Manga / Hellsing

aka: Hellsing Ultimate

The Bird of Hermes is my name, eating my wings to make me tame.

"There are many immortal monsters who roam this Earth. When I look at them, I wonder, were they created out of a desire for immortality? Many of them desire war. I've seen them roaming the bloodiest battlefields, but in their battle cries, I hear a craving. I think they cry out, for death. Nosferatu, the No-Life King. His castle, his kingdom, its people, his loved ones, even his very identity; everything was lost. All that remains is a pale shadow, wandering from battle to battle. I have come to believe that those frightening immortals are, in fact, frail, sobbing children."

— Arthur Hellsing

The Hellsing Organization (officially, the Royal Order of Protestant Knights) exists to protect Great Britain from the ghouls who prey upon the living — and their chief operative is the ancient and powerful vampire "Alucard". Alucard doesn't have to use guns (that have Depleted Phlebotinum Shells, Improbable Aiming Skills, and near-Bottomless Magazines) to pulverise other vampires or anyone else who gets in his way... but he damn sure likes to.

Alucard faithfully serves the leader of Hellsing, Sir Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing. Her devotion to the Anglican Church and the Queen prompts her to swiftly erase any threats towards them from existence; she doesn't see a problem with employing the undead to destroy the undead. The same cannot be said of Hellsing's rival, the fanatical Section XIII Iscariot of the Catholic Church: the Iscariot consider Hellsing little better than the monsters they hunt, despise the Anglicans of England, and have a champion (the paladin Father Alexander Anderson) who is just as bloodthirsty and nigh-invincible as Alucard.

Into this blood feud stumbles Seras Victoria, the sole "surviving" member of a police squad killed by vampires. Alucard shoots Seras to save her from a fate worse than death — being turned into a vampire's ghoul — then offers her the choice of dying or becoming a vampire herself. Seras chooses the latter and lets Alucard turn her; as a consequence, she goes to work for Hellsing alongside Alucard. Although she mostly acts as comic relief (among other duties), Seras' weight as a character greatly increases in the second half of the story. Soon after Seras falls into the hellish nightmare of a war, Hellsing uncovers a plot of apocalyptic proportions hatched by a mysterious group called "Millennium" — one that threatens not just the United Kingdom, but the world as a whole.

Hellsing exists as the original manga by Kouta Hirano, which ran from 1997 to 2008 in Young King Ours magazine (released by Dark Horse Comics in North America), a thirteen-episode television series (also titled Hellsing) that ran starting in October 2001 and diverged from its story about halfway through, and a ten-episode OVA series (Hellsing Ultimate) running from February 2006 to December 2012 that more closely follows the plot of the manga. The television series and the first four OVAs were originally released by Geneon before the rights went to Funimation. A prequel began in 2001, Hellsing: The Dawn, which focuses on Alucard and a young Walter during World War II - also, Alucard is a girl in that prequel.

Has an abridged series made by Team Four Star, the guys who made Dragon Ball Z Abridged.

This page deals with the manga and its OVA adaptation. There is a separate page for the TV series.

See also: Crossfire by the same artist.

---

The Hellsing manga and Hellsing Ultimate OVAs contain examples of the following tropes:

A-C

• Aborted Arc: While it's unknown how long The Dawn would have been, nevertheless Hirano never did get around to finishing it before his work on Drifters. Also a case of No Export for You, as no version of The Dawn ever made it out of Japan, nor was it even compiled as a single volume in Japan.
• Absurdly Sharp Blade: Anderson's blessed bayonets and Yumie's katana.
  • Tubalcain Alhambra has absurdly sharp playing cards.
• Accent Adaptation: The Animax Asia English dub, while it uses the same accents for the characters like their North American counterpart, some characters accents were changed. (eg. Integra has a Transylvanian accent (possibly an allusion to her ancestor) while both Maxwell and the Pope have British accents.)
• Adaptational Badass:
  • Alucard is in fact Dracula himself and has now been upgraded to a borderline Eldritch Abomination made of all-consuming darkness rather than simply a powerful vampire.
  • As a result of Dracula's upgrade, this trope now applies to the protagonists of Dracula, as they not only managed to defeat him when he went all out (which is capable of ripping entire armies like paper), Alucard was beaten so thoroughly he adopted a Humans Are Special belief. Abraham van Helsing deserves special mention, being the one who Alucard has nightmares about, and if his dream is accurate, the man wasn't even winded when he put the stake through the Count's heart. No wonder he's loyal to Abraham's family, or at least the ones who show his willpower.
• Adaptation Dye-Job: In the manga, Maxwell's hair is blond, but was changed to silver in both anime adaptions. Pip's hair is also blond in the manga, and was changed to reddish-brown in Ultimate. In the opposite of Maxwell, Doc's hair went from silver to blond.
• Aerith and Bob: Integra, Seras Victoria, Alucard, and... Pip. There's also Walter, The Angel of Death.
• Air-Vent Passageway: Used by a young Integra when she is fleeing her uncle's assassination attempt, and later by Seras and Walter during the siege on the Hellsing building by the Valentine brothers.
• All There in the Manual: Most of the backstory regarding Alucard, Abraham Van Helsing, and Mina Harker is left rather vague at best unless the audience is familiar with Bram Stoker's book (or the 1992 film that Hirano drew most of his inspiration from).
• Alternate History: Apparently, the British Empire is not only still around but powerful enough to warrant the existence of Hellsing.
• Alucard: Happens to be the name of the vampire that resurrected Seras as a vampire. When he reveals his true form and unleashes his hell army, Alexander and Enrico call him Dracula.
• Ambiguously Gay: Schrödinger the Nazi Cat-Boy-Scout (while there is his affection for the Major, there is also hint he found Seras attractive, based on his polite greeting of her). Possibly Rip van Winkle and Zorin Blitz, too. Which would be ironic if so, since the Nazis used to murder homosexuals for their sexual orientation.
• Ambiguous Gender: Heinkel. In the OVA, Heinkel's Japanese and English VAs are female, but speaks in a more masculine tone. The OVA series seemingly decided Heinkel is male — the credit sequence for the 9th OVA focuses on Hellsing's female characters, but leaves Heinkel out.
• Ammunition Backpack: In Ultimate. For the final battle, Seras' anti-tank rifle gets upgraded to a fully automatic belt-fed version and she uses a pair of them (with the appropriate reserve of ammo, many times her weight) to go Guns Akimbo against the vampire Nazi zeppelin.
• Anime Catholicism: There's no way in hell that the Church would allow an Organization such as Iscariot to exist, namely with their willingness to sin to fight all the nasty beasties that inhabit the Hellsing universe. It breaks from Catholic doctrine. It does, however, allow for truly epic displays of badassery.
  • The official stance of the Church In-Universe is that there is no such organization — in one of the prototype comics starring Yumie and Heinkel, they get chewed out by Maxwell because their shenanigans got plastered all over the news.
  • Can be seen as an aversion. While it clearly is an example of Fantastic Catholicism, it lacks most of the elements that separates Anime Catholicism from that trope (Jesus Taboo, Christianity is Catholic, Nuns Are Mikos, Improbable Age, Cast Full of Pretty Boys, Gender Is No Object, Naughty Nuns, Played for Laughs and Impossibly Cool Clothes ^note  Though most of the characters wear snazzy suits with fancy long coats. While these clothes seem impossibly cool, they look just as cool in real life as they would in Hellsing. ) while still using a few Japanese Media Tropes, which is to be expected seeing as Hellsing is Japanese Media.
• Anti-Hero: Alucard fights for the good side, or at least a far less evil one, and can even be a bit of a Noble Demon at times — but he is not a good guy, as such episodes as his treatment of Rip or Tubalcain's SWAT team prove.
• Armor Is Useless: Hellsing's mauve shirts die by the dozen, to say nothing of the men of Millennium's military and police contacts and most notably the men of 9th Crusade. Though to be fair pretty much everyone with a name is a Badass Normal or stronger. When said 'stronger' folks are wielding weaponry than can punch through armored vehicles with pin-point accuracy it's not like body armor would be particularly useful anyway.
• Art Evolution: There's a noticeable change in style as the series progresses, from an amateurish manga style in the first volumes to a highly detailed action style befitting a supernatural war epic by the end of it. Hirano even comments on this in the omakes.
  • Alucard in particular gets a makeover after the early chapters. In the first volume, he actually looks more human and less pointy, and wears a more traditional style of greatcoat with a high collar which he keeps buttoned-up. Integra seems more feminine and has very wavy hair, and Seras just looks weird and badly-proportioned until the start of the 'Sword Dancer' mini-arc.
• Artistic License – History:
  • In the ninth episode of the Hellsing Ultimate OVA, a glimpse is shown into Alucard (Vlad the Impaler)'s past where he's shown being sexually abused by the Ottoman Sultan as a child. There is no evidence whatsoever to suggest that either he or his brother were mistreated to such a great extent while a hostage of the empire. In fact, Vlad's brother, Radu cel Frumos, actually became a fast friend of the heir-apparent of then-Ottoman Sultan Murad II, Mehmet the Conqueror, and became a high ranking Jannissary officer after converting to Islam. In fact, during the time Vlad was a hostage, Murad II was already fighting wars with the Holy Roman Empire and against Jonas Hunyadi, among other things. It's fairly unlikely he spent much time around the sons of Vlad II, who were in his custody.
  • In addition, they decide to show Vlad's death, beheaded by Ottomans who defeated him. Nope. While Vlad the Impaler was dealt a fairly crushing and decisive defeat by the Ottoman Empire in 1462, at the hands of the famed Jannissary battalions, he was not killed in ensuing battle, and in fact escaped, was thrown into prison in Hungary, escaped again, and returned to Wallachia. He was then assassinated during his short three month reign there. His head did leave its body however, and was sent to Istanbul as a trophy.
  • Maxwell dubs his campaign to conquer England for the Vatican as the Ninth Crusade. He should have double-checked his counting - the Ninth (and last of the classic) Crusade was fought in 1271-2.
• Artistic License – Law Enforcement: Seras Victoria and her fellow police officers are shown to carry guns. As the series is primarily set in England this is odd as standard British police officers do not routinely carry firearms.
• Art Shift: Characters will occasionally go super-deformed when odd stuff is happening in some parts of the manga. Ultimate has this as a Running Mythology Gag regarding Seras. She goes super-deformed at least Once an Episode, sometimes more often than that.
  • This is also true in the meta sense with the Ultimate OVAs, with each thid being handled by a different studio - Satelight for the first four episodes, Madhouse for episodes 5-7, and Graphinica for the last three.
• Attack! Attack! Attack!: Most of Alucard's battles are like this on both sides. Many of the characters he fights seem to think that instead of running or trying to defend themselves, they should just keep attacking despite the fact that he's Nigh-Invulnerable. Alucard usually doesn't defend himself, either.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: In her attack on the Hellsing manor, Zorin Blitz creates a gigantic illusion of herself and tricks Pip and The Wild Geese into believing said gigantic illusion is making mince meat out of them with her scythe, resulting in a Freak Out.
• Attempted Rape: In the very first chapter/OVA by the vampire preacher holding Seras hostage, because he wanted her to become a ghoul under his control and not a free-willed vampire like himself.
• Author Appeal: Not surprising, given that some of the characters are adapted from the author's earlier work in hentai. Frequently appearing fetishes include glasses, gloves, androgyny, very long hair, and incredibly large weapons. (Note that Rip fits all of these.)
• Ax-Crazy: Everyone except Integra, Seras, and Pip. And even Seras has her moments when she is pushed too far.
• Badass Boast: When Alucard says he'll make Tubalcain Alhambra squeal like a pig.
• Badass Creed: Please see Iscariot's chapter-long Pledge of Kickass. Also, Major's famous monologue about war is incredibly badass.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Integra and Alucard fit this trope the best.
• Badass Longcoat: Over half of the characters wear these.
• Badass Normal: Hellsing's ex-special forces red/mauve shirt field operatives. In hindsight, most of their deaths are avoidable, Alucard just can't seem to be bothered taking down the armies of ghouls which occasionally overwhelm them. Also, Integra vs. Anderson and Millennium mooks. Oh, and don't forget Pip and his Wild Geese!

  • Also, Integra and the Council of Twelve. They really do a number on Jan Valentine.

• The Bad Guy Wins: Technically speaking, the Major achieved everything he wanted. He annihilated London, caused an incredibly destructive war (London's entire population of 8 million people was wiped out in one night, not to mention all the damage occurring around the rest of the world), Alucard is defeated through his ingenuity and he dies in battle against a worthy opponent. But considering that all he really wanted to do was kill Alucard, he still fails, since Alucard comes back after 30 years of killing every one of the familiars he absorbed.
  • Subverted. He just thinks he wins. London was rebuilt, Integra mocked that he thought this was a war (it was labelled a terrorist attack eventually and that's it). Unless you count Alucard as a bad guy who got his happy ending, keeping what it's told be destroyed in all his important battles. Twice.
• Bathos: Regardless of how high the stakes might be, an Art Shift will generally cue a quick bit of this.
• Batman Gambit: The Major's plan to defeat Alucard hinges entirely on this trope. He knows that Alucard will mock an unworthy opponent by draining as much blood as possible to make himself indestructible. Thus, he sets up the event so that the people of London are killed and Alucard is squared up against a weakened Walter. Just as he expects, Alucard drains all the blood in London to mock Walter's futile attempt, and in doing so, allows the Major to poison him by adding Schrodinger's tainted blood to the mix.
• Beleaguered Benefactor: Sir Shelby M. Penwood often expresses displeasure at how Arthur Hellsing and later his daughter Integra continuously ask him to provide for whatever equipment they need to ridiculous levels. This even extend's to Penwood's grandson who Integra casually asks for a new helicopter.
• BFG: Seras' weapon(s) of choice, the Harkonnen series, especially the Harkonnen II. It has a gross weight of approx. 760 pounds, a max range of 4 km, has a pair of 30mm auto cannons belt-fed from two large ammunition boxes carried on her back, a can snipe high-speed missiles, shoot down Millennium airships, AND the two cannons double as grenade launchers, each barrel firing a single extremely powerful Vladmir incendiary grenade for the decimation of a large area, which gets used to bring down Zorin's zeppelin.
  • During the final battle with the Major, Seras puts the Harkonnen II to shame by using the 88mm anti-aircraft cannon of the Deus Ex Machina to blow through the near-impenetrable reinforced glass shield protecting the Major.

