2. Abraham Van Helsing is a character from
the 1897 Gothic horror novel Dracula,
written by the Irish author Bram Stoker.
Van Helsing is an aged Dutch doctor with
a wide range of interests,
accomplishments, experience, education
and expertise. The character is best
known throughout his many adaptations
as a vampire hunter, monster hunter,
and the archenemy of Count Dracula.
3. Van Helsing the movie
Van Helsing is in this world to rid all evil, even if not
everyone agrees with him. The Vatican sends the
monster hunter and his ally, Carl, to Transylvania.
They have been sent to this land to stop the powerful
Count Dracula. Whilst there they join forces with a
Gypsy Princess called Anna Valerious, who is
determined to end an ancient curse on her family by
destroying the vampire.
The eponymous character was inspired by the Dutch
vampire hunter Abraham Van Helsing from Irish
author Bram Stoker's novel Dracula.
4. Hellsing the anime
Hellsing is named after and centered around the Royal Order of Protestant
Knights, originally led by Abraham Van Helsing. The mission of Hellsing is to
search for and destroy the undead and other supernatural forces of evil that
threaten the queen and the country. This organization is currently led by Sir
Integra Fairbrook Wingates Hellsing, who inherited the leadership of Hellsing as a
child after the death of her father. She witnessed his death which turned her from
a once innocent and shy little girl to a tough and deadly force.
5. Sir Integra is protected by the faithful Hellsing family butler and former Hellsing
"trashman" Walter C. Dornez, a deadly foe in his own right, and Alucard, the
original and most powerful vampire that swore loyalty to the Hellsing family after
being defeated by Van Helsing one hundred years before the story takes place.
These formidable guardians are joined early on in the storyline by former police
officer Seras Victoria, whom Alucard turned into a vampire.
6. As the scale and frequency of
incidents involving the undead
escalate in England and all around the
world, Sir Integra discovers that the
remnants of a neo-Nazi group called
Millennium still exists and are intent on
reviving the Third Reich by creating a
battalion of vampires. Millennium,
Hellsing, and the Vatican section XIII
Iscariot clash in an apocalyptic three-
sided war in London, and Millennium
reveals its true objective: to destroy
the vampire lord Alucard, ending a
feud that begun during World War II.
7. The incredible adventures of Van Helsing
Vivendi Universal Games published a Van
Helsing video game for PlayStation 2, Xbox,
PC and Game Boy Advance. The game follows
a similar plot to the movie, has gameplay
similar to Devil May Cry and the PS2 and Xbox
versions feature the voice talent of many of the
actors including Hugh Jackman.
Van Helsing also features in a slot game
produced by International Game Technology.
The game is available in real world casinos
and online.
8. Japanese mythology
Japanese anime and manga have cross-fertilized with American mass media for
decades. As Susan Napier says “By the late 1990s it was clear that anime both
influenced and was influenced by a plethora of Western culture products.”
Particularly in regard to the vampire theme, Japanese horror has been heavily
influenced by occidental vampire fiction and cinema, since nothing exactly like the
European vampire exists in Japanese mythology.
For instance Van Hellsing. The title of the anime and manga series Hellsing
alludes to Bram Stoker’s vampire hunter Van Helsing, and the name of a major
character in the series, Alucard, is of course Dracula reversed.
Numerous other anime and manga use fangs, aversion to sunlight, capes, bats,
crosses and other images from Western vampire fiction.