Hellsing, Vol. 1 Paperback – December 15, 2009

As a fan who saw the incomplete Hellsing series first, I knew what to expect from the manga. But I didn't expect everything I got. The Hellsing manga, while as visually violent as the anime, has a lot more style than the anime had. The artistic sense of Kohta Hirano, who wrote the story and drew the panels, is excellent and a little different than the common manga style, a little mutated, to better explain. The characters are exaggerated, of course, but instead of the head it's more the limbs of the characters; long arms and large hands are common, and goes well with the atmosphere of this manga. And, while Alucard looks like every other manga vampire around, there's somehow a duffiness (yes, I made that word up, but you know what it means) to his appearance when he's all decked out in trench and wide-brimmed hat. It hides the monster underneath quite well. Another common artistic feature is the glasses worn by 3/4ths of the cast, which Kohta Hirano actually comments on.Still, though the artistic style is unique, it's the story that makes Hellsing such a great manga (and anime, both past and future). Separated into six chapters, with a bonus seventh that goes off the main track of the story, Hellsing follows the exploits of the Hellsing Organization and the leader of this secret group of vampire hunters, Integra Hellsing. Their primary job is to exterminate all vampire threats across England. Yet their primary weapon is a vampire named Alucard, who has powers beyond those of the young vampires who roam the land and murder innocents. Following close behind Alucard is his unwilling servant and fellow vampire known simply (to Alucard at least) as Police Girl.Here is a breakdown of each chapter without spoilers:Chapter 1 -- Vampire Hunter: The basic introductory manga story, which brings in the two primary characters of Integra and Alucard. It presents what can be expected from this manga in the future. In this Alucard battles a rather controversial vampire-figure.Chapter 2 -- Master of Monster: Explains Integra's dark past and how she came to meet Alucard. It also shows how she became the leader of the Hellsing Organization.Chapter 3 -- Murder Club: This chapter follows Alucard and Police Girl in their fight against two vicious vampires on a murder spree. It also shows Police Girl coming into her own as a vampire.Chapters 4 - 6 -- Sword Dancer 1, 2, & 3: A new vampire hunting organization based out of the Vatican is introduced in this series of chapters, one that doesn't believe in the Hellsing Organizations methods for exterminating vampires. Alucard and Police Girl hunt vampires but do not realize that they are being hunted by the Vatican's best killer, the knife-wielding Father Anderson.Bonus Chapter -- Crossfire: Follows the tale of two of the Vatican's greatest killers as they travel to the Middle East to rescue hostages from a group of extremist Muslims. (Has no actually bearing on the Hellsing story that I know of).The first volume in this series was excellent, and I'm hoping that the remaining six can keep up with the intense pacing that Kohta Hirano set for this manga. If he can, then this series promises to be one of the best. If you were a fan of the Hellsing anime and want to see the real story, or if you want to know what's happening before the upcoming Hellsing Ultimate hits American shelves, then I recommend picking this volume up. It has somewhat of a Trigun feel to it, but is as cool as Cowboy Bebop or Samurai Champloo.

A Bit late on the review. ^^;This manga is amazing. I love Hellsing. (The manga and the OVA anime.) The art style is superb. So much detail to characters and surroundings. Good character development. The comic art and the writing is so emotionally driven, kept me very interested and never bored me. I kept re-reading it. I plan on collecting the rest of them soon enough. If you love the macabre or gore style of entertainment, this is the manga for you!My only issue is with the seller/shipping. The book I got must have been from a public library as there were stickers in the book from said library. The cover has a bend in it and the book feels a bit flimsy in certain areas. It has a lot of wear and tear, which bugs me a bit, seeing as the description from the seller said it was new quality and only had minor wear and tear. I'm not going to lower the five star rating as the rating was for the quality of art and writing of the manga. It's my opinion/review/critique on the manga itself, not the physical copy I purchased.I would recommend this to any fan of Hellsing or anyone interested in a good read. It will not disappoint.

I was first introduced to Hellsing by watching the self-titled anime first. It had a nice feel to it, but was sort of boring. Then after reading online someone said that the Manga was better. I had to pick it up, and let me just say I am EXTREMELY glad I did!The art is wonderful, and the action scenes are highly detailed. Each bullet wound, each hand slice, every single piece of flesh that flies off of disembodied corpses is captured with loving detail you can tell!Since this is the first volume, don't expect pacing that will blow you away or hint at what will happen in the later volumes, this volume mostly covers introductions and back stories. This may seem boring, but it is anything but! Also, the extras in this manga are surprisingly good! Usually in mangas, after the chapters are over, you get a little tid-bit of goodness, such as little character bios or some information, but Hirano added the original hand drawn mini-story that inspired him to create Hellsing.Be sure the check out the page count and product rating, this manga is directed toward a more mature audience, there is quite a bit of profanity and one of the enemies talks about plans of raping. Nothing sexually graphic is depicted, but just a heads up. Compared to most other mangas, such as ones from Yen Press and Viz Media, Hellsing is much longer and contains animated panels that you can visually see have a lot of heart in them. I highly highly recommend this product to anyone who wants to embark on a bloody good time full of vampires and silver bullets!(Oh yea, and try to buy new, since the manga is older the cover isn't as sturdy and the page quality is a little lower)

Yes, it took me a moment or two to get used to reading the panels right-to-left from the back of the book forward (don't pick on me; I don't read many graphic novel/manga-type things). By the time I was a few pages in, however, it wasn't a problem any more. The style is quirky and evocative, the characters are grandiose and fun, and the black-and-white art is easy to make sense of (sometimes I find that comic styles confuse the action that's going on, at least for me). The story of vampires, vampire hunters, Catholics versus Protestants, and plenty of large weaponry, is deliciously outrageous. I picked up the first book after watching the DVDs, and loved it enough that I've already picked up the second.