Hellsing

Caught up with the manga yesterday, I'd actually bought the first 7 volumes, translated by Dark Horse into English. Time between releases was really long, so I forgot about it. Turns out the've only released one more since. Ended up reading the rest via fan translation, it's a little wonky because (at least in the Japanese collections) they changed the number of chapters per volume from like 6 or 7 to 10. Whatever, chapter 90 is the last that's been published in its original form.

Endless, bloody, brilliant war. The London battle between Hellsing, the Millenium order and the Vatican's agents continues in extended, typically brutal fashion. At this point the only character who seems safe is Seras, pretty much everyone else is either dead or certainly could die, at this point. Granted, I'm fairly certain Alucard will survive in the end, but it at least feels like he could die. It's not so much the position he's left in (which is ominous, indeed) as it is the take-no-prisoners vibe that's been building. I would be surprised if the story doesn't end after this battle, and while I could probably enjoy many more volumes, almost everything/everyone that's been established (including the irregular prequel series, The Dawn) has been addressed/killed, or will be soon. Unless he's going to establish a whole new storyline, which seems unlikely, this is it.

It's probably just as well, since Hirano is insanely slow, at least compared to the typical weekly manga series. It started over 10 years ago, and there are 90 chapters plus 6 chapters of The Dawn so far. Less than 10 chapters a year makes Bryan Hitch look positively industrious. Granted, the artwork is 2-5x more detailed and pleasurable than most other manga, so he certainly has some justification.

Also caught the 4th Hellsing Ultimate OVA, which was released a month ago in Japan. Unfortunately, due to Geneon shutting down, it'll probably never be released in the US. It was good as usual, although a little light on action, but it is the part of the story that leads into the big London battle, which dragged on pretty long in the manga as well, so yeah.

There's not enough good action horror stuff out there (in any media), and pretty much none of it is as good as Hellsing. Sad.