Imagine how cringeworthy and insufferable Dragonball Z Abridged would be if Vegeta were the main character, if he always got to back up his boastful attitude, and if the joke was always what a cool badass he was and what stupid losers the people he was fighting were.
I speak as a long-lapsed Hellsing fan, someone who was really into it as it was coming out in the late 2000's, and who has really fallen out of love with it in the years since. Just to be clear, I've never finished Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. I don't plan to; by all accounts its worst problems were gonna get worse before they got better anyway. But also by all accounts, the main problem with Hellsing Abridged, the reason I dropped the show, never got better.
The main problem was, of course, Alucard himself, always the coolest guy in the room even as he treats everyone around him like shit, always right even as he drops annoying and stupid random jokes, always treating his enemies with even less respect than the source material, and lacking the tiny handfulof roundingqualities his original self had. Never allowed to make mistakes, never allowed to look weak or unsure, never allowed to be anything but wish-fulfillment for edgy young men so full of hormones they can barely think straight. And unlike the creators' other big project, this obnoxious prick is never the butt of the joke. The audience is always invited to laugh with him, never at him, and certainly not with the often much more likable people who are the butt of the joke just for interacting with him.
There are other problems. It opens with a Twilight snub, already so old hat it was practically a nemes at the time of the first episode's release, and the dated, witless, and obnoxious meme humor only gets worse even past the point where I stopped bothering to watch. And, yes, it carries over a fair number of problems from the source material and makes some questionable choices adapting parts it sticks to. I won't bother you with the details because they're orthogonal to this review's main point, even if they are further strikes against it in my eyes.
But this all brings us to the key problem behind the main problem: love. Dragonball Z Abridged was made (eventually anyway) with mature love, with the love of someone looking back affectionately on what they've grown up with but having more complex opinions about it. Hellsing Ultimate Abridged was made with hot, uncritical fanboy love that seemingly doesn't even fully understand the source material, just that it's cool, and rad, and great.
One of these things is great. One of them was never even good.
WebVideo Made With Love, Which Is the Big Issue Here
Imagine how cringeworthy and insufferable Dragonball Z Abridged would be if Vegeta were the main character, if he always got to back up his boastful attitude, and if the joke was always what a cool badass he was and what stupid losers the people he was fighting were.
I speak as a long-lapsed Hellsing fan, someone who was really into it as it was coming out in the late 2000's, and who has really fallen out of love with it in the years since. Just to be clear, I've never finished Hellsing Ultimate Abridged. I don't plan to; by all accounts its worst problems were gonna get worse before they got better anyway. But also by all accounts, the main problem with Hellsing Abridged, the reason I dropped the show, never got better.
The main problem was, of course, Alucard himself, always the coolest guy in the room even as he treats everyone around him like shit, always right even as he drops annoying and stupid random jokes, always treating his enemies with even less respect than the source material, and lacking the tiny handful of rounding qualities his original self had. Never allowed to make mistakes, never allowed to look weak or unsure, never allowed to be anything but wish-fulfillment for edgy young men so full of hormones they can barely think straight. And unlike the creators' other big project, this obnoxious prick is never the butt of the joke. The audience is always invited to laugh with him, never at him, and certainly not with the often much more likable people who are the butt of the joke just for interacting with him.
There are other problems. It opens with a Twilight snub, already so old hat it was practically a nemes at the time of the first episode's release, and the dated, witless, and obnoxious meme humor only gets worse even past the point where I stopped bothering to watch. And, yes, it carries over a fair number of problems from the source material and makes some questionable choices adapting parts it sticks to. I won't bother you with the details because they're orthogonal to this review's main point, even if they are further strikes against it in my eyes.
But this all brings us to the key problem behind the main problem: love. Dragonball Z Abridged was made (eventually anyway) with mature love, with the love of someone looking back affectionately on what they've grown up with but having more complex opinions about it. Hellsing Ultimate Abridged was made with hot, uncritical fanboy love that seemingly doesn't even fully understand the source material, just that it's cool, and rad, and great.
One of these things is great. One of them was never even good.