Hellsing/Headscratchers


 * Why can't they decide what many of the characters English names are?
 * I've seen Alucard called things like 'Arcard', 'Arikado' and 'Arcado'. We all know he's actually called Alucard because it's 'Dracula' backwards, but the guys who translate Hellsing can't seem to figure this out.
 * Neither can some of the fans, as evidenced here.
 * Hirano supposedly wanted 'arukado' that's the "correct" romanization of Alucard. But the name was under copyright restrictions, so he put 'aakado' instead, that's still possible.
 * The same goes for Seras. Is it really Seras, or 'Celes', 'Seles', or something? Plus, is she called 'Seras Victoria' of 'Victoria Seras'? The latter would make more sense, but it doesn't seem to be the case. I get the feeling the translation from Japanese might be confusing first and last names.
 * It's "Seras Victoria", unless you want to pick the Hirano's watromanization and is Serouss Viktoria (and Alucard is Arucard, Integra is 'Integla' and Bernadotte is 'Verneddead').
 * There's a similar problem with 'Sir' Integra. Did they really mean to give her the masculine title 'Sir' rather than 'Dame', or are they just confused about how the English knighthood system works?
 * I heard it was Integra herself who insisted on the title, so as not to be looked down upon for being a woman in a man's job (she was like 12 when she took over, who can blame her?). But, then again, Hirano doesn't know a thing of English, so that could also be the reason why. And that was the explanation in-universe.
 * What? No, in the manga, she even insists that she's a lady, so there's absolutely no 'woman's doing a man's job' nonsense fandom seems like. She did insist to be address as Sir Hellsing to Penwood, because he was trying her like a young brat and not a knight. I don't think Hirano knows about Dame title.
 * Basically, Sir Integra Hellsing boils down to a very nasty case of Did Not Do the Research. What's worse is that the translators (of the manga and both anime series) either did nothing to fix the problem or decided that continuing to use the title Sir instead of Dame was a good idea.
 * The ones who didn't do the research were some of the translators (not all, imagine that. The version from Spain has her as Lady Hellsing) who used Anime version as basis for translations. It's understandable why they decided that, but I wish they shouldn't have. You see, in the actual Japanese manga, the only ones addressing Integra as "Sir" (??) were Enrico Maxwell and Alexander Anderson. They did this while they were delivering their insults in volume 1 and 2. Hint, people: that 'title' was mean to be an insult. Integra's real title (as she's addressed most of the time in formal situations) is ? (pronounced kyou) which is gender neutral and roughly means minister of state. Thus men are called lords and maybe sirs (but it's higher ranked than mere sir knights, we're taking about knights who are secretaries of state); while for women, the title should be translated as ladies or, brace yourselves for the ultimate shocker, dames. Now the staff in charge of the TV series and the OVA are a different story. Believe it or not the show is run by the same guy (the producer Ueda), so he takes a couple of liberties with the story. I'm standing up to defend the author because he gets the blame for a glaring oversight of the translators who were probably using just the fanon to be consistent. Know that in the manga this Sir mistake is only used as deliberate insult and Integra's real title has nothing to do with that nonsense.
 * What does the Hellsing Organization plan to do with Alucard and Seras after they've killed the last vampire?
 * Assuming plot interference to be 0, they'll probably lock them back up in the basement without moisturizer again.
 * ^Agreed but still... killing the vampires of millenium doesn't mean they the job of the organization is done, there are many vampires in the world, many stupid enough to try to invade the UK again.
 * Why does Integra in the third episode of the Ultimate decide to throw all the previous rules of secrecy into a rubbish bin and order Alucard go berserk on innocent police officers; in front of heavy media presence no less, effectively screaming to the world: "VAMPIRES EXIST!!!"
 * And why, for that matter did Iscariot not interfere, although the country was in South-America which is predominantly Catholic?
 * First, Refuge in Audacity. Who's gonna believe a news broadcast showing two superhuman combatants, considering that some semblance of a Masquerade is maintained? Second, Father Alex does show up later in the fourth volume under orders from Enrico, but as to why he wasn't there earlier, I can't answer.
 * When a number of major networks show it with extensive picture material, then at the very least some serious investigation is required. Shutting up people of the murder of dozens of police officers in live news is next to impossible.
