Where did Hellsing begin?
Hellsing began as a 16-page one-shot in an adult magazine, and its author judged it a failure.
Before Young King OURs, Kohta Hirano spent years in the self-published and adult corners of manga. The first Hellsing was a short story in Comic Kairakuten, Wanimagazine’s adult magazine, in its October 1996 issue. Hirano meant a “daring action story.” Readers shelved it as erotica, he scrapped the continuation, and only rebuilt the idea when Shonengahosha gave him a general magazine to build it in.
THE APPRENTICESHIP
Assistant, doujinshi, adult magazinesThe assistant years
Hirano started as a manga artist’s assistant and has cheerfully described himself as horrible and lazy at the job. He taught himself the craft in part from Akira Toriyama and Akira Sakuma’s how-to book Hetappi Manga Kenkyujo.
The early titles
His pre-Hellsing work is a shelf of short, little-seen series: Angel Dust, Coyote, Gun Mania, Hi-Tension, and others. Because so few copies exist, the old works are now collector’s items in Japan.
GUY-YA
As a doujinshi artist he worked in a circle called GUY-YA alongside Shutaro Yamada, who went on to draw Read or Die. The doujin years are where the Hellsing cast was designed: most of the characters first appear in these early works.
Hi-and-Low
In 1996, the same year as the one-shot, Young King OURs itself ran Hirano’s wartime short story Hi-and-Low, whose two heroines are recognisably early drafts of Integra and of Crossfire’s Yumie. It stopped after one issue, in favour of Hellsing itself.
THE ONE-SHOT ITSELF
Comic Kairakuten, October 1996Sixteen pages
The prototype is a complete short story: the Hellsing agency, Van Helsing’s descendant, and its vampire agent sent against two vampire brothers. Prototypes of Alucard, Seras Victoria, and the Valentine brothers are all already on the page.
The title
In later years the one-shot picked up the subtitle “The Legends of Vampire Hunter,” and Hirano has had to correct the record: the story’s title is simply Hellsing.
The ingredients
Its stated inspirations are Stoker’s Dracula and Francis Ford Coppola’s 1992 film of it. Hirano had been writing vampire stories since his student days and wanted a traditional Western vampire tale, told his way.
The failure, and the rescue
The reception bothered him enough to abandon the story. His judgement, quoted since: the concept was too good to leave as an adult comic. At Young King OURs he removed the adult register, kept the action, and the rebuilt series ran for eleven years.