• Bifauxnen and Lad-ette: Integra Hellsing, Rip Van Winkle, and Zorin Blitz are all masculine women with distinct and opposing personalities.

• Bittersweet Ending: Millennium is defeated, London rebuilds, Pip and Seras do finally end up together (in a way), Alucard returns, Walter redeems himself in death, Anderson dies happily knowing he is going to a much better place, Sir Penwood dies a hero, the Major dies a happy man and gets his war, all his men have their greatest wish (to die) fulfilled, and the final scene of the series sees Integra and Seras happily reunited with Alucard. Given all that's happened, it still really can't be considered a happy ending, but it's not all bad.
• Bizarre and Improbable Ballistics: Rip Van Winkle. She can shoot down multiple fighter jets with a single bullet. Fired from a flintlock musket.
• Black-and-Gray Morality: In Hellsing, there are three kinds of people: Antiheroes, Villains, and Seras.
• "Blind Idiot" Translation: This series suffers from it on both sides of the Pacific. Some of the translations and the cultural references within them are enough to make Western audiences scratch their heads in puzzlement, especially those relating to Christianity and the honorifics that are used in daily life.

• Bloodstained Glass Windows: Quite a few battles take place in churches.
• Bloody Smile: A common scene is to see Alucard with a bloody smile in his face, which in most of the times is Not His Blood thanks to being a vampire... and more than that, being Dracula himself.
• Bond One-Liner: Alucard after his demon dog has devoured Luke Valentine.
  As a vampire, you were just a pathetic piece of shit. Now, you're nothing but dog shit.
  • Both Luke and the dog are used during the final battle with Walter, the former being used as a puppet to take Walter's worst.
• Book Ends: At the end of the series, it's implied Heinkel has become the 'Anderson' to Seras' 'Alucard'. Alucard's first appearance and his "death" also both occur with Alucard admiring the sky.
• Boom, Headshot!: Alucard literally laughs them off, as does Anderson due to his own regenerative abilities.
  • Schrödinger get a couple of these.
  • Anyone who takes a headshot from one of the Jackal's explosive bullets tends to do exactly the opposite, however.
• Bottomless Magazines: Practically every gun. Especially notable is Alucard's ridiculously enormous handgun the Jackal, which Walter says has a six shot magazine. Alucard tends to fire it in tandem with his other oversized gun, which holds more bullets. Neither gun runs out of bullets until Alucard is done shooting everybody.
  • Alucard is actually seen reloading sometimes, though. It's far more noticeable with Luke Valentine, who uses a pair of sawed-off M1 Garands, which in reality use 8-round en bloc clips.
• Breaking and Bloodsucking: Alucard decides the best way to announce his return, after decades of un-existence, is by trying to sink his mouthful of fangs into a sleeping Integra's neck. She empties a pistol into him before he can.
• Break the Cutie: Throughout the first half of the series, Seras was very upbeat and happy. Then Zorin Blitz came along and forced Seras to re-experience her mother and father's brutal murders, her mother's corpse-rape, and then being shot by the guys who killed her parents. To make it worse, Zorin then proceeds to cut off Seras' arm and slice her eyes open. Finally, after Pip saves Seras from Zorin, gets shot and then stabbed in the back with a giant scythe, he kisses Seras and tells her to drink his blood. And then he dies in her arms.
  • But in this case, Seras ends up Taking a Level in Badass and going on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
• Breast Expansion: Of uncertain veracity. Once Seras becomes a vampire and Hellsing agent, she has very large breasts, but it's never been made clear if this is due to a quirk of her transformation or if she was well-endowed beforehand and it wasn't noticeable due to her standard-issue ballistic vest. The dub producer for the OVA, Taliesin Jaffe (who's met and talked to Hirano personally), implied that their size in any given panel in the manga may correlate to how stressed Hirano was at the time of drawing said panel.
• The Butler Did It: Not a murder mystery, but it's eventually revealed that the one who had betrayed Hellsing was Walter, already long ago.
• Butt-Monkey: Have you seen Heinkel in Volume 10? First, his teacher/surrogate father is killed, after which Yumie and all of Heinkel's Iscariot companions die, then he gets his mouth shot off, and that is followed by Walter chopping the poor boy's arm off.
• Cannot Cross Running Water: Alucard makes a point of averting this (although via a plane) on one occasion. It's still a weakness, as traveling over water is dangerous for Seras, and even Alucard cannot do it without a vessel.
• Catchphrase:
  • Integra's favorite command, "SEARCH AND DESTROY!"
  • Which she generally says in response to Alucard saying "Give me your orders!"
  • Alucard and Seras both have "Yes, my master."
  • Rip Van Winkle's "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor; my bullet punishes all without distinction!"
  • While he uses a variety of biblical quotes (of varying accuracy) either before a battle or just upon entrance, Anderson is most noted for ending them not with a docile "amen", but forming a cross from his bayonets, highlighting his crazy eyes and a Slasher Smile to rival Alucard's, and absolutely screaming AAAAAAMMMEEEENNNNNN!
  • Take a drink every time the Major says "war". Enjoy your subsequent liver failure.
• Casual Danger Dialogue: Used often, but Integra gives us this gem just before she and and the Council of Twelve shoot Jan full of holes:
  Integra: You made it. Congratulations.
  Jan Valentine: ...Oh, fuck me.
• Cast of Snowflakes: While it's not a series with a large cast per se, the main and secondary characters in it are all extremely stylized with completely unique outfits, hairstyles, facial features, weapons and poses that make them look entirely distinctive.
• The Chains of Commanding: After the attack on Hellsing HQ is over, Sir Islands reinforces the fact that it was Integra's fault for not thinking of that contingency by telling her to put her former guards down, rather than Walter.
• Child Soldier: Schrödinger looks like he is 14. Seras comments on this.
  • He is probably quite a bit older than he appears, and it's not even known if that's Schrödinger's true form or if it's just one that he assumes for personal reasons.
  • Walter definitely counts as this. He was barely 14-years-old when he fought against Millennium in WWII, cutting bloody swathes through Nazis and ghouls right alongside Hellsing's Juggernaut, Alucard. By the end of the series, it's shown that this experience had greatly affected him throughout his whole life, resulting in a resentful bitterness that ultimately caused him to turn traitor sometime prior to Millennium's reemergence in South America.
• Christianity is Catholic: Neatly averted. While some of the more zealous members of Iscariot would hope to make this a fact someday *ahem*, a major part of the friction between Hellsing and Iscariot is the fact that Christianity is NOT always Catholic due to Hellsing's Protestant roots. Though it wouldn't be hard to miss that little fact when all you see of Hellsing is Redshirts (with emphasis on the RED part) being led by an Eldritch Abomination.
• Chekhov's Gun: The Jackal, but the twist is that it is not Alucard's Chekhov's gun but Walter's. When Walter fights Alucard, he turns the Jackal against him.
  • Schrödinger is Chekhov's Gunman. He appears relatively early on in the manga and OVA series, and has the interesting but passingly mentioned ability to be "everywhere and nowhere". His ability comes into full effect in the final volume of the manga, where he commits suicide and allows his body to fall into the river of blood Alucard is absorbing. The Major explains that Schrödinger's ability depends on his ability to perceive himself as an individual; if he becomes one of the many millions of souls within Alucard, however, he is unable to distinguish himself and is thus unable to truly exist. This quandary, in turn, causes Alucard to cease to exist in the real world, which was the Major's Evil Plan all along.
• Church Militant: Hellsing are Protestant; Iscariot are Catholic. Sometimes they're actually able to stop fighting each other long enough to fight vampires... sometimes. Climaxes with the Vatican's 9th Crusade against the Nazis and, eventually, all of Protestant England. Thankfully, Anderson does not agree with that last option, and offs Maxwell for being a genocidal lunatic gone off the deep end.
• City Shout Outs: Jan Valentine's address to Sir Integra and the Round Table Conference is played for horror in an attack that happens to be led by a funny man; the English dub goes so far as to have him declare like a rock star, "Thank you, London! We love you! GOODNIGHT!"
• Cluster F-Bomb:
  • Anytime the Wild Geese are present, expect profane language to be commonplace. Justified due to them being mercenaries.
  • Jan Valentine is also not shy about the potty mouth at all, due mainly to Jan being a rather crude asshole.
• Comic-Book Time: Everything from the second half of volume four up to the penultimate chapter of the entire ten-volume manga takes place over the course of maybe two days. Most of it takes place over the course of a single night and the following morning.
• The Coats Are Off: Nigh-Invulnerable Alucard gets stronger as he loses his coat.
  • As the various pieces of clothing he wears act as a means to restrict his vast and considerable power, it's a Justified Trope.
  • Integra dramatically rips hers off in response to the Major's "Come, let us make war!" It is truly a Mundane Made Awesome moment.
  • Also, the Captain in his fight against Seras. It's the first time we get to see his power as a werewolf. It's also the first time we find out that he wears no shirt under his jacket.
• Collapsing Lair: The Nazi compound in Dawn. Also, The Hindenburg II super-Zeppelin, which took an awfully long time to collapse, burn, and ultimately explode after its forced landing. As is the case with many villain lairs, one has to wonder why they would use explosive building materials (in this case Hydrogen).
• Compelling Voice: Integra in spades, lampshaded, and played for laughs. Its pretty much her super power. At the start of the series, she commands the most powerful character in the story, plus several others who rank within the top 10. Towards the end, she takes her own hostage takers... hostage... simply by issuing them orders. This gives her control of half the top 10 roster. Even after that, some of the nazis actually go out of their way to help her.
• Conducting the Carnage: During the siege on London with the army of vampiric Nazi veteran soldiers against the forces of the Iscariot Organization, the Major proceeds to wave his arms in glee atop his zeppelin as the destruction of London and the slaughter of its citizens act as his music. The way he behaves during the act all but outright states he is experiencing pure ecstasy.
• Contemplate Our Navels: Alucard likes to stand around and philosophise on occasion, usually about similarities between himself and his enemies.
• Cool Chair: The Major's chair is totally sweet. What other chair can you think of that has a built-in shield of bulletproof glass, which can stop anything short of an 88mm anti-aircraft cannon?
• Cooldown Hug: Integra does this to stop Seras' Unstoppable Rage during the Valentine brothers' attack on the Hellsing headquarters. Thankfully, it works, and Seras is instantly horrified of what she's just done.
• Cool Plane: Alucard flies a SR-71 Blackbird at one point.
• Cool vs. Awesome: A crazy Catholic paladin versus Dracula, also known as Alucard, versus a suped up exiled battalion of Nazi vampires that want to Take Over the World für der evulz.
  • Plus, a badass butler who fights with Razor Floss. Who goes Face–Heel Turn mostly just to fight a Worthy Opponent.
  • And a Cute Bruiser police girl with large breasts who becomes a vampire with a shadow arm near the end.
• Come Out, Come Out, Wherever You Are: Opening scene of Volume 1.
• Conservation of Ninjutsu: Used against ghouls, subverted with Alexander almost getting overrun by Alucard's familiar army; and then some more.
• Continuity Creep: The first half the series takes place over months, the second half takes place over the course of a single night.
• Corrupt Church: A very dim view of the Catholic Church and Protestant Church of England. The militant wing of the Protestants, the Hellsing Organization, uses many anti-Christian powers and creatures to achieve their goals, including the use of Alucard. Iscariot, a covert branch of the Vatican, knows Millennium is going to attack England. To help against a common enemy, the Pope sends a Ninth Holy Crusade, but instead of fighting Millennium as it was intended to, the commanding Bishop drunk with power decided to order an attack against the Protestant population of London instead, and is killed a short while later by Anderson.
• Crapsack World: Are you a human? Enjoy getting killed by vampires and turned into a ghoul or killed by Millennium soldiers. Are you a vampire? Enjoy getting slaughtered by Anderson or getting gruesomely killed and possibly eaten by Alucard. And it does not stop there — a group of Vampire Nazis try to plunge the world into endless war and destruction For the Evulz, basically turning the world into a Death World that will eventually render humanity extinct because of the endless wars they cause.
  • The vampire Nazis don't manage to destroy the world, but they manage to completely destroy London, to the point that absolutely everyone other than Hellsing forces was killed. The political effects of that could not have been good.
• Crazy Consumption: Alucard. It must be really helpful that one of his secondary powers is calling and absorbing blood that's been spilled, considering his feeding habits.
  • The Nazis basically spent an entire chapter messily devouring whatever the hell they could get their hands on. Including babies.

