The Pros of Netflix Castlevania Season 2 as I See ThemSo, it was obvious last season and obvious in this one that there was and is a clear divide as far as what aspects of animation were either time-prioritized or had more budget allotted to them, and that line in the dirt has largely remained consistent between the two seasons. As before, the slower-paced "non-action" scenes appear to have been given far less treatment and polish than the action sequences and what I can only define as "key" scenes. Walking animations are jumpy between passable and lifelessly stiff, which one or two cases where I'm rather sure they just made a bust frame of a character bob up and down to simulate them walking away from something. Facial animation is equally hit-or-miss, with a lot of misses, as some parts have the entire face animate and clear in the intended emotive tone of the character while lots of others seem to go the general "anime/60s Scooby-Doo" route of animating nothing but the mouth moving. Action scenes that weren't pivotal ones and involved less main characters and more cannon fodder tended to suffer from similar problems, with the most glaring being that the animation staff responsible for those scenes either don't have a lot of experience animating large-crowd fights or weren't given enough direction in lieu of sceneblocking and motion paths; I'm sure we all know how much of a disconnect it is when you have your heroes fighting an army built up as a massive obstacle and dangerous force in the story, and when it comes down to it said army attacks one or two at a time while the rest stand there doing little more than scratching their heads. Such are multiple cases here.
Conversely, key scenes and most of the more "important" action sequences looked absolutely lovely. I don't think I need to explain the Bloody Tears sequence, but I will anyway. It was good. It was damned good. Sceneblocking was on-point, the lines and flows of action were without much more than the occasional hiccup (such as the Indian vampiress having almost a full second to react and get out of the air before being beheaded, yet she just hovers there in the air and waits for it to happen), and the animation quality itself during this sequence was so good that it really highlights where the problems in the animation elsewhere lie.
Another instance of where the animation really shines is the final confrontation with Dracula. Much like the initial heroic storming of the Castle, everything is on-point and the Dracula fight actually corrects some of the aforementioned "character just stands there for an entire second to take the hit coming his way because of the sequence editing" issues, as there is practically no downtime during the "active" periods of this fight. When Dracula's on the attack, he stays on the attack, and even during the rare instance he's briefly incapacitated from a particularly strong hit, he doesn't stay that way for long (Alucard's neck strike very clearly broke him into a momentary stagger, but rather than have him stand there motionless holding his neck he immediately issues a retaliation strike, and when the Morningstar issued its OHKO smack Dracula stood in place motionless, but this one time that worked for the flow as up until this point we saw the Morningstar oneshot everything it hit--so having Dracula stand there without so much as a scratch is probably the only instance of this that is both nicely-executed and justified in being allowed to be present. Just like the Bloody Tears section, the entire sequence from the start of the fight to Dracula's soul(s) escaping the Castle are great to the point of actually being disappointing, as it all shows what the entire show could have been.
Overall "score" I'd give the animation:
7/10, because while when the animation shines it really, really shines, there are simply too many technical flaws throughout that it bogs down the overall scope.
Look, let's not beat around the bush. You all know what the major contributor to this is. Bloody Tears was phenomenal both as a scene and as a track, since we've all heard a million remixes and covers and arrangements of Bloody Tears and this one somehow managed to keep itself sounding fresher than we might've expected. I wish I'd have had more fruitful results in finding the track by itself so I could hear it solo and not having dialogue and SFX over top of it, as that would contribute to my opinion of it more significantly; as it is, though, from what I can hear just in the middle of the fight scene, it sounds quite good (for reference, I made a point of listening to that sequence with the monitor turned off, so I didn't have the visual spectacle murking my interpretation of the music up with fanhype of that particular scene.
I'm also reasonably sure I heard bits of Stalker and Black Night during the Dracula fight, but still need to relisten a handful of more times before I'm solidly confident about it.
All in all, the music is indeed a great step up from the first season. I still, of course, would've liked hearing a lot more references to game-series tracks, but I will not deny that this season I was actually hearing melodies in contrast to the first season which barely had that going for it.
