Q: So, who draws this Manga?
A: His name is Kouta Hirano.

Q: So, it isn’t any of you?
A: no, we just translate it.

Q:  Who would Win, Alucard or –
A: NO, PLEASE don’t ask questions like this, I actually get them a lot, they’re cumbersome and annoying, Short Answer: I DON’T KNOW!

Q: But I thought this was for Questions
A: yeah, smart ones

Q: you aren’t very nice you know
A: Thank you

Q: Maybe you weren’t loved as a Child
A: Can we get on with the Questions?

Q: When do new Chapters come out?
A: New Chapters come out the 30th of Every month usually, however, sometimes, Hirano takes a break.

Q: So, how do Chapters come out?
A: The Manga is Printed in a magazine called “Monthly Young King OURs”, or "YKO" Published by Shounen Gahousha.  It’s printed alongside other manga like Excel Saga and, until it ended recently, Trigun MAXIMUM.

Q: Oh that’s- Wait… Trigun Maximum ENDED?!
A: Yes, now let’s try to focus on Hellsing

Q: oh yeah- When do the chapters get released in Book Form?
A: Each Tankobon is about 200 pages, give or take about 10.  So each new book goes into printing when the number of pages in the available chapters reaches 200.

Q: What is a “Tankobon”?
A: It is Japanese for “Collected Book”.  It’s what they call the Manga Volumes in Japan.

Q: so, what Volume – Chapter area are we in now?
A: Wolf Fang 1 was chapter 1 of Volume 10, the rest of Hellsing, until it ends, should be Volume 10, if Hirano sticks with his original plan of ending Hellsing at Volume 10.

Q: But I read at Max7/Wikipedia/another Hellsing Site That we’re on like Volume 10 Chapter 8/Volume 11 Already!  Your chapter list is wrong!
A: No, That was a big mistake Started by Max7.  When they got to chapter 10 of Volume 8, they just assumed the next chapter started Volume 9, since most other manga with about 18 pages a chapter rounds out to about 10 chapters a volume.  The problem is, a few chapters of Volume 8 were split into 2 for the YKO print run, and put back together for the Tankobon Release.  Meaning they were only about 8 – 12 pages sometimes in the YKO run, meaning that Max7 Marked the volume closed at 10 chapters, when it really closed at 13.

Q:  How do you know this?
A: I bought two copies of the actual volume 8, one for myself, and one I cut up to make the scanlations.  It ends at chapter 70 “Castlevania”.

Q: Heh, Castlevania, that’s a video game.
A: yeah, Hirano based a LOT of the chapter titles off of video game titles.
There was: Balance of Power, Elevator Action, Age of Empire, Call To power, Ultima On-line, D, Xanado, Final Fantasy, Balloon Fight, Soldier of Fortune, Yaksa, Angelous, Wizardry, Psyoblade, Castlevania, and most recently, Warcraft.

Q: That’s pretty awesome!
A: yeah, It is.

Q: so, if the chapters come out every 30th, when do you release the translated ones?
A: Usually, a “Public” Raw, or a Raw of lower quality will hit the internet within a few days of the chapter’s Japanese newsstand release.  We usually have it translated and Online in MQ YKO format in a few days Thereafter.  We later re-release the chapter in HQ YKO once our Raw provider gets his copy of YKO and can supply us with better Raws.

Q: Yeah, what are this “MQ YKO” and “HQ YKO” things?
A:  Hellsing is actually printed in very poor quality on poor paper initially.  YKOs are cheaply made to be mass-produced for lots of people to buy.  Thusly, they are very low quality usually, at least in comparison to the Tankobon’s print quality, and no matter what anyone says, it’s literally impossible to get a truly “HQ” chapter out of them.  So, we’ve created designations for scans that came from the YKO and scans that haven’t.
MQ YKO Means it’s a low-resolution YKO scan that we’ve cleaned up as best we can
HQ YKO Means it’s a High-resolution YKO scan that has been cleaned up as best we can.  This is the highest quality a Scan from the monthly book can get, without going so far as to redraw most parts of the manga (this would take forever)
Just “HQ” is “True HQ”, it means we have cleaned the chapters as best we can, using Scans from the tankobon release.  There is no way to replicate this with the YKO scans, because of the higher print quality and the fact that Hirano often fixes art mistakes and makes some things look prettier.

Q:  Fixes what kind of Mistakes?
A: Like, when he Draws the Jackal without the writing, or when he forgets to draw  the gun in Alucard's hand, and the hand still looks like it's Aiming a gun. He adds those things he forgets later in the tankobon release. He's also been known to add art, making backgrounds more detailed, or to add whole pages!

