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duhragonball · 3 years

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Hellsing Liveblog, Chapters 20-24

By garn, it’s been a while. This ‘ere’s the “Age of Empire” arc, followed by two one-offs, “Call to Power” and “Ultima Online”.

Last time, Hellsing sent Alucard, Seras, and Pip Bernadotte to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil to find out more about Millennium. But Millennium was expecting them, and sent Tubalcain Alahambra to attack Alucard almost as soon as he arrived.

Recall that the only reason Hellsing knew to check Brazil was because of a tip offered up by their Catholic counterpart, Vatican Section XIII, the Iscariot Organization. Iscariot knew about Millennium because they had discovered that the Vatican had helped them move men and materials out of Nazi Germany and into South America. Which brings us to this chapter, which is a flashback showing how Iscariot found out in the first place.

The date on this chapter really helps me understand all of this, because when I watched this scene in the anime, I thought it was taking place in the present. But no, this is set back in July, barely a week after Seras became a vampire. Note that Bishop Maxwell already knows a great deal about this by this point. He’s not talking to this guy to learn more, he’s confronting him about the crimes he’s already discovered.

This rando bishop he’s talking to was one of the guys who helped Millennium during World War II. He claims to have been deceived, but Maxwell knows the truth: that he and the others helped Millennium because they knew they were secretly researching vampires, and wanted in on some sweet, sweet vampirism.

This is a recurring theme in Hellsing, where Millennium gets a lot of help from various patsies by promising to make them immortal. Dandyman got all those SWAT team guys to help him by promising immortality to their superiors, and I have a sneaking suspicion that Dandyman himself was just a rube that joined Millennium thinking it was a path to greater power, when in fact they only sought to use him as a test of Alucard’s abilities. And so it was with the treasonous bishops in the 1940s. They helped Millennium move to South America, but their research in Europe was destroyed by Hellsing during the war. And the above page shows us our first look at young Walter, before he retired to the life of a butler.

And now we see Heinkel Wolfe, the star of “Cross Fire”, Kouta Hirano’s three-issue manga about gun-toting assassin nuns. “Cross Fire” was featured as backups in the first three collected volumes of Hellsing, which works out nicely, so we can recognize Heinkel as she debuts in this story. She executes this bishop for his unspeakable crimes against the church.

And really, it is a pretty horrific thing that this guy did. I mean, I thought about it the other day, how this guy’s pretty high up there in the ranks of the Catholic church. He doesn’t just go to Mass on Sundays, he’s devoted his whole life to the faith, and then he just turns his back on it as soon as there’s a hint of a chance that he could become an immortal vampire. And then it falls through, so he spends the next several decades just sort of hoping no one will find out what he did. It’s a pretty dark thing, though it’s easy to overlook in a whole series of dark moments.

Back in Brazil, the news media and authorities still can’t make any sense of the Alucard/Dandyman battle. Alucard and his pals escaped in a news chopper and Al must have hyp-mo-tized the pilot to cover their tracks.

Meanwhile, the mysterious guys who were watching the Dandyman from afar, well they head back to their secret lair. The Major is the guy in the glasses, and the Captain is the guy in the big coat. There’s also the Doctor, who sort of defies description, but we’ll deal with him later. It was the Major who ran the vampire research project back in the 1940s, and the Doctor who conducts all the research. The Doctor had been pretty confident about all the powers he gave to the Dandyman, and was dismayed to see Alucard defeat him but the Major doesn’t mind at all, because he’s got plenty more vampires to throw at this particular problem.

They board a blimp, the Graf Zeppelin III, bound for Jaburo, Brazil. I looked up the Graf Zeppelin to understand the reference, and it turns out the first two were aircraft carriers, not blimps. These were planned during the 1930′s as Nazi Germany began to re-arm for World War II, but by the time the war actually started, Hilter had lost interest in the project, and the German Navy focused instead on U-boats. Both Graf Zeppelins were left uncompleted, so maybe this blimp is named after them as a reference to abandoned Nazi projects that could be revived somehow. As for Jaburo, I looked that up and only found references to the Gundam franchise, so I’m pretty sure this is just a fictional town.