• Cruel Mercy: The Major not giving Rip Van Winkle a Mercy Kill while she was being fed upon by Alucard falls under this. While he justifies it by saying she deserves "a Hunter's death", his sadistic tendencies hint strongly at an alternative reason, reinforced when Zorin is killed by Seras, where the Major makes the same decision with You Have Failed Me as the rationale instead.
• Curse That Cures: Seras is being held hostage by an enemy vampire when she finds herself between her captor and the business end of Alucard's pistol. Alucard asks her if she will agree to help him. When she nods, he mortally wounds both Seras and her captor. Alucard keeps his word and converts Seras to save her.
• Custom Uniform: Seras' uniform appears to be a one-off. Also The Wild Geese, being a mercenary band.
• Cute Is Evil: Schrödinger. He's a cute little cat boy in a Hitler Youth uniform. And thoroughly evil, and a Beware the Silly Ones waiting to happen.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • In general, any fight between a human and a vampire is bound to end with the latter victorious. Even a single lowly artificial vampire can easily clear a team of well-armed men.
  • Anyone Alucard fights to the point of being a Running Gag. Exaggerated when he invocated every single victim in the form of a ghoul to annihilate the entire Millennium battalion, Maxwell's Holy Crusade, and Walter. On the other hand, Alucard was subjected to one himself by Abraham Van Helsing, who not only defeated him at his strongest, but humbled him so thoroughly Alucard wound up a defender of humanity.
  • Yumie vs Walter.
  • And let's not forget about Seras vs Zorin Blitz after Seras drank Pip Bernedotte's blood.
• Cycle of Revenge: A repeating character and overarching theme. The Nazis seek revenge for their defeat and glory, Iscariot against monsters and heathens, and Alucard, Seras and Anderson became monsters because in their darkest moments of defeat, they refused to let go of their hate. Arthur Hellsing summarizes that the world's monsters are simply crying, frail children, unable to move beyond their own weakness and pain. Alucard eventually grew disgusted with himself over this, which is why he enjoys being a simple servant despite his insane power.

D-G

• Dark and Troubled Past: Most of the cast.
  • The young Integra was nearly killed by her uncle for control of the Hellsing organization after her father's death, and had to activate Alucard to kill him.
  • Seras watched two thugs kill her parents and one then rape her mother's corpse after being shot.
  • Alucard was raped as a child. This along with fanatical devotion led to his war against the Ottoman Empire and when everyone died because of his goal to the glory of God, he turns his back on God and accepts blood, becoming a vampire..
  • The vast majority of Iscariot, which is almost exclusively composed of orphans that the Catholic Church indoctrinated and trained to despise all vampires and heathens.
• Darkest Hour: The Nazi attack on London is as dark as it gets, and gets even darker when Maxwell shows up and orders his forces to start killing everyone.
• Daywalking Vampire: Alucard dislikes sunlight, but he is not harmed by it.
• Death Seeker: One possible interpretation of Alucard's character. Also explicitly the motivation of the Major and the Last Battalion, plus the majority of vampires.
  • The interpretation for Alucard is reinforced by the speech Arthur Hellsing (Integra's father) gives her on his belief on immortal monsters (the one on the top of the page.)
• Declaration of Protection: Alucard for Integra (though it's all part of the contract), and to a lesser extent, Pip for Seras.
• Demonic Vampires: Alucard became a vampire when he renounced God and made a Deal with the Devil upon death. He also has a One-Winged Angel form that can only be described as demonic.
• Determinator: Alexander Anderson gets one arm so mangled by Alucard's Jackal that it's literally hanging on by skin and maybe a handful of tendons. He proceeds to grip his hand, which is somehow still holding on to a bayonet, with his teeth and charge headlong into Alucard's thousands-strong undead army.
• Deus Exit Machina: Anderson and Alucard are killed off (temporarily in Alucard's case) right before the climactic confrontation with the Major.
  • Also, when Alucard is stuck on the ship while the 'war' starts in London. Millennium and the Church both only did as much damage as they did because Alucard wasn't in play.
• Deus ex Machina: The name of Millennium's main zeppelin.
• Die Laughing: This happens to several characters.
  • Jan dies laughing like a maniac.
  • So do several of Millennium's soldiers during the final assault.
  • The Captain dies smiling like a happy child.
  • Schrödinger cackles as he decapitates himself and his head, as it falls, still has an expression of glee.
• Distant Finale: The final chapter's epilogue.
• Do Androids Dream?: Questioned with the Major.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Alucard's Curb-Stomp Battle with Rip is incredibly evocative of rape, although the prime example is the Japanese dub of the OVA.
  • Upon discovering that Seras has yet to drink blood from a live human and her on-field performance is declining as a result, Integra slices her finger with a knife and orders Seras to lick it. The whole thing plays out like a d/s forced blowjob scene, especially as Integra reminds Seras not to bite down.
• Do Not Go Gentle: "Let's go die like mangy dogs."
• Doom Troops: Iscariot Organization soldiers, who dress in Spanish capirotes (pointy-hooded Catholic priest robes that were made infamous during the Inquisition and worn to this day), although outside of Spain would be probably mistaken for Klansmen robes. Bonus points for one of the four commanders wearing a beak mask under his hood, which was common among plague doctors in the Middle Ages as a crude breathing mask.
• Doomed Defeatist: Averted. The first man among the Wild Geese to break down and start panicking because they're all going to die is actually one of only two to survive the Nazi assault on Hellsing manor.
• Dracula: Alucard, obviously.
• Drama-Preserving Handicap: The Vatican is the world's superpower in paranormal suppression, with resources that span across the entire globe and throughout history. Its inability to contain and control the situation in Britain is because the Catholic Church has little influence in the Protestant country, desires to keep a low profile, and political infighting within the Church. They fear Alucard's power as any sane person would, but possess various forbidden assets that can balance the scales, such as regenerators and relics.
• Dramatic Irony: During the battle with Zorin's soldiers, one of the Wild Geese completely loses it and starts ranting that they're all going to die so bad that Pip slaps him and gives him a Get A Hold Of Yourself Man speech. That same soldier is one of only two to survive the battle. See Doomed Defeatist above.
• Dramatic Shattering: The glass at the beginning of Alucard's and Luke's fight, and the Major's champagne glass upon the invasion of London.
• Dream Sequence: Alucard has a few, and Seras has one. They're pretty damn trippy.
• Driving Question: The manga and OVA both spend a great deal of time exploring what it means to be a monster.
• Dub Name Change: A minimal example with father Alexander Anderson, who in the original Japanese was actually called Alexander Andersen.
• Dumbass Has a Point: Alucard says this almost word for word when he demands to know why Seras refused to drink his blood when he was (not even remotely close to being) killed by Anderson in their first fight. Seras replies that she doesn't know, but she felt that if she had, it would've been the end of something very important inside of her. Alucard's response is "You are an idiot. But... perhaps you have a point. Perhaps it's time for a vampire who does not walk alone through the night."
• Dying Deal Upgrade: The manga opens with Seras Victoria getting shot and being resurrected as a vampire. Turns out Alucard himself, upon his execution by his enemies, made a deal of his own to become a vampire.
• Dysfunction Junction: In a big way.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Anyone who came to the early chapters after watching the anime/OVA probably wondered why all of the characters look so different. Also, in the early chapters (especially the first), Alucard's coat has a habit of buttoning and unbuttoning itself between panels.
• Eat Me: Schrödinger against Alucard. And it actually works.
• Eats Babies: Millennium's vampires.
• Eldritch Abomination: Alucard's release states tend to look like this.
  • Seras' arm-tentacle-darkness-husband thingy.
  • Anderson becomes one when he stabs himself with Helena's Nail.
  • The Captain. He's the only werewolf featured or mentioned in the series.
• Elevator Action Sequence: Happens in the forth novel/OVA, but considering Alucard's the perpetrator, it's more of an Elevator Massacre Sequence. The chapter arc in which this happens is even called "Elevator Action".
  • Elevator Escape: Bonus points for one of the poor SWAT mooks desperately mashing the "close doors" button as Alucard approaches, only for another mook to get hypnotised into mashing the "open doors" button. The hypnotised mook gets thrown from the elevator and riddled with lead, but by that point, Alucard's close enough to jam his pistols between the closing doors, wrench them open, announce "Open Sesame!" and do his thing.
• Emergency Transformation: The series opens with Seras' emergency vamping after she's shot through the chest to hit the vampire using her as a shield. It's very ambiguous how necessary this was — Alucard's only question before he opens fire is whether or not she's a virgin, and he asks if she wants to be turned when she's lying on the ground with a punctured lung. He does, at least, hold her hand as she dies in all versions. It's later revealed the Major was saved from a fatal gunshot of his own by being turned into a cyborg.
• Empathic Environment: Several of them.
  • It Always Rains at Funerals: Volume 2.
  • Dramatic Wind: Volume 8, Volume 9, and Volume 10 are full of examples. Mostly involves Alucard and/or Integra posing.
  • Cue the Sun: Volume 7 onwards.
  • Ominous Fog: Volume 7's ending.
  • Cherry Blossoms: Not literally cherry blossoms, because this isn't set in Japan, but there are instances of Dramatic Wind indoors that inexplicably carries dainty leaves that serves to emphasize an emotional moment. Some examples could be seen in Volume 7, during the battle against Zorin (when it wasn't just debris) and another in Volume 10: After Alucard returns in the epilogue, during his exchange with Integra. Curiously, the windows appear closed to let these fluttering leaves sneak in when she bites her ring finger.
• Enemy Mine:
  • Whenever Hellsing and Iscariot appear to cooperate.
  • Anderson and Co. with Integra Hellsing, very briefly, when Maxwell attempted to annihilate what remained of London.
  • Also, in Ultimate VIII, Millennium and Vatican forces gang up on Alucard when his Control Arts Restriction Zero is lifted. Which is not really ganging up as much shooting at something that scares the shit out of you. With very good reason.
• Even Evil Has Standards: Even if the Millennium is a bunch of nutcases who will do everything to win, they too look down on traitors who would betray their own kind for selfish needs. That's why they reward the traitors as they deserve. That said, earlier that same episode, they killed several higher ranking Nazi war criminals who they milked for funding with the promise of turning them into vampires.
  • It's okay to commit acts of violence, but it damn well better be in the name of God and not in the name of power and pride. That was when Maxwell went too far in Anderson's eyes.
• Everyone Calls Him "Barkeep": Captain, Doc, and the Major. There is some fanon about giving them names, but nothing officially out of the manga.
• Evil Laugh: Something of a staple in the series, but Alucard and Anderson do it the most. Alucard typically engages in this when he's been shot to pieces, literally, and indulges in this as he's pulling himself together to scare the shit out of whoever is there. A textbook example of how to use this trope if there ever was one.
  • There's even an example of duelling evil laughter. In the first Volume (and the first OVA), the vampire priest has his ghouls rip Alucard to shreds with gunfire. Then he laughs evilly. Then he's surprised upon hearing a deeper, softer and far more sinister chuckle as Alucard pulls himself back together and returns fire, to rather more effect.
• Evil Uncle: Richard Hellsing, who tried to murder 12-year-old Integra so he could take command of the Hellsing organization himself.
• Evil Minions: The majority of Millennium is this, although some arguments could also be made for Maxwell's fanatical crusaders, too.
• Exposition of Immortality: As a part of the series backstory; Alucard is Dracula, after all. The anime series show the audience how events went after the end of Bram Stoker's novel, explaining that the Count became the van Helsing's loyal servant and that was over a hundred years ago.
• Extremely Short Timespan: The Millennium invasion on London lasts literally a couple of hours.
• Eye Scream:
  • In a flashback, Seras attempts to defend her mother's corpse by putting a fork through an attacker's eye. Also, Zorin cuts Seras' eyes out after forcing her to experience said flashback.
  • A less gross example is when the Major shoots Integra in the eye as she make the move to kill him. It barely fazes her.
• Expy:
  • Almost all of the cast is based from Hirano's old and obscure Hentai works. Anderson, The Major, The Captain and The Doktor are the exact same with no glaring changes; Alucard, Seras and The Valentine brothers appear as themselves in The Legend of the Vampire Hunter, a one-shot erotic doujinshi of what would turn into this series much later.
  • Pip, Shrödinger, and Renaldo are also taken from older hentai works, while Integra, Yumie, Walter, and Heinkel are from two non-hentai action mangas (Hi-And-Low and Daidojin Monogatari).
  • It has been discussed as to whether or not Alucard is a expy of Vash The Stampede. Supposedly the author copped to being inspired by the black and silver handguns, sunglasses, and red longcoat.
  • Caleb may be more of an inspiration to Alucard thanks to his sadistic snarky antics, his cool hat framing his face in shadow, having red eyes that pierce through the Face Framed in Shadow and a long leather coat.
• Face Framed in Shadow: The manga absolutely adores this.
• Face–Heel Turn: Walter.
• Facepalm Of Doom: Seras and Zorin exchange some in their fight.
• Fangs Are Evil: Subverted, as some human characters appear to have prominent canines due to the art style. But yeah, with vampires and werewolves it's standard business. Except for Seras, who will always be adorable. The fangs just add to it.
• Fanservice: Delivered mostly by Seras.
  • Fan Disservice: Just about everything remotely sexual falls squarely into this territory. Examples include the vampire priest attacking Seras, Alucard attacking Rip van Winkle using an Eldritch Abomination One-Winged Angel with a plethora of very grabby Combat Tentacles after stabbing her in the chest with a rifle, Zorin laying into Seras with a scythe while the latter is in her standard cute outfit, and most prominently what happens to Seras's mother after she is killed.
• Fear Is the Appropriate Response: Subverted by pretty much every villain who faces Alucard, with the exception of Rip Van Winkle.
  • When Seras realises what the Captain actually is.

• Fingerpoke Of Doom: Seras pulls this off in her introduction to the Wild Geese — she lays Pip out flat with nothing but flicks of her finger.
• First-Episode Resurrection: Seras, of course.

