Review by Frank Plowright

Hellsing’s past two volumes have dealt with Nazi vampires invading London, and specifically the headquarters of the Hellsing organisation. Alucard was seen setting about them in their dozens in Hellsing 5, but was absent from Hellsing 6, and is again absent for most of the time here, although you have to give him credit for knowing how to make an entrance when he does turn up.

Kohta Hirano’s story has constantly inflated. It’s become ever bigger, ever more violent and ever more stylised, and this volume opens with a few pages of positively gruesome battle overlaid with vast sound effects as per the sample page. It becomes weirder from there as Hirano continually experiments, a couple of early pages seemingly channelling Steve Ditko, which is strange even for a series as weird as Hellsing, and subsequent pages make Simon Bisley look restrained.

For all the astounding art, though, Hellsing appears to have reached a point where Hirano’s not seeing the wood for the trees. He’s so concerned with presenting the reality of battle as it occurs, that any semblance of story is absent other than a couple of brief pages dipping into the past of Seras Victoria. This is the state of affairs occupies almost three-quarters of the book.

While excess remains the order of the day, the final quarter sees some movement forwards, the German accents even hokier than ever as they imagine their ultimate triumph. Part of the joke is the Nazi vampires considering themselves Christians.

Hirano’s art is certainly to be admired all the way through, but there’s a storytelling failure because this volume can pretty well be skipped entirely.