Meanwhile, Alucard and his team check into a motel, and he calls home to report that he successfully absorbed Dandyman’s memories when he killed him and drank his blood. He now knows everything Dandyman knew about Millennium. Integra orders him to return to London immediately, as the Queen of England herself wants to know what’s going on here. Al wants to know if Tegs enjoyed all the violence he caused in Rio, but she’s like “stfu.”

Up to now, Seras and Pip had been scouting around, trying to find some way to get out of the country, but there’s no planes and no ships available. They were, at least, able to bring back some McDonald’s. Wait... MacDooolnald’s. See? Giorno drives his vampire dad to MacDooolnald’s, but Seras goes out and gets it and brings it back for Alucard, because theirs is a much healthier relationship.

But Al wants to steal a plane. Pip and Seras don’t take this well, but now I finally see why Al is suggesting this. He was ordered to return home at once, so this seems like the only way.

Then Alexander Anderson shows up and starts punching the shit out of Al, because why not?

Everybody draws their badass weapons to escalate the fight, including Seras, who picks up her giant cannon, but Anderson just thinks it’s funny, and it snaps him out of his fightin’ mood long enough to explain why he’s here.

Seems the Vatican wants to get Alucard back to London as well, so they sent Anderson to tell them about a private plane they arranged just for this purpose.

Meanwhile, in Jaburo, the Major reports back to his “superiors”, but he refuses to explain what he was doing in Rio. The Major claims he’s under special orders from Hitler, and these orders supersede all other command structures. Basically, all these colonels and generals have little choice but to sit back and watch Millennium operate without them. The Major gives them only a thin veneer of respect, and barely at that.

Enter Zorin Bltz, a lieutenant in Millennium, who explains it neatly for the reader. The Major set up all this Millennium stuff after the war, only for these other officers to show up on their doorstep later, probably seeking refuge in the postwar world. They know there’s vampire stuff going on here, and they want to be vampires too, but the Major isn’t interested in that. I guess he figures if he turns them into vampires, they would try to pull rank on him.

But the old timers are also extremely curious about the Major’s goal. He’s used the research to create a thousand vampire soldiers, but what for? The Major explains that he’s out to “savor the joy of war.”

Let me pause here to talk about werewolves. Millennium also has at least two of those: the Captain, and Chief Warrant Officer Schrödinger. As he returned to Jaburo, the Major asked Schrödinger about “the other werewolves”, and he said they would be along shortly, but we never actually see those guys. Unless Zorin Blitz and Rip van Winkle are supposed to be werewolves, but I’m pretty sure they’re not.

On the plane ride back to England, Alucard has a dream, reliving his defeat at the hands of Abraham van Helsing a century earlier.

In London, everyone’s waiting for him to show up, including representatives from the Vatican. Heinkel wonders if maybe Anderson flubbed his mission to give Alucard the plane, but Maxwell explains that they had to send Anderson to Brazil, because he knows Anderson is loyal to a fault. If they sent just any old operative, there’d be too great a risk of that guy defecing to Millennium for a taste of that sweet vampire power.

Then Alucard finally shows and pays his respects to the Queen of England. Let’s face it, this is Elizabeth II, I don’t care how the art hides her in silhouette. This story depicts her as being such an old woman after all this time, but it’s 2021 and she’s still alive today. Alucard praises he beauty. I get the impression he finds human aging to be something precious in his eyes.

Alucard explains what we’ve already been over: That Millennium is the new name for the culmination of that Nazi vampire research project in the 1940s. Alucard and Walter put an end to the project in 1944, but the Major somehow escaped and kept going.

Then Schrödinger appears in the room, to the shock of everyone. He claims that he is “everywhere”, a talent which allows him to show up anywhere in spite of security. He claims to be an envoy from Millennium, and sets up a Zoom call with the Major.

Basically, the Major declares war on Hellsing and Great Britain, and on Alucard specifically, by name. He has no goal, which is basically another way of saying that he wants to fight war for its own sake. There’s no strategic objective to any of this. The Major finally has his army of vampire soldiers, and now he wants to take them out into the field and see what they can do.

Oh, also he has his “superior” officers brutally executed on the video feed, which seems kind of dumb, since neither Hellsing nor Iscariot knew about any of those guys. Ties things up nicely for the reader, I guess.