 * There is a scene with Anderson watching the fight on the news. Basically, Iscariot wants Hellsing and Millenium to kill each other off so they risk the minimum of their own men cleaning up the leftovers.
 * Which still doesn't explain why didn't Iscariot simply point Hellsing to the right direction instead of encouraging a massacre in their own land.
 * Uh, they did point them in the right direction when they sent them after the Millenium mooks in South America. Iscariot just doesn't know anything more than Hellsing at that point. More likely, Iscariot sent Hellsing out to play bait and draw out Millenium, which they did.
 * There were rules of secrecy? I haven't read the manga, mind you, but I remember from the first episode of the original Hellsing TV anime that Integra quite openly stated to the baffled police officers what they were up against. If there's any secrecy, it concerns the organization's operations itself.
 * Integra also makes it clear that the police didn't know this before because they weren't important enough to know. implying that they were only revealed this in order to get Hellsing in to do their job. Most likely they were at the very least demanded non-disclosure agreements afterwards, although without evidence they'd have very little to base their story on. In any case, it seems clear that the existence of vampires isn't common knowledge in the Hellsing world and the organizations handling the problems seem to want to keep things that way.
 * But doesn't she say something like, "Why are you idiots sending in normal forces? You're a sergeant in the police force! You should have known to call us!"
 * Are there rules of secrecy? Ask Kim after Hellsing Order 4 : Innocent like a Human. ..
 * It's all about that Weirdness Censor effect. Unless the Hellsing Organization or the Vatican went on live television to explain and confirm the existence of vampires (chipped or otherwise), people would dismiss it from their memories as people tend to do with things they can not accept or comprehend.
 * The problem with the Weirdness Censor explanation is that such a thing has never happened in the history of mankind. Even on the Real Life section of Weirdness Censor, most of the examples listed are people simply ignoring people in costumes or psychological effects related to change blindness - actual evidence of vampires would cause people to freak out. People obsess over weird, unexplainable things like that. Look at the number of conspiracy theories out there. Most people don't dismiss things they can't accept or comprehend if they're that glaringly, obviously otherworldly - we obsess about them.
 * Its also worth noting that by this point secrecy is kind of getting tossed out the window when Millenium sends an army of police commandos after Hellsing agents. And on top of it all, Millenium apparently has enough clout to control the Brazilian government. This is after a broad daylight assault on Hellsing headquarters by an army of ghouls.
 * Yeah, overall its as Alucard says; Integra is basically declaring war on Millenium as a response to their overtly hostile actions against the British Crown. Millenium sending an army of ghouls to attack Hellsing and the Convention of Twelve and then involving mortal authorities by having human police sent after Alucard shows pretty clearly that Millenium aren't going to be playing by the rules. Having Alucard fight back so brutally is Integra saying "Alright, we're not going to play by the rules either. Now here's the superpowered badass vampire that you've forced me to unleash on you. Have fun." Millenium were ultimately taking Refuge in Audacity with what they were doing, in a manner which caught the British off guard (up to and including launching a full-scale invasion of several British cities, including London!) so that they could have the big war they wanted (which would preclude caring for things like consequences). As for the potential of a breached Masquerade, nobody sees anything which could explicitly identify Alucard as a vampire (or even superhuman) before the battle causes the crowd to panic and flee.
 * Alright, here's an answer for you... if you saw two guys on the news fighting before the cameras were destroyed would you think "OMG VAMPIRES!" Or would you think "OMG PSYCOPATHS!?" Well?
 * And people still have gall to be actually surprised when the army of Nazi-vampires arrives to destroy London? Apathy Killed the Cat, indeed...
 * Yeah, this pretty much gets thrown out the window since vampires eventually invade all of London by the end of the series. In the defence of the creators, they do take this into account. In OVA II one of the councilmen explicitly states that the number of vampire attacks recently is unprecedented, and afterwards the irrate councilmen sitting next to him outright say that they can no longer 'keep this quiet anymore' and that there is only so much information they can supress (leading the viewer to understand that some of these councilmen have damage control as their priority, and it's not Integra's job to even worry about censorship since the erradication of evil comes first). Although it's never really 'dealt with', I'm assuming that by the end of the manga (which I've read through) people have a pretty good idea of what is lurking in the shadows. It would be kind of hard to cover up an army of Nazi vampires destroying the capital city of what was once a world-expanding empire.
