, but cunning; Walter's careless and arrogant demeanor led to him struggling to fight the werewolf, and even so; his weapon, the Monofilament Wires, is deadly; killing every Nazi soldier in the room without any effort taken. His speed and accuracy are formidable, being able to kick a butter knife off the table, and if the werewolf had never interfered, would have killed the mysterious leader of the experiment.
• Alucard: A vampire that can shapeshift into a man, a girl, even a demon hound, Alucard is the Hellsing Organisation's Trump Card, making him their most powerful member; second to none. However, his sarcastic nature makes him arrogant and careless, which could lead to his downfall. He only answers to the head of the Hellsing Organisation, Arthur, and nobody else. His motivation is not clear, and it seems that he's a psychopath; smiling even when killing his enemies.

Supplementaries

TBA

Staff

Storyboard: Hiroyuki Oshima

Unit Director: Hiroyuki Oshima

Music:

• Hayato Matsuo
• Yasushi Ishii

Original creator: Kohta Hirano

Art Director: Hitoshi Tashiro

Animation Director:

• Byoung Gil Yang
• Hiroyuki Oshima
• Kyung Rock Seo (eps 2-3)

Sound Director: Yota Tsuruoka (Rakuonsha)

Director of Photography: Takeo Ogiwara

Producer: Hiroki Yoshioka

2D Monitor Design: Kyung Hun Chae

Assistant producer: Takasumi Miura

Background Art:

• Haruna Tsukakoshi
• Hitoshi Tashiro
• Manabu Fukuda

Casting Coordination: Wataru Matsuoka (Ozawa Office)

Color setting: Eriko Murata

Editing: Kiyoshi Hirose

In-Between Animation:

• Chinatsu Kameyama (ep 3)
• Chizuru Kidachi (ep 3)
• Eun-Young Lee (ep 1)
• Haruna Gōzu (eps 2-3)
• Jong Suk Park (ep 1)
• Kiyoshi Hara (eps 2-3)
• Marina Maki (eps 2-3)
• Miyuki Shimota (ep 3)
• Naoki Hattori (ep 3)
• Rebecca Yasukawa (ep 3)
• Shōma Ōno (eps 2-3)
• Yoshiki Masui (eps 2-3)

In-Between Check:

• Jong Seok Park (ep 2)
• Tsukasa Sakurai

Key Animation:

• Dong Nam Kim (ep 1)
• Hiroyuki Oshima
• Myoung Hyun Kim (ep 1)

Photography:

• Hyo Gyu Park (eps 2-3)
• Naoki Kitamura (eps 2-3)
• Osamu Motoyama
• Takeo Ogiwara (eps 1-2)
• Production Advancement:
• Chie Ikeda (池田千恵; ep 2)
• Na Yeon Lee (ep 3)

Recording engineer: Yasushi Nagura

Sound Effects: Hiromune Kurahashi

Sound Production Manager: Yoshimi Sugiyama

Special Effects: Miyako Hoshi

Animation Production: Graphinica

Background Art: HAL-ART

Finish Animation: MK Seoul (eps 1-2)

In-Between Animation: Graphinica (eps 2-3)

Photography: Graphinica

Production: Wild Geese (Hellsing OVA Production Committee)

Recording Studio:

• studio2001: (eps 2-3)
• studio2010:

Sound Production: Rakuonsha

Cast

• Romi Park as Walter C. Dornez
  
• Daisuke Namikawa as Sir Arthur Hellsing
  
• Jōji Nakata as Alucard
  
• Junichi Suwabe as Sir Hugh Irons
  

• Hiroshi Naka as The Doctor
  
• Nobuo Tobita as The Major

• Masako Shirakawa as Unnamed Woman (ep 3)
  
• Misa Kobayashi as Unnamed Woman (ep 3)

• Mitsuru Miyamoto as Murasaki (ep 3)
  
• Yūichi Nakamura as Shimazu Toyohisa (ep 3)

Production

Taliesen Jaffe stated in a panel at Otakon 2008 that The Dawn would be animated as part of Ultimate. It was also revealed in the official features page for Hellsing: Ultimate VIII on the official Japanese Hellsing website that the special Short Gaiden in the extra disc that comes with the limited edition of Hellsing: Ultimate VIII would be The Dawn. The post also stated that the team would be working on a manuscript from Kohta Hirano himself and that the 4 pages of this manuscript would be included with the volume's liner notes booklet.

Drifters Promotional Video

The last minutes of the OVA shows a promotional video of Drifters, Kohta Hirano's new manga. There were never a given explanation on why the ending didn't continue the battle as Alucard had just appeared shortly before the episode was cut off into a scene based off of the end of Chapter 1 of Drifters. in The whole PV was animated by Graphinica, and interestingly enough; the Drifters official anime adaptation in 2016, was instead animated by Hoods Entertainment. An interesting thing to note is that the music which plays in the background is composed and sung by Yasushi Ishii, the original 13-episodes Hellsing TV Anime's composer.