Alucard is overjoyed at the prospect of destroying the Major all over again, and Integra orders him to kill Schrödinger while Seras shoots the Major’s iPad. Then QE2 orders Integra and Alucard to destroy Millennium, like they hadn’t already been workin on that.

And yeah, there we are.

#2021hellsingliveblog #hellsing #alucard #seras victoria #sir integra hellsing #alexander anderson #pip bernadotte #the major #the captain #enrico maxwell #heinkel wolfe #zorin blitz #dammit i'm not gonna tag every single character you figure out who i missed

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steelcity20 · 4 years

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UN 101

Arsyad Aurellio_071_Summary UN 101

History of United Nations

1. History and General Profile

United Nations is the world’s largest IGO founded in June 26th 1945 by the charter signed by China, France, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, United States, and total of 50 signatory states. UN Charter are the key of all act done by United Nations. United Nations was originally created by Allied nations to combat the axis power. Known as Declaration of St. James’s Palace in June 12th 1941, contain the vision by Allies to ensure security postwar. Then it continued to Atlantic Charter, that declaring the right for self-determination for everyone. Some signatory states even not considered as ‘states’ such as Poland. The first nation to sign the charter was China and the last nation to sign the charter was United States. It was symbolically done because US considered themselves they are the winner of the Second World War.

2. Meetings

The most widely known meetings and agenda in United Nation is the General Assembly (UNGA).

UNGA consisted by some sessions sorted by its urgency. The first one is annual regular session. Held at 3rd week of September.

The next session is special session. It could be initiated by any UN member or by the Security Council. If the session is initiated by the GA, the member will be notified 10 days prior. If the Security Council initiate the meeting, the member will be notified 14 days prior. And in the most emergency situation, the meeting will be notified 24 hours prior to all member states.

3. Main organs

The organs of United Nations consisted of 6 main organs. ICJ, Security Council, General Assembly, Economic Social Council, Secretariat, and Trusteeship Council.

The Secretariat are led by Secretary General (and please differentiate this and the General Assembly). The main task of this organ is to carry the day to day task of every UN work mandated by the GA.

The second organ are the most well-known organ. The GA are the main deliberative, policy-making, and representative organ in UN. Each year the member of the GA will have a meeting and elect the president of the GA for a one-year service term. The committees of UNGA are Disarmament and International Security Council; Special Political and Decolonization Committee; Economic and Financial Committee; Social Humanitarian, and Cultural Committee; Administrative and Budgetary Committee; and Legal Committee.

The next organ is Security Council (UNSC). UNSC are consisted by 5 permanent members and 10 non-permanent members. Its duty to impose sanction or even authorize force to any country.

ECOSOC are the part of body that coordinates the policy to recommend the states for financial problems. The members of ECOSOC are elected by the GA with overlapping term.

International Court of Justice are the international court system by UN. Located in The Hague.

Trusteeship body are the last and the inactive organ in United Nations. Inactive in 1994, the main task is to supervise 11 trust territories. Trusteeship are provided by Chapter XIII UN Charter. The function to ensuring self-government and independence in those territories.

4. Membership

To apply the membership of the UN, the states need to follow the rules as follow:

Submission > Review by Security Council > Vote in General Assembly > Admission

Outside the 193 nation that registered as the member of United Nations, there are some nation that aren’t the member of United Nations, such as:

a. Taiwan/Chinese Taipei

b. Kosovo

c. Palestine

d. The Holy See of Vatican

e. Somaliland

Even that not every country considered as ‘state’ in United Nations, some of the state are considered as ‘non-state members’. They obtained special status at every assembly in United Nations. Those nation considered as ‘the permanent observers’ are Palestine and The Holy See. Also, the same status for the IGO and other organizations.

Refrence

“History of the United Nations” (https://www.un.org/en/sections/history/history-united-nations/index.html)

“About UN Membership” (https://www.un.org/en/sections/member-states/about-un-membership/index.html)

“UN Member States” (https://www.un.org/en/member-states/)

#Irfest_INDONESIA_UN101

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pope-francis-quotes · 5 years

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26th July >> (@ZenitEnglish) #Pope Francis #PopeFrancis Assistant Under-Secretary of Pontifical Council for Culture Also Names Substitute Promoter of Justice at the Supreme Tribunal of Apostolic Signature.