Overall "score" I'd give the music:
6/10, which is honestly mostly due to the fact that I can hear melodies and progressions this time around and the simple fact that when they did reference game-series tracks they knocked it out of the park. There's still a very great deal of room for musical improvement, I think, which is why this only hits around the halfway margin of the arbitrary score values.
There were details in the narrative that I very much enjoyed for one reason or another. Some of these exact same things will also appear in the "Cons" section. Try not to be confused over this, as it's simply that there were some aspects that I thoroughly enjoyed for one reason and absolutely abhorred for another. I will explain the parts I liked here, and the parts I didn't there, so if I'm explaining why I liked [thing you hated], hold off on burning me at the stake as there may be a section in "Cons" that may very offer confirmation bias.
One such instance is, simply put, Dracula's general demeanor throughout. I actually very much enjoyed the idea of Dracula going so hard and so unyielding in his fury in the first season that he all but burned himself out on hatred and was left with nothing left to shield him from his pain, leaving him melancholy and rather apathetic. It's something that gets touched on in the games at very specific points, so there's already a precedent for it in the established game canon.
His ending scenes with Alucard were also masterful, as they absolutely nailed the tone seen in his personality at the end of Symphony, absolutely destroyed by grief and guilt at the realization that he was, truly, betraying the memory of the wife he so loved by nearly murdering "her greatest gift to him." I also loved his interactions with Isaac, for they touched on a very rarely seen side of Dracula--his unabashed respect and I dare even say love for humans who prove themselves not to be the vicious and spiteful creatures he views the majority of them as. The camaraderie and rapport he has with Isaac is much the same kind of trust we see him have with Death in the games, who much like Isaac acts as Dracula's closest confidant and ally.
Speaking of Isaac, let's move on to him. Despite being so far removed from his original incarnation as to essentially be an entirely new character bearing the same name and role as Forgemaster, Isaac is a wonderful character who stands out as being very well fleshed-out in the cast. Unflinching in his loyalty to Dracula, his fealty actually spins around into being an almost Shakespearean tragic flaw, giving him an air of nobility that actually outweighs the rest of the leaders of Dracula's army--the supposed vampire elite class, truly the Nobility in the sense that we see the word used in Vampire Hunter D. Isaac is nicely-written as a character and has a reasonably solid arc, for being a character who doesn't actually "go" anywhere as far as his motivations and drive take him. He's tunnel-visioned to the point of nearly being one-dimensional, but this is actually the entire reason why he comes across to me as so compelling; he's so damnably loyal to the master who gave him real purpose that he can see nothing else, not even that same master defying the very thing he enlisted Isaac's services for and refusing to allow him to sacrifice his life.
Carmilla worked nicely when she got to flex her Cersei Lannister muscles and scheme to overthrow Dracula--that plan to entrap his forces in a barrier of holy water and wipe them out was nothing short of tactical mastery, and deserves special mention due simply to the excellence of the ploy.
Sypha's additional characterization was mostly rather pleasant, largely in part due to her coming out of the sheltered nomadic lifestyle she'd lived and grow to see the perspectives of the two she travelled with--initially seeing Alucard and Trevor's bickering as just that, and coming to understand the reasons behind said jab-throwing and trying to mediate it. Of course, where would I be without drawing notice to her best scene in the series thus far, pulling all the stops and doing that previously not thought possible and ensnaring the Castle where it stood. That particular scene was incredible and did a great job at selling just how much raw power Sypha has in her arsenal, which was doubly played well as it complements her elation shown at the prospect of learning new forms of magic with which to channel that raw power.
Alucard was fantastic in the scenes that involved his family dynamic, mostly notably his final scene with Dracula and his breakdown at the end.
Godbrand was narratively a waste of a character, but damned if I didn't get a kick out of him every time he was in frame. Hell, he even voiced a few of my own "what the fuck are you talking about" thoughts during various scenes, and when he wasn't doing that he was an exceedingly strange and welcome bit of levity in the form of a devil-may-care vampire better suited to hang around those bar drunks from the first season than a bunch of vampire aristocracy. Yes, he was completely useless to the story (no purpose other than "one who spills the beans to Isaac"), and for that he sucks for wasting screentime, but I'd be a liar if I said I didn't find some measure of enjoyment and amusement in the scenes he was in. Godbraaaaaaaaaaaaand!