 * The newspaper reports shown in chapter 95 seem to imply that they passed them off as a remnant of the Waffen-SS that had been lying low for decades before launching a full scale assault. The fact that the Millenium vampires were ultimately contained, and that it is implied that there were other Millenium forces besides the Last Battalion attacking across the world probably meant that there was enough chaos and confusion to hide the involvement of supernatural forces.
 * In the fourth OAV, an underling reports that the two SAS helicopters were destroyed by a single musket-shot. This raises two questions: one, how did they know (and why did they care) that it was a musket, specifically? Two, WHO WAS LEFT ALIVE TO REPORT IT? If it was the ship they launched from, then they definitely shouldn't have been able to see that it was a musket.
 * Satellite. Modern satellites are quite capable of zeroing in on an individual and seeing exactly what weapons they're carrying. If the satellite was zeroed in on Rip, it could tell she fired a musket one time.
 * I would vouch for the satellite explanation. Keep in mind that the episode later shows pretty close up pictures of Rip's umbrella that appear to be taken from directly above (as though from a satellite).
 * I third the satellite identification. If memory serves, Rip's gun is a flintlock rifle, albeit much longer than was ever standard when flintlocks were in use. One of the characteristics of a flintlock mechanism (which was illustrated in the comic and OAV s, surprisingly) is touch-hole exhaust, secondary smoke that escapes the hole on the lock side in addition to that of the muzzle. Between the rifle's length and the touch-hole detail, it's plausible the English could identify the weapon with their (very precise) satellite images. To answer the first question ("Why did they care"), it's a pretty odd detail. It'd make sense if the SAS choppers were shot down by the Eagle/Adler's heavy artillery, but the fact that they were apparently downed without any of the ship's guns being fired is certainly something they'd want to take note of, if not just because it's so improbable.
 * Where's the rest of Ultimate? Does it just stop at 4?
 * 5 is out now. It hasn't been dubbed yet. It just takes a while to make each episode.
 * 6 is out too and 7 is on its way. Dub's still at 4.
 * 7's out, 8 is upcoming. Funimation's still at 4.
 * The rest of them should be coming out soon now, sometime in 2011, according to Wikipedia.
 * The delay here I think is due to liscensing issues. Geneon, not Funimation, dubbed the first 4 OVA's. When Geneon went under, Funi took up distributing a bunch of their old franchises. Therefore, to continue the series, Funimation had to get the dubbing rights for the next few OVA's before they could do anything. They only had distributing rights for the first four, not for any of the series beyond that.
 * 8 is out now. Was at a convention over the weekend and Funimation was there. They were promising to dub the rest of the OVA's, which according to them is due in 2012.
 * Considering the way the Convention of Twelve functions, you have to wonder why Seras seems so comfortable with the knowledge that democracy (in England anyway) is a sham. They wasted a perfectly good (sub) plot
 * She's got more important things to worry about, like the army of Nazi vampires beating down the front door of her house.
 * Plus, is Seras ever explicitly told that the Convention of Twelve are the secret rulers of Britain and the parliament is a sham?
 * The only thing we are told is that the Round Table oversees Hellsing. While they appear to have some power concerning keeping the vampire attacks under wraps, it never says that they control the government. Besides, oligarchies are rarely successful.
 * I never quite understood why Integra's father told her to go to the basement and find the secret weapon... While conveniently forgetting to tell her to put blood on Alucard's corpse. I mean, if her Uncle hadn't gone all I'm-gonna-torture-you mode, she would have just died and Alucard would have been in the hands of an absolute madman.
 * He says it on his deathbed, so maybe he isn't quite thinking straight about all the potential ramifications. I'm also not sure if it's implied anywhere that he dislikes or even distrusts his brother.
 * It is possible that he expected Integra to have not been under quite so strenuous circumstances, and would have time to figure it out. That and the fact that he wouldn't have wanted to risk either enticing Integra (since he felt that Alucard should be used sparingly, and only reawoken as a last resort) or give her the wrong idea and cause her to destroy him (what with the whole "vampire is the sworn enemy of Hellsing" thing). And Arthur did trust his brother, seeing as how he asked him to watch over Integra (even if Sir Irons felt that Richard was untrustworthy).