Pope Francis Assistant Under-Secretary of Pontifical Council for Culture

Appointment of the Assistant Under-Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture

The Holy Father appointed The Reverend Monsignor Carlo Maria Polvani, Assistant Under-Secretary of the Pontifical Council for Culture. Up to now, he served in the General Affairs Section of the Secretariat of State.

* * *

The Reverend Monsignor Carlo Maria Polvani

The Reverend Monsignor Carlo Maria Polvani was born in Milan on July 28, 1965. He was a student at the Leo XIII Institute of Milan and at the Stanislas College of Montreal. In 1985 he received a Bachelor of Science degree from the Department of Biochemistry of McGill University in Montreal, and a Doctorate in 1990 from the same University.

He obtained a Master’s in Divinity in 1993 from the Weston Jesuit School of Theology (Cambridge, USA). After receiving a Licentiate in Canon Law from the Pontifical Gregorian University, he specialized in Jurisprudence and Forensic Psychology in 1996 and obtained a Doctorate in Canon Law in 1999. A student at the Pontifical Lombard Seminary (Rome), he was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Milan on February 14, 1998. Since 2012 he has been His Holiness’ Prelate of Honour.

After attending the Pontifical Ecclesiastical Academy, he entered the Holy See’s Diplomatic Service in July of 1999 and was Envoy to the Apostolic Nunciature in Mexico. Since 2001 he has worked at the State Secretariat in charge of the Office of Information and Documentation and the Technical Office of the General Affairs Section, as well as the Holy See’s Representative in the Government Advisory Committee of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). In 2015 he was appointed Member of the Commission on the Vatican Media and the Holy See’s Executive Committee on Information and Communication Technology. He is the author of several articles of scientific divulgation. In addition to Italian, he <speaks> English, French, Spanish, and German.

* * *

Appointment of the Substitute Promoter of Justice at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature

The Holy Father appointed The Reverend Monsignor Alberto Perlasca Substitute Promoter of Justice at the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signature. Up to now, he served in the General Affairs Section of the Secretariat of State.

The Reverend Monsignor Alberto Perlasca

Born at Como on July 21, 1960, he was ordained a priest of the Como Diocese on June 13, 1992. He received a degree in Jurisprudence from the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart and in Canon Law from the Pontifical Gregorian University. Since 2006 he has been Chaplain of His Holiness. In the month of October 2003, he was retained in the Juridical Office of the General Affairs Section of the Secretariat of State and incorporated in the Holy See’s Diplomatic Service. From April 2006 to May 2008 he worked in the Apostolic Nunciature in Argentina. He then returned to the Secretariat of State, working in the Administrative Office, which he has headed since July 2009. He is a Member of the Councils of Administration of the Pensions Fund, of the Health Assistance Fund and the Bambino Gesu Paediatric Hospital. In addition, he is a Member of the College of Reviewers of the Joseph Ratzinger-Benedict XVI Vatican Foundation. He has held several posts, among then Consultor of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life. Monsignor Perlascsa has always been active in the canonical ambit, taking part in several academic activities. In addition to Italian, he speaks English, French, and Spanish.

[Original text: Italian] [ZENIT’s translation by Virginia M. Forrest

26th JULY 2019 16:28POPE AND HOLY SEE

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mr-shimurka · 4 months

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✟ Sorry, holy daddy, I've been naughty ~(˘▾˘~)

By the way. I guess after all the modifications Anderson went through during his life, he developed Acromegaly

Acromegaly — is a disorder that results in excess growth of certain parts of the human body. It is caused by excess growth hormone after the growth plates have closed. The initial symptom is typically enlargement of the hands and feet. There may also be an enlargement of the forehead, jaw, and nose.

