Hellsing OVA #1
Feb. 16th, 2006 02:07 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lissa_quonWoo, anyone who has spent abit of time with me or on this journal probably has heard about my obsession with the manga series Hellsing. So if you are sick of the topic and my ramblings about it, feel free to skip on ahead. Cause I ain't changing my tune anytime soon.
That briefing aside. OMG THE NEW HELLSING OVA IS SOOO DAMN PRETTY. *AHEM* alright, now that that has passed onward to more critques. I'm going to try to present this in a bit more orgainized light than I normally do. My normal way of discussing any series I like is to bounce up and down and squee and happily gibber like one who has just consumed the sugar content of the entire Wonka candy factory. So we're going to try to take this slowly and analytically. Why? who knows why
Alright, first impression - damn pretty, kinda sad about lack of an actual opening theme and such. But this is the first episode so they might have one later.
Story - For better or for worse this is practically verbatim from the manga. I had no subtitles ( but could follow along pretty good with the manga in my hand. For reference my knowledge of japanese consists of 'idiot' 'what?' 'who?' 'mom, dad' and 'redirect fate.'
Though the opening is abit odd, using part of chapter 2 - Master of Monster as an opening and then jumping back to events of chapter 1 and then after main events from that, cutting back to chapter 2 again. Seeing as Master of Monster is a flashback to events in the Hellsing family 10 years ago I found this abit strange and jarring.
Perhaps when I have actual translations and see the stuff in better context I'll get over it. But first impression is a bit 'wait...WHAT?
Art - ok two sections to this cause I'm an art/animation dork
Animation - Alright, frame rates and such are always a battle of quality vs. budget/time for most animation, anime is hardly an exception. In this case, nothing really stood out, nothing outstandingly smooth or jerky. The meshing of cg elements to cell style figures went pretty well. There are a few exceptions with these highly detailed backgrounds and building clashing with the characters. But I nit pick.
Character Design - The previous anime series produced for Hellsing had many issues with keeping things on model. Alucard's hat was my main source of agrivation when watching it, I swear it must have been the inspiration for the police hat gag in Scary Movie 3. The brim kept changing sizes, to be small, large and holy shit, is that a sattelite dish?!
This might have something to do with the manga art rapidly improving from clunky and almost awkward and fugly to awe inspiring level it is now. Characters hardly resemble their earlier selves anymore. Hell, one of the main female characters has gained and lost cup sizes from book to book, a fact that has even been mentioned in the commentary at the end of one of the books.
In this instance however case, Ganeon has suceeded. Alucard looks more like his current borderline sexy self and less like his fugly predecesor. His hat stayed the same throughout the 50 minute episode. And his hair was long and swishy and short and such at the appropriate ocasions so all is well. Ceres's boobs are abit on the large and ballon side, but enh, that's usual. The rest of the Hellsing Organization was spot on. However Anderson has case of oranguatan arms, at least it seems like it to me. But Anderson has always been abit weird so I'm going to hold off judgement until another time.
Voice Acting - The voice casting seems fairly decent. The actors seem alright in their roles, some small bit parts lacked conviction. The laughing priest/vampire in the beginning, weakest. laugh. ever. But the main characters sound great so far, Integra is badass as per usual, Ceres sounds lost and confused, which she is.
And the voice actor for Alucard as per usual, sounds like he is enjoying himself too much. I'm fairly sure he is the same VA of the Count from Gankutsuou, which makes sense since they are the same sort of character.
Anderson, the Paladin from Iscariot however was abit jarring to me. This was not due to his performance at all but rather due to the fact that he was given a rather large amount of English bible verses to say which came out oddly garbled to my english speaking ears. It was like 'buzz buzz thoseu buzz buzz JESUS CHRISTu buzzz buzz AAMEAN. I really wish I could transcribe it better, words can't express how annunciated his Amens were, they were like Platonic forms of Amen. Such a round bold sound, a solid Amen, you hear that and KNOW that you are going to burn in hell for crossing this guy.
Sound - Ok, I admit, I am in fricking LUST with the sound crew for this series. When they walk on floor boards they sound like they're actually walking on floor boards, with creaks and hollow spots and such. The stabbing sounds and splatters and such are also equally well done. Sound is one of those things you rarely notice unless it's done badly or amazingly well. This is one of those happy amazingly well occasions.
Music - Blah. I'm not loving the music so far. Rather netural, non descript. The ending theme is a beautiful symphony with a choir and such. Sadly the rest of the music is nowhere near that. This is one case where the old series actually beats the new one. I loathe the job the old series did but I loved the music. It was dark when it needed to be and had this jazzy bit for the more badass fights and just great atmoshere all around. In fact I have the old theme song stuck in my head right now, and I LIKE IT.
