Vampires, Guns, It's All Good

If I may be frank for a moment, this week has blown chunks for me. How much still depends on the results of that Wetlands' Habitat and Management test I took yesterday. Hopefully, that bonus question about listing comic book characters associated with wetlands helped a little.

Fortunately, there's my always Tevion, ready to loan me his CDs with the first two Ultimate Hellsing OVAs burned on them. Because it really lifts my spirits to hear lines like 'Heh. It's been awhile since my head's been cut off.'

Or to see a vampire spontaneously combust and burn up giving someone the finger.

Or to see Alucard's patented "Get shot to pieces by a bunch of mindless ghouls with firearms, only to slowly, with great theater, regenerate himself while laughing about how much fun the whole thing is".

I gotta say though, they amped up the blood by a factor of 10, and the sexual content by... well, at least a factor of 3. Just a bit too much groping, you know? But we're talking Tarantino levels of blood spray here. Actually, more than that, what with it being animated and all, they can be a bit more creative with the physiological possibilities, I suppose. On the lighter side, it's pretty, and there are some extremely funny moments, pretty much all involving the "police girl" trying to adapt to her new circumstances. Her reaction to her new rifle (a 30mm anti-tank cannon with depleted uranium shells) was very amusing, as was hers and Walter's entrance to the conference room (poor Admiral Penwood). It's a nice counterpoint to the remarkable amount of the red stuff that starts flying everywhere a few minutes later.

I have to ask, is it pretty common in vampire lore that only virgins (be they boy or girl) can actually be turned into other vampires, and anyone else just turns into a mindless ghoul? It sounds kind of Anne Rice, but I haven't read any of her work, so I couldn't say. It's something that was brought up in the Hellsing manga - to Seras Victoria's benefit - ignored in the anime, and now it's back in play.

Of course, I'm still trying to figure out what Seras is right now. She needs to drink blood, or if she won't do that, at least to sleep in a coffin, blessed silver burns her, but she can be out in the daytime. Her master's eyes are always red, but Seras' are usually their natural blue, shifting to red only during fights, sort of like Wolverine's berserker rages, or Banner changing into the Hulk when he's stressed. She lacks his ability to shapeshift, or call familiars, but she does seem to heal fast, and she's definitely stronger and faster than a human. So she clearly isn't human any more, but she doesn't seem to be all the way vampiric yet. I'm not sure there's a term for such a thing. Maybe the other characters' could dub her a "Whedon vampire"?

It's not as far-fetched as you might think. They referenced Star Wars, might as well go deeper into pop culture. I'd actually like to see what Alucard would think of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Angel. Probably about what Spike thinks of Anne Rice (it's trash).

Always love to see Walter in action. I'm not entirely sure why, but it is just so cool to see an old guy darting around, dodging machine gun fire, all the while slicing ghouls up with spools of something like piano wire. Maybe it reminds me of Clint Eastwood's movie badassery in his later years. Man, I love Unforgiven.

Surprisingly, I actually liked Integra Hellsing this go-round. She comes off less mean (which was my main impression in the anime), and more calm, and in control. She faces down Father Anderson, after he's made chumps out of two of her strongest agents, and just diced the two people she brought as bodyguards. And she's smiling! He's got blades on either side of her neck (though she is blocking one with a sword), and she's a Protestant (meaning "heathen" to him), and she just laughs at him when he says he killed Alucard.

The only time she really breaks composure is when Seras loses it, and tears up the ghouls that used to be her soldiers. Otherwise, she's confident in her soldiers' abilities to perform their jobs, and even when the battle comes up right to her face, she rallies the old fellows she was meeting with, and they shoot it's face off.

Plus she deals with one vampire by shooting it three times, then telling it she's had enough of it's chatter, as she is 'put out.' Just barely letting her anger through, only makes her a greater presence.

Query: If stabbing him in the heart with blessed silver, and cutting his head off wouldn't kill Alucard, what would? (And I already thought of "writer's block", so you can't use that one)