 * Wait, where is the British army when the Nazi vampires attack London? You see some police officers, and that is it. You'd think that an attack on London would provoke an immediate military response. Even when Iscariot arrives, still no freaking army. And even then, how did a fleet of GIANT ZEPPELINS get to Britain without the without the British government knowing, and without the air-force and army on ready, and London evacuated?
 * Millenium subverted the early warning systems. Afterwards, they preferred to write off the city.
 * The air force and the army were full of traitors.
 * Yeah, that point is made quite explicitly clear. The British army was too busy fighting traitors who had been turned into vampires within its own ranks to respond to the initial invasion. Other elements of Millenium were launching attacks at Britain's allies to keep them busy while they sacked London.
 * Even so, considering it'd take days for a Zeppelin to cross the Atlantic, you'd think some US spysats or civilian aeroplanes would have spotted them. Millennium surely can't take care of every country near Britain or around the Atlantic Basin.
 * Considering they subverted an entire nation's armed services and the government of Brazil, I wouldn't say its that much of a stretch that they could have subverted the armed forces of Europe enough to delay a counterattack.
 * No amount of wankery can pass off the Zeppelins, as they can exist only by the Rule of Cool. Even the most modern of airship designs couldn't carry anything even close to the weight the ones in Hellsing are shown to carry, among their many many other problems.
 * It is also stated that Millenium forces are causing chaos across the world (a presidential aide-turned vampire is said to have slaughtered most of the U.S. cabinet) and they probably had vampires infiltrate governments and militaries across the world specifically for the purpose of preventing concerted counterattack. In any case, who's to say that military forces weren't in London. Given how useless untrained humans are against vampires (and the fact that an entire battalion of their strongest and most battle-hardened vampires were at the centre of the attack, plus a huge amount of heavy weaponry) any military forces could easily have been indistinguishable among the scenes of random massacres.
 * When Rip van Winkle attacked why couldn't they just send a submarine to kill her? She wouldn't be able to use her musket against a target she couldn't see. A few torpedo hits could have sunk the ship and sent her to a watery grave.
 * Submarines aren't exactly fast.
 * Who said she couldn't see a submarine, either? She picked out Alucard flying a goddamn SR-71.
 * Yep, and that's not even considering the time it takes for deployment, the fact that all the ship's radar information is operational and fully functional, and it being a British vessel, they probably already know where all of the other nearby British ships are. The ship may also be equipped with countermeasures like depth charges.
 * And aircraft carriers are expensive. Sending in troops to capture it (relatively intact) is a much better option than sinking it.
 * When Integra and Walter are discussing strategies, they point out that preparing any kind of naval vessel to attack them would take too long, and they require a quick solution before Millenium starts moving the ship and using it for other unpleasantness (like attacking British or foreign cities).
 * Kind of a silly question, but why do Alucard's clothes regenerate when he gets shot up? Are they an extension of his body or something?
 * He isn't actually wearing clothes. Those are part of his body that he maintains the illusion of clothing with. If you watch you'll see that the clothes reform with the same shadow liquid that the rest of body reforms with.
 * So Alucard isn't wearing clothing?... And then the Fangirls collectively went Squee.
 * To be fair, given the substance involved, he isn't wearing flesh or organs, either.
 * Why does the article page keep saying that Bernadotte doesn't stay dead? I thought he became Seras' familiar so he's still around but technically not alive, am I missing something here...
 * She drank his blood, and thus his abilities, knowledge, and personality became part of her. Alucard does this many times in the course of the series, but we only see it manifest near the end when Integra tells him to cut loose . Seras has no restrictions on her, other than being Alucard's minion, so she can use and manifest the people she's eaten freely.
 * I get that, but he's still technically dead, isn't he? He's not alive in the usual sense, nor is he an undead... Oh well, nitpicking.
 * I think that Seras actually allows Pip's personality and memories a great deal of autonomy and apparently allows him to remember and interpret things so it's like he's alive. I think that the vampire powers that Alucard and Seras had gives more than enough reason to believe that Pip is more or less "alive" despite everything.