Q: You spelled _______'s name wrong, it's really spelled _______ .
A: I expect to get a lot of these, that is why I will soon have a section of this FAQ, dedicated to answering the question of names and why I went with which spelling.

Q: Where are your Scans of the earlier Volume 9 chapters?
A: We did do scans of earlier V9, well it's more accurate to say that "I" Did. You see, that was back when I was pretty much doing it alone, and somewhat as a hobby. They were speed-scans to tide people over until Max7 did them, and thusly were of rather poor quality, I even missed releases someteimes when Max7 beat me to it. So, since they are so low quality, I would have to redo them so much to the point that it'd be like doing ALL the work all over again, and with Volume 9's Tankobon release nearing, I feel it would be better to simply wait until then so I can do them in true HQ.

Q: So, if you started out speed-scanning, why did you start doing HQ stuff?
A: Max7's releases started getting slower and slower, and eventually, they started focussing on their other series' more, and now they are 3 or so months behind in Hellsing, and they don't seem to be doing it anymore (even though they list the project as active).

Q: What About the Birds of Hermes?
A: They were an HQ Hellsing scanlation group that has disbanded a long time ago. One of the main members tried to continue doing chapters of "The Dawn", but when his Forum's went down, he stopped doing much on the internet altogether. Plus, even if he were to return, he has said to some that he will not be doing Volume 8+ at all since he no longer has the rest of the group

Q: When are Alucard and Integra going to get together?
A: ...They aren't...

Q: Yes they are, Hirano said they were a Couple!
A: No, he said they were nothing but master and servant.

Q: You're wrong, I read it on an AxI fansite, he said they were a couple.
A: No, Most AxI fans twist what he said to suit what they wanted to hear, he said they were "Master and Servant, that's it" and then, when the crowd went silent, no applause, no laughing, nothing, he added "But sick relationships like that are OK I guess" as a JOKE to get a laugh out of the crowd, it was a JOKE, they aren't a couple, they are Master and Servant.

Q: How do you know?
A: I was there.

Q: Wait, why are you including THAT on an FAQ? You don't really get E-mailed or PMed questions like that do you?
A: Believe it or not, all of the last 4 questions WERE asked, that's the point of this thing.

More to Come as I think of them or recieve them, if you have a question that Isn't here, please send it to demonrin *at* Gmail.com (just replace the *at* with @ and remove the spaces)

Coming Soon. This is going to be a collection of all of the Translation notes for every chapter of Hellsing we've ever done

Coming Soon. This is going to be a detailed set of notes about each character's name, where it came from, what it means, and why it was used in our scanlations

Q. So who writes this manga?
A. His name is Hirohiko Araki, I can honestly say the man is insane.

Q. Why do you say that?
A. LOOK at the Manga!

Q. Is it still running today?
A. Yes, it used to run in Weekly Shounen JUMP but it was moved recently to Monthly Ultra JUMP.

Q. Why was it moved?
A. No Idea honestly, but I suspect it either had something to do with him not being able to keep up a weekly schedual, or he wanted to move to Ultra JUMP because it's Seinen, allowing him to do more raunchy stuff.

Q. Seinen? What's that?
A. It means "Older Boys", it designates the series is for an older male demographic, just as "Shounen" is for young boys.

Q. So, how long is the series? 20 volumes? 30? Maybe even 40?!
A. He's currently on Volume 95 and counting

Q. O_O...
A. What?

Q. That manga is freakin' LONG!
A. Yeah, it's been going on since 1987 I believe, it's the 2nd longest JUMP manga ever!

Q. How could he possibly keep the same characters and story interesting after NINETY FIVE Volumes?!
A. That's the Genius of JoJo actually. He changes main characters, setting, and story every so often, he's currently on the 7th main character.

Q. Then... how is it the same series?
A. Because every "Part" of the manga stars a different member of the Joestar bloodline.

Q. So... the only connection is they're related?
A. Well no, between certain Series', some characters come over as a supporting role, or to further the plot.

Q. Ah.... so then, how many of these "Parts" were there again?
A. There are 7 Parts, they are:
Part I: The Phantom Blood
Part II: Battle Tendency
Part III: The Stardust Crusaders
Part IV: Diamond is Unbreakable
Part V: The Golden Wind
Part VI: Stone Ocean
Part VII: Steel Ball Run

Q. So what part do you Scanlate?
A: We're starting at Part III: Stardust Crusaders, and by Popular Demand, we're also going to be doing Part IV: Diamond is Unbreakable.

