Heads up: if your world posts amount to essentially day-by-day synopses of your life, I'm most likely not going to read them. Not saying that to anyone in particular, just making it clear. It's like watching a football game where every play is shown again in slow motion and from six different angles. Just gets boring.
Also I am a crotchety old man.
Speaking of, actually, I was watching Hellsing these past few days, and it's really starting to tick me off, and for a number of reasons.
First, all the dark atmosphere from the manga is gone. And I mean gone. I'm sorry, but Hellsing is not supposed to be Yu Yu Hakusho. Setting aside the art style, the entire tone of the series so far is Hellsing kills undead things, either with Alucard or with human troops, and Seras Victoria angsts over being a vampire now. I mean, I can understand the producer(s) trying to slow down the pacing a bit so we get some time with the characters before everything all goes nutzoid with HOLY CRAP THE REBIRTH OF THE THIRD REICH IS UPON US, but seriously now. The episodes with Jan (pronounced Yon) and Luke was just a farce. An absolute farce. (Also the Japanese seem to thrive on making mouth noises for various sexual acts. Really, is that necessary? =P)
Second, England is not Japan. And I know we've had our share of ethnic portrayal stupidity, but when the freaking Hellsing mangaka puts enough effort into his characters to make them seem British (and yes I know there was a translator involved, but even so), where the deuce does the producer(s) get off throwing around Japanese formality? I don't recall seeing anyone in the manga bowing all the doggone time. And I re-read them all yesterday to cheer myself up, so my memory is pretty fresh.
Third, and this is really fracking unforgivable, but what the hell is Seras Victoria doing out in the damn sunlight? In broad daylight??? No, this doesn't fly. Even the mangaka researched his fracking material, including all sorts of stuff about vampires not being able to cross rivers and oceans (unless they are in a coffin over the dirt where they were born) to a distaste for any blessed water and all sorts of religious myth that, while I tend to discard it from my own lore, I believe should stay if the original author put it there in the first place! Alucard can go in sunlight. (He says at one point, "Besides, sunlight for me isn't some great enemy. I just hate it.") But he's the Tigger of that group. Ain't no one else can do that through at least volume five of the manga, and so far as I've seen the first thirteen episodes don't even get close to the end of volume 3. (And for clarification, the fight with Jan and Luke took place towards the end of volume 2, which was about ep. 5/6 in the series. So there were huge liberties taken by the producers.)
And lastly, though certainly least, I can't stand the translations I've got. And I'm surprised, because the person who got them in the first place should know enough to get decent stuff. But no. First episode in, subtitle reads not only Arucard, but calls a town Cheders. (Cheddar.) R/L switchings are rampant, typos are rampant, no one on God's Green Earth speaks English that formally (even me), it's a total hack job. Also, using a font for subtitles in which all your Os look like crosshairs is stupid. Sorry. (Actually, I'm not sorry at all. It's stupid. You're stupid for not realising its stupidity.)
And keep in mind I am not a subtitle hater at all. The ones I have for Witch Hunter Robin are great. So are the ones for Wolf's Rain, and I watched it first in English so I'm really fracking biased on that one, and to be able to pull off the subs to the point where I'm praising them despite that bias is pretty darn good. I mean, all it takes is a little effort, and obviously a good subtitle set is possible, so there are people willing to make that effort.
But yeah. I may retry Hellsing in English, but so far I am not impressed. Which is depressing, considering I've watched Ep 1 in English (on YouTube) and I was highly impressed with the dialects.