Overall - I can not wait for the next episode to come out and I swear THIS TIME I'll wait for the subtitles. Speaking of which, those interested can pick up the torrent file of the fansubs Here
That briefing aside. OMG THE NEW HELLSING OVA IS SOOO DAMN PRETTY. *AHEM* alright, now that that has passed onward to more critques. I'm going to try to present this in a bit more orgainized light than I normally do. My normal way of discussing any series I like is to bounce up and down and squee and happily gibber like one who has just consumed the sugar content of the entire Wonka candy factory. So we're going to try to take this slowly and analytically. Why? who knows why
Alright, first impression - damn pretty, kinda sad about lack of an actual opening theme and such. But this is the first episode so they might have one later.
Story - For better or for worse this is practically verbatim from the manga. I had no subtitles ( but could follow along pretty good with the manga in my hand. For reference my knowledge of japanese consists of 'idiot' 'what?' 'who?' 'mom, dad' and 'redirect fate.'
Though the opening is abit odd, using part of chapter 2 - Master of Monster as an opening and then jumping back to events of chapter 1 and then after main events from that, cutting back to chapter 2 again. Seeing as Master of Monster is a flashback to events in the Hellsing family 10 years ago I found this abit strange and jarring.
Perhaps when I have actual translations and see the stuff in better context I'll get over it. But first impression is a bit 'wait...WHAT?
Art - ok two sections to this cause I'm an art/animation dork
Animation - Alright, frame rates and such are always a battle of quality vs. budget/time for most animation, anime is hardly an exception. In this case, nothing really stood out, nothing outstandingly smooth or jerky. The meshing of cg elements to cell style figures went pretty well. There are a few exceptions with these highly detailed backgrounds and building clashing with the characters. But I nit pick.
Character Design - The previous anime series produced for Hellsing had many issues with keeping things on model. Alucard's hat was my main source of agrivation when watching it, I swear it must have been the inspiration for the police hat gag in Scary Movie 3. The brim kept changing sizes, to be small, large and holy shit, is that a sattelite dish?!
This might have something to do with the manga art rapidly improving from clunky and almost awkward and fugly to awe inspiring level it is now. Characters hardly resemble their earlier selves anymore. Hell, one of the main female characters has gained and lost cup sizes from book to book, a fact that has even been mentioned in the commentary at the end of one of the books.
In this instance however case, Ganeon has suceeded. Alucard looks more like his current borderline sexy self and less like his fugly predecesor. His hat stayed the same throughout the 50 minute episode. And his hair was long and swishy and short and such at the appropriate ocasions so all is well. Ceres's boobs are abit on the large and ballon side, but enh, that's usual. The rest of the Hellsing Organization was spot on. However Anderson has case of oranguatan arms, at least it seems like it to me. But Anderson has always been abit weird so I'm going to hold off judgement until another time.
Voice Acting - The voice casting seems fairly decent. The actors seem alright in their roles, some small bit parts lacked conviction. The laughing priest/vampire in the beginning, weakest. laugh. ever. But the main characters sound great so far, Integra is badass as per usual, Ceres sounds lost and confused, which she is.
And the voice actor for Alucard as per usual, sounds like he is enjoying himself too much. I'm fairly sure he is the same VA of the Count from Gankutsuou, which makes sense since they are the same sort of character.
Anderson, the Paladin from Iscariot however was abit jarring to me. This was not due to his performance at all but rather due to the fact that he was given a rather large amount of English bible verses to say which came out oddly garbled to my english speaking ears. It was like 'buzz buzz thoseu buzz buzz JESUS CHRISTu buzzz buzz AAMEAN. I really wish I could transcribe it better, words can't express how annunciated his Amens were, they were like Platonic forms of Amen. Such a round bold sound, a solid Amen, you hear that and KNOW that you are going to burn in hell for crossing this guy.
Sound - Ok, I admit, I am in fricking LUST with the sound crew for this series. When they walk on floor boards they sound like they're actually walking on floor boards, with creaks and hollow spots and such. The stabbing sounds and splatters and such are also equally well done. Sound is one of those things you rarely notice unless it's done badly or amazingly well. This is one of those happy amazingly well occasions.
Music - Blah. I'm not loving the music so far. Rather netural, non descript. The ending theme is a beautiful symphony with a choir and such. Sadly the rest of the music is nowhere near that. This is one case where the old series actually beats the new one. I loathe the job the old series did but I loved the music. It was dark when it needed to be and had this jazzy bit for the more badass fights and just great atmoshere all around. In fact I have the old theme song stuck in my head right now, and I LIKE IT.
Overall - I can not wait for the next episode to come out and I swear THIS TIME I'll wait for the subtitles. Speaking of which, those interested can pick up the torrent file of the fansubs Here