Q: Why are you starting at Part III? why not Part I?
A. Because a group called "Ignition One" did Parts I and II already, and they did a fantastic job!

Q. Well, someone already did Part III and IV, so why are you doing those?
A. Those scans were all horrid quality, no offense. It looks like they were all cammed instead of scanned. Whoever did them also changed the translation and screwed around with it sometimes if they couldn't fit it in the speech bubble. But that's just the Part III Scans, and they're at least readable, The grammar in the Part IV scans were so bad, you can't make out what people are saying half the time, and some of the character names were changed to their chinese readings

Q. But why not start at Part VI? There are NO scanlations of THAT online!
A: I contemplated it, but my main goal here is for people to be able to read the whole manga, linear, from beginning to end in a good format. I buckled and decided to do Part IV for some people out there, since those scans are pretty much unreadable (see Above) but I want to keep as close together like that as I can.

Q. Will you EVER do Part VI?
A. Yes, We plan on continuing on to Parts V and VI as soon as we finish III and IV.

Q. What about Part VII?
A. No need, a group called "The Stardust Crusaders" (and yes, they named themselves after part III) are doing a wonderful Job scanlating it right now.

Q. Oh, ok I... wait... why did they start on Part VII when nobody has done VI yet?
A. Funny thing about that, Araki originally presented Steel Ball Run as an unrelated manga, and only recently announced and added the "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part VII" to the title.

Q. ...If he sticks to the same Bloodline and universe... how could people not tell that?
A. See the "Story" section of the FAQ for that.

Q. Ah... so, did they ever make an Anime?
A. Yes actually, a 6 Episode OVA series was made back in the early 90s based on the later half of part III. And it assumes you already knew the rest of the story. Later, in 2001, they did an additional 7 episodes that take place before the earlier 6 episode series. Still, they cut a LOT of material out to fit it all into the timeframe.
In 2007, for JoJo's 20th Anniversary and Araki's 25th, they made and released "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: The Movie - Phantom Blood" which, as the name would sugest, is an adaption of Part I. It was supposedly good, and they did it without cutting any story out (As Part I was short to begin with) but it has yet to see a DVD release, so I have not seen it, and all I know of it is heresay.

Q. ok... but hey, this JoJo manga is good! when is the Next chapter coming out?
A. Unfortunately, there are some RAW complications we're dealing with right now. Our current raws have some problems, they're much better than the old scans that were on the internet, but there's problems with them that keep us from considering them "HQ". We were going to take donations to buy the actual kanzenban books and scan those, but donations stopped after $60 was amassed, and the JoJo Kanzens are EXPENSIVE! so, as of right now we think we're going to start doing a "MQ/HQ" release pretty soon, and just replace it with HQ ones once we get the Kanzens. We don't know EXACTLY when that will be, but we are planning on it being really soon.

Q. But wait, there are some good Chinese Raws out there, I've seen them! Why don't you use the Japanese raws to translate and use those Chinese raws for the scan work?
A. I have seen those too, and unfortunately, they all are cropped to some degree, cutting off half the bottom panels sometimes! Which makes me really sad, as the scan work on them was really well done... my guess is it might actually be cropped like that in the Chinese edition.

Q. I see... well what format will the releases be? Chapter releases or whole volumes?
A. After we finish Volume 14, it will be Volume releases from then on out

NOTE: Some of the following may contain spoilers. So basically, every question will be accompanied by a number. That number is the "Part" you'll have to have read up to not to be spoiled. Things marked "0" are not spoilers

Q0. So, why is the series called "JoJo"? There's only one character named Joeseph, and he's only the main character in part 2!
A. It's because each character has 2 "Jo"s in their name, they are:
Part I - Johnathan Joestar
Part II - Joseph Joestar
Part III - Kujo Jotaro
Part IV - Josuke Higashitaka (the "Suke" in Josuke's name can be read "Jo" as well)
Part V - Giorno Giovana ("Gio" is written "Jo" in Japanese)
Part VI - Kujo Jolyne
Part VII - Johnny Joestar (this is the first part where the series' "JoJo" is only the supporting lead character, and not the main lead character)

Q1. What is the "Ripple"?
A. The Ripple is a technique in JoJo used for fighting Vampires in Part I and the Men in the Pillar in Part II. It's a technique where one controlls the breathing in their body to be able to blast out or charge their punches with sunlight.(Called "Ripple Overdrive" by Johnathan) Zeppeli teaches this to Johnathan, but it turns out his family has a latient ability for it, meaning most members of his family have the ability dormant inside them.

