The second half of Hellsing Ultimate is even darker and more violent than the previous episodes. Nazi vampires attack London, absurdly arriving in overscaled zeppelins. Taking advantage of the carnage, Archbishop Maxwell and the Troops of the Vatican’s Iscariot Organization, whose equipment includes “30 pieces of silver and a rope,” charge into the fray with the aim of winning England back to Catholicism. Sir Integra Hellsing remains calm, despite the bombs, bullets, and rivers of blood: her super-vampire servants Sera Victoria and Arucard are on hand to settle everyone’s hash. The last three hours of Hellsing Ultimate may have a record body count for an anime series. Characters are beheaded, dismembered, and mutilated; bullets, swords, scythes, and knives tear through bodies. How all this mayhem constitutes a coherent story is anyone’s guess, and the filmmakers muddle things further with flashbacks, illusions, dream sequences, and bits of incongruously cartoony animation. Three hours after the Nazi invasion began, Hellsing Ultimate simply stops, with nothing resolved and the strands of the plot flying in all directions, like the tatters of Arucard’s coat. Technically, the series is as messy as its narrative, with weird disjunctures between the drawn and CG figures. The filmmakers seem to have set out to offend as many viewers as possible, and with the many references to the Waffen SS, the Reconquista, Judas Iscariot, et al., they’ll probably succeed. It’s not clear why Funimation chose to spread four episodes over three DVDS, when the material would have fit easily on two, or even one. The set comes with a box designed to hold both halves of the series. (Rated TV MA, appropriate for 18 and older: graphic violence, violence against women, sadism, rape, gore, grotesque imagery, tobacco use, extensive profanity, offensive religious imagery, Nazi imagery, ethnic slurs) –Charles Solomon
Sold Out
Sold Out
Sold Out