Topic: I know the feeling.

[Inccubus]

Was not expecting a thread like this after the thrashing I got for daring not to like the first series.

As for my pennies, I though the first series was cringey, off-period tripe severely lacking in Castlevania goodness.

And as for this one, I was never able to get passed the trailers.
I felt it in my bones that they were going to take an interesting and sophisticated setting like the French Revolution and devolve it into more of the same nonsense.

But, no.
This sounds much worse than I anticipated.
Glad I skipped it.

And to be clear. I don't mind diversity.
But this is not diversity; it's spineless, disingenuous pandering of the worst kind.

[Eric Roman]

Cheers to you, dodging these bullets; been rough on those certain-minded on the definition of “CastleVania”. 🍻🍻🍻

[Darkmoon]

*jack off motion*

[crisis]

It’s interesting to read peoples wildly diverse opinions on the series. I find it fascinating to see a different take on the Castlevania mythos, whereas others feel it’s complete sacrilege. They seem to be sticking to the lore as close as they can; the events of Harmony of Dissonance was even mentioned, Leon Belmont was acknowledged as the progenitor of their lineage, tons of Easter eggs, etc.

I understand not everyone has to be a fan, but I’m somewhat confused how some people absolutely refuse to watch it (I’m not calling anyone out here personally, just from others that I’ve read online from other sources). I even acknowledge there’s aspects that shouldn’t have been included, even some borderline offensive stuff, but what I’ve seen thus far, there has been far worse adaptations of beloved material. Do you guys want Patchislot erotic Castlevania money grab slot machines that Konami has been producing for a decade now instead? Another re-re-release of Symphony of the Night? This Netflix series isn’t the bottom of the barrel in terms of adaptations, and it’s bringing in new fans to the series which is a good thing in my opinion.

That said, this show could’ve been FAR worse than how some are treating it. And lets not pretend a Japanese anime production company would’ve done some absolutely absurd things to the mythos as well. Once again, the show isn’t perfect, but it’s not awful like how some believe it is.

[Darkmoon]

Meh, just can't please some people. I didn't like Lords of Shadow (any of them, honestly, although Mirror was the most playable of the three imo), but it wasn't because of the story changes. Yeah, those were weird and dumb, but I was willing to go along with it for the sake of a different take on the material. I hated the gameplay, though, and that was where that sub-series lost me. Not because it didn't play like Castlevania but just because it wasn't fun for me at a basic level.

The Netflix series (original recipe and Nocturne) is an adaptation. Adaptations, because of the switch in media, are always going to be different. Even the best adaptations make changes to the material to suit a different form. Look at The Expanse, for example, which is a fantastic TV series based on a fantastic series of novels, and even early in the run the series makes big changes for all the reasons you'd expect in the conversion to the screen: no running internal monologue for the characters, the needs of picking up the pace, etc.

And that's with a series of books that provide a lot of adaptable content. As I noted before, creating an adaptation based on a series of platforming games is a much taller order. Story has to