 * If we say Pip is 'dead', so are Alucard and Seras. The three of them are technically dead. Besides, it's not interpretation, it's flat out stated on page vampires "commerce with lives". Sucking blood implies to appropriate with the lives of people: all of it, not memories or personalities. The name 'familiar' is never spoken as referred to the human lives. The only reference for it was on volume 2 when Alucard spoke of his hellhound. In latter issues, the people they keep are referred as lives by him, by Integra, by Major. Also, it's not as much Seras allows him that they are a 'team' or a "combination" (this is the official statement on them). Alucard is a 'tyrant' who snares a 'fortress of lives'. Pip are Seras 'combine' themselves to 'fight/crush them together'. She didn't suck blood to save her life, but to fight with him.
 * When Alucard recounts the group of heroes from Dracula who defeated him (just before going up against Alex for the last time), why doesn't he mention Jonathan Harker, considering that Harker struck one of the two last blows against Drac?
 * Shhh. You'll remind him that he's supposed to be a pile of dust.
 * Its possible that this was intended to foreshadow that the test subject vampire who Millenium were using was Mina Harker (who Jonathen apparently abandoned after it turned out she wasn't wholly cured of her vampirism). It's possible Alucard doesn't have much respect for Harker because of this (either that or some of the details from the book are wrong, and Harker wasn't as essential to the fight as he is portrayed there).
 * Since Harker does not appear at all and (as Integra has some of Alucard's blood by descent) Mina seems to have eventually married Abraham Van Helsing, maybe Alucard killed him at some point, making Mina a widow.
 * The Pity the Kidnapper page says that Alucard has lost the ability to eat souls and absorb their powers. Is there a canonical basis for this, because I seem to have missed it.
 * I don't think he actually lost that ability, its just that eating anyone else would screw up Schrodinger's abilities again and cause him to fade from existence, so he can't really use it any more.
 * Besides, having access to Schrodinger's powers and manipulating reality itself, makes him far more capable anyway.
 * A bit of the old Discard and Draw I suppose. He lost his Legion powers, he gained Schrodinger's Cat powers.
 * well if I remember correctly he killed everyone 'in' him except himself, so I think he can go back to his usual murdering ways.
 * It seems to me more like Schrodinger's identity was lost because his blood was mixed in with the blood of all those other bodies. Absorbing new souls at different times shouldn't screw that up.
 * While we're on the subject of Schrodinger, that event really made no sense. It's been shown before this event that Alucard can basically use his captured souls, and thus their powers, at will (his Control Release States, use of Luke Valentine as a body double, and summoning a whole legion of souls seems to back this up). Having not even been aware he had absorbed Schrodinger, he would not have activated his powers. So... exactly why did that even work for as long as it did?
 * The entire point is that Schrodinger's 'powers' don't seem to be a power in the vein of throwing cards or what have you and so they do not require activation. It explicitly states that Schrodinger only exists when he is aware of himself and once that trait became part of Alucard without his noticing, Schrodinger's loss of ability to individually distinguish himself from the flood of souls made them all fade from existence.
 * Something that bugged me about the manga was Alucard's speech to Anderson about how only humans can kill monsters. Considering that's what Alucard did throughout the series, it didn't make much sense until I had a Fridge Brilliance moment and realized that the monsters he defeated weren't dead, they were still alive inside him. That, of course, got smashed in the last volume. So why have that speech, which was apparently important to Alucard, but not do anything with it other than use it to possibly justify ?
 * It's less "Only men can kill monsters" and more "Only men should defeat monsters". If two monsters fight, in the end you just end up with a stronger monster. Only a human can devise a method which destroys the monster while leaving themself no less powerful, thus destroying the monster utterly. That is why Anderson's method was wrong, whereas the Major's (which was based on ingenuity, manipulation, and using Alucard's powers against him) was more successful, even if it didn't take.
 * Remember that he also sees a third group; dogs. Disgusting things that do as ordered and kill things utterly without reason. (Even Alucard Maintains some reason for killing people!
 * I always took it as Alucard considered himself as a tool of a human... Intergra Hellsing. So he wasn't defeating monsters, it was Intergra (a man... human, at least) who is killing monsters and using him to kill monsters.
 * If Alucard was raped as a child in the custody of the Turks, does that not count towards the "virginity vs. vampirism" thing?
 * He wasn't raped by women.
 * Maybe it only counts virginity of the penis, and not virginity of the anus and/or mouth?
