Binge Watch

Earlier today, I asked out loud what I wanted to do. Well, I answered it, as well as that last self-thought back in May---I binged-watch the Hellsing OVA.

It's not the first time that I have watched it, but I am a little surprised that I had not talked about it at all in this blog. Fascinating.

Anyway, Hellsing's anime adaptation comes in two flavours, the first TV series, and the OVA. They are both based on the Hellsing Manga, of which I have all ten tankōbon volumes translated into English by Chuang Yi Publishing. Where they differ is when they were produced---the OVA was done after the whole story of Hellsing was completed and was thus most faithful in the adaptation, while the first TV series diverged from the end of the Valentine brothers story arc. The entire background theme of Millenium (and holdover Nazis) was omitted in the first TV series since the details of that only came on much later in the manga---at the time of anime (2001--2002), those details had not emerged yet. That entire explanation arc was replaced with an alternative explanation that tied the available plot in the TV series together.

Between the two, I think the manga's grandiose version as adapted into the OVA suits the theme better as compared to the TV series. In fairness though, all these are in retrospect---there was always a danger of diverging too much from the source material to the point that it breaks what the original stood for. No one could predict that Kouta Hirano would go that far as to include hold-over Nazis into his storyline, and how that whole spiel of an eternal war was really the ultimate demonstration of how Alucard may be defeated ``once and for all''. The TV series did a good job with what they had---in addition, I think their soundtrack had better groove than the one that was present in the OVA. Back when I could use a CD player in the car, the Hellsing TV series soundtrack was what I would play to ensure minimal distracted driving and maximal alertness due to the strong beats.

It's definitely a nostalgia trip, and there are a few more such anime series on my list that fall in that category. Let's see how many of them I can get through in between all the reading, gaming, and catching up on more recent productions from various YouTubers and VTubers.

That's all for now. Till the next update.