• Foe-Tossing Charge: Anderson performs an absolutely epic one against Alucard's hoards, with Alucard goading him on all the way.
• Food Chain of Evil: Alucard eats other vampires. Literally. (Though not exclusively. Normal humans are fine too.)
• For the Evulz: Millennium. Unlike Hellsing and the Vatican, they have no purpose behind their genocidal misdeeds besides war, power, and mass slaughter. They happily admit to it, too.
• Foreshadowing: While it's primarily Played for Laughs, Alucard's incredibly weird Dream Sequence at the beginning of OVA 5 contains a gigantic, heaping helping of foreshadowing regarding a major twist that happens later on. As it happens, Alucard is a fan of war, espionage and political thriller films that adapt the works of Frederick Forsyth, specifically The Dogs of War, The Fourth Protocol and The Day of the Jackal. Throughout the dream, Alucard is haunted and annoyed by the spirit of his Jackal pistol, Bruce Willis, with one of his more famous roles being that of the Jackal in the 1997 remake, which is seen by film and literature critics as the inferior adaptation. After bombarding Alucard with mindless pop reference and gratuitous cameos, Willis is unceremoniously shot in the head by the spirit of Edward Fox, who played - you guessed it - the Jackal in the 1973 adaptation, warning Alucard to "never let another man choose your weapon." Sure enough, Walter - the man who gave Alucard the Jackal - is revealed to be a turncoat, with the pistol itself being outfitted with a high-yield explosive specifically placed there to sabotage Alucard in battle.

• Friendly Neighborhood Vampires: Compared to everyone else in the entire series, Seras is an absolute saint.
• Freudian Excuse: Alucard's father handed him and his brother over to the Ottoman Turks, which resulted in Alucard's being raped by an Arab as a young boy. It ultimately jump-started a lot of his issues and heavily influenced Alucard's vampirism and his crimes, both in the past and in the present.
• Freudian Trio: Alucard, Integra, and Seras.
• From Bad to Worse: The progression of the storyline in a nutshell. If you think that the enemies can't get any more homicidal or the battles any more brutal or the weapons involved any more overpowered, prepare to be amazed.
• Funetik Aksent: Anderson's dialogue in the Darkhorse translations.
• Fun with Acronyms: Her loyal English Legion of Legitimate Supernatural and Immortal Night Guards.
• Ghost Ship: How Alucard returns to London — alone, aboard a ship full of corpses. Just as Dracula arrived aboard the Demeter in Bram Stoker's novel.
• Ghostapo: Millennium, a Nazi off-shoot aiming to destroy the world with a vampire army.
• Gigantic Moon: The OVAs show a moon that, in one scene, is so big that the bottom 15% or so half fills a row of windows about ten meters across. To get that kind of size with a real camera, you'd need a lens with a focal length measured in meters, and you'd have to photograph the (indoor) scene from a couple kilometers away.
• Glass Cannon: Releasing Alucard's restraints completely turns him into one, releasing all the souls under his service as an entire army to command, but in return meaning he can't shrug his injuries onto them instead of himself (though that just means he goes from Nigh-Invulnerable to having the durability of your average super-powered vampire).
• A Glass of Chianti:
  • The Major, who toasts champagne before attacking London.
  • Alucard is frequently seen with a glass of wine in his chambers. Hell, he provides the trope image.
• Glowing Eyes of Doom: Used and abused, to great effect. Sometimes it's also the glasses in the case of Alucard and Anderson.
• Godzilla Threshold: Releasing Alucard from his bonds in the final arc, only after London is completely overrun by Millennium and the Iscariot Order.
• Go Out with a Smile:
  • Alucard gives his sanest, most sincere smile in the entire series as he fades away after absorbing Schrödinger.
  • The Major dies smiling, his face a look of peace, such as one never could have imagined might have rested there.
  • Anderson dies smiling, hearing the voices of children.
• Gorn: Much like Berserk, this series is dripping with it.
• Gory Discretion Shot: This was common in the TV series, but the Ultimate OVAs do not bother.
• Government Agency of Fiction
• Gratuitous English: "SAACHI ANDO DESUTOROI!"
  • THIS
  • "If anyone does not love the Lowd, Jezzus Chrwiss, let him be accused, oh Lowd come, AAAMEN!"
• Gratuitous German: Lots of German and German accents in the English dub; the Major and Rip Van Winkle in particular frequently pepper their speech with German words or even sing entire songs. The accuracy of the pronunciation... varies widely.
• Gratuitous Nazis: There's no real reason why the villains in this vampire story should be some kind of Nazi remnant, and at least some members of the Quirky Miniboss Squad (who were conceived earlier) don't really fit the Nazi theme very well... but it sure adds to the coolness factor of the final battle when the enemies are zeppelin-riding Nazi vampires.
• Grave Robbing: "She" is Mina Harker's remains, exhumed by Millennium.
• Guns Akimbo: Casull + Jackal = badass double BFG action.
  • Using of dual pistols seems to be standard tactics of Iscariot Organisation.
  • Apart of this, Hellsing also provides examples of Mauser C96 Carbines Akimbo, sawed-off M1 Garands Akimbo, FN P90s Akimbo, and MG-42 Heavy Machineguns Akimbo. And Harkonnen Cannons Akimbo, of course.

H-O

• Hammerspace: Seriously, where the heck does Anderson keep all of his bayonets? (Word of God says: In the fourth dimension. Although that may have been a joke.)
• Ham-to-Ham Combat: Whenever Alucard and Anderson spar, as they demonstrate in the third OVA.
• Hand Cannon: Alucard wields a pair of oversized pistols that are far too heavy for a normal human to wield. The Jackal in particular weighs 16 kilograms and is 39 centimetres long; almost eight times heavier than a Desert Eagle.
• Handy Remote Control: What Dok uses to kill off some Millennium members under The Major's command and also to destroy the Jackal.
• Harmful to Minors: The murder of Seras' parents when she was only a little girl. She had to witness both that, and what happened afterward...
• Heel–Face Turn: Walter seemed to have redeemed himself in the end, as well as Anderson.
• Heir Club for Men: Subverted in Integra's case, though there were individuals who tried to ensure it wasn't.
• Hellish Horse: When Alucard pulls out all of the stops, he summons the zombified Wallachian cavalry he once absorbed.
• Hell Seeker: The members of Iscariot, although it's less seeking and more resigned to their fate and planning to spend eternity killing demons.
• Hermetic Magic: Alucard's gloves.
• He Who Fights Monsters: Hellsing is made of this trope.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: "Dear My Master" showed that Alucard messed with Integra a lot after her father's death. Integra was forced to grow up quickly when she took over Hellsing, as she always had to be on her toes. So he would mess with her to allow her to still experience being a child.
• High-Pressure Blood: In spades.
• Hindenburg Incendiary Principle: Blown up, through really excessive use of firepower.