 * It can't just be consensual sex that counts (which is... generally the most reasonable definition of virginity) or else that one vampire wouldn't have threatened to rape Seras and then make a ghoul out of her.
 * Nah, the vampire priest from the first episode told his minions to rape Seras. Obviously consent is not an issue.
 * Except the historical Count Dracula was a father and presumably, not a virgin. This troper was under the impression that since Alucard apparently made a Deal with the Devil for his powers, he could skip the whole virginity thing.
 * Well, if memory serves, he wasn't bitten by anyone. He was an 'original' vampire of sorts, since he started drinking blood out of his own will and only then, became a vampire. He's the starting link of the chain, and thus, not limited to the same rules as the rest.
 * Also bare in mind that the virginity thing appears to only be a pre-requisite in the Hellsing universe, as there is no indication of it being necessary anywhere else, particularly Stoker's novel. The fact that he attacks at least one (assumedly) known virgin in the form of Mina Harker (originally Mina Murray ) in the book is just a coincidence. In point of fact, since consummation of marriage is needed to make the marriage 'valid' in the eyes of many, one cannot even be sure Mina was actually a virgin when Dracula starts working to convert her. Since Dracula seems to intimate he intended to transform John Harker as well, this also eliminates the idea that vampires outside the Hellsing universe can only convert virgins of the opposite gender, let alone the idea they can only convert virgins.
 * Why is Seras able to recover from some wounds, but not others? She heals pretty quickly from Anderson's special bayonets, but can't regenerate in the Zorin fight?
 * Wasn't it stated that she was too damaged to heal properly? And actually, she doesn't regenerate that quickly in the Anderson fight, she has to struggle to walk, while she's taking the bayonets out of her body, and it's shown that she can't even see clearly.
 * The Hellsing Organization is supposedly the legacy of Abraham Van Helsing, from the original Dracula story. In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Van Helsing is a devout Catholic from the Netherlands; however, the Hellsing Organization is a Protestant group based in England. Yeah, I know, this is just a case of Did Not Do the Research, but...well, It Just Bugs Me.
 * Maybe one of the intermediate Helsings converted?
 * Two possibilities. One, it was a prerequisite for getting funding from the Crown. Two, it was of convenience, Protestant holy stuff being more easily accessed in England.
 * You may also remember that Van Helsing had a still living but mentally gone wife in the original story. (He even makes a point of saying how he's still married in the eyes of the church despite her condition.) The novel also mentions no living children, only a deceased son. My favorite theory is that ol' Abraham converted to Protestantism in order to get a divorce and remarry whenever he decided he needed heirs for the new family business.
 * A hinted theory in And Shine Heaven Now supplementary material was that Arthur Hellsing was the result of an affair between Abraham and Mina Harker. If that's true, Arthur would very likely be raised Protestant.
 * I always figured it's the legacy of all the heroes who fought Dracula, with Van Helsing spearheading the effort. Since most of "Team Dracula" were British and Van Helsing would have wanted their help, it got set up in England, and as said, it then became Protestant as a requirement of gaining the Crown and Church's support.
 * Should Integra's name not be Sir Intregra Fairbrook Wingates Van Helsing? It would seem that since HELLSING is an acronym, it's an I Am Not Shazam-style name confusion; or did I miss something?
 * In actual history, during World War I, anti-German resentment was so high that the royal family of England (which was actually part German, long story) changed their name from Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to Winsdor and ordered other nobility to change theirs to something more English (Battenberg to Montbatten, for example). I always presumed that Abraham, if he's emigrated to England by then, would have followed suit. (I know, he's Dutch, but morons would assume with the 'van' in his name that he's German.)
 * They'd have to be pretty stupid to make that mistake. The Germans and the Dutch are as different as you can get, and have been on opposite sides for some time. They also pronounce words differently, have different accents, different skin tones... who the hell would make a mistake that bad?
 * Never underestimate how stupid people can get.
 * Why was the Hellsing Anime so short? It if had been closer to the length of an average anime, then it could have been less rushed and could have thus avoided some of the flack it received.
 * At the time, they were only working off of three volumes of the manga and Hirano wasn't drawing quickly enough. Thus, filler episodes (Kim, Laura) and the Incognito arc were all written by the writers, not Hirano himself. The negative reactions of the fans shut down the project.