That's???? Literally him????? What do u think

Him before it:

#alexander anderson #hellsing #hellsing ultimate #Vatican's Special Section XIII #hellsing iscariot #my artwork #dijital art #hellsing headcanons #hellsing doodles #doodles #kouta hirano #mr shimurka

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mr-shimurka · 4 months

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And here you can see — Enemies🙌

#alucard #alexander anderson #hellsing ultimate #hellsing #hellsing iscariot #Vatican's Special Section XIII #kouta hirano #anime #manga #doodles #hellsing doodles #my artwork #mr shimurka

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mr-shimurka · 1 month

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Here Heinkel Wulf smokes on the roof with a view of Rome

I expected her scar should have to heal shortly, she needs to wear a mask to avoid unnecessary discomfort

I find it strange Heinkel's limbs were restored(?) but the laceration on her mouth was not

#heinkel wulf #heinkel wolfe #hellsing ova X #hellsing ultimate #hellsing #hellsing iscariot #iscariot #yumikel #gnc women #vatican special section XIII #my artwork #dijital art #mr shimurka

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mr-shimurka · 21 days

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Iscariot siblings💒

#yumiko takagi #yumie #heinkel wulf #enrico maxwell #iscariot #hellsing ultimate #vatican special section XIII #hellsing iscariot #iscariot siblings #my artwork #dijital art #mr shimurka

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duhragonball · 3 years

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Hellsing Liveblog Ch.4-6

This arc is called “Sword Dancer”, and I have no idea why, since they never call Anderson’s weapons anything other than “blades”. Are they swords? Maybe, but you never see him dance.

The story starts at an orphanage, where Alexander Anderson is a priest there, settling a fight between two boys. He sounds gentle and patient at first, until he tells them that the only thing they should be fighting are demons and heathens. That pretty much sums up the character. His mercy and compassion are almost entirely confined to the membership of the Catholic Church.

Then another priest shows up and informs him of all the vampire incidents going on in the U.K. Anderson doesn’t much care, since it only means more dead Protestants, right? Except this latest incident is happening in Northern Ireland.

So this neatly sets up one of the major conflicts within Hellsing. Kouta Hirano took the vampire lore from Dracula and expanded it into a sort of 20th Century Cold War thing. Instead of a single vampire hunter using crosses and holy water, we have an entire government agency, a secret service steeped in religious imagery. But that religion isn’t a homogeneous thing. Christendom has splintered a few times over the centuries. Most notably, there was the East-West Schism of 1054, which saw the Eastern Orthodox Church separated from the Roman Catholic, and the Protestant Reformation that began in 1517.

I’m not sure how much research Kouta Hirano did into this topic, because he seems to have distilled the whole thing down into two major vampire-hunting groups, the Catholic “Section XIII” also known as the “Iscariot Organization”, and the Protestant Hellsing Organization. Hellsing only bothers with vampire stuff in the United Kingdom, while Catholic Ireland is under the protection of the Iscariots.

Presumably, the Iscariots are tasked with protecting other Catholic nations as well, and maybe other Protestant countries have their own vampire-hunting sqauds to mirror Hellsing, but this overlooks the bigger issue: Catholics and Protestant populations don’t just fit neatly inside of political borders. There’s plenty of Catholics inside Great Britain, for example, so it’s kind of glib for Anderson to write off British casualties as “not my problem”.

And I think Hirano recognizes this, which is how Northern Ireland ends up in this story. All of Ireland was British territory until 1921, when it was partitioned. Southern Ireland became an independent nation, while Northern Ireland wanted to remain in the U.K., so it did. This has caused no small amount of conflict in the decades since, and Hirano uses it here rather effectively. There’s a treaty between Iscariot and Hellsing, one that recognizes Northern Ireland as their territory, but Iscariot still sees a duty to protect the minority Catholic population.

So Anderson is sent to deal with the vampire attack at Badrick (or “Patrick” depending on who’s translating, and if he runs into Hellsing, well that’s too bad for them. Despite the treaty, Iscariot considers themselves to be the morally superior group, so they won’t back down if confronted.

From all of this, I get the sense that the normal relations between these two groups sort of depends on the rarity of vampire attacks. There’s a lot of unsettled issues between them, but as long as nothing happens in disputed zones like Northern Ireland, everyone sort of minds their own business.

Anyway, it’s now August 15, and Hellsing is indeed intervening in Patrick. I never understood why Alucard had Seras sitting outside while he fought the ghouls in this house, especially when he was just going to call her in later. But now it makes more sense to me. He went in expecting to kill the vampire inside, and she’s outside to shoot down anyone who tries to escape, just like in Chapter 3. Except Al found more ghouls inside than he bargained for, and he finds this dull, so he’s calling an audible and bringing Seras in to handle them instead.