• Hollywood Darkness: In Ultimate, Seras mentions how it's pitch-black, and yet the audience can clearly see the full moon in the background, along with everything else.
• Holy Burns Evil: Zigzagged. Given that the Cheddar vampire was passing himself off as a priest, operated out of a church, and wore a cross, it would appear that holy symbols in and of themselves are useless against vampires. But items that are explicitly consecrated can hurt the undead, and much of the arsenals of Hellsing and Iscariot have been blessed for that purpose.
• Holy Hitman: The Iscariot agency.
• Home Sweet Home: "Welcome home, Count." "I'm home, Countess."
• Hope Spot: Alucard loves letting his opponents think they've won before destroying them.
• Horrifying the Horror: Similar to Hope Spot, Alucard delights in letting an opponent get the upper-hand before showing them that he's far worse than they are, typically through use of his One-Winged Angel form.
  • Episode 7 of the OVA when Seras drinks Pip's blood and unlocks her own One-Winged Angel form is even lampshaded by Zorin's statement about her own troops being ready to piss themselves over what they're now facing.
• Honorable Warrior's Death: Anyone with the exceptions of Integra Hellsing,Seras Victoria, and Maxwell are entirely looking for and most of the time getting this throughtout the series.
• Humans Are Special: "That which defeats a monster...is always a man." Alucard, as a monster, will not be defeated by another monster. The manga makes a point to differentiate between "human dogs", "humans who become monsters" and "real humans". Specifically, it has to be a fairly ordinary human, willingly and knowingly. No cyborgs, no vampires, no supernatural upgrades, no hapless soldiers attacking something they don't understand — just a person of great resolve. A group of knowing and willing true humans is also acceptable.
• Hypocrite: Rip Van Winkle chastises the turncoat officers on the HMS Eagle for turning their crewmates into ghouls and pays them accordingly, despite the fact that she and her battalion murdered elderly SS officers who they strung along for money and support and not following through on their promises to turn them into vampires.
• I Am Not Left-Handed: Control Art Restriction System.
• I Call It "Vera": Jackal, Casull, Harkonnen. And Harkonnen II's incendiary grenades are named Vladimir.
• Identical Stranger: Seras and Schrodinger, if she were several years younger and a Cat Girl.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Most are named for video games.
• I Hate You, Vampire Dad: Seras seems to have this attitude towards Alucard sometimes. It doesn't help the fact that he mocks her, acts like a downright jerk and enjoys scaring the hell out of her, especially in the manga. Ultimate softened the relationship a bit, making him brusque and impatient but not actually cruel.
• I'm a Humanitarian: The entire Leztzes Battalion. And Alucard himself.
• Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: You...do remember who the main character really is, right? Vlad Tepes? Vlad the Impaler? Yeah, he hasn't lost his touch. At all. If anything, he's only improved with practice.
• Implacable Man: Almost all non-humans and Alexander Anderson.
• Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy: Subverted, for all the good it does. Enemies tend to hit what they aim at. Unless they're the Major.
• Injured Self-Drag: Upon realizing on just what Alucard is, Luke Valentine horrifyingly tries to run for it, then gets his leg cut off and tries to crawl away to safety until he sees the exit is at the top of a very long staircase.
• Insult of Endearment: Alucard generally calls Seras "Police Girl" as a way of mocking her youth and inexperience (as well as the fact that she was a rookie police officer). He only refers to her by her actual name during serious situations, and she rarely insists that he use it. After she becomes a true vampire, he proudly uses her name.
• Interspecies Romance: Pip and Seras.
• In the Name of the Moon: "The Bird of Hermes is my name..."
  • A particularly weird phrase since it's taken from the Ripley Scroll, an alchemical recipe for the Philosopher's Stone.
  • Anderson is also guilty of this with his Bible verses.
• I Shall Taunt You: Alucard likes doing this to try and get the best out of his opponent. Jan Valentine is just an asshole.
• Inverse Dialogue/Death Rule: After Pip Bernadette gets stabbed through the chest by Zorin Blitz's thrown scythe, he has enough time to deliver a final rousing speech to fledgling vampire Seras Victoria, give her a first and last kiss, and a final request that she drink his blood to become a true vampire. She does, and Pip eventually recovers as an added bonus. Then again at the end, after Seras shoots the Major, he also has time for a Robotic Reveal and a final speech.
• Irony: A few rather interesting examples:
  • The Major, the ultimate warmonger, never personally kills anyone.
  • Integra Hellsing, arguably the least physically-capable of the series' main characters, is the only Hellsing Organization member not to die or lose a limb at any point in the series.
  • Millennium has some very quirky individuals from groups that, as a Nazi organisation, they once attempted to destroy.
  • Two of the Nazi's biggest foes — Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing and Seras Victoria — are blue-eyed blondes, thus the epitome of "Aryan" according to Adolf Hitler.
• Ironic Echo: "I highly recommend pissing yourself, followed by a course of praying to your impotent god."
  • When Anderson faces down Alucard, giving Alucard a momentary shock.
  Anderson: Hurry, hurry!
• It's Raining Nazi Vampires: During the attack on London.
• I Will Wait for You In Volume 10, after she kills Major and even if Alucard said farewell to her, Integra insists Alucard will return. She sourly waits for him, with the cheerful support of Seras Victoria who keeps her from losing her patience, for the next thirty years.
• Jack Bauer Interrogation Technique: Used by Walter and Integra on Jan. Unsuccessfully.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Bastard that he was, Richard was right that Integra shouldn't have had control of Hellsing when Arthur died; she was only 12, after all. Too bad he tried to kill her instead of anything more subtle.
• Jesus Taboo: GLORIOUSLY averted. Jesus Christ gets called by name a number of times.
  Anderson: If anyone does not love our Lord in Heaven, Jesus Christ... let him be accosted where he stand. God save you from his fate. Amen...
  • The Japanese version (see Gratuitous English above) is straight from 1 Corinthians 16:22, though saying "accused" instead of "accursed".
• Jumped at the Call: If Alucard gets to participate in bloody slaughter, Stuff Blowing Up, among other things, he'll do it — as long as it's Integra's wish. Several times, he has back-and-forths with her that amount to begging for a massacre the way a kid might beg for chocolate.
• Just Giving Orders: On multiple occasions, Alucard makes it very clear to Integra that while he's a monster, he's her monster, and that being the one who just gives the orders does not separate her from the atrocities he commits at her command, because she knows damn well what he's going to do once she gives the order to Search and Destroy, which she inevitably does.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Zorin is just sadistic.
• Killed Off for Real: Everyone who died. Except Alucard, Pip, and Seras.
• Killed to Uphold the Masquerade: Millennium does this with several of its Mooks and lower-ranked beasties in the early episodes.
• Knight in Shining Armor: Subverted by Alucard. He was a knight once, sort of, he's still a terrifyingly dangerous combatant, and he's bound to protect his order, but he certainly doesn't shine. Also, he doesn't care at all about chivalry. Except when he's around Integra (who explicitly wished for such a knight when they met) or the Queen.
• Knight Templar: The Iscariot Division and Alucard when he was Vlad.
• Kubrick Stare: EVERYONE.
• Lady and Knight: Alucard and Integra. A rather warped version, but still there.
• Large Ham: Many, but the Major stands out with all his dramatic speeches about WAR!
• Last Kiss: Pip gives a surprise one to Seras when she's blinded and he's dying.
• Last Stand: The entire second half of the series is one big last stand after another.
• The Law of Diminishing Defensive Effort: Alucard can regenerate from most damage, so he usually lets enemies do a number on him first; anytime he doesn't...
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Spirits of Bruce "Jackal" Willis and Harkonnen from Dune (1984), complete with Sting in the background.
• Let's Get Dangerous!: Many, many times, most notably:
  • Walter when he reveals himself to be a Retired Badass and goes full Battle Butler mode, slicing through a squad of mooks with his Razor Floss.
  • When Zorin's army attacks Hellsing, Seras stands on a rooftop with a BFG. She strikes a badass pose and then proceeds to shoot them out of the airship.
  • Integra pulling herself from a car crash relatively unscathed, decapitating the vampire who attacked her, mocking the rest as weaklings who couldn't bear humanity, and telling them to bring it on so she can kill them.
  • Anderson trash talking Millennium's mooks before slaughtering them all: "You will not die an easy death, I'LL CUT YOU ALL TO SHREDS! AAAAAAAMEN!"
  • If Alucard's form changes to that of him in a full-body leather suit with waist-length hair, you are even more screwed, and he will tear you apart with his bare hands.
• Let's You and Him Fight: This is the plan of the Catholic Church — to let the Nazis and Hellsing organization beat the tar out of each other so they can step in and finish off the survivor.
• Lighter and Softer: The Animax Asia english dub has no foul language and swearing, unlike their American counterpart.
• Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: Partly subverted with the release of the DVD/Blu-ray combo packs. Plenty of Special Features, but lacking the final two OVA volumes due to some licensing issues. These have, as of late 2014, been sorted out.
• Lightning Bruiser: This series actually has tiers. Compared to a normal human, anyone whose either a vampire or a regenerator is one by default, with the most powerful being natural vampires like Alucard and Seras. The "chipped" artificial vampires are very tough, but lack a true vampire's regenerative powers. All vampires are vulnerable to weapons that are blessed or silver (or both), making them Fragile Speedsters/Glass Cannons against a prepared opponent. However, the more powerful the vampire, the less effect these weapons have, and properly destroying any vampire requires putting such a weapon through its head or its heart.
• Limited Wardrobe: Subverted in Pip's case, he's been seen in at least three different outfits besides his mercenary apparel.
• Looming Silhouette of Rage: Alucard, particularly when he changes forms. Anderson is a big man, so he gets to do this, too.
• Love Hurts: If the couple consists of a vampire and a mercenary, then yeah.
• Made of Iron: Played with in that almost everyone getting shot fatally, even if they heal afterwards, which falls under Hollywood Healing or Healing Factor.
  • Played straight with the Captain, who shrugs off high caliber bullets even in human form.
  • Part of Alucard's schtick is to allow his enemies to shoot him literally to pieces...before reforming and returning the favor. Not many people can stand up from that.
  • Anderson can take an insane amount of damage compared to every other human appearing in the series. Even major organ damage, such as a direct shot to the head or arm, doesn't stop him for more than a few moments. Only the Jackal seems to have any effect on his regenerating abilities, and he even charges through an army of undead souls after that.
• Made of Plasticine: Played with and possibly justified.
• Master of Illusion: Zorin Blitz. Her powers aren't flawless, though - when she tries to use them to shake off a berserk Seras, Pip's soul within her prevents her from focusing on Seras', leading to Zorin's extremely painful and messy end.
• Masquerade: Millennium does this for decades until they're finally ready to wage the Major's long-anticipated war, infiltrating numerous governments through their own people with the promise of vampirism and immortality.
• Meaningful Name: Schrödinger. His status as a living Schrödinger's Catboy allows him to kill Alucard. However temporarily.
• Mêlée à Trois: It becomes a four-way war between Hellsing, Millennium, Iscariot (led by Anderson), and Section 13 (led by Maxwell, who leads an enormous coalition of Catholic Knights into battle against the wishes of the Vatican and completely loses Anderson's respect).
• The Men First:
  • When Millennium is about to attack London, Sir Penwood says that he can man the command center himself and everyone else can evacuate. His subordinates laugh, and point out that while they appreciate the gesture, they know he isn't competent to run any of their equipment. They stay (and die) to a man.
  • During Zorin's attack on the Hellsing Manor, one of Pip's men says that now is the time in the movies when the officer makes a Heroic Sacrifice so the men can get away. Pip counters that there'd be no point: they're all going to die no matter what they do. Only a handful of men are still alive when Seras rescues them, Pip is not one of them.
• Mercy Kill: Once a person becomes a ghoul, there is no going back. The only way out of such an existence is total death.
  • The Doktor also is about to do this to Rip Van Winkle when she's getting brutally killed by Alucard, but The Major stops him for likely sadistic reasons. Keep in mind that despite this kill switch essentially amounting to lighting the individual on fire, it still would have been merciful compared to how Alucard killed her.
• Missing Backblast: Zigzagged. It's most visible in the OVA. The characters' guns often but don't always visibly recoil.
• Missing Mom: We know what happened to Integra's father, but no one ever says a word about her mother.
• Mistaken for Masturbating: When one of Anderson's school pupils interrupts him while he's watching news broadcasts of the South American massacre, it's played for comedy as if he was interrupted doing something else.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: In "Dear my Master", Alucard changes into a younger version of himself to prevent this mistake while he walks with Integra as a child.
• Mind Rape: Zorin's specialty. She doesn't hesitate to use it on the Wild Geese and Seras.
  • "Enough with this mindfucking!"
• Mirror Character: Played straight with Alucard and Anderson, to the point where Alucard cries Manly Tears because their lives are so similar. A more direct parallel is drawn between Alucard and the Major (by Alucard himself, no less), where Alucard notes that they are both the types who would sacrifice and destroy everything around them, whether enemies or allies, in pursuit of their mad ambitions. It goes so far as to show the Major on the verge of being executed when he was an SS officer in Russia in the middle of Alucard's flashback to his own battlefield execution by the Turks. The major difference between them turns out to be that whereas Alucard embraced vampirism in order to escape death, the Major rejected it out of the desire to preserve his humanity. Or at least his ego. However, he also had the Doc make him into a cyborg as apposed to just, ya know, dying. So he really wasn't much different from Alucard. He just became a different kind of monster in order to maintain his individuality.
• The Mole: Walter.
• Mood Dissonance: The OVA will often segue very abruptly between the dramatic, gory story-lines, and the goofy chibi-style sequences that take place between events.
• Mood Whiplash: Quite a few times, most notably the "conference call" with the Major, which goes from wacky hijinks involving Schrödinger hitting on Seras and trying to get the camera working to a declaration of war accompanied by the sounds of an elderly man getting ripped limb-from-limb and devoured by vampires.
  • The start of the 5th OVA runs on this, swapping from the 4th's ending (The Major's Speech) to Alucard's bizarre dream about "Willis-Space," then back to the Nazi invasion... who are all instructed to take out their booklets to review their orders, with Schrödinger having misplaced his.
• Mooks: Too many to count, although not for long considering how fast the heroes chew through them.
• Monster Mash: Millennium contains vampires, a werewolf, a catboy, a witch, a magical sharpshooter, a Mad Scientist, and a cyborg.
• Mordor: What London becomes after the Millennium invasion. In one night, the city gets reduced to a borderline ghost town where bodies of humans, ghouls and vampires pile across the streets, and many of its buildings are destroyed. Fortunately, the city ultimately rebuilds and life continues on like normal.
• More Dakka: The series just loves showing how utterly useless this trope is against vampires. Especially Alucard and Seras.
• My Name Is Inigo Montoya: Seras' big fights tend to go like this, as well as Alucard vs Anderson final round.
• Mysterious Mist: Makes sense, Alucard is implied to have control over weather. Occasionally Overlaps with Ominous Fog.
• Naïve Newcomer: Seras, all the way.
• Names To Run Away From Very Fast: While Father Anderson is a tame name, his various labels put dread into the hearts of Nazi vampires in episode 5 of the OVA.
• Nature Adores a Virgin: Alucard was only able to transform Seras because of it.
  • Played straight with Integra.
• The Needs of the Many: Unlike the other members of Millennium, the Josef Mengele/Frankenstein-esque "Doc" genuinely believes that his inventions will bring great benefit to all of mankind.
• Negated Moment of Awesome: It's a minor running gag that Alucard and Alexander are interrupted from having a rematch until the final battle. Notably Alucard gets the Jackal to face him once more almost immediately after their first fight but has to wait until then to use it on the guy he got it for.
• Nightmare Fetishist: While everyone else is justifiably horrified at seeing Alucard's final form, Herr Doktor's response is simply "This is magnificent! I must have one!" with an overjoyed look on his face.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Synthetic vampire Nazis! A gunslinging super-powered vampire bound by Hermetic Magic (Which he can release himself, if he needs to in battle, in other words, he's only serving Hellsing, because he wants to)! A regenerating warrior priest who has nigh-infinite bayonets! A literal Schrödinger's Cat-Boy!
• Noble Demon: The Captain. Anderson and his most loyal followers could count as well. And maybe Alucard. Maybe.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Alucard's calling card, however it does happen to him once as well; he takes such a beating from Anderson's 'monster of God' form he flashes back to his death, has his whole undead army set on fire, and needs Seras to rescue him for the rematch.
• No New Fashions in the Future: The final chapter takes place 30 years in the future. Everyone's outfits are exactly the same.
• No Ontological Inertia: Killing a true vampire will also kill any ghouls they've made... or at least, it's supposed to work that way. This is the first clue that the recent surge in vampiric attacks has something bigger and nastier behind it. Millennium's artificial vampires only create ghouls, and the ghouls will persist after the death of the vampire that made them.
  • The manga also states in the first chapter that killing a vampire will kill all vampires they've sired.
• Normally, I Would Be Dead Now: They don't call Alucard the "No-Life King" for nothing.
• Noodle Incident: It's never explained or even glimpsed (for all the massive Flashback) of how Abraham managed to defeat and enslave Alucard. All that is stated is that Alucard went all out, was imprisoned, and Abraham managed to put such fear (and respect) in Alucard that he haunted his nightmares for hundreds of years and made him weep blood.
  • It's also never revealed exactly what Alucard did to warrant being locked up in the cellar for years, until Integra comes along and frees him. In the TV series, it shows him being restrained by supernatural means after he slaughters a whole bunch of soldiers in Hellsing's employ, implying he was getting out of control, but there's nothing like that here.
• No Swastikas: Gloriously averted in Ultimate and the manga.
• Not Afraid of Hell: Iscariot is dedicated to battling the forces of evil both mundane and supernatural, and has no fear that their methods of doing so will most likely damn their souls to Hell. In fact, that's part of their plan: to show up in Hell en masse so they can overthrow and destroy it.
• Not Brainwashed: Walter.
• Not Even Human: The Major is a cyborg! Not that we would regret killing him anyway...
  • Alucard takes great offence when Anderson becomes a monster because he wanted to be defeated by a human.
• Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The ending and its aftermath. It takes thirty years for things to take on some semblance of normality again.
• Not Worth Killing: This appears to be the Captain's motivation behind not finishing Heinkel off, instead throwing her a roll of bandages to patch up the mangled side of her face.
• Now It's My Turn: Alucard does this all the time. Usually, he likes to let the enemy shoot him to pieces first just so he can terrify them more.
• Nuke 'em: Sir Islands threatens to do this.
• Obi-Wan Moment: There's quite a few, but the most prominent is between Anderson and his students before and after his battle with Alucard. As he is dying in the latter, Anderson tells Heinkel, Yumie, and the rest of Iscariot's soldiers not to cry for him, instead requesting that they say a prayer each night before sleep.
• Of Course I'm Not a Virgin: Inverted with Integra in a scene where she forces Sera to lick some of her blood to get her more comfortable with it. She specifically tells Sera that her blood is 100% virgin blood, and therefore extra tasty.
• Offhand Backhand: The shoot-in-two-different-directions-at-the-same-time variety.
• Officer and a Gentleman: Pip Bernadotte.
  • The Captain counts, too. He shoots Heinkel in the face, but non-lethally and provides her with a first aid kit. Then he fights Seras and by extension allows her to kill him.
• Off with His Head!: Anderson tried this on Alucard in their first fight. It bought him a few minutes.
• Oh, Crap!: Happens a lot.
  • A lot of people suffer this when they realize just how outclassed they are against Alucard. Rip's starts when he's still fifteen miles away.
  • The reveal of The Captain's lycanthropy and Alucard's return to London are the biggest.
  • Maxwell really should've known better than to call on Anderson when Alucard's right there in front of him. And in a fragile, easily breakable British museum, no less.
  • Maxwell has perhaps his biggest one after Anderson shatters the glass box keeping Alucard's army of familiars from reaching him.
• Ominous Walk: All the time. It's a series with vampires in it. And not just any vampires, but FUCKING DRACULA HIMSELF. It would seems a bit incomplete without someone indulging in this at least once or twice.
• The Omnipresent: Schrödinger is a sort of self-observation with will. Self-described as "everywhere and nowhere," if he wills himself as being in any place at any time, he appears there, including in people's thoughts (as was seen in Zorin Blitz's last moments). This became Alucard's downfall, as his very existence relies on being aware of himself, and once that self was absorbed into Alucard, who exists beside millions of consciousnesses in a single being, he was no longer able to recognize himself as alive or dead (and neither, by extension, could Alucard). This erased a once-thought immortal, unstoppable vampire from the series, all the way until the epilogue.
• One-Hit Polykill: In the 2nd episode of Hellsing Ultimate, Seras fires on a column of ghouls wielding bullet-proof shields. One bullet takes out 6 or 7, and it's followed up with an explosive round.
  • Rip Van Winkle's musket is capable of this as well, thanks to her power that allows her to telekinetically redirect the bullets it fires mid-flight which gets used to deadly effect by Alucard after absorbing her when he fully releases his power.
• One-Word Title: Team Title, named after the Hellsing Organization.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Anderson and Walter both believe themself to be Alucard's one true adversary. In the end, only the former manages to retain any level of respect in Alucard's eyes.
• Only Sane Woman: Seras is the only character in the series with a fully functional moral compass.
  • The nameless Marine officer in Millennium. He is one of the few non-SS members and speaks up to the Major when he orders the remaining soldiers to prepare for a full frontal attack on Alucard.
• Oral Fixation: Lots of it, given that half of the characters in this series are smokers and the ones that aren't are probably vampires (and some are both). In one scene, it's basically just a shot of Alucard's tongue dragging across the bloody floor with everything else blackened out. Another time he uses his teeth to reload his pistol.
  • Anderson, who is neither a smoker nor a vampire, often holds his bayonets with his teeth.
• Orphaned Series: Hellsing: The Dawn, six chapters since 2007, not enough to release a single collected volume.
• Our Ghouls Are Creepier: Ghouls are shambling corpses that are created when either a natural vampire drains the blood of a non-virgin or an artificial vampire from Millennium drains anyone. If fatally wounded, they instantly crumble to dust. They are under the control of the vampire who turned them, eat human flesh, and retain enough intelligence to use tools.
• Our Souls Are Different: In the limbo sense. Any person whose blood Alucard consumes becomes a part of his massive army of undead, essentially acting as spare lives that he can use in combat. It's the main reason why he's practically impossible to kill, although Schrödinger manages to be a work-around.
• Our Vampires Are Different: Despite various rules mentioned that vampires have to follow, few in this series do so. Seras, however, is bound to most traditional limitations. Alucard even comments how he can walk under the sun, but doesn't do so often because it's "exhausting". Justified with Alucard, as the Hellsing organization spent pretty much the entire century they've had him in their custody experimenting on him so he won't have the same weaknesses of other vampires. Then again, he possibly does that simply by being Alucard.
  • Crossing large bodies of water is an issue, as addressed in Stoker's novel. He certainly can't be immersed in it, and most of the travel must be done within his coffin. Seems to apply directly to the water, as flying over in a plane has less of an effect on him. Seras gets stuffed in her coffin, partly out of this and partly Rule of Funny.
  • In the eighth volume, it's revealed that Alucard's Nigh-Invulnerability stems from, vampiric regeneration aside, the fact that he has inside of him the souls of every person he's ever devoured and that it essentially acts as spare lives for him.
  • Also, creating new vampires is based on the victim's gender and virginity. Only a virgin of the opposite sex to to the "sire" feeding upon them will become a new vampire (so female vampires can only create male vampires, and vice-versa). Anyone else is turned into a ghoul.
• Our Werewolves Are Different: The Captain. He can absorb high-caliber bullet fire without ill effect in his 'human' form, can transform into mist at any time, and the closest thing he has to a traditional werewolf form is an Animalistic Abomination.
• Outside-Genre Foe: The Captain, who turns out to be a werewolf with some abilities that are comparable to Alucard. Most of the organizations in the show deal with vampires, so a werewolf was something unprecedented.