Zombie Puppy is still the greatest character in Castlevania. I don't give a flying shit what anyone has to say about this. It's the truth and you all know it.
Overall "score" I'd give my perceived positive of the narrative and characterizations:
9/10, because when the writers got it right they really fucking got it right.
-Trevor examining a case of the more "classic" Throwing Knives
-The Morningstar (or "true" VK, in a manner of speaking) being shown with the reverence it deserves
-The nods to Slogra and Gaibon's fight in Symphony having its multiple phases referenced pretty accurately
-I want a physical floor-to-ceiling version of that fucking Leon painting
-Bloody Tears, obviously
-Sypha's elemental spells all getting a reference (yes, she got her Lightning spell, just when she was stopping the Castle)
-Alucard Sword special move getting some more love
-Dracula actually saying a variation of "Playtime's Over!" in an alternate language dub instead of "I have had enough!"
-The ugly Castle actually was made to look much better in practically all of its establishing shots
-The Belmont archives and everything they imply
-The giant horned demon that breaks the archives' barrier who I'm pretty sure was a Pazuzu/Leviathan reference
-The LOS Malphas reference
-That swirly-cape move Dracula did when jumping up to another floor
-Dracula fighting very physically, which may have been a nod to his second phase in Ecclesia
-Dracula disregarding and shattering expectations of all the attacks of the heroes, which were previously established to be seen as extremely powerful and in many cases oneshot kills, really selling the guy's power to be able to shrug all of those OHKOs off without so much as a glance
-The blindfolded demon wielding what appeared to be a spear/staff was pretty cool in both design and combat style
-Carmilla's masterful tactical plan getting straight-up BTFO by the better female character
-Basically every background reference in the Belmont archives, including that the Morningstar chest was hidden in a breakable wall
-The absolute skill and cold detachment with which Isaac dispatches his foes, and the certain level of "warrior respect" he displays to Godbrand by maintaining eye contact during his death (which he distinctly does not show the brigands in the desert) and the spreading of his ashes afterwards (though this could simply be "scatter so the vampire can't come back" mythos we see in real history during "vampire" hunts, but the level of almost-reverence Isaac shows during this act leads me to believe there IS a level of reverence involved in the action)
The Cons of Netflix Castlevania Season 2 as I See ThemAs previously mentioned, there are far too many instances of subpar animation to simply brush off or ignore. I've already noted what they are, so I'll not waste time with redundant explanations. This section is simply here to provide a subtractive score.
Overall, the "score" deduction I'd give the animation:
-3/10, because while the animation is thoroughly good when it really needs to be, the rest of the time it ranges from "as shoddy as Hanna-Barbera was in the late 60s" to "just tolerably passable." I suspect this has to do with budget or time management going awry (or just being poorly planned), but that still doesn't excuse to objectivity of the volume and specificity of the technical failings of the animation.
Same as before, when it needed to shine it really shone, and while there was a marked improvement in actually being able to hear melody this time there's still a lot to be desired. One side of this is simply "I hear melodies and progs now but I should still be hearing more if you're trying to evoke some emotion," and the other is more a case of "what in the actual hell is this here for?"
One such case of the latter is sections of the Dracula fight, which does do decently as a track on its own, being bogged down and the severity ripped away by what I can only describe as "that weird screeching metallic sound being horribly misused as a beat in the middle of an otherwise orchestral piece because someone with control over the music department doesn't seem to understand what appropriate music cues are which makes no sense since they got it so right with Bloody Tears, what the hell went on at that design meeting". For reference, this occurs immediately after Dracula gets blown through the wall by his rebounded Meteor and Alucard begins to give chase.
Overall, the "score" deduction I'd give the music:
-1/10, since it's mostly more just a question of strange little things that don't make a lot of sense that add up, rather than any massive glaring problems like the lesser-quality bits of animation.
