Hellsing (OAV)

I prefer the TV for its grimmer horror atmosphere. OAV is closer to the manga (apparently), which means more flashy “cool” fights, plus chibi humour which isn’t very funny. The flashbacks to Integra meeting Alucard didn’t seem to have a point. The blood too often looked like day-glo goo. When Alucard wasn’t in battle-mode he looked disappointingly normal, even bishonen. I also missed the detail the TV went into (due to having only the beginning of the manga to work with). Background music for the 1st episode was really awful; I didn’t notice it in the 2nd, so I guess it improved. The choral ED theme is very good. For all the problems, it was pretty good overall, and reviews say it gets better. I’ll be glad to see the origin of the fake freaks animated at last, which was the biggest problem with the TV (when they ran out of manga to work with). Edit: just watched IV and must say I don’t think it’s improved: the episode was poorly structured, the fights were really stretched out with not much happening, and the Major’s ending speech was much too long.