P-Z

• Paint the Town Red: Most of the time it's done for dramatic irony. A vampire couple roams England in an early episode, killing Christian families and painting upside-down (Satanic) crosses with their blood. When the boy is shot to pieces, his blood splatter forms... a traditional cross as Alucard grins. Likewise, when Anderson goes berserk on a group of Nazi vampires, his Axe-Crazy hacking erases a previously painted swastika of blood on the walls... with more blood. Seras forgoes symbolism against Zorin and redecorates Hellsing manor... with her face.
  • Rip also paints a Nazi Swastika on a captured boat of the British Navy. She ran out of red paint and had to improvise...
• Parental Abandonment: Integra and Seras were both orphaned in their youth. Pip was too, apparently — he lived with his grandfather. Maxwell was abandoned by his parents into an orphanage, and all Iscariot members are hinted to have been raised by Anderson. Alucard, if going by his historical background, was sent as political hostage to the Ottoman Empire along with his brother Radu by his father.
• Parental Substitute: Anderson is this to Maxwell, Heinkel, Yumie, the rest of Iscariot, and the children at his orphanage in Rome. He genuinely loves children and has the Undying Loyalty and great respect of his followers, all of whom are willing to die for him and are later devastated by Anderson's death.
• Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death: Alucard comments on the sunrise during his final moments.
• Pay Evil unto Evil: This is basically Hellsing's motto and reasoning for using characters like Alucard and Walter.
• Perpetual-Motion Monster: Vampires, though they do weaken without blood.
• Person of Mass Destruction: Alucard, when he really cuts loose toward the end of the story and destroys what was left of London after Millennium had ravaged it.
• Pet the Dog:
  • In Volume 5, a Nazi mook laments his inability to feed pigeons in the park.
  • Alucard is generally cruel and mocking towards Seras (although he is privately fond and respectful of her), but when he genuinely upsets her, he usually relents or makes slight apologies. He also shows concern when she is injured, and offered her his blood so she could defend herself from Anderson. When he meets her after she becomes a true vampire, he literally pets her on the head, looking genuinely proud of her and calling her by her proper name.
  • Despite being a bloodthirsty Knight Templar, Anderson adores children and personally cares for dozens of orphans in Rome. He even asks Maxwell if he could bring some of the children to visit the British Museum, simply because he thought they'd enjoy it.
  • The Captain spares Heinkel's life and gives her a first-aid kit to treat her wounds.
• Pinned to the Wall: Alucard impales Rip van Winkle with her musket right before eating her.
• Please, Don't Leave Me: A variant of this in Volume 10: when Integra cries out to Alucard "Don't disappear!"
• Pointless Band-Aid: Pip always wears one on his (apparently broken) nose.
• Post Modern Magick: The series is a massive exercise in this trope. It starts with crosses being melted down for guns and ammunition, military equipped zombies, and goes into surgically created vampires, with everything in between.
• Power Gives You Wings: Alucard and Seras are both capable of sprouting shadowy wings when they wish to quickly move from point A to point B without interference. However, they still can't cross running water without help.
• Pretty Little Headshots: Both used straight and subverted.
• Pro-Human Transhuman: Seras becomes a vampire, but remains loyal to king and country.
• Psychic Powers: Alucard can hypnotise people and at the end of Volume 5 of the OVAs, he seems to move the damaged aircraft carrier by force of will alone.
• Psychotic Smirk: Alucard, Anderson, Jan, Rip...
• Pulling Themselves Together: Minor vampires are capable of this, but Alucard demonstrates it to a ridiculous degree, being able to rebuild his body in seconds when reduced to a bloody smear. Also Anderson after using Helena's Nail.
• Public Domain Artifact: Helena's Nail. Alucard also mentions the Shroud of Turin, the Holy Grail and Longinus' Lance.
• Pun: In the OVA dub, Alucard seems to enjoy making them just after Seras is done freaking about something. For instance, after she sees him decapitated, as he reassembles himself he tells her, cheerfully, "This is no time to lose your head." In the final battle against God Monster Anderson, when Alucard hears her calling to him and resolves to win the fight, he jokes that she's making enough noise to "wake the dead." And everybody starts making dog puns whenever the Captain or Alucard's Baskerville Hound show up.
• Pyrrhic Victory: The Major succeeds in defeating Alucard, even though Integra kills him in the end. Also, London ultimately rebuilds and life continues on like normal. Both Hellsing and Iscariot are rebuilding themselves while also maintaining a firm (if temporary) truce, which could very well last decades or even centuries. And just like the last time he was soundly beaten, Alucard is never truly out of the game; he comes back eventually.
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Millennium's officers.
• Ramming Always Works: Attempted against Seras with a zeppelin in OVA 6 — it fails since she is able to shoot the zeppelin down before it reaches her.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: Anderson believes this. When his followers mistreat, threaten, and refuse to escort Integra back to Hellsing Manor, he scolds and reminds them that they're paladins, not rapists. Heinkel and Yumie cower in shame like small children being reprimanded by their father.
• Rated M for Manly: Tons of action and vampires and explosions and everything else that a manly show could want, along with several characters who would put the action stars of the 70s and 80s to shame.
• Razor Floss: Walter's wires, which are quite capable of tearing bad guys and good guys, post Face–Heel Turn to shreds.
• Reality Is Unrealistic: No, Kouta Hirano didn't put that one faction of Iscariot soldiers in Ku Klux Klan robes just so you got the hint they were bad guys, that's what the uniforms of Spanish penintents actually look like.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Luke and Tulbacain get one, both courtesy of Alucard.
  • Integra gives the Major one at the end.
• Red and Black and Evil All Over: Alucard. The guy wears a red coat and hat over a black suit.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Alucard is blatantly obvious, but Seras' eyes only turn red when she's actively calling on her vampiric abilities. Once she fully embraces her vampiric nature by drinking Pip's blood, her eyes turn red and stay that way.
• Red Herring Twist: Quite a few. Most viewers were not expecting Walter to turn traitor or for Schrödinger to be the one to ultimately take down Alucard. There are a handful of tiny hints given throughout the series, but the majority of viewers will be focusing their attention on the more obvious enemies, such as Iscariot and Millennium's actual elites.
• Redshirt Army: Joining Hellsing is an excellent career move for those lacking in retirement plans.
• Reflective Eyes: Happens quite often, although the main culprit tends to be Anderson's and Iscariot's incredibly reflective glasses. Alucard's red eyes have a tendency to glow and reflect whoever he's looking at, too.
• Refuge in Audacity: Where to begin?
  • The premise. See that vampire? He fights Nazis. For England. Oh, and he hits on the Queen. And takes orders from Integra, starting when she's just a little girl.
  • Schrödinger. Named for the cat. Even has the same "powers" as the thought experiment/protest, with himself as the observer.
  • In universe, Integra pulls this on Anderson. And hundreds of Iscariot soldiers.
  • A nail from the cross that Jesus was crucified on? It turns Anderson into a thorn monster.
  • Alucard's immortality. The series finds increasingly unbelievable injuries he can regenerate from.
    • And then kills him. Temporarily.
  • The entire Gorn aspect.
  • Jan Valentine. Period.
  • Virtually any time the Major opens his mouth. He really likes war, and could go on about it for eight minutes (and does). And then sit back and eat a filet mignon while his Nazi troops destroy all of London...and eat babies. Though baby-eating was in what one might call the original.
  • Alucard coming back from death/purgatory/non-existence by killing all 3 million souls he had taken as his own, except Schrödinger. It takes him thirty years and it's never explained how he did it, but he got it done!
• The Remnant: The current Millennium, although they've got a whole new army of zombie vampires!
• Religion is Magic: Anderson's Bible-Fu.
• The Reveal: The Major is revealed to be an android. And in Chapter 94, it was revealed that Millennium's vampires are created from Mina Harker's remains, who still had Dracula's power dormant inside her after Abraham Van Helsing saved her. This means that all of Millennium's vampires are actually defective clones of Alucard's power.
• Rewarded as a Traitor Deserves: The traitor on the aircraft carrier who'd killed the rest of the crew was given such a treatment.
• Right-Hand Cat: Played with via the Major and Schrödinger.
• Rivers of Blood: Part of the finale involve the streets of London being filled with rivers of blood that Alucard uses for his healing power.
• Robotic Reveal: What happens when Seras shoots the Major. Though he's probably not 100% robotic.
• Roofhopping: Seems to be how Iscariot are getting around in Volume 6.
• Romantic Fusion: Pip Bernadotte ends up having his soul merged with the fully awakened vampire Seras after, while dying, he allows her to drink his blood, resulting in him becoming her familiar. While he usually exists inside her and can talk mentally with her he can also be manifested at any time she wills it.
• Rousing Speech: Maxwell likes broadcasting these, with plenty of Milking the Giant Cow. The Major too, once or twice. Anderson gives one to his band of Iscariot soldiers right before they start massacring Nazi vampires. And Alucard certainly finds Integra's speeches... rousing.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: The queen is behind Hellsing 100%.
• Rule of Cool: ‘...the manga.’ In multiple interviews, it's been admitted that all the symbolism and whatnot is blatantly there for the purpose of being cool rather than having much of a higher meaning. Hellsing is about a Bad Ass Longcoat Dracula fighting superpowered Inquisitors and an army of Nazi vampires. Who fly around in Zeppelins loaded with V1 rockets. Arguably, the only reason for anything occurring in Hellsing is pure Rule of Cool.
• Rule of Drama:
  • A lot of scenes, most especially those that involve an epic battle, are dragged out for the sake of high-octane drama and suspense. Not that that's a bad thing, of course.
  • A lot of the dialogue in the climax have different characters reacting to each others' lines when they're in different locations altogether and joined together only by jump cuts, even to the point of a short dialogue at a few points. While most of these instances don't make any logical sense, it does amp up the drama to have the characters speaking to each other at critical points as the plot ties up.
• Rule of Symbolism: While most of it falls under Rule of Cool due to Word of God, Rip Van Winkle's death falls squarely into here - the SR-71 Blackbird forms the shape of a burning cross, and a flashback has The Major detailing how the Opera Der Freischutz ends before sending Van Winkle on her mission.
  The Major: Caspar, having trifled with the huntsman, Samiel, is whisked away to Hell for his sins. His corpse is then thrown into the bottom of a ravine, to be eaten by wolves. Prepare yourself, First Lieutenant, for now Samiel comes to collect you.
  • Even Alucard's line in the dub sounds like something you'd hear in a fairy tale.
  Alucard: I just caught you... Rip Van Winkle.
• Rule of Three:
  • Seras was offered blood three times before she became a true vampire. First Alucard, whose offer she rejected; secondly Integra, from whom she simply licked a few drops; and finally Pip, who she drank from after he told her to.
  • Alucard was defeated twice before the main storyline and after those, he had nothing left. Once 500 years ago, another time 100 years ago. The third time he fought he wasn't defeated and returned home. At the same time during the third time, there were three attempts to defeat him one by Anderson, one by Walter and finally the one that seemed successful by Major, but it backfired in the end.
  • When their minions failed in their missions but survived, Millennium used a remote device to burn them into ash before they could give anything away. They did that with Jan and Tulbacain, but the Major decided to not do this with the third, Rip Van Winkle, because her mission was a success: to bait Alucard into the middle of the ocean, stuck miles away from London.
  • The Major was finally killed by the third time Hellsing attacks him. First by Integra, secondly by Seras, and finally Integra again.
• Running Gag: Several:
  • The shifted art style gag panels where Alucard and Seras meet the spirits inhabiting their guns.
  • Integra's outrageous demands to Sir Penwood for more troops and equipment, which always includes a helicopter.
• Say My Name: "ALUCARD!" "ANDERSON!" "SERAS VICTORIA!" "SIR INTEGRA FAIRBROOK WINGATES HELLSING!"
• Scale of Scientific Sins: Doc must be so proud. He's checked off almost every one of them.
• Scary Shiny Glasses: Pretty much every character with glasses will make them shine. Monocles too!
  • In several cases, the glasses shine even when their lenses have shattered.
• Scenery Gorn: Starts with the Nazis firebombing London in the shape of a Swastika, until in the end we have Walter slicing skyscrapers in half.
• Sealed Badass in a Can: Alucard was sealed in Hellsing Manor's basement dungeon for at least 20 years until Integra released him.
• Self-Censored Release: Kohta Hirano's earlier work included hentai, with earlier versions of characters including Alucard, Integra, Seras, Pip, Anderson, Yumie, Captain, Doc, and the Major showing up.
• Sexy Discretion Shot: The last page performs a variant where the sex is metaphorical and subtextual, mostly, sort of, when Alucard and Integra finally reunite and she bites her ring finger to let him suck her blood. There's a shot to the blood dripping, his mouth opens, then the droplet of blood falls and fades to the moon outside the Mansion.
• Shirtless Scene: Captain has no shirt under his coat, as revealed from Chapter 82 on.
• Shoot the Builder: Played Straight and Deconstructed badly during Alucard's fight with Walter. Alucard tries to kill Walter with the Jackal and it blows up his hand for his trouble. Walter apparently planned for this and mocked Alucard for trying to shoot someone who created his gun specifically to kill someone else.
  Walter: Did you forget who made that gun for you? That gun was meant to defeat Anderson. And I'm no Anderson.
• Shout-Out
  • During one of their shoot-outs, Alucard calls Alexander "Judas Priest", which is a reference to both the heavy metal band of the same name and to the namesake of the Iscariot Organization.
  • Alucard telling dandyman to squeal like a pig.
  • At the end of OVA 3, the Major starts singing "Tough Boy". In German.
  • Harkonnen Cannon, at the very least The Baron even makes a cameo appearance.
  • Many video game references including manga chapter titles named "Dead Zone", "Age of Empire", "Ultima Online", "Flash Point", "Final Fantasy", "Soldier of Fortune", "Ogre Battle", "Wizardry", "Might and Magic", "Castlevania", "Warcraft", and "Oblivion."
  • Jan Valentine shouting out "Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right", and saying it was boring using "God Mode". The dub changes it to him crowing, "Bringing the motherfuckin' death by Konami!"
  • The "Wild Geese" mercenary company, with its soldiers' distinctive red berets, that the Hellsing Organisation recruits to replace its casualties references the classic British war film The Wild Geese.
    • Also is a double shout out to a famous French mercenary team in the Middle Ages of the same name, as well as many others. In fact, the Wild Geese throughout history have been a sort of Legacy Character as a group.
  • When Seras and Alucard dream, they're visited and advised by the "spirits" of their favoured weapons. Seras meets Baron Harkonnen. Alucard converses with several Jackals — first Bruce Willis (in different roles) as an imposter and later Edward Fox as the true Jackal.
  • Josuke Higashikata, Rohan Kishibe and Yoshihiro Kira make appearances in one of the Valentine brothers' extras.
  • The inner sides of the manga's front and back covers have occasionally featured characters or references to other series, such as Fullmetal Alchemist or making characters dance Hare Hare Yukai.
  • When Hellsing first learns of "Millennium", she has Walter investigate everything from the definition to a bar named after the ship from Star Wars.
  • Vampire Nazis. Gundam style.
  • The blurb of the DVD set of Volumes 5-8 of the OVA says, "Remember when [vampires] were known as terrifying monsters that stalked the night, instead of moody teenagers that sparkle in daylight?"
  • The Major's real name is apparently Montana Max.
  • Alucard's Bad Ass Long Coat, large hat, Evil Laughter, and Guns Akimbo fighting style could make one think of The Shadow.
  • Jan Valentine calls Walter "Alfred" in Ultimate episode 2.
  • Father Anderson's nickname, "Angel Dust Anderson" is a reference to an earlier H-manga entitled Angel Dust by the same author starring a prototype version of Anderson's character design, and not just a result of the fact that most people who encounter him wonder if he's on PCP.
• Showy Invincible Hero: Alucard (inasmuch as he can be called a "hero"). The result of almost every confrontation he has with, well, anyone is a foregone conclusion. Even the situations where he puts any actual, visible effort into slaughtering all his enemies are rare. In short, Alucard is incredibly powerful to the degree that he's functionally unstoppable. But he sure abuses his powers with style.
• Shut Up, Hannibal!: When Integra shoots the Major.
• Shown Their Work: For a Japanese anime/manga series, the author and other creators managed to depict Protestantism, Catholicism, western cultures, vampire mythology, military structure, and accents (Scottish, Italian, British, etc.) far more accurately than 99% of other animated series with eastern roots. It's one of the few animes that averts Anime Catholicism, instead planting the series solidly into the category of Fantastic Catholicism, which is quite common in Hollywood and much more palatable to western audiences. Even the slang and insults are fairly accurate to the time period, religions, and nationality of the characters. There's also the element of the Vatican helping Millennium in the show's backstory, which has a frightening precedent in real-world history instead of just being a way to establish Iscariot as the bad guys.
• Sideways Smile: Not played for comedy at all. The mangaka seems to consider this the best way to display a Slasher Smile or Psychotic Smirk.
• Single-Stroke Battle: If it's not a serious battle or they're not toying with their prey, this tends to be how most fights end for Alucard and Anderson. They're just too powerful for most enemies to last longer than it takes to make a single shot or bayonet stroke.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: Integra and Alucard could be seen as an extreme example. Pip got beaten up by Seras when they first met.
• Slasher Smile: Mostly Alucard and Anderson, but seriously, everyone in the manga and OVA does this at some point. EVERYONE.
• Small Girl, Big Gun: Seras wields a number of examples of firepower way too big for normal humans to handle. Her Harkonnen Assault Cannon, for example, can take out tanks. Rip Van Winkle, on the other hand, uses an enormous, if lighter, musket of disproportionate firepower.
• Smoking Is Cool: Integra and Pip really love their cigarettes and cigars. Seras even scolds the latter for smoking inside of her, even if he's only in shadow form at that point.
• Smug Snake: Everyone is prone to underestimating Alucard's abilities, except those personally familiar with him. He never, ever cuts them any slack.
• Sniper Pistol: Alucard uses his Casull to snipe a kilometre-distant target early on in the manga.
• Snuff Film: Obviously not actually an example, but several deaths have a sexual feeling or component to them, although Rip Van Winkle's is by far the most blatant.
• So Proud of You: "Seras. My Seras Victoria."
• Soul Eating: Vampires consume the souls of those they kill by draining blood, human or vampire, and keep them on call as "familiars" that can be summoned or expended to power their strongest abilities. Alucard is nearly impossible to kill because he's devoured millions of souls, and towards the end he summons them all as an army. But then he consumes Schrödinger and his bizarre quantum-something powers cause him to disappear for decades.
• Soul Jar: Alucard's coffin is heavily implied to act as one.
• Sound Off: Pip and the Wild Geese sing the real-world "Eskimo pussy" obscene cadence call. Seras' rather disproportionate upset at this is probably foreshadowing for the later revelations about her past.
• Spell My Name With An S: "Seras"/"Ceres"/"Celes"? There is even some argument about how her name should be arranged, since either way works, and "Victoria Seras" would make marginally more sense, even though both name orders work. Hirano has admitted in interviews that he never came up with a decent Westernization of Seras' name. The title quote about Hermes gets this treatment as well. In the TV series, it was translated: "I am Hermes. I become tamed by devouring my own wings." In the OVA, it's transcribed directly from the Ripley Scroll as, "Here standeth the Bird of Hermes, eating my own wings to keep myself tame."
• Spit-Trail Kiss: Except the trail (true to the nature of the series) is of blood rather than saliva the first and last time Seras and Pip share a kiss.
• Stealth Pun: The Major loves war, and he's a cyborg. The Major is a war machine.
• Stepping-Stone Sword: Nazi vampires cross a minefield this way.
• Stumbled Into the Plot: Seras Victoria, a police officer joins Hellsing since she was targeted by a vampire and Alucard turned her into one in order to save her life after being wounded in a fight. Since the agency had publicly declared her as "dead", Seras has no choice but to work for them.
• Stupid Jetpack Hitler: Millennium, complete with Gundam-esque launchers for their paratroopers.
• Super Loser: Every Villain of the Week dealt with before the main antagonists appear thinks they're a match for Alucard and use their vampirism to slaughter hundreds. Hellsing just sees them as nuisances. Alucard sees them as hilarious.
  • The only exception to this is Rip Van Wrinkle, who was the only one to know she was fucked.
• Super-Soldier: Zombie. Vampires.
• Super-Strength: Apparently standard for all vampires/werewolves/immortal priests.
• Taking You with Me: Sir Penwood in an uncharacteristic moment of badassery.
• Talking Is a Free Action: Anderson reels off whole Bible passages before he actually starts fighting his opponent. Said opponent usually waits patiently for him to walk over and engage them. Of course, a lot of the time, it's Alucard doing the waiting.
• Tear Off Your Face: Seras finishes off Zorin by grinding her face against a wall until all that's left is a shredded mess of blood and bone.
• Tears of Blood: How Alucard cries.
• Tempting Fate: Maxwell finds himself surrounded by an army of ghouls, but is relieved when they prove incapable of penetrating the bulletproof glass shielding him. Then Anderson throws his bayonet through the glass, shattering it and dooming Maxwell.