 * Anybody else noticed that despite Millennium being made of actual Nazis, they never do anything along the lines of what the real Nazis did in World War II? I mean, unless England has some huge Jewish population that nobody knows about...
 * True, but their present-day leader is the Major and about the only aspect of Nazi ideology he seems to embrace is "killing lots of people is awesome". He's just using Millennium's loyalty to the Reich, and with it the trappings of Nazi Germany, to rally his troops into an endless war.
 * Except he himself was in the Waffen SS, and thus likely would have shared the Nazi mindset of attaining the superior Aryan race. He shows no signs of that, nor do any of the veterans from the actual Nazi party.
 * Why isn't it more likely that he joined the Nazi party because he loves war and it was his best shot at leading one? Not every Nazi was motivated by racial ideology. Since the Major's calling the shots instead of Hitler, he's changed the focus from Antisemitism to militaristic ultra-nationalism, which was also a big defining trait of the Nazi movement. It's not like mass slaughter of humans by vampires is morally superior to racial genocide. The Major's no less evil, he's just more indiscriminate.
 * Because Herr Major states explicitly that he is carrying on the wishes of their deceased Fuhrer. Guess that those included? Granted, Herr Major doesn't have a brain riddled with neuro-syphilis, but it doesn't seem like he's lying. Furthermore, it doesn't even seem like any of Millennium is familiar with Mein Kampf; they have some weird manifesto, but not the words of their dead Fuhrer? Come on now...
 * Yes, Hirano wanted to play Everythings Eviler With Nazis without darkening the story too much by bringing back the Holocaust. Congratulations, you've seen through his tissue of lies. But if all you're going to do for any in-story explanation of the fact is say "that's implausible", then that's just too bad. At some point, you either have to suspend your disbelief and go with the story, or just sneer at all those lesser fans who are willing to explain it as the Major having spent the past several decades refinining Millennium into his own Blood Knight philosophy while keeping the Nazi trappings.
 * There's also not one member of Millennium who fits the Aryan ideal of blond hair and blue eyes, not in the slightest. I think that we can safely write this off as Everythings Eviler With Nazis.
 * In the sixth OVA, Seras first shoots down a whole volley of V-1 flying rockets with her weapon. Now, that is, of course, impressive. She then proceeds to miss with almost every single shot when firing at a much larger and slower target, namely the zeppelin Zorin Blitz is directing. I know it was farther away, but it should still have been a much, much easier target. So can anyone explain how she became such a piss-poor shot in the span of a few seconds, compared to the amazing skills she had shown just before that?
 * She went to the Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy
 * Probably Adaptation Decay. In the manga, she destroys it completely (the armored hull and bag resist damage for a brief while, long enough to get to the mansion) and Zorin and her mooks have to bail over the Hellsing mansion.
 * Zorin Blitz uses illusions to make the zeppelin appear in a different location then it actually is?
 * In the OV As (though I assume this applies to the Manga and Anime as well), why do Hellsing's human soldiers NOT use anti ghoul/vampire munitions and weapons, especially during the Valentine Brother's attack? Later, the Wild Geese are likewise shown using what appear to be standard bullets that fail miserably against Millennium's grunts. Even Iscariot gives blessed munitions to it's nameless soldiers.
 * They do use anti-vampire munitions, or at least the Wild Geese do. During the attack on the manor one of the Geese says they're running low on silver bullets. They're probably a lot less effective on ghouls thanks to their body armor, and vampires just move too quickly to hit, especially in close quarters.
 * Huh, really? Again, using the OVA as my guide, I remember the ghouls getting hit to the point of one having it's head partially blown off, and during Zorina's attack two of her underlings block bullets with their arms. In both cases, the damage doesn't seem great/incapacitating. In fact, in the second example the vamps don't even flinch. My problem still remains, that it seems that both Alucard and Seras have the tools to get the job done, but no one else in Hellsing does. Sure, it's established that normal humans couldn't even wield the Jackals/Harkonan, but still.
 * In the manga, they have silver bullets. This is explicitly stated. They may have departed from this in the OVA, though. In the manga, the vampires just moved too quickly for the Wild Geese to hit them.