Q3. What is a "Stand"?
A. A Stand is a ghostly embodiment of one's psychic abilities, giving the user a special ability most times, however some have been negatively effected by their stands (Holly Kujo for Example) The name comes from the song "Stand By me" because the Stands, quite literally stand by you. The Stands were introduced in Part III, and have become a staple in the JoJo Series.

Q7. Does Every Joestar have a Stand?
A. Yes actually, they are as followed:
Jonathan - The World - Power: Time stop, super speed and precision (NOTE - Johnathan never activated his stand in his lifetime, it was later activated by Dio Brando after Dio took Johnathan's body. The activation of his stand with the stand arrow is what caused the rest of the Joestar family's latient stand abilities to awaken in part III)
Joseph: Hermit Purple - Power: Foresight, using a camera or a Television. Can also whip or wrap an opponent in it and charge a ripple overdrive through it
Jotaro: Star Platinum - Power: Super Speed and Precision, Time Stop (it's revealed in later Part III that Jotaro's Star Platinum and Dio's The World are the same type of stand, this is backed up by the fact that when Jotaro is stabbed with the stand arrow and his stand evolves, it is called "Star Platinum: The World")
Josuke: Crazy Diamond - Power: Can break apart matter and recreate it in any form he choses. Allowing him to break apart people's wounded bodies and put them back together healed. he cannot save a person after they've died though, and his stand cannot affect himself
Giorno: Gold Experience - Power: changes non-living objects into living creatures. If applied to already-living creatures, it greatly increases their thought process, making one's body not funcion properly (as his muscles cannot catch up) Also, he can change inainmate objects into body parts, basically being able to use Gold Experience to heal things. it Also turned Giorno's Hair gold, and and he can also heal himself. It too is stabbed with the Stand arrow, and evolves into Gold Experience: Requiem. What it does is, it brings anything it's used on back to the point of absolute "Zero". Including his opponent's attacks and willpower. Basically, GE Requiem is Invincible.
Jolyne: Stone Free - Power: Can turn it's user into wires.
Johnny Joestar: Tusk - Allows him to spin and shoot things at super-speed. Mostly, he does this with nails.

Q6. Can anyone have a stand?
A. EVERYONE has a stand. they just require activation. Some have some psychic abilities, and can use those to summon their own stand, but most need some kind of stimuli to do it. The Joestar Family needed Dio's activation of the World For example, and Koichi in Part IV needed to be stabbed by the stand Arrow.
It's also revealed in Part VI that any stand can be transfered or simply conjured outside a body via a "Stand Disk". Even allowing a Stand to manifest itself totally with a personality and everything (Foo Fighter).

Q3. The Stands all have names, some are even familiar to me, where do the names come from?
A. in Part III, Most of the Stands are named after the major Arcana of the Tarot Card Deck, accompanied by a color. Basically, that trend continues until the group reaches Egypt, when Araki ran out of Tarot card names, and the rest of the stands in the part where named after Egyptian Gods. Except Vanilla Ice's Stand, Cream. it was named after a Song so that you could say "Vanilla Ice Cream" for him.
After Part III, he used almost strictly band names and song titles for parts IV and V, with such ones as "Red Hot Chilli Pepper", "Killer Queen" and "Foo Fighters". but Part VI used, in addition to song titles, some Fashion labels.

Q0. Yeah, I noticed there were some music references in there, what's up with that?
A. The man likes music. ^_^
He's riddled the manga with music references and character names, this even caused a problem, as Viz (the company, slowly translating the manga for the US) could not secure the rights to use "Oingo Boingo" in the manga, so their names were changed to "Monyata" and "Zendatta" (which is a police album) This was approved by Araki though.

Q3. I saw this thing online, a video from the JoJo fighting game where this guy drops a steamroller on another dude! he shouted "MUDA DA! MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!! ZA WARUDO!! TOOKI WO TOMARE!! Soshite tooki wa, ugoki dasu. ROADROLLER DA!! WRYYYYYY!!" That was so funny/
A. ah yes... that old thing. Basically, Dio Brando has become an internet Meme. First,Muda means "Useless", it's what he shouts as he punches. "Tooki wo tomare" is "Time has Stopped!", "soshite tooki wa ugoki dasu" is "This is the final timestop" and "WRYYYYYY" is Dio's Battlecry. Second, that was his Ultimate Death Combo in the game, you have that combo done to you, you die. And third, yes, he really does all that in Part III during the Final Fight. I won't elaborate though, you'll just have to read it and see~

