Topic: Animated series reviews.

[AlexCalvo]

So Adi Shankar shared my review today... =D  Closing in on 1000 views in one day.  https://www.facebook.com/bootleguniverse/posts/1953553478211610

[Shiroi Koumori]

Congrats dude! Sempai noticed you.

[Eric Roman]

It was one of the greatest experiences of my life thus far.

[affinity]

Spoilers

Grant could be added in season 2, as a beast in the castle at first, and then changing human, could get a backstory of being a former pirate outcast turned treasure hunter.  Ellis really is closed minded if he completely writes off Grant from the second season.   and this animated series would be incomplete and wasted without one of the most memorable and UNIQUE characters from the entire Castlevania series.

that aside, what's really unnecessary is cutting Sypha's hair.  in the source material, Sypha has really long hair (even her sprite in SOTN).  well in CVIII, she had the hood on full time until the cutscene after the castle falls, but still, it's dumb the Speakers hide Sypha's sex by cutting her hair short, when that time and place has some guys with really long hair too.   Why don't they give her a face mask while they're at it then?    Ellis really dropped the ball on Sypha's hair design.   inexcusable.   that's even worse than what the Golden Axe Beast Rider devs did to Tyris Flare's hair.  Like it's so dumb. even as a golden axe prequel, you don't mess with a legendary character's hair length.    and Castlevania III animated series has no excuse, its based on CVIII time period, should it shouldn't mess Sypha's hair.

Like, Ellis didn't even bother to beat Sypha route Castlevania III, didn't even bother to watch the Sypha ending on youtube. Sypha has long hair in the canon,  the animated series totally messed up that fact.   Like her hair in the tv series is even shorter than Trevor's, that's so degrading and not Sypha enough.

now only Alucard gets the full glory of long hair because of fanatical SOTN design influence, but Sypha is only half the woman she was.   some say her more potent magic powers in this tv series makes up for it.  but she could have had both beautiful long hair AND awesome ice/fire magic.  (and didn't she use lightning at all? didn't notice). 

as for the 4 episodes as a whole, it's decent world building. that's really neat how Trevor organizes the villagers to chip in to fight back the horde.  its cool it shows the evil side of humanity, but season 2 should focus on fighting beasties on the way and inside the castle as well.   it should be as more consistently action packed like the cyclops, the beasties, and Alucard duel. 

 Enough with the small talk and "the floor is breaking!" gravity drops. season 1 already set the stage, now Season 2 should be consistently action packed, progressive and intense like a true Castlevania.    just have them travel and fight their way through the hordes into and up the castle. they have 4 more episodes to complete the CVIII, so don't mess it up with uneventful melodrama.   

[Flame]

cutting a woman's hair short so she passes for a boy was fairly common practice. because generally, Woman never cut their hair like that. Only boys did.

So while a man with long hair was fine, a woman with short hair was unheard of, and effeminate features could be misconstrued as youthfulness. Sypha even makes her voice deeper when Trevor rescues her

[Kale]

Only watched 1 episode so far... but man.... I really don't like some of.... or maybe a lot of the art style.

I also feel Lisa's dialogue sounded forced as hell.

[DoctaMario]

I really liked it. They had a lot of ground to cover in 4 episodes and they did it reasonably well, giving a reason for Trevor & Co. to have to fight Dracula, showing why Drac was unleashing the hordes, and showing why the Belmonts weren't exactly popular. The voice acting was on the whole pretty good and I really like the animation style they chose. I'm excited to see where they take it in the second season.

It makes me optimistic that something like this is out there when it's clear Konami doesn't give a shit about making good games anymore, so if this is the future of Castlevania, so be it.

[Guy Belmont]

I've been looking at the architecture Of this Series, and I gotta say they've done well, but I saw this and it really rung with me,

the room were Alucard's coffin has a rug and its  pattern really looks like they based it on the walls of the alchemy laboratory.

(click to show/hide)

I mean it could be just me but they really looks like they based it on that, I mean a lot of the places in that show look like All the IGA game's architecture, mixed with a bit of CV64.

But I mean I think that's soo cool to do something like that, show a lot of respect to CV.

[TatteredSeraph]

That's a good spot!  I noticed that they used the rug design as well or one very similar, in the prologue scene.

[Guy Belmont]

That's a good spot!  I noticed that they used the rug design as well or one very similar, in the prologue scene.

Thanks, yeah its a really nice nod to SOTN, it really shows they've looked in to more then just CV3

[Dremn]

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/netflix-castlevania-broke-rotten-tomatoes-record/?cmp=TWRT_News_Castlevania

It’s always a horrible night to have a curse in Dracula country, but in real life, Netflix’s Castlevania just lifted another curse: It’s the first video game adaptation to get a Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

Wow, incredible.

[Aiddon]

https://editorial.rottentomatoes.com/article/netflix-castlevania-broke-rotten-tomatoes-record/?cmp=TWRT_News_Castlevania

Wow, incredible.

Funny how of all game adaptations to finally get it right, it's one of the long-storied franchises that has a lot of quirks grounded in the offbeat 80s and 90s (like loads of anachronisms, weird game logic, and a positively ludicrous setup), made it into a good show about the failings of mankind, ignorance vs. knowledge, religion vs faith/God, and complicity vs action, and yet managed to still maintain the series' identity. Seriously, there needs to be analysis about why this worked unlike, say, stuff like Warcraft and Assassin's Creed.

[Shiroi Koumori]

Maybe the lesser people know about the franchise, the better it is, because there are lesser expectations?

[DoctaMario]

Funny how of all game adaptations to finally get it right, it's one of the long-storied franchises that has a lot of quirks grounded in the offbeat 80s and 90s (like loads of anachronisms, weird game logic, and a positively ludicrous setup), made it into a good show about the failings of mankind, ignorance vs. knowledge, religion vs faith/God, and complicity vs action, and yet managed to still maintain the series' identity. Seriously, there needs to be analysis about why this worked unlike, say, stuff like Warcraft and Assassin's Creed.

Like you said, there's a lot to the story of Castlevania. I think the fact that it's historically based means there's a lot more to work with than say Warcraft which created its own world, which, while still cool, means that it's not necessarily going to be as timeless as a story rooted in actual history where historical themes can be explored.

I think the fact that Castlevania has had many characters that aren't necessarily black & white helps too. Gabriel is a perfect example of this, but in the show, Dracula and Trevor are characters who you can't entirely root for all the time, but you can't shit on them either because they have their motivations that make sense to them and are interesting to watch them work through.

[Kaneda]

A review of mine that I thought I'd share.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV4q5DbkhKM