Kouta Hirano’s Hellsing has done wonders for the dark fantasy vampire genre, and most of its credit goes to its main character, Alucard. Deemed one of the strongest characters in the history of anime and manga, Alucard has remained undefeated in the entire series and has served the Hellsing organization in dealing with vampires and other supernatural forces.
While there were many villains introduced in the story, none of them were able to defeat Alucard because of the plethora of powers and abilities that he possessed. From shapeshifting to dark composition, Alucard is filled with strong attacks that can’t be rivaled by anyone. However, there was only one character who came close.
His name was Alexander Anderson, and he was a prominent member of the Iscariot organization, also known as Vatican Section 13. Hirano once revealed that he introduced Section 13 and Anderson for the sole purpose of giving Alucard a rival that could offer the protagonist some competition.
Kouta Hirano Introduced Section 13 From His Previous Work
The official guidebook for Hellsing, which was released in Japan in 2012, featured an interview with Hirano where he was asked about the Section 13 organization and the purpose of introducing them in Hellsing. Hirano revealed that he had already created Section 13 in his previous work called Crossfire, and they were introduced to rival Alucard.
Hirano stated:
Before I wrote Hellsing, I wrote CROSS FIRE in which Yumie and Heinkel were its main characters, and an organization called Section 13 was introduced. Therefore, when Anderson was introduced in HELLSING, Section 13 as an organization was already created. This team of Yumie, Heinkel, Maxwell, and Anderson already existed as an organization opposite of the Hellsing Institute.
The manga creator pointed out that when Alexander Anderson was introduced in the story, Section 13 was automatically destined to feature as they already existed as the opposing organization of the Hellsing Institute. However, he reduced the number of characters from the previous story and decided to only include Yumie, Heinkel, Maxwell, and Anderson.
The Only Character That Could Give Alucard Some Competition
During the interview, Hirano also revealed that Alexander Anderson was created solely to rival Alucard, as the story never featured any character that could give him competition. Alucard was just too strong for the narrative, and he has proved it multiple times. Alexander Anderson was the only one who could stand up against him.
Hirano pointed out.
Every character was too weak. I thought about a character that could go against Alucard, and decided to create Anderson. When you look at it from that perspective, there isn’t a character that could go against Alucard in Millennium. I thought about putting the Captain in that position, but he isn’t strong enough. Even if the Captain joined the battle between Alucard and Anderson, I don’t think he would win.
Hirano was aware of the fact that Alucard was the strongest character in the Millennium, and if the narrative continued with him getting easy wins against his opponents, it would make the story boring.
Thus, he created Anderson. He also thought of using Captain for the same role, but even he was not strong enough.
You can watch Hellsing on Hulu and Netflix.