Q7. Ok, so what's the deal with Part VII? I hear it was originally introduced as an unrelated story, and then "Declared" Officially JoJo and was officially made Part VII. What's the deal with that? And if it's part of the same story, why does the timeline seem so off?!
A. Basically, and this is a MAJOR spoiler for part VI. In the end of Part VI, Enrico Pucchi (the Villain) succeeds in rewriting existence, but because of Jolyne, fails to rewrite it in his vision of "Heaven on earth", instead the universe gets rewritten as an almost exact duplicate of itself, only with several small details changed. Such as Jotaro no longer being dead, and their family not being broken up, and them all being happy.
This Gave Araki the excuse to go and explore other possibilities with the Joestar lineage, as the universe was now off. Part VII takes place in 1800s America, and is about a Race across country on horseback, and it includes a Joestar and even Dio! Even though neither of their families ever went to America that early (As far as the rest of the story tells us) It was originally printed as "Steel Ball Run" without JoJo in it's title, however most of the characters had names from JoJo (Zepelli, Joestar, Dio Brando, etc) and a lot of characters look like characters from JoJo. My guess is, Araki wasn't sure if it would fit as a JoJo part and just wrote it as though it were another story to test the waters before he annouced it, making it seem like all this stuff as just a nod to his previous, and extremely successful manga.
Long Story short though, Araki rewrote reality in the manga to "Clean the Slate" so he could start fresh.

Q. You guys spelled Joseph's name wrong, it's Josef. His name is Abdul, not Avdol. XXXX's name is really spelled XXXX.
A. First, on Joseph's name, it was only written "Josef" once, on his tombstone in Part II, Araki has written it "Joseph" many times in other places, so we stuck with that. As for Avdol, well, Avdol fits the Katakana, and actually, Abdul does NOT. it's Written アヴドゥル Which uses the "V" character, and not the "B" character. While sometimes B can be changed to V, it does not work the other way around, So "Abdul" does not fit. It's also the only "Official" name I've ever seen used. As for any other name spellings, we've decided to go with either the video game's Spelling (if the character has an original name) or use the actual spelling of the character's namesake (if a character is named after someone).

Q. Why do you put Joesph, Avdol and Polnareff's names in western order, but Jotaro and Kakyoin have their surnames first, like in Japan?
A. JoJo is a unique series in that the whole cast has a wide diversity in places of origin, and the series takes place across Asia and Europe. So, we've decided to show this by adding some quirks into the translation. For Example, Jotaro and Kakyoin, the 2 Japanese characters, will keep their normal Name order, while the rest will have a European Name order. Additionally, we're throwing in some French into Polnareff's dialect, we're going to have Joseph use British terms, and Jotaro and Kakyoin will use Japanese Honorifics (like san, kun, chan, etc). However, Jotaro is a rude jackass, so he won't be using too many of those ^_^

Q. But, EVERYONE'S names in Part IV were kept in Japanese Order, why?
A. Once again, JoJo is uniqe in that it takes place all over the world, Part IV actually takes place 100% in Japan, EVERYONE has that name order there, so everyone,(Except Joseph) will keep Japanese name order, and use Honorifics.

Q. *SPOILER ALERT* What do you guys plan to do about Dio's dialogue during Dio's World?
A. A Big part of The dialogue in the Dio Fight has become big with fans, it's also hard to translate. Things like "Muda Da!" and "Za Warudo". While these things are the Japanese word for "Useless" and the english world "The World" pronounced with a Heavy Japanese accent, and thus easy to translate, most fans are used to, and prefer those in Japanese. Also, Dio shouts "MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA" like that in rapid sucession, and I just think "USELESS USELESS USLESS" sounds goofy.
However, some like Full, accurate translations over things keeping Fan-terms there, and since Dio is British, it would be wierd for him to shout things out in Japanese. Therefore, I've decided that when we get there, we will be releasing the chapters with 2 versions of every page where Dio says "Muda" or "The World", so as to appease everyone.

Chapter 124 - Silver Chariot - Part 1

Page 11: Jotaro often speaks very rudely, here he’s very rude to the women. In the Original Japanese, Kakyoin’s Speach is very formal and nice in His Apology, to contrast Jotaro’s.

Page 13: BWARORORO is a Laugh

Page 19: Joseph is talking about “Around the World in 80 Days” by Jules Verne”

Page 20: Since Polnareff is French, we decided to add some french into his Dialogue

Page 21: The Food’s Names are given in Chinese and English here, we left the Chinese Characters and put the Romanji for them above them.

Page 27: like I said before, Jotaro speaks in a Very Vulgar manner, so we decided to show this by Making him one of the few Characters who will use the word “Fuck” frequently