And this marks the debut of Seras’s Hellsing uniform. In the anime, she gets this look pretty much from the start, so it’s weird to see her wearing pants in Chapter 3. I assume she’s wearing pants in Chapter 2, but we don’t see her lower body in that. My head canon is that she was still wearing her old police gear up until Chapter 4, while this uniform was still being tailored.

I have mixed feelings about the design. My first time seeing Seras was a cosplay photo, and I dug the idea of a vampire soldier. Once I found out Hellsing was all about weaponizing vampires, I got into it pretty quickly. And I found out Seras started out as a police officer, and that seemed really cool. Like Alucard would handle all the spooky blood licking stuff, and she would dust for fingerprints and use pencils to pick up guns. The uniform implies a professional discipline, the sort of thing that would set it apart from the almost casual villainy I find in vampire shows like Buffy or what-have-you.

But, the artwork tends to make this look ridiculous, because Hirano keeps drawing it like it’s skin-tight around the boobs. I don’t understand why he keeps doing this, since you don’t normally see it on the other women characters in this story. Unless the idea is to set Seras apart from the others, which I can sort of understand. Seras is the sidekick, and to a certain extent, she’s supposed to look kind of silly. Even in this heroic pose, there’s still something goofy about her, like she can’t quite achieve full dignity yet. Maybe this is supposed to be like Robin wearing the short pants until 1991, but I never really cared for that creative choice either.

So she starts going to town, and Alucard takes a lunch break while she’s at it, which is a cool moment that didn’t make it into the anime. He reminds her that the ghouls have to be killed expediently using shots to the heart or head. That one who fell down the steps was still moving, you see, so Al had to finish him off.

And this is where Seras first addresses Al as “Master”. This was one of the first scenes I found when I started trying to find out more about the character. At first, it seemed like Seras was all business, but then you get stuff like this, where she’s doing the creepy vampire bit as well. I like the way Hellsing approaches this. Seras is gradually adjusting to being a vampire, and she isn’t always aware of that adjustment as it happens. It seems like combat helps her get into that zone. Early on, Seras would seem to change into a berzerker state, then snap out of it. Except she never snaps out of calling Alucard “Master”.

This is the start of that hard-to-define relationship between the pair. Remember, the Cheddar Priest said she would have free will as a vampire, but she defers to Alucard anyway. Before, that just seemed to be a practical matter. She recognized Alucard as a superior officer, and as a mentor figure. But now it seems more fanatical.

Watching the anime, I was suspicious of Alucard’s intentions, because... well why wouldn’t I be? He’s fucking Dracular for pete’s sake. I thought maybe he was angling for some chance to escape from Hellsing’s control, and maybe Seras was part of his plan. Scenes like this didn’t exactly dissuade me from that notion. Seras got some ghoul blood on her, and she finds herself compelled to eat it, and he’s looking on very excitedly. But then she gets impaled through the neck, and that puts an end to that.

Back at headquarters, Integra gets word that the Iscariots have send Alexander Anderson to Barick, and she realizes that this could escalate into a major incident. No one at Hellsing seems to know much about Anderson, except that he’s powerful, and if he runs into Alucard it could be a major battle.

This page marks the first appearance of Walter C. Dornez, whom she calls for consultation. I find it odd that Walter has already received the same report, and has already taken steps to deal with it. Almost like he expected something like this to happen...? 🤔 🤔 🤔 🤔

As it turns out, Anderson’s already there. He’s the one who impales Seras with a bunch of blades/swords/bayonets/whatever, and he already killed the vampire that Alucard was sent to find. As far as Anderson’s concerned, the only thing left to do is kill Alucard and Seras, but Al shoots him in the head before he can really get started. But as he goes to remove the holy blades from Seras, Anderson gets back up for Round Two.

Alucard calls him a “Regenerator”, like this is a thing he’s encountered before. Anderson’s not just a priest with blessed weapons, he’s got special powers that the Vatican gave him for the purpose of hunting vampires. Then he stabs Alucard a bunch of times and prepares to cut off his head for good measure, until Polnareff jumps in and... no, wait, wrong story. Yeah, Andy just chops his head off, then goes to finish off Seras.