• 13 Is Unlucky: Section XIII Iscariot.
• This Cannot Be!: Luke Valentine during his Villainous Breakdown. Many mooks experience this when coming in contact with Alucard's powers.
• This Is Unforgivable!: For referring to Pip as an insect, Zorin gets "No forgiveness! Ever!"
  • Integra felt the same way about Millennium and Maxwell slaughtering her people.
• This Is Your Brain on Evil: Walter toward the end.
• This Means War!: Pip, when Millennium attacks London. He and Seras vow to avenge the civilians who perished in the attack.
• Those Wacky Nazis: Millennium. They wear swastikas, speak German and declare war with the world, which is where their Nazism ends. They don't care about Nazi Germany's sociopolitical ideals or racism. All they want is combat and war.
• Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Unlike the more Friendly Enemy fights and challenges between Anderson and himself, Alucard does this with very nasty intentions to Luke Valentine, whom he views as a disgusting piece of trash because of his artificial vampirism and the meaningless massacres that Luke and Jan revel in. Between the imagery and Crispin Freeman's voice acting, the scene approaches being totally nightmarish.
• Title Drop: Although the title is taken from the organisation, the Major describes Alucard unlocking his Level Zero powers as if "the dead shall dance, and all of Hell shall sing."
• To Create a Playground for Evil: The Major wants a world of perpetual warfare.
• Took a Level in Badass: Seras. She goes from being terrified of almost anything vampire-related to pancaking a Nazi lunatic's face several meters down a long hallway. Seras even tells Anderson that she's getting stronger all the time and soon probably won't be afraid of anything.
• Transhuman Treachery: Ghouls don't have a choice, being enslaved to the will of their sire, but true vampires and powerful FREAKs do.
  • Walter — but subverted in that he was The Mole since much earlier.
• Translation Convention: Apparently all Germans, Italians, and French speak English 95% of the time. ^note  Or, you know, Japanese if you're a sub watcher .
• Try Not to Die: Integra orders Walter to 'come back alive at any cost'. Unfortunately, he did.
  • She also gives a variant of this to Alucard just before he vanishes.
• Tsundere: There are times Integra acts like one. Her exchange with Penwood as a teen for instance, or her attitude in Volume 1 around Alucard and Seras, when Alucard teases her, or towards the end.
• Unexplained Recovery: Played twice with Pip first in Volume 9's ending and then Alucard in Volume 10's ending.
• Unflinching Walk: Pip shows how badass he is by stopping to lighting a smoke right at the moment a bomb explodes in a tent in the background...a bomb he installed.
• Unskilled, but Strong: The series' earlier vampires, like the transformed couple and the Valentine brothers, rely primarily on their newfound enhanced strength, with the more powerful abilities like enhanced regeneration, familiars, and becoming smoke unavailable. This comes back to bite them when they go up against Alucard, who has over five centuries of fighting experience.
• Unstoppable Rage: Seras after Pip dies.
• Urban Fantasy: One of the most violent and gory vampire-based ones in recent years.
• Vampire Bites Suck: The series' vampires typically have whole mouths full of fangs and generally make a huge mess. Alucard in particular has a habit of ripping heads off with his teeth or devouring his foes completely, if he feels like it.
  • When Seras drains Pip's blood, she has a whole mess of fangs and chomps down hard enough to make blood spurt out. However, when she pulls away from his neck, the only mark is the classic pair of fang holes. Also, her teeth look like perfectly normal human teeth most of the time, rather than the conical fangs shown when biting. A Vampire Did It?
• Vampire Hunter: The Hellsing Organization and Iscariot Section XIII. Alucard and Anderson are their respective trump cards.
• Vampire Procreation Limit: victims of vampiric feeding do rise as the undead, but only virgins become vampires, everyone else becomes a flesh-eating ghoul. Which is why the vampire priest in the first chapter attempts to rape Seras Victoria before eating her, and Alucard asks if she's a virgin before shooting through her.
• Vampire Vannabe: All of the artificial vampires and ghouls that Millennium employs, which Alucard absolutely despises for being pathetic replicas of true vampires like Seras and himself.
• Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Okay, Alucard is a Sociopathic Hero at best. But is running Seras through with holy bayonets twenty-odd times and intentionally missing the heart so she would lie there in agony really needful, Anderson?
• Verbal Tic: The spirit of the Jackal really likes ending sentences with his own surname... Willis.
• Viewers Are Geniuses: While perfectly enjoyable without any such knowledge, only those familiar with Catholicism, Protestantism, the Reformation, and the cultural and religious conflicts between the two Christian branches will understand all of the references and subplots that litter the storyline. The same could also be said of the characters' backgrounds, which involve everything from the Ottoman Turks and collapse of the Byzantine Empire to the Nazis of World War II and the continued disputes about Northern Ireland. It literally requires viewers to possess at least a decent working knowledge of European history to grasp anywhere near all of the allusions that are made to real-life historical figures, their peoples, their religions, and their possible connection to supernatural creatures like vampires, werewolves, and other monsters.
  • Many of the characters' and agency's names give hints about their nationality and roles in the plot, but yet again, only those who are well-acquainted with European culture, Judeo-Christian religions, and fictional works would be able to deduce or identify the reasons behind their significance.
  • Not to mention Schrödinger, who is based on a thought concept of quantum physics that baffles even those in the sciences from time to time. Many viewers may never have even heard of the concept, which the show doesn't explain in great detail, either.
• Villainous Breakdown: Alucard's opponents tend to have a huge Oh, Crap! moment right before their defeat. Rip's starts when she realizes that Alucard is within twenty miles of her.
• Villainous Glutton: The Major. Additionally, some of the vampire characters straight up gorge themselves during the series (they simply don't get fatter for it).
• Violence is the Only Option: Well, they are fighting Nazis and vampires, so negotiations aren't likely to work with their particular brand of evil. Walter lampshades it when Seras are Alucard are under attack by a SWAT team — if Alucard perceives an obstacle (which he does), it's easy to guess from historical precedent what his solution will be (and it is).
• Violent Glaswegian: Dub/translated Anderson.
• Virgin Power: While not a power, per se, virginity is prerequisite for becoming a vampire instead of being simply ghouled. Also, apparently virgin blood is super tasty and nutritious. The first half of this aspect is removed from the original anime version; there, it seems to be a combination of the "sire" being a True Vampire (FREAK Vampires can't change people into vampires by biting them; they need to install FREAK Chips), the sire wanting the "childe" to change, and the childe being willing to be turned into a new vampire.
• Vocal Dissonance: "Girlycard" maintains Alucard's deep and menacing voice in both the original and English dubs, despite looking like a schoolgirl.
• Vocal Evolution: Just watch the English dub of the original series and compare it to the more recent OVAs...
• War for Fun and Profit: The Major and company. Mostly the former.
• We Can Rebuild Him: A dying Major gets this treatment between the prequel and the series proper.
• Weird Moon: It's always full. And red. But it's somewhat plausible if not Justified Trope because more than half of the series takes place over one night, while the other half spans a couple of months.
• Wicked Cultured: The Major.
• Will They or Won't They?: Alucard and Integra.
• What Have I Become?: Seras agonizes over this a few times throughout the series.
• Who You Gonna Call?: The Hellsing Organization for Protestants and Iscariot Section XIII for Catholics. It's unknown if there are similar organizations in other countries like the United States, China, Australia, etc., but it is stated that Iscariot operates in any country that has a significant Catholic population.
  • Integra says it best with the purpose of HO:
  Integra: We are the monsters who protect England from the other monsters.
• Wipe the Floor with You: Seras subjects Zorin Blitz to this after Zorin kills Pip, and Seras drinks his blood to unlock her true vampiric power. Seras slams Zorin's face into a manor wall, then runs so fast that Zorin's head is reduced to a red smear.
• World of Badass/World of Ham: It's a series based on Rule of Cool with a whole lot of Large Hams, what do you expect? Particularly the OVAs, which at times seem to be nothing more than epic fight scenes followed by hammy speeches followed by even more epic fight scenes.
• Worthy Opponent: Luke believes he is this to Alucard — right before he gets scared out of his wits by Alucard's familiars.
  • This seemed to be the relationship of Alucard and Abraham Van Helsing, who, after defeating him, decided to use him as a weapon instead of destroying him.
  • Alucard acknowledged Anderson as such in their final fight... right before Anderson used the Nail of Helena and "became a monster". He does still hold a great deal of respect for him after Anderson reverts back to his human form and dies peacefully. Alucard even gives him a genuine smile and quiet "Amen" after the priest's passing, something that he hasn't done for any other opponent in the series.
  • Similarly, this is why Anderson disobeyed orders from Maxwell to just observe as the Nazis and Hellsing fought each other — seeing Integra make her Badass Boast motivated even him into action.
    Anderson: No doubt about it. This — woman. These people — who else could be worthy to be our sworn enemies? Our archenemies... What was I supposed to do? Just sit back and watch? We will be the ones who will crush them! We are the only ones who deserve to crush them!
  • In contrast, vampire Walter thinks he is this to Alucard. However, during their final fight, Alucard taunts his former friend by stating that if Anderson couldn't defeat him, then a "brat" like Walter never could.
• You Have Failed Me: Tends to happen amongst Millennium's ranks, with several underlings being offed when they outlive their usefulness or lose a fight. The exception is Zorin Blitz, who Schrödinger notes the Major and the Doktor would normally have incinerated much earlier for defying orders and attacking Hellsing headquarters, getting her men and herself killed in the process, were they not preoccupied with a new project.
• Your Vampires Suck: More traditional vampires are featured in this series...and are promptly mocked and killed by Alucard.
• You Have Outlived Your Usefulness: The Valentine brothers.
• Xanatos Gambit: Depends on how you view the Major's motives. If you take him at face value, that all he really does want is some krieg, the Major wins whether or not Millennium and himself are killed off. He gets his glorious war and a shot at taking out Alucard. However, it can also be interpreted that the Major's war was just an elaborate plan to destroy Alucard, which was his true goal all along. Ultimately, after 30 years, his plan failed.
• Your Head Asplode: Any time a non-vampire gets shot in the head.

