Welcome to Gaia! ::

Hellsing's timeline has been a subject of much debate in the past. The recently released trailer for OVA VI, which states that the events of Hellsing take place in 1999, has rekindled that debate in the Hiranomoe forums, so I figured I'd bring the debate here so that I could see what my fellow guild members thought about it.


This is what we know about Hellsing's history:

1) Alucard, as Vlad, became a vampire in 1476.
2) Alucard, as Dracula, invaded London in 1898.
3) Arthur sent Walter and Alucard to Warsaw, Poland, in September of 1944.
4) Alucard was sealed away in the Hellsing Mansion's sublevels at least 20 years before Integra released him.
5) Integra was born 12 years before she released Alucard.
6) Integra released Alucard 10 years before the events of Hellsing began.


Since Hellsing was published in 1997, some people have said that the events of Hellsing take place in 1997 (some people also do his with Dracula). However, it is said in the first chapter that the vampire priest arrived in Cheddar Village on Wednesday, June 14. If that is true, then Hellsing could not possibly have taken place in 1997, because June 14 fell on a Sunday in 1997. The closest years to a contemporary setting in which June 14 fell on a Wednesday are 1995 and 2000.


This is what we know about Hellsing itself:

1) The vampire priest arrived in Cheddar Village on Wednesday, June 14th, in 1995 or 2000.
2) Maxwell interrogated the bishop in July of 1999.
3) Millennium attacked London 523 years after Alucard became a vampire.
4) Alucard returned in 2030.


If we add 523 to 1476, we get 1999, so 2 and 3 support a setting in 1999. Since it's unlikely that Seras was with the Hellsing Organization for 5 years before Millennium's attack, 1 and 4 support a setting in 2000. 2 could also support a setting in 2000, while 4 could also support a setting in 1999, assuming that Integra's "30 long years" was approximate, not exact. 1 and 3, however, are irreconcilable. All along, I've been trying to do the same thing that I did with Dracula (in Dracula, Mina mentions that September 22 was a Thursday, meaning that the events of the novel take place in 1893, a year in with September 22 was a Thursday). Unfortunately, since Hirano gives us two irreconcilable dates, it's impossible (it's the same case with Frankenstein). They cannot both be true.

If Hirano had not given us the exact day upon which the vampire priest arrived on Cheddar Village, we could easily say that Hellsing takes place in 1999.

In the end, I think there's only one option: we have to ignore Wednesday.

Well, if we knew Integra's exact age, then we could figure out her birth year! Since Islands said she was only about 11-12 when she released Alucard, and she released Alucard in '89, right? That would put her at like, 1977, RIGHT?

Anyway, how come we can't tell when Alucard was sealed? Wasn't it twenty years before Integra released him?

Indeed. It's unlikely that Hirano was paying close attention to a calendar, anyway. He probably just picked a random date and went with it. sweatdrop