Full Press Release can be found here, courtesy of Maestro. I know most of you will go crazy trying to read a few pages of text, so I have simply cut out the main stuff in the press release that is important for you.

Directed by Tomokazu Tokoro with animation by Satelight Inc., HELLSING ULTIMATE
OVA SERIES has been hailed one of the most anticipated anime titles in 2006 (Anime
Insider Magazine). For more information visit: http://hellsingultimate.com/

Here’s some more good news… the Hellsing Ultimate OVA will be arriving at the US on the 5th of December, both in a standard edition and a special limited edition DVDs.

Hellsing Ultimate is a remake of the original anime, with art direction more akin to the original manga series and extremely impressive animation. If you have already seen the TV series, then the story won’t offer anything new - but you can now experience it in glorious wide screen (no high definition, unfortunately), and the awe-inspiring animation and direction is worthy of purchase, even if you already own the original TV series on DVDs.

For those who are unfamiliar with the world of Hellsing, here’s a synopsis:

For over a century, the mysterious Hellsing Organization has been secretly protecting
the British Empire from undead “freaks.” When Integra Hellsing succeeded as the head
of the organization, she also inherited the ultimate weapon against these undead
enemies, a rogue vampire named Alucard. Armed with an enormous “anti-freak” gun
and possessing mysterious and frightening powers, Alucard is forced to shoot Seras
Victoria, a young policewoman held hostage by a vampire. “Do you want to live?” he
asks Seras, whose very answer changes the course of her existence. Now reborn as
Alucard’s servant, Seras is torn between her conflicting humanity and her vampire urges.

The limited edition DVD will have the following features (aka the reasons why we will buy this):

The limited edition DVD features include:
• All standard edition content plus a second disk with 57 minutes of extras
• Special Collectors Steel book package
• Alucard Relief Figurine onpack imported from Japan (US Exclusive Coloring)
• 16×9 anamorphic widescreen encoded from HD Master
• 5.1 DTS English
• 5.1 Dolby Digital (English and Japanese with English subtitles)
• Audio commentary featuring Taliesin Jaffe (English Voice Director) and Crispin
Freeman (voice of Alucard)
• Trailer
o Broken English version
o Young King Ours version
o Japanese EP1 Trailer
o US Trailer
• Non-Credit Ending
• 4 Japanese TV commercials

If you ask me what is the coolest thing among the extras (I mean, seriously, you buy the DVD’s for the darn extras), it must be the relief figurine that is …darn hot.. When I saw it, I went like hmmm, not too bad. For once, they are actually making the effort to score well in the DVD extras section. I have grown tired of releases that simply released a low quality that is awful with crappy additions, which many DVD licensing companies have done in the past.

No names are required to be said as I am sure that most people who do buy the DVD know what I am talking about. I do not know much about the translation for this, but at least they have good items going along with it. I give them that at least.

I would prefer if they had an artbook on some of the art that was done on the OVAs, since it is clear that the production values have improved by leaps and bounds compared to the original series shown on the TV series. I would love to have a book that shows how they drew the graphics and the likes. I think people who buy the DVDs would love to have such a thing, but it will not make sense to bundle it when they can sell it for a good price, no? I also feel that the book package sounds interesting. I will need to know what in the world it is, though.

I am not too hot on the various digital aspects, since I am not a digitalophile, if there’s such a word to describe people who must have extremely high quality viewing, I do not think those 5:1 dolby digital crap applies to me or to most anime watchers. The production values of OVAs has to be much higher than normal production, since they have time to make sure everything is well done. Hence, I will not put much thought into it as part of the extras.

Nevertheless, this is a hot show so I do not mind publicizing its release on December 5th, so support the DVDs when they are officially released. I do want to see if the whole release will be exciting or disappointing, so when it does come out, someone please inform me about the real stuff and spread the news.

Screenshots don’t do this show any justice at all, but here’s some anyway and a promotion art (darn high resolution fyi) to whet your appetite and tide you over till the DVD’s release. Remember to grab it when it comes out, you won’t be disappointed!

Screenshots

P/s: this post is the special combination of Lupus and Impzie!

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