Now for the big one.
First and foremost, the most standout problem with the writing is that it's abundantly clear Warren loves Alucard like Keiji Inafune loves Zero and will apparently do everything in his power to shoehorn Alucard into the limelight over everyone else regardless of the sense it makes or the narrative precedent set up in advance. It's annoying as sin and completely overshadows other characters to the point of this story barely counting as Dracula's Curse anymore. Let me break down just a few of these instances:
-Alucard generally just being forced into a conversation or situation between other characters and impeding whatever character development was taking place by throwing his hat in the ring where it wasn't needed
-Alucard being overly quippy with insults, many of which aren't even that good to begin with, because as everyone knows that's obviously just how Alucard rolls in Castlevania, duh (which is made worse by the fact that when he sparred verbally with Trevor in the first season, it was more in retaliation to Trevor throwing insults first, and the ones Alucard threw back were actually not half-bad and more in-line with how Alucard spars words with people in the games, thus keeping his character more accurate with how he speaks than as we see during these scenes in Season 2)
-Alucard's pissing contest with Trevor and everything it entails, because not only is that completely beneath Alucard (yes, I know it's because he's uncomfortable being a dhampir in a fortress for vampire-killing (something game series Alucard was actually rather fine with), but while that point on its own works in this narrative the fact that he expressed it by acting like -- as Sypha so acutely put it -- "an angry teenager" is completely unwarranted and nonsensical for the character)
-Alucard's poorly-written pissing contest with Trevor coming off like he's trying to compete with him for Sypha's attention
-Alucard overshadowing Sypha in the sequence with Dracula's Meteor spell -- they made it a point to illustrate that Sypha can only just barely hold it off, thus warranting Trevor to get behind her as physical support to not be pushed back and make it appear as though the two guys are going to join up to support their powerful but physically susceptible mage ally in something she's clearly capable of managing magically if she were to simply have the physical support to do so...and then Alucard comes in and handles the problem basically all by himself, shoves the Meteor back with very little effort, and goes on to engage Dracula on his own without so much as a backward glance to his allies who were solely responsible for slowing the Meteor down enough for him to be able to shove it back in the first place
-Alucard being singled out as the primary fighter for the latter half of the fight for no other discernible reason than "because"
And of course, the Grand Guignol of "Alucard Fucking Everything Up By Interjecting Himself"...Alucard scoring the kill against Dracula by himself.
Now, now, I know what the retort to this is -- "but Alucard kills Dracula and is burdened with necessary patricide in Symphony, and that dymanic between father and son is what the Netflix show wanted to explore!" -- and this point on its own would be perfectly fine...
...if this was an animated series about Symphony. Which it isn't. This has been intended and marketed as Dracula's Curse adapted since the start, and while I have zero qualms with exploring the Alucard/Dracula relationship in the events of CV3 I do have problems with literally just slapping the endboss conversation of Symphony in a completely different narrative setting in the lore and thinking it works. And frankly, this isn't necessarily even a problem in the context of CV3, but rather the context set up by the show itself.
They made it a point to make up this "legend" about the Sleeping Savior who need a Hunter and a Sorceror to defeat Dracula; only, what they actually meant was "the Sleeping Savior needs a Hunter and a Sorceror to do a few nuggets of dirty work for him that he doesn't know how to do himself, and then take a backseat when it actually comes to defeating Dracula," because that's exactly what ends up happening. Trevor and Sypha and their entire individual (and interpersonal) dynamics and character developments go out the window because Alucard just has to be the one to kill his father. All that gearing up and research and preparing Trevor did to expand his physical and mental arsenal in his task of vampire-slaying? Out the window, because he doesn't even make Dracula blink despite his best efforts. All that immense joy Sypha feels at the prospect of studying new magics to aid in their quest and help her grow as a sorceress, and all that massive skill and badassery she displays and telling Dracula's interdimensional teleporting fortress to "sit" like a misbehaving dog? Utterly worthless, because the best she can do against Dracula is mildly irritate him by setting his face on fire to blind him and then do most of the heavy lifting so Alucard can swoop in unannounced and push the giant magic fireball back.