Hellsing Ultimate (OVA) Only Tropes

• Adaptation Distillation: The OVA condenses and shuffles around several scenes to give the series a more discernible arc, smooth the pacing and tweak away some Early-Installment Weirdness. The most effective and noticeable change is probably moving the Major's "I Love War" speech from the conclusion of events in Rio de Janeiro to shortly before the attack on London.
• Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole: In his fight with Alucard, Luke Valentine is shown to have a strong Healing Factor, surviving after getting shot in the head by Alucard's specialized gun. However, he is unable to regenerate his legs. In the manga, there was no headshot. He was instead shot in the stomach by the Casull, while his legs were shot off by Jackal. In the OVA, Jackal was the cause of all three wounds.
  • This was rectified in the FUNimation re-release, where Luke's initial injuries are now caused by the Casull.
• Artistic License – Military: Other than the Millennium personnel (who use the Nazi salute), everyone salutes American-style, despite the fact that most of those people are British and thus should be using the British salute instead. The Wild Geese have the excuse that they are mercenaries who could have been trained someplace where the American salute is standard, but Seras and Integra should know better.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Heinkel and Yumie in episode V.
• Brick Joke: In the OVA, Alucard gave us the line "Nothing I shoot ever gets back up again." Later in the episode, he shoots Father Anderson in the head, only for the latter to get back up and stab him.
  Alucard: What?!
• Casting Gag: So. Takehito Koyasu and Patrick Seitz both voice Luke Valentine, a blonde, slightly flamboyant vampire? Where have we heard this before?
• Catapult Nightmare: Seras in the first episode.
• Clumsy Copyright Censorship: An interesting musical variation. During the "vampire nazi invasion of London" sequence, in the original Japanese version of the OVA, a triumphant German military tune plays as the vampires launch and start massacring the general populace. Apparently somebody complained about this, because in the North American release of the OVA the tune was replaced by a really out-of-place beat tune.
• Country Matters: Anderson says it in the background during Episode 5. According to Taliesin Jaffe, Steven Brand pleaded that he get say it. "I'm Scottish, I've said since I was 12-years-old, I don't know a man alive in Scotland who hasn't said it, I need to say it at least once!"
• Cross-Popping Veins/Sweat Drop: During the Super-Deformed segments.
• Early-Bird Cameo: In a fairly minor one, Pip appears in the closing credits for the second OVA but is not introduced until the opening scene of the third OVA.
• "Facing the Bullets" One-Liner: Jan Valentine.
• Funny Background Event: At the end of the third OVA, as Pip is yelling for Seras and Alucard to get in the helicopter, you may or may not notice he's also holding the terrified pilot at gunpoint. It's only visible in one shot.
• Historical In-Joke: A passing reference by Integra about Bram Stoker and Pip about vampire stereotypes implies Dracula was published as an exaggerated chronicle of the actual events that led to Alucard's capture.
• Konami Code: In episode II, Jan yells out part of the code while firing his dual sub-machine-guns.
• Not Even Bothering with the Accent: Jan is supposed to speak like a typical English chav, but he and his brother both have American accents on account of their voice actors being from there, and Crispin uses his normal tone of voice as Alucard. Then again, who cares?
  • Averted when Alucard has a dream of back when he was still Dracula/"Vladycard". He speaks in a very believable Romanian accent. In the commentary for the first OVA, Crispin Freeman mentions that he did practice his Romanian accent a lot and was going to use it, but it just ended up sounding corny and his (Romanian) language teacher chewed him out over it. ("Creespin, vot you are doing, it is terrible!") That isn't apparent in the flashback because he only has one line, which is spoken very quietly. He finally uses said accent in present time during Episode 8.
  • In Brazil, very few individuals speak with a Brazilian accent, save a news anchor and one major character. And even then, it comes across as more Spanish than Portuguese. Everyone else is either American or Seras.
  • Yumie is voiced by Siobhan Flynn in the dub, who uses her normal Welsh accent. This is addressed in the commentary for the fifth and sixth OVAs, where Taliesin Jaffe jokes that he went with the "Doctor Who theory" for Yumie's voice: if you don't know where they're from, they're Welsh. In the commentary for the sixth OVA, after discussing it with Yuri, he suggests that she was raised in a Welsh orphanage.
• Precision F-Strike: Both in the English dub. Though the series is mighty free with strong language, it sometimes takes a restrained approach for extra impact, though this didn't stop Toonami from turning the OVA into a Cluster Bleep-Bomb.
  • It's surprising as hell to hear Nice Girl Seras drop the F-bomb not once but twice, once while the Nazis invade Hellsing Manor, and again while cheesegrating Zorin's face.
  • Similarly, Alucard is violent, sadistic and terrifying, but comes across as too cool/cultured to bother with swearing. When he calls Luke Valentine "dog shit", therefore, it proves that his contempt for Luke is absolute.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Seras' eyes are blue for most of the OVA, but turn red whenever she is actively calling on her vampiric abilities. After she drains the blood of the mortally wounded Pip, her eyes turn red and stay that way.
• The Rival: Anderson to Alucard, Alucard to Anderson. Need we go on?
• Screaming Warrior: Anderson breaks the decibel scale during OVA 8 with his suicidal charge through Alucard's army.
• Soundtrack Dissonance: Played straight in the fourth OVA at the part where Alucard brutally slays Rip Van Winkle. A scene almost bordering on Gorn (much like the entire anime, really), made only more disturbing by the cheerful German music playing in the background. The opera is Der Freischütz; but since the whole Rip's episode is Freischütz-flavoured (and -sounded), and both music and lyrics are rather appropriate, it bein' a first major German Romanticism opera.
  • The opera ends with the Marksman being dragged to Hell by the Devil. Rip considers Alucard the devil come to claim her, as modeled on the opera. (And the Freischütz legend, on which the opera is based, revolves around marksmen who cut a Deal with the Devil to obtain bullets which obey their user's whim rather than the laws of ballistics, which goes a long way to explain feats like shooting down several jet fighters with a single musket ball.)
  • And on OVA 5, elevator music plays during a car chase!
  • Speaking of OVA 5, the dramatically-appropriate and percussive but oddly upbeat "Broken English" by Schaft plays while London is burned to the ground and people are immolated.
• Take That!: From the English version OVAs. Yes, they really make fun of Twilight on the back of the Hellsing disc collections, and they were almost certainly inspired by Hellsing Ultimate Abridged.
  Remember when vampires had fangs? Remember when they were known as terrifying monsters that stalked the night, instead of moody teenagers that sparkle in daylight? It's time to drive a stake through the lovesick heart of contemporary vampire nonsense. Satisfy your bloodlust with Hellsing Ultimate, the definitive action-horror anime.
• Trigger-Happy: Alucard. Jan has his moments, too.
• Truer to the Text: The OVA is a definitely more faithful adaptation than the 2001 GONZO anime, for it benefitted from a completed manga run to adapt to begin with.
• Your Soul Is Mine!: This is how vampirism works if a true vampire kills their victim using it, as fully revealed in Episode 8.
• Vocal Dissonance: The 9th OVA features a WWII-era Alucard, who looks like a teenage girl. He keeps his original deep voice, though.

---

Hold yer tongue, the dead don't speak. Do the dead dare walk the Earth before mine eyes? Will the undead raise an army, fall in, and advance with those who would abandon God and embrace the heretical order dare presume to meet mine gaze? Iscariot will not allow it! I will not allow it! You will be cut down like straw, trembling before my wrath! AAAAAMEEEEEEENNNNNN!!