Control Art Restriction Level 0. Released
Sep. 22nd, 2007 12:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lissa_quonSo I finally managed to get me a copy of the Hellsing manga volume 8. It was supposed to be out in the beginning of July but the shipping got delayed and everything else and I started working so I didn't end up picking it up until this week. I finally got to read it last night and my brain exploded.
Alright my initial reaction to this volume is major squeeing. Each volume has been progressively more and more insane and this one doesn't dissapoint. The main damper I have on this is a tensy whee bit of odd pacing. We get treated to the same splash page twice (once shrouded once clear) for no particular reason. This didn't do much but wreck the flow of the comic a bit. The Major pops up and does that quite alot too, but thats par the course for the Major (he rambled on about how much he liked war a few volumes back).
There are also some characters that don't ge much screen time this volume. We have Dark Walter pop up in the end of the previous volume and then he does nothing but serve hot choclate and cookies. True they are probably evil nazi cookies but still, rather a waste after such an awesome introduction. Integra also doesn't do much beside stand and give like two orders the entire book. I have it on good authority she kicks ass in later chapters but she sort of fades into the background this round.
Ceras also doesn't do much this time round, but she had a whole volume of her doing stuff so I'm not too mad. I think one of my favorite things about Hellsing is the development of Ceras. She originally appears to be the fanservice/comic reflief but now she's quite capable. True it took her discovering love and then sucking his blood and absorbing his soul to do it but hey, she's kicking ass and taking names.
But like I digress, in this volume Ceras gets her hair ruffled and she stands rather dramatically on the side lines. I'm assuming this means she'll do something in the next volume thats awesome.
But back to the plot on hand. Alucard finally reveals exactly what his restriction levels were holding back. While it is fairly neat to see all the enemies and armies he devoured rise up and kill things, I'm finding myself abit confused. It's a neat ability but nothing that makes any sense in any Dracula lore. If this is an ability created after all the crazy things the Hellsings did to him, would it still logically incorperate the enemies from back in his glory days? And his army? I guess in the flash back when we see him licking the blood we are to assume that the blood is like the mixed blood of his army and vassals. Like I said, interesting effect just abit of a stretch even for vampire lore. Then again Alucard has always been a twink (gamer slang applied here, basically his stats are off the charts).
But I guess they needed the undead calvary since there's no one left to defend England. So I'll drop the subject for the sake of Queen and Country.
Alright, so I guess we're seeing the end of Iscariot in the series. They were crazy and all but I do believe I shall miss them. Maxwell's brief glut of power and bloodshed ends rather pathetically. He is definately a person who goes out not with a bang but with a whimper. But Anderson's allowing him to die and then holding his hand until he died...nice characterization there. I get the idea that Anderson is the father figure for Iscariot, which seems to be made up of orphans who never had a family life (so I'm guessing that the orphans Anderson works will be trained into more Iscariot). So he holds the hand of the dying boy he helped raise and then issues the orders to save the rest of his flock from a meaningless death. In the end Iscariot follows their father into the heat of battle to die with him. I might be reading too much into this but for a person who started off in hentai comics, Hirano can do some decent characterization when he wants to.
Speaking of...Alucard runs a gauntlet of emotions in this book, while he does continue killing he has more quiet moments arising. I never thought I'd see him look at someone fondly but he seems to hold Anderson with some regard this book. Upon Anderson's loss of humanity, Alucard looks almost heart broken. He even implored Anderson not to use the nail, he wanted Anderson to keep his humanity, so he could die perhaps.
Alucard's characterization is either really complex or its erratic. He's bored, he likes fighting, he was laughing manically for ages in the other books, now he seems almost ready to die. Like he's finally started looking back on everything he's done and is ready to go. Hopefully we'll get abit more backstory than the odd fragments we got this time, hopefully that will explain what's going on. Then again it might not, Dracula classically ends up being an engima so he might stay that way.
Either way I'm still enjoying this series and will eagerly await the next volume. This book has flaws but it's still got enough good left in it to stick around with.
Alright my initial reaction to this volume is major squeeing. Each volume has been progressively more and more insane and this one doesn't dissapoint. The main damper I have on this is a tensy whee bit of odd pacing. We get treated to the same splash page twice (once shrouded once clear) for no particular reason. This didn't do much but wreck the flow of the comic a bit. The Major pops up and does that quite alot too, but thats par the course for the Major (he rambled on about how much he liked war a few volumes back).
There are also some characters that don't ge much screen time this volume. We have Dark Walter pop up in the end of the previous volume and then he does nothing but serve hot choclate and cookies. True they are probably evil nazi cookies but still, rather a waste after such an awesome introduction. Integra also doesn't do much beside stand and give like two orders the entire book. I have it on good authority she kicks ass in later chapters but she sort of fades into the background this round.
Ceras also doesn't do much this time round, but she had a whole volume of her doing stuff so I'm not too mad. I think one of my favorite things about Hellsing is the development of Ceras. She originally appears to be the fanservice/comic reflief but now she's quite capable. True it took her discovering love and then sucking his blood and absorbing his soul to do it but hey, she's kicking ass and taking names.
But like I digress, in this volume Ceras gets her hair ruffled and she stands rather dramatically on the side lines. I'm assuming this means she'll do something in the next volume thats awesome.
But back to the plot on hand. Alucard finally reveals exactly what his restriction levels were holding back. While it is fairly neat to see all the enemies and armies he devoured rise up and kill things, I'm finding myself abit confused. It's a neat ability but nothing that makes any sense in any Dracula lore. If this is an ability created after all the crazy things the Hellsings did to him, would it still logically incorperate the enemies from back in his glory days? And his army? I guess in the flash back when we see him licking the blood we are to assume that the blood is like the mixed blood of his army and vassals. Like I said, interesting effect just abit of a stretch even for vampire lore. Then again Alucard has always been a twink (gamer slang applied here, basically his stats are off the charts).
But I guess they needed the undead calvary since there's no one left to defend England. So I'll drop the subject for the sake of Queen and Country.
Alright, so I guess we're seeing the end of Iscariot in the series. They were crazy and all but I do believe I shall miss them. Maxwell's brief glut of power and bloodshed ends rather pathetically. He is definately a person who goes out not with a bang but with a whimper. But Anderson's allowing him to die and then holding his hand until he died...nice characterization there. I get the idea that Anderson is the father figure for Iscariot, which seems to be made up of orphans who never had a family life (so I'm guessing that the orphans Anderson works will be trained into more Iscariot). So he holds the hand of the dying boy he helped raise and then issues the orders to save the rest of his flock from a meaningless death. In the end Iscariot follows their father into the heat of battle to die with him. I might be reading too much into this but for a person who started off in hentai comics, Hirano can do some decent characterization when he wants to.
Speaking of...Alucard runs a gauntlet of emotions in this book, while he does continue killing he has more quiet moments arising. I never thought I'd see him look at someone fondly but he seems to hold Anderson with some regard this book. Upon Anderson's loss of humanity, Alucard looks almost heart broken. He even implored Anderson not to use the nail, he wanted Anderson to keep his humanity, so he could die perhaps.
Alucard's characterization is either really complex or its erratic. He's bored, he likes fighting, he was laughing manically for ages in the other books, now he seems almost ready to die. Like he's finally started looking back on everything he's done and is ready to go. Hopefully we'll get abit more backstory than the odd fragments we got this time, hopefully that will explain what's going on. Then again it might not, Dracula classically ends up being an engima so he might stay that way.
Either way I'm still enjoying this series and will eagerly await the next volume. This book has flaws but it's still got enough good left in it to stick around with.