Except Seras got away. Somehow she got up and lumbered off while he wasn’t looking, pulled out all the knives in her back, and then managed to double back and fetch Alucard’s head. Trouble is, she still can’t get out of the house, because Anderson set up a mystical barrier using sheets of paper. Boy, that’d suck if you touched a wall and it shocked you. Seras probably won’t forget this moment....

Then Al’s head is like “Ight Imma head out,” and melts into a puddle of blood.

The blood then arranges itself into words, which tell Seras to drink the blood, as this will make her into a “true” vampire, instead of a “servant” vampire, which I guess is what she is now. And this is also the first time we learn Seras’ true name. Everyone had been calling her “Police Girl” up until this point.

Although, one might argue from this scene that this is not her original name, and perhaps it’s a brand new name Alucard invented for her, one that she has to earn by willfully drinking blood. I’m pretty sure this was disproven by later flashbacks to Seras’ childhood, but it’s fun to think about. Maybe we never knew her human name. Maybe she doesn’t even remember it.

But before Seras can make that choice, Integra shows up with a couple of guards and tells Anderson to stand down. He kills the guards, and promises to finish her off as well, but she tells him that Alucard can’t be killed with a simple decapitation.

Also, Seras is back up. She hasn’t consumed Al’s blood, but she does pick up a gun to defend Integra, which is pretty cool. See? She looks badass here, maybe because you can’t see her anime boobs in this shot.

Anderson still likes his chances, until Alucard starts to reassemble his body. Unlike other vampires, stabbing Al through the heart and cutting off his head aren’t enough to kill him. This is because of... something the Hellsing family did to him over the past century. I don’t think it gets spelled out in this story, but it’s heavily implied that the Van Hellsing from the Dracula novel defeated Dracula and then enslaved him, and his family line has been modifying him ever since to turn him into their anti-vampire weapon. And a big part of that involves making him stronger than the typical vampire.

So Anderson withdraws, but only because he now sees he’ll need a bigger boat. Alucard tells Integra that Seras’s performance was “the usual”, which is funny considering how pleased he was with her before. Also he scolds her for not drinking his blood, and calls her a coward when she asks to be addressed by her name. One way or another, the theme here is that Seras has to earn a name. The way she is now, Al doesn’t seem to think she needs one.

Volume 1 ends with some notes by Kouta Hirano, including the part about how Alucard and Anderson never seem to run out of weapons. Cosmoguns? Fourth dimensional priests? I’m beginning to think this manga about super-powered vampires may not be entirely realistic.

Since chapters 1-6 aren’t quite big enough to fill out a collected edition, Hirano also includes a backup feature called “Cross Fire”, which he produced for “a defunct comic master”. He calls this a “springboard for Hellsing”, which isn’t hard to see, since it features the Iscariot Organization, including Enrico Maxwell, Heinkel Wolfe, and Yumiko Takagi, who show up later in Hellsing.

This short helps me understand these characters a lot better, because when I watched the anime, Wolfe and Yumiko just seemed to show up out of nowhere, with no explanation given. I think it was assumed that you would have read the manga collections first, and would know who they were. Anyway, they’re both nun assassins. Heinkel dresses like a man and uses guns, while Yumiko weilds a sword, but only when he “berzerker” personality, named “Yumie” is activated. In this story, she’s actually among the hostages that the duo were sent to protect, but Heinkel shows up and knocks her unconscious, which prompts her to wake up as Yumie and they killerize everyone.

I’m not sure if the Cross Fire stories are considered canon or not. The characters show up in Hellsing later, but not quite the same as before. So maybe these are prototypes rather than the real things. Maxwell, in particular, looks a lot like Integra here, to the point where I thought he might be a woman in this version. But the Heinkel/Yumiko team bears a strong resemblance to Alucard and Seras working together in Chapters 4-6, so it’s not hard to see the connection.

#hellsing #2021hellsingliveblog #sword dancer #alucard #sir integra hellsing #seras victoria #walter c dornez #alexander anderson #heinkel wolfe #yumiko takagi

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