The only one of the three outright shown to consistently inflict any actual and legitimate injury on Dracula is Alucard, who explicitly makes his father wince and grunt and be physically moved by his attacks on multiple occasions--Trevor's best attack does absolutely nothing and Sypha's best effect on him is little more than slight annoyance via a flamethrower facial. Alucard is the only one displayed to actually inflict proper pain on Dracula, and the one who scores to kill (Trevor's decapitation was pointless and the result of entering a room to see what he thought was Alucard cornered by Dracula, who was already dead and rotting by that point and judging by the previous scene was more likely just trying to reach out and hold his son in his final moments than actually trying to attack him).
Story adapted from a game all about a nicely balanced team banding together to cover each other's blind spots in skill and ability, and the first recorded instance of a Belmont killing Dracula (since it wasn't until this period in time that he took the name Dracula)? Nah, let's build that kind of narrative up but have Alucard be the real star of the show because setting a teamwork precedent wherein Alucard is shown to be able to be matched and beaten by his comrades and not just another Gary Stu doesn't actually matter -- gotta have than ultimate fanservice of Warren's favorite character dynamic taking forced center stage where it doesn't need to be the focus of narrative attention.
See, the real problem with Netflix CV's narrative can be easily summed up in one sentence: Warren is a massive Symphony fanboy who was given near-total creative control over a narrative that is distinctly NOT Symphony. Had this been a SotN adaptation rather than CV3, I have no doubts it would have been a complete and utter masterpiece, because it's quite clear where Warren's best knowledge of the series' story and preferences of characters lie. It would by all accounts seem that he was so fixated on getting to adapt his favorite story elements in a narrative only tangentially connected directly to SotN by a few characters that he either forgot or outright ignored the fact that the narrative he was supposedly trying to tell was...anything but SotN.
But to take a story whose primary significance was the first meeting of people from multiple families and backgrounds which would go on to become centuries-long alliances, and the very first canonical instance of a Belmont killing Dracula (a very important occurrence due to it being the first canon death of Dracula which in turn kickstarted the entire resurrection cycle, as well as being the first time in the canon that a Belmont came out into the open in ages--hell, the show even alludes to this with how frequently they touched on how the Belmonts were outlawed and banished from society, but fails to deliver on this front as well), build it up as if it was going to play out in approximately the same manner as it did originally, and then shoehorn Alucard specifically into the spotlight at every opportunity that could be afforded and give him overshadowing rights over the other two members of the party, and have him ultimately be the one to steal the kill?
Unforgivable, the only thing if the animated series I perceive as a flaw that I am not willing to forgive, because it shows a fundamental lapse in judgment as to what the story of Dracula's Curse was actually about.
Now, this is the part where I'm hearing people retort things like "but it's an adaptation, things are going to change," or "you take the game canon too seriously," or cite "creative liberties" as a justification.
But those would all be wrong, because I'm not ignoring those elements.
I know adaptations are subject to change the source material -- the issue is that they seemed to try and stay faithful to the core points for a while, and then did a 180* at the eleventh hour for no reason that I would accept as good enough to justify that 180*.
And while it's no secret I'm one of those in this community who are maybe a bit too engrossed in the game canon, that also isn't really the entire problem (though, to be sure, it's a personal reason of MINE here). Even removing the element of "faithfulness to original," the Netflix series still drops the ball on trying to make Alucard the main character because you don't need to rely on source accuracy to have fundamental flaws in writing a coherent narrative structure -- all the points about how Alucard overshadows everyone else or how they build up characters for X and Y and Z and then don't reach the set-up narrative conclusion to those setups (this usually happens via, yep you guessed it, Alucard taking center stage out of nowhere) don't need to even look at the inaccuracies to the original story to be validated as genuine flaws in the show's core storytelling. They built up all three main characters (now whether or not I feel they did this building up entirely well is irrelevant to the point I'm making now) for two entire acts of the story, and then at the climax point of the third act stuck two of them on the backburner so the third character could take the wheel and finish out the climax into the resolution.
Now I'm going to stop complaining about how poorly Alucard was utilized thanks to Warren's fanboner for the character and talk about other characters and the like.
Carmilla had the potential to be great but they shot her in the foot. While I'm fine with taking a character whose original loyalty and love for Dracula was at Bellatrix Lestrange levels of absolutist devotion and turning her into a Cersei Lannister schemer seeking to overthrow and seize power, the way they went about it was troublesome at best.
For starters, the whole "I was forced into a marriage with an old man who turned me into a vampire and then he got complacent and boring so I killed him therefore all men are trash and I will use the almighty power of my uterus and clearly superior female brainpower to overthrow another old man vampire whose burnout I'm misreading as complacent apathy, fuck men I'm a woman and I'm better than them" approach could not have felt more forced and out of place if they'd tried; not to mention, the notion of Carmilla being a sort of radical feminist type character looking to upend a perceived patriarchal social system in the vampire community could not possibly have been written and set up more poorly. If they were trying to go for a "strong independent woman who don't need no man" type of character, they failed miserably. Carmilla, when she's not being sneaky and manipulating and scheming and utilizing brilliant war strategy, is rather insufferable and feels like a wish-fulfillment character written by someone with a political axe to grind but not enough writing ability to do so effectively. Ergo, it was highly satisfying to see her shit get shoved in by a female character who's far superior in terms of writing and who rises above the petty squabbles of the men around her in a much more satisfying way via doing incredible feats of skill and prowess far beyond any of them and by choosing to mediate those squabbles rather than letting them exacerbate into destructive encounters -- and why? Because that's just the kind of person Sypha is, one who sees the value in ending pointless fighting and preserving the unique views and knowledges and experiences of the individual and not just letting the people who annoy kill each other amongst themselves.
...well, at least until she gets upstaged by Alucard during the fight with Dracula and is only used again when she's needed by the plot again all of a sudden to magically free Dracula's soul (or whatever that spell was). Whoops.
Hector was tolerable for the most part. Completely offbase to the original but that's par for the course for a lot of the characters, and is fine as I'm not expecting 1-to-1 accuracy for every single thing. Him being a naive and borderline pacifistic parallel to Isaac wasn't too shabby given Isaac's new portrayal, and it set him up well for being an easy pawn of Carmilla's...though it can be seen a mile away that he was gonna get played because who else is she gonna be able to gull that hard.
But, all in all, Hector wasn't anything special one way or the other, but I'm still bringing up as a Con because while what they did with him was okay the fact that his arc was so predictable from start to finish is just another indicator of poor writing.
I'd have some stuff to say about Sypha and Trevor here, but considering they constantly get overshadowed by Alucard I'm actually not sure what their respective arcs would have been had everyone's favorite dhampir hadn't crashed the party. What's there is mostly fine, though I do find some of Sypha's mannerisms to be almost obnoxious (in that, while I like that they played her up as highly optimistic with some dialogue and behaviors that I honestly can only describe as being really damned cute, there were points where the cute was dialed up way too high and it reached "sickeningly cute" way too fast -- if you want an example, I only have to point at the fucking "Treffie" scene).
I mentioned I liked scheming master tactician Carmilla. I do. But you know what I don't like? That Dracula isn't being the master tactical genius he's legendary for being, and some cocky upstart who'd probably have an edgy blog
about just how awesome and better than everyone else she is nowadays getting to be the tactical gameplayer instead of the guy who's famous for it.
The problem with making Dracula this melancholy and regretful toward betraying Lisa's memory is that you're putting the ending of SotN in the driver's seat...about 300 years before Dracula's even reached that point in his character growth. This is the aspect of the aloof Dracula I dislike; not the idea or even the execution, but the context. Dracula's in full-on killin' mode with a war and genocide boner a mile long at this point in his story, so why the hell'd he apparently start off hellishly furious and then burn out to being all mopey in the span of like...a few weeks at most? Just doesn't make sense being juxtaposed like that.
Overall, the "score" deduction I'd give the narrative and characterization:
-5/10, because some of the more glaring problems are so egregious that they cannot be downplayed or easily forgiven and I consider it an obligation to highlight the severity of these flaws, both from the standpoint of narrative writing in general as well as consideration for accuracy to the themes and pivotal elements of the source material being adapted.
-Why and how the fuck can a zombie bishop still bless water
-Everything else Emocard
-Where the fuck was Grant
-Where the fuck was Death
-I'm glad Trevor remembered Dracula's hitbox is his head...after Alucard already killed him whoops
-Zombie Puppy didn't become lord of the Castle
Maths of the Arbitrary ScoresAnimation: | 7/10 + | -3/10 = | 4/10 |
Soundtrack: | 6/10 + | -1/10 = | 5/10 |
Writing: | 9/10 + | -5/10 = | 4/10 |
Final ThoughtsOverall, this entire series feels to me like a piece that has a lot of good things going for it, but is weighed down by some incredibly poor choices made by people in charge. I will sing until I'm blue in the face the praises of the music and animation and artistic beauty and astoundingly good acting and great thematic representation and top-notch writing, as well as all the people on the respective teams who toiled away to produce such amazing work...for the parts wherein all of those elements went above and beyond or wove together to create something truly special and magnificent; for those parts absolutely exist in this series and this season, and they and the hardworking individuals responsible for creating them deserve all the accolades they rightly deserve.
However, I will just as equally condemn the mistakes made by what is very clearly a man in charge whose priorities of focus and storytelling were out of line with the project and end result he claimed to be in command of. This show did a lot of good, for both the artistic mediums at large as well as quality representation of the series and what about Castlevania we in the fanbase so love and adore and were drawn to in the first place -- and unfortunately there were more than a few glaring and severe flaws that I believe can be easily traced back to only one or two sources within the production staff's hierarchy. It's almost
Lamentable
that CV3 was chosen instead of SotN, because it's painfully obvious where Warren's real love for the series is, and so much more cohesion could have been achieved had there not been such a clear disconnect between "what the project is actually about" and "what the guy in charge
wants the project to be about" affecting what I can only imagine to be many facets of the development process.
Is this series (so far) something I would consider to be a fair representation of what
I consider to be what makes Castlevania great? Yes and no. What it gets right it gets right in
spades, but what it gets wrong it gets just as wrong in just as many of those spades.
Is this series (so far) something I would recommend to someone completely unfamiliar with Castlevania at large? Honestly, I actually think it is. It gets just enough spot-on to be able to spark an interest in brand-new viewers, and changes just enough to make it a little more accessible to people who
aren't going to know the base series well enough to be able to point out everything it got wrong. I don't like or agree with many of those changes for all the reasons I've gone over in this post, but I can
begrudgingly see the potential value even those things I loathe for their prospective ability to garner continued and future interest in the series beyond a wall in a Pachinko arcade.
But that doesn't mean for a moment that I will be silent or anything less than honest with myself and others about how I feel about what the show succeeded and failed at. Nor does it mean I'm in any way condoning or propagating a "well it's better than nothing" attitude. That kind of attitude can die in a fire as far as I'm concerned, because we all saw that kind of attitude during the whole Mighty No. 9 fiasco and
just how much good it did for that IP. But for all the things I am vehemently opposed to and pissed off at in this series and season, I do believe it has the potential to do right by CV and the fanbase...if it and any future releases relating to CV handled a little more adeptly in certain respects going forward than this adaptation has been.
Because at the end of it all, we
did get a product that has a very large deal of things to enjoy about it...it's just very unfortunate and a little disappointing some obviously fanboyish decisions were made high up the ladder that took the show's potential for even higher greatness, and caused a plethora of fuckups that hinder that potential.
That's my thoughts right now, everyone. This post may very well be edited for posterity and clarity and for additions/alterations as my opinion will doubtless change and grow and shift over time, so keep an eye out for that little
(Edited) notation going forward.
Hopefully this time I've been clear enough that people won't lose their fucking minds at me again.
Hopefully.