 * They're using regular silver, not blessed silver, so no wonder their bullets aren't as effective. As for the ghoul attack earlier in the series, in the OVA, some nameless Hellsing guy shouts 'THE ENEMY ARE GHOULS!' over the radio. Obviously they weren't prepared for a vampire attack on their headquarters, and were using regular ammunition. Monumentally stupid for a supposed anti-vampire organisation, but evidently that's the case.
 * What is the theme of naming the first leiutenant Rip Van Winkle? She isn't sleepy.
 * Rip Van Winkle wouldn't be a terribly inaccurate reference for all of the Last Battalion, since they've been in hiding for decades. Much of Rip's abilities are references to the opera "Der Freishutz", which is generally translated as "The Marksman" or "The Freeshooter." Magic bullets and deals with the devil are involved.
 * There is also an operetta based on Rip Van Winkle.
 * Why was Rip able to sense Alucard's presence before the ship's radar did?
 * She fears him, since she thinks/knows he is her version of Samsiel, demon that will drag her to hell. Makes sense she would be more sensitive for him, seeing how his arrival heralds her death. Going Oh Crap when Alucard arrives and not after he has killed half your men also makes her smartest villain in the series.
 * Given that Hellsing is responsible for all supernatural security in Great Britain, why aren't non-vampiric monsters given much screen time?
 * Because story focuses on conflict between Millenium Organization and Hellsing Organization. There are other threats, werewolves at least seem to be confirmed. It's just that in context of the story, others really don't matter.
 * If Schrodinger ceases to exist if he stops observing himself, how does he sleep?
 * He doesn't.
 * Alucard seems kind of hypocritical with his attitude of "Monsters are killed by humans, not other monsters!" which he uses to invalidate Anderson's worthiness to kill him...um, isn't HE a monster who kills other monsters?
 * He sees himself as a weapon used by humans, so he is not "a monster killing monsters", he is "a weapon used by humans to kill monsters".
 * Are we supposed to believe that Jan Valentine and not Luke was the brains of that operation or was that simply before the writer decided that drinking blood allowed you access to their memories? I know the major is insane but if Luke was the brains as we all assume he should have killed Luke pretty much the moment Luke started panicking. Its unlikely given his obsession with Alucard that he was watching Jan more closely than Luke and even as insane as he is Jan stood a much better chance not only of victory over all but to resist torture longer than Luke who was in a fight the Major knew he couldn't hope to win against an opponent who would instantly gather all his knowledge upon devouring him. Jan on the other hand is killed to prevent him from talking. Which under the circumstances means either he was the one who actually knew vital information and couldn't be allowed to talk or the writer simply didn't know yet about lives being transfered upon consumption.
 * More likely neither really knew much. Plus, Luke was eaten by Alucards familiar, not by Alucard. Alucard is surprised when.
 * Alucard doesn't seem to be surprised that Luke was there, he seems to be surprised that Luke is mentally intact and not just a part of him the way Dandyman and Rip Van Winkle are just extentions of his will now.
 * How does Anderson's regeneration function exactly? When we first see him fight he takes a bullet to the head. Something that's usually fatal and very quickly. He then immediately takes several more bullets but he seems to just laugh it off. When he gets to the final battle with Alucard though it honestly seems like his arm isn't healing at all.
 * First, element of surprise. He feigned dead to catch Alucard off-guard. After that, he no longer needed to pretend so he jsut got up ASAP. When his arm is severed, it is done by Jackal(or whatever the black BFG was called) which is a lot more powerful than Aucards original. So it might be that his generation power was overwhelmed and couldn't keep up with the damage.
 * Alucard doesn't seem to be surprised that Luke was there, he seems to be surprised that Luke is mentally intact and not just a part of him the way Dandyman and Rip Van Winkle are just extentions of his will now.
 * How does Anderson's regeneration function exactly? When we first see him fight he takes a bullet to the head. Something that's usually fatal and very quickly. He then immediately takes several more bullets but he seems to just laugh it off. When he gets to the final battle with Alucard though it honestly seems like his arm isn't healing at all.
 * First, element of surprise. He feigned dead to catch Alucard off-guard. After that, he no longer needed to pretend so he jsut got up ASAP. When his arm is severed, it is done by Jackal(or whatever the black BFG was called) which is a lot more powerful than Aucards original. So it might be that his generation power was overwhelmed and couldn't keep up with the damage.