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I've been watching and reading Hellsing for well over a year and at first I never had any problems. It took me watching the whole Hellsing anime and reading 6 manga volumes before I even realized it even was horror genre. Even when Hellsing Ultimate 1 and 2 came out, it had just a tad more violence than I was used to, but ultimately I didn't mind.

That was before Hellsing 3 came out.

At first my sister and I were entranced... But as soon as Alucard started shooting up the troops in Hotel Rio... things just weren't so cute anymore. Up till then I never understood why Seras back talked Alucard for killing the soldiers, but then it's easy to be critical when you're holding a 6 by 8 inch or so book that you can put down at any time.

When you're watching it in the middle of the night with every light off and the remote MIA, on a big screen TV in living picture and color, and you've got state of the art Surround Sound (that your father just had to buy...) that makes it look and sound as if the massacre were taking place in your own living room, suddenly it's very hard to be critical. Now, not only did I side with Seras, but I was infuriated with Alucard as well, "How could he do that?! scream gonk " And the bloodshed kept going and going and going! gonk I got pretty used to it after a while (though the impalements made me a little queasy).

Then came the battle against "The Dandy."

I'd seen the battle in the manga, but some parts became too much to bear. My knee went numb when I saw Alucard break the poor sucker's backwards. Then when Alucard split his arm open (in slow-motion and zoom in no less!) my sister grabbed her arm as if it physically hurt, which she claimed it did. Since bending joints backwards and having hands split open are our greatest fears of bodily harm, it took hours to get feeling back into my leg and lack-of-feeling back into my sister's arm.

Then came the nightmare.

It was pretty short and bitter. I was in that God-forsaken hotel along with all of those soldiers (I don't think I was a soldier, so I had/have no idea why I was there). Then Alucard zoomed in, smirked, and grabbed my index and middle finger with one hand and my ring and pinky finger with the other, and tore my arm asunder. And (Oh by the power of the human mind!) that hurt! crying

Then I woke up.

And then I got to thinking: Maybe Hellsing violence (or just violence in general) is all it's cracked up to be. confused



So... your thoughts? Discuss? Besides the fact that I am a baby? (Which is true.) wahmbulance

Haha...
Well!

Here's my story. Once upon a time there was a little girl who liked pokemon, Tokyo Mew Mew, and Studio Ghibli movies.

The most violence she could handle was Princess Mononoke.
Then she watched the Johnny Depp film "Sleepy Hollow"
Her gore fears had left her, just a little bit.

Time passed and she got into other animes, getting abit used to bloodshed.
She watched the Hellsing OA eventually, then got interested in the OVA's.
Then Jan Valentine popped the eyeball outta a dead soldiers head. It 'asploded like a cherry or somethin'
She cringed and looked away.
Then Luke started slicing soldiers to bits. She cringed, then stared in awe at how pretty he was, then she cringed some more.

Then she read the whole manga series in a matter of days. (PRAISE THE LIBRARY SYSTEM! )

It took her a month to see all the Hellsing there was to see. By that time, she was so desencitized that she watched Elfen Lied without throwing up.
(Although I do twitch and look away sometimes when I watch that show... >_> )

She's also gotten so used to it that when she watches movies with her parents, and they warn her about the upcoming gore that she doesn't even close her eyes, 'cause she know she's seen worse in anime...

Yes, she still cringes abit at Hellsing, but mostly when bones get snapped, or when eyes get popped out.
All that jazz.


The morel of the story.... Moniter what your kids watch these days, parents! XD


---


So yeah. I think the gore is a little too much sometimes. I still can't watch when Jan pops out that deadguys eye...
...I like seeing blood everywhere, Blood is prettyyyyyy.
...but there are some scenes in Hellsing that make one abit queezy.

Another thing is...I would love to have my cousins watch Hellsing....but I know the violence would give them nightmares. Which sucks, cause I know they'd love it, apart from the blood.
(Of course, I also know my cousin Cheney would turn into an insant AxS shipper, and I'd then have to disown her, so its really all for the better that she never watches it. xD )

Which reminds me I had a post some time ago about Hellsing anime being too violent for children. Humm I wounder where I stashed that.

heh, dooooood, i could tell you some of the hellsing-themed nightmares i've had, but then you wouldn't sleep for a week, especially after the hojo and doc experimenting with mako, jenova, and werewolf dna one.... *shivers*

the violence in the manga makes me cringe a little, but i'm the kind of person who can't stand seeing other people in pain. eventually you have to step back and go "hey, it's a comic, and look the dude's head just exploded, and hirano actually drew the brainy bits, so that's kind of cool from an artistic perspective"

then again, i'll sit there and watch die hard a couple dozen times and not flinch, but crap like freddy vs jason just annoys me, and sweeny todd actually made me nauseous. (wore a scarf for a couple days because i couldn't stand my neck uncovered until i finally got over it. damn you, johnny depp for making me want to watch a movie i'm afraid of.)

i guess if the violence is part of the plot, it's not so bad, but if you can see the guy standing off-camera with the bucket of fake blood waiting to throw it at you, and it's just stupidly gratuitous violence for no reason, then it's annoying.

thankfully hellsing is keeping it mostly plot-related, but i'm starting to think hirano is coping for the lack of boobies and rape-porn in hellsing by throwing dead bodies at the readers and chuckling about it.


i should tell you guys about the miche-was-walter-getting-eaten-by-zombies dream. never watch the ova's and resident evil back-to-back before bedtime. baaad idea. very bad. *hides*

yeah, this desensitization thing they say happens when you watch/read this stuff often enough? it does not exist.

DOC AND MURAKI!!!! >_
(end 3am rant)

Gore, bloodshed and violence does not affect me. I can simply turn off my feelings on it. The only things that make me queasy are the thought of needles in eyes or under nails. The only real fear I have is of drowning, and then only if I'm trapped under the water, like in an underwater cave, not out in the middle of a body of water.

I do agree though that Hellsing is very violent, more so as it goes on, and to much so for children. It truly deserves its 'R' rating.

Oh, if the violence or such touches on a historical note that is important to me, it will affect me, but not in a queasy fashion. I viewed a documentary a while ago that told the story of Hitler's secretary. It started with her getting the job and went through after Hitler's death. It was the first movie made in Germany after WWII to portray Hitler. I watched it in subtitles and it was very, very good, very moving and disturbing, especially at the end. It did not skimp at all, but showed what happened to the Gobbles children and to others both in the bunker and in the city. The only part that it was not explicit on was all that happened to the woman as she moved through Russian occupied Berlin after Hitler's death. It shows enough potential and you can imagine for yourself.

Movies like that leave me in deep thought and in a contemplative mood, but violent animes do not, hence the comparison here.

The only things that ever really bothered me were in volume 6, when the Nazi dude had a dead baby in his mouth, and in volume 7, where Zorin's face was going bye-bye.

And just for the record, Sweeney Todd freaked me out the first time too...which I blame on the circumstances under which I saw it the first time. I won't go into them, because I'm trying to defend Michigami here. So let's just pretend they aren't legitimate. 3nodding

I agree that it's necessary, of course, but there are some things that just make your face hurt...or make you want to go "OMG they killed Borat! =O"

And in contrast, the best gory moment was in volume 1 where Bondagecard ripped the top half of the cronie's head off. ^^ Yay~

Youve got your violence,your ghouls,your crazy vaticans,maybe a little romance...xD Thats what makes Hellsing grand.Without violence,Hellsing would not be the same.