Great Britain, through the God-given wisdom of its unsurpassable queen, has its own way of dealing with the typical troubles that plague every modern state in the form of vampires and other monsters. A secret, para-military religious order, the Hellsing Organization, has been protecting the Glorious British Empire (can I get an "Amen!" here?) for centuries.
The current leader of the organization, Sir Integra Wingates Hellsing (and yes, "Sir" Hellsing is a woman - thanks, delightfully stupid subtitle writer) has quite a bit of trouble with her job. When she's not banging heads with the (mostly evil) vampire hunting arm of the Vatican, the Iscariot Organization, she has to cope with the new-born trouble of a very modern type of vampire created by human hands through the implantation of some sort of living microchips. This type of vampire is rather less subtle and a lot more uncontrollable and worldly ambitious than the classical kind, so there's a lot of rather unpleasant work to do for her and her men.
Fortunately, the Hellsing Organization not only has a copious amount of red shirt footsoldiers, but also employs its own pet vampire. Known only as Alucard (hey, it's better than Dr. Ackula), the insanely powerful creature has his own reasons to serve Hellsing through the 13 episode run of the show, whatever they may be.
Right in the first episode he makes a young, dying police woman with the arch British name of Seras Victoria his vampire servant, probably to have someone carry even larger guns than he himself uses, wear short skirts and be our viewpoint character through most of the mindless carnage that follows.
Ah, Hellsing. A nearly classic example of the beauties of the trashy side of anime. The show might not be "good" in the way most people like to use the word, but it has at least two things going for it. Firstly a very neat visual style, wildly mixing Gothic imagery with an insane tourist's point of view of England and secondly its wonderfully skewed perspective on British culture. Whatever it can get wrong about the UK (I don't think anyone making this show knows that England and the UK are different entities) it does get as wrong as humanly possible. The viewer should be prepared for some entertainingly outrageous interpretations of British patriotism, the Church of England, the position of the Queen and honestly everything the show could possibly get wrong. Special bonus points go out to the Evil Vatican (for some reason not shown molesting children - a missed opportunity) and the fusion of the Big Evil Black Man stereotype with the Evil Albino stereotype into one offensive package. The show is full of things like this that would annoy and offend endlessly, if one could bother to take anything here seriously.
Hellsing's plot is mostly an excuse to throw as much silly-cool and stupid into the viewers' faces as possible, sometimes to great effect, just faltering from time to time when the show tries to "say something" or (please no) tries its hand at "characterization". Luckily, the latter does not happen too often.
I should warn everyone who likes his questions answered, though. The final episode of the show takes great pleasure in not answering a single question that might have come up during the show, even the identity of a traitor in the show's interpretation of the British Government isn't explained, instead we're treated to a sudden pop-up text that informs us, that yes, indeed, there was one and now he's dead.
This fits the tone of the rest of the show perfectly - I dare anyone without knowledge of the manga or the OVA to explain the logic of the show's plot to me (or the motivations of its characters).
I can't say I care much, though. I came for bizarro England, blood, bodily transformations and big guns, and by God, these things the show delivers. Amen!
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