Alucard is one of the principal characters in an excellent
anime which I have recently been watching, named
Hellsing. The anime is based upon the
manga of the same name
In the anime, Alucard works for Hellsing Institution, a secretive organisation in Great Britain. The task of the institution for generations has been to seek out and destroy vampires and other undead or non-human entities in Britain.
Somewhat strangely, given the nature of the organisation, Alucard himself is an immensely powerful and ancient vampire. Little is known about why he is working for Hellsing, although it is known that he voluntarily entered into a contract with a past generation of the Hellsing family.
Alucard's current master is Sir Integral Wingates Hellsing, the 23 year old female leader of the organisation. His service with Integral began when she took over the reins of the organisation from her father upon his death. Pursued by her power-hungry uncle, Integral took her father's advice to seek the power in the crypt below the Hellsing mansion.
Upon entering this dungeon, Intregal sees a dessicated corpse chained to the wall. Her uncle, who has caught up with her, shoots her in the shoulder, providing the corpse with the opportunity to savour some of the blood which is spattered across the room.
Of course, vampires gain their power from blood, and Integral's tasty red blood give the constrained vampire the power to rip free from his bonds. His next acts consist of butchering Integral's uncle's henchmen and kneeling to his new master - Integral.
Alucard's duties in the Hellsing Organisation consist of destroying his brethren - vampires and the lesser cannibal ghouls. While humans are capable of killing ghouls with specialised weapons, it normally falls down to Alucard to take out the ultimate vampire targets, since they are far more powerful than humans.
This is a task that Alucard relishes. He sees most vampires as scum who are so far below him that they are not worthy to be vampires. He frequently admonishes his victims as being unworthy, weak, pitiful and pathetic.
Given that most of the vampires that Alucard kills are obsessed with creating ghouls, sucking blood indiscriminately and have lost the capacity for reason, one tends to agree with his point of view.
Alucard himself demonstrates many powers that other vampires do not have. He is invulnerable to all human weapons and can regenerate his entire body. He can also change his form into bats and serpents or morph parts himself into a vast, menacing darkness filled with hundreds of small red eyes. He can summon servant demons such as giant blood-thirsty hounds.
Certainly you'd have to be pretty powerful to slow Alucard down. Noticeably Hellsing characters such as Incognito (another ancient vampire), and Alexander Anderson (a psychotic Catholic priest) have forced Alucard to stop and catch his breath, but only until he decided to release his full power.
So what does this arch-vampire look like? He is tall with ragged black hair. His eyes glow red, and he sometimes wears yellow rounded John Lennon glasses. On Alucard's head sits a red broad brimmed hat, and he wears an old fashioned black suit coat and pants with a white undershirt. Over all of this sits a huge red knee length jacket which reaches down past his boots.
On Alucard's hands he has white gloves inscribed with mystic egyptian symbols. Inside his coat pockets he carries two mothers of guns (13mm, firing explosive silver bullets), which would be impossible for humans to heft.
You could say that Alucard looks like a mix between a 17th century nobleman, and a badass Godfather-type gangster. He certainly has that 'individual' style. On other other hand, once you got close enough to see his eyes, you'd be left in no doubt that he is intelligent evil incarnate.
What else do we know about Alucard? The manga tells us that he is around 600 years old, making him a fantastic candidate to be the original Prince Vlad III Dracula AKA "Vlad the Impaler". Vlad ruled a country named Walachia during the 15th century and is known to be the inspiration for Bram Stoker's classic book 'Dracula'. Interestingly enough, Alucard spelt backward is Dracula. Coincidence? Ask the creators ;)
Alucard seems to occupy his time with three main hobbies:
- Killing lesser vampires and ghouls while waiting for someone worthy to fight (note that when Alucard does find someone a little more powerful he laughs with glee and tells people that he is enjoying it immensely)
- Training a female police officer, Celes Victoria, who he has turned into a vampire (and ridiculing her tendency to cling to humanity)
- Stopping evil people from killing Integral, and generally jumping when Integral says frog
All in all, Alucard is a fascinating character, dark, ancient, strong and enigmatic.
Sources:
- http://hellsing.madtech.net
- http://www.hellsing.nu/alucard
- The Hellsing Anime