Topic: Animated series reviews.

[Dracula9]

I agree with pretty much your entire post except from this. I was surprised how little was changed. I can't think of anything that was genuinely changed from the original premise of CV3 apart from things that obviously HAD to be moved around to make sense in a stoy narrative - it's not like the entire series should be a side view of Trevor fighting various monsters and bosses, and I can't think of what anyone could have wanted other than this.
I think the series is very much a fanservice love letter, it just manages to do it without coming across as awkward and nerdy. It makes it hard for me to remain unbiased, and I still have yet to see what someone without preceeding love for the games would think of it.

I think this was more inline with what I had meant--I wrote that thing after binging it multiple times well through the night and hadn't slept, lol.

list of references

-dagger storm
-throwing axe
-dracula turning into a giant head
-bloody tears (literally)
-alucard using the alucard sword's special attack

[Kamirine]

I liked it. 

It has it's flaws (the VA work was kinda spotty in some places--like Drac's voice wasn't conveying all consuming rage and hatred of humanity, to give an example) but honestly, I liked it a hell of a lot more than I thought I would.  I think I'll end up being more judgemental when they actually get to the castle though. 

Guess I'll be the weirdo and admit I liked the interaction with Lisa and Dracula. I always got the vibe Lisa was suppose to be sort of an odd person/exceedingly open minded individual and I feel like her interaction with Dracula showed that, if maybe too much (the whole get out more = maybe stop putting individuals on poles comments and being said so...flippantly). If anything, I kinda wish we had gotten more time to see their relationship fleshed out.  Hopefully we'll get flashbacks of her with Alucard in the new coming episodes or something.

[piscesdreams]

I'll keep it brief. I liked it overall, but the lack of familiar music is a crucial mistake. Hopefully this is rectified in season 2. I was disappointed that recognizable town names weren't used, but that's just a nitpick. And Trevor's actor didn't show as wide of a range as I hoped for. It also felt edgy at times just to be edgy without much substance. Lastly, there wasn't enough variety to the monsters, but what was shown I really liked.

Overall, I enjoyed it. The atmosphere was fucking spot on though. The visuals were damn impressive. It just needs more variety of monsters and familiar musical motifs.

[AlexCalvo]

-dagger storm
-throwing axe
-dracula turning into a giant head
-bloody tears (literally)
-alucard using the alucard sword's special attack

Forgot Dracula teleporting away in a big fiery orange pillar.

[Dracula9]

Did I? I thought somebody'd listed that one already...

[TatteredSeraph]

Guess I'll be the weirdo and admit I liked the interaction with Lisa and Dracula. I always got the vibe Lisa was suppose to be sort of an odd person/exceedingly open minded individual and I feel like her interaction with Dracula showed that, if maybe too much (the whole get out more = maybe stop putting individuals on poles comments and being said so...flippantly). If anything, I kinda wish we had gotten more time to see their relationship fleshed out.  Hopefully we'll get flashbacks of her with Alucard in the new coming episodes or something.

I have a feeling that more of Lisa's backstory with Dracula was done for the purpose of keeping Alucard under wraps, aside for the teaser cameo in that beautiful scene with his father.  It kept a degree of mystery about him, and saved the introduction for when Trevor and Sypha meet him.  It made sense storytelling-wise.  It also had more punch this way, I think, especially with the episode count being so low.  I really hope that we get more details on stuff all round in season two, such as a flashback to a young Allie, and see more of that lovely interaction between Drac and Lisa.  There was some lovely chemistry between them.


I've been thinking, and I know that some have complained about the sound mixing in places.  There were one or two little moments that got me as well, I admit, but I'm also wondering whether it could also partially be due in places to the strength of the accents of some of the minor characters, especially for those not used to those accents (the use of which I liked I admit).

[AlexCalvo]

You are correct D9.  My bad.

I'm gonna copy/paste something I wrote in another thread.

I get that some people don't like to see the church in a negative light... but let's be real here.  The medieval church was as evil as any evil that ever eviled.  To be honest the church in this series acted about exactly as the church probably would have, had such a scenario presented itself.  Burning innocent women as witches, excommunicating virtuous, even heroic individuals that don't fall in line with there teachings, violently persecuting religious minorities... that was a normal Friday night in those days, for the clergy.  I don't think this was a problem at all.  And they even make a point to show that there are good members of the clergy in episode 4.  Honestly if they had made the church into good guys, it would be equally historically inaccurate and offensive

[Dracula9]

I wish I could phone in on mixing quality, but my speakers are already on their way out so I'm playing without a full deck anyway.

Which sucks, because I usually have a good ear for this shit.

[TatteredSeraph]

The point about the church's nastier antics on calling out heretic! left, right, and centre is absoutely correct for this sort of time period.  A friend of mine gave a class on this sort of thing a few years ago, and it made for very interesting reading and listening, on just how many different theoogies and philosphies could get you kicked out.  It was pretty brutal, no wonder tensions were high.  I felt that in the series this was shown well, through both how Lisa and the Belmonts were treated, and the frown that the Bishop gave the Mayor of Targoviste when he said he'd looked into the sciences.  It added a layer of realism in the historical context, as well as serving the purpose well of framing the narrative of how Dracula lost his shit with humanity after the death of Lisa.

[Holy Diver]

CONS
-NO STRUT WALK
-NO WALL MEAT
-NO FLOATING CANDLES
-TREVOR USES KNIVES AS A PRIMARY SUBWEAPON LIKE A NOOB
-TREVOR IS WEARING ACTUAL PANTS

PROS
-ALUCARD'S TIDDIES
-SHEEP FUCKING

0/10
BLASPHEMOUS

[Dracula9]

-NO STRUT WALK
-TREVOR IS WEARING ACTUAL PANTS

Done, 0/10, series shit, never watching again

[TatteredSeraph]

CONS
-NO STRUT WALK
-NO WALL MEAT
-NO FLOATING CANDLES
-TREVOR USES KNIVES AS A PRIMARY SUBWEAPON LIKE A NOOB
-TREVOR IS WEARING ACTUAL PANTS

PROS
-ALUCARD'S TIDDIES
-SHEEP FUCKING

0/10
BLASPHEMOUS

Maybe when they get inside Castlevania some of these might appear?

[Lelygax]

I watched it in Japanese today and really liked it. That scene on the bar where trevor fights "Mr. Shovel Knight" was really funny.
I see that some people disliked the series (not these that I'll quote later, another ones) yet I think it was pretty good, not perfect but good, I was expecting something very worse than that and after so many cancelled CV animations and movies, even thought we never would get something like that.

While it can and should improve on season 2, I think its a perfect spark to lit the fire on this franchise again and get new fans, without resorting to something that totally doesnt looks like Castlevania or too forced (like I expected this series would be before watching the trailer).

Hopefully they will finda a way to include Grant on season 2 and show more about Lisa, maybe we can even dream with they including another character like Master Librarian in some way.

They did well in creating a character like that bishop for this show, hopefully they will continue keeping new characters as interesting as these shown until now or better.

If they make a game adaptation of this, they should include the shovel guy and goat familiar as an unlockable character.

(click to show/hide)

I thought bishop corpse would be brought to Dracula's castle and maybe became some sort of demon or trophy when that devil start carrying him on its mouth

Maybe when they get inside Castlevania some of these might appear?

Trevor will shit piss in his pants because of too much beer, start strut walking and then decide to walk without pants for the rest of the show?

-NO FLOATING CANDLES

While they weren't floating, I think all these torches in the catacombs were meant to be our classic candles. Trevor even enter in detail about it.

I was disappointed that recognizable town names weren't used, but that's just a nitpick.

You mean in-game town names? Maybe they were built after CV3, but I kinda understand what you mean.

[Aiddon]

Wall o' text

(click to show/hide)

It's the best videogame adaptation from the West. Period. And I don't mean that in quantifying terms either due to game adaptations being pretty terrible. Castlevania is actually a good, Gothic horror, dark fantasy swashbuckling series (man, genre blender is set to puree) and gives a great blueprint for how to do adaptations of gaming.

The casting was spot on, all the main players turning in great performances, such as Armitage as a drunken, surly, embittered Trevor whose content to drink himself to death due to his family's exile and excommunication. MacTavish also does a menacing Dracula with showing both the man and the monster, the monster being a product of man's ignorance. His chemistry with Lisa was delightful, playing a feisty scholar who has a thirst for knowledge wherein they find common ground (which makes sense that Dracula would be a learned scientist considering his in-mythos background as a tactician and scholar. He probably had nothing better to do for hundreds of years besides run experiments). Despite it being so short, it shows that she was indeed someone he would kill for. Sypha is delightfully sassy and plays idealist straightwoman to Trevor's bitter, snarky former lord and Reynoso nails the part. Callis does good with what little screentime he has as the brooding Alucard who chose to respond to his mother's death in the opposite manner of his father and is one of the few who has no snark. And of course we get to Matt Frewer (Max Headroom himself) as the Bishop and is clearly having the time of his life portraying the man of the cloth as an utterly despicable, contemptible, hypocritical, self-righteous, ignorant zealot so convinced of his warped idea of faith it's not until freaking Pazuzu and a horde of demons show up in his church and bite his goddamned face off that he sees he knows nothing of God.

The story itself is basic: Dracula goes on a rampage against the ignorant and complicit masses of Wallachia for burning his wife at the stake for practicing medicine and Trevor Belmont is brought into the fray as the entire mission of his family is to hunt creatures of the night, Dracula being the main one. However, knowing that wasn't enough to base the series on and wanting to save the big bits for the followup, it's really the human element that the story is centered around. Ellis is best known for his comics writing which takes place mostly in the modern day or the future. However, he manages to make his own sardonic wit fit into a medieval Europe setting, modernizing it but not feeling out of place.

Armitage sells Trevor as a bitter man, a sort of parallel to Lisa who was punished for helping people just because it didn't fit 100% with a stupidly narrow idea of how to do things. Armitage is humorous and snarky, but the script shows that his quips and sarcasm are really hiding someone who's angry that he could help people who ostracize him for arbitrary reasons, even when the legions of Hell are literally bearing down on them. Heck, the further along the series goes the less snarky he becomes and starts to morph into a more heroic, swashbuckling Errol Flynn figure who tells the people who has actually misled them and helps them even if they had been trying to kill him just minutes ago. A lot of it you can also chalk up to Reynoso as Sypha who tells him that there is always a choice and you can either roll over, run, or fight because it's better to have done something than done nothing.

The church plot is definitely very heavy-handed, Ellis pulling no punches in showing that the upper echelons of the church are really corrupt, even putting thugs into their employ as a way to enforce their narrow-minded, anti-intellectual viewpoints and the archibishop gleefully brags about burning Lisa at the stake on the anniversary of her death before claiming he was one day away from retirement. I could almost imagine Dracula seeing that and every denizen of his castle face-palming at once. Dracula even gave them a grace period to flee out of respect for Lisa's memory. He's not wrong in his condemnation of the church and the complicit masses only making things worse. And here's the thing: Ellis may be heavy-handed with this, but he's still probably holding back. Things really did get this bad with the church. That's why the Reformation occurred. Of course, this also brings up an egregious error in that Romania is not predominantly Catholic, but Orthodox. Even with the Bishop giving a throwaway line about his differences with the Archbishop it's still odd. In spite of that Ellis does a great job of a tale of ignorance vs knowledge, religion vs zealotry, and complicity vs action.

There are also a ton of neat Easter eggs and nods to the franchise mythology, like the introductions of Sypha and Alucard being like their game intros, Trevor walking around town in similarities to NPC conversations, platforming and boss fights, Alucard using his teleport move from Symphony of the Night, and mentions of the Speakers' prophecies being based on info from the future (referencing Saint Germain from Curse of Darkness as well as the series bouncing around the timeline constantly). Trevor uses three of the five sub-weapons from the game, omitting only the stop watch and oh-fuck-me boomerang cross (though we have to save something for Season 2). With over three decades of mythology and lore to draw from Ellis and the team did great at weaving together story elements from different entries to make a whole (especially if they decide to adapt Lament of Innocence, Simon's games, or Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night).

On the visual side the series is stunning. Every frame drips with atmosphere, bringing to life not only medieval dark fantasy exemplifying the bleakness of the middle ages, but the Gothic horror element that maxes out the settings and just keeps going. Wallachia is grim,
 gruesome, and vicious. It's really out of stuff like Berserk, Vampire Hunter D, with a smattering of the Universal and Hammer horror films. Blood flows like a river, guts splatter across the walls and streets, heads are impaled on spikes with intestines serving as rope, this is Hell on Earth.

The art style also taking steampunk elements like in the games makes for cool locations, like the giant clockwork room before Alucard's keep. It sells the aesthetic that makes Castlevania not only unique in gaming culture, but also unique in anything. The only problem is most of the action is kept to Gresit which is a typical medieval city and we only get a sneak peek of stuff like Dracula's castle. Creature design is good, but limited to just gargoyles and the Pazuzu demon who dines on delicious clergy faces. There is also the Cyclops, which gives one of the best fights in the series. They can probably turn the notch up in the sequel with stuff like Medusa, the mummies, the water dragons, and of course Death himself.

The standout moments are definitely in the first and final episodes. Dracula literally making it rain blood before it then hails HOLY FUCKING SHIT, DEMON FETUSES and summoning his gigantic Dracula's Moving Castle Death Star to begin the slaughter of every last denizen of the city. The image of Dracula ordering his forces to go forth via a murder of crows conjuring his image is haunting and terrifying, Dracula being no mere vampire but more akin to a dark god with the forces of nature at his command.

The other standout is the duel between Alucard and Trevor which kicks things into high gear, Trevor using his whip to full effect while Alucard dances around with the kind of grace only a dhampir can pull off. Trevor charges while Alucard dances and it's completely believable at how a guy like Trevor can match a supernatural creature like Alucard with training, guile, and guts. It's a real nail biter and a great climax for the show.

On the score front Trevor Morris does an admirable job at building the spooky atmosphere and gives pulse-pounding entries when needed.
 It still can't hold a candle to Michiru Yamane's eclectic repertoire that has included eerie compositions, bombastic overtures, electronic beats, and even heavy metal guitar, but it fits and there's always Season 2.

The only real flaw of the series is that it's clearly a pilot. It's something meant to sell the project and ends on an obvious entry for the second act. All in all though, Castlevania is a great adaptation of a classic game franchise and it's definitely a landmark in how to adapt gaming properties. It's  fitting that one of the biggest victories for a gaming adaptation is one of the most long-lived, beloved, unique and oft-copied franchises ever, having a setting and aesthetic that is one-of-a-kind not only in gaming, but pop culture as a whole. Even bigger than that though is how this is a serious adult animation as opposed to the deluge of comedies. It shows that animation can do so much more and tell adult stories. If you're a fan of the series, check it out and if you're not check it out anyway and then bring yourself up to speed on the franchise.

Also, Nintendo's rewards program is offering discounts for the first three Castlevania titles. Good timing

[Dracula9]

Bluefang wasn't carrying the bishop in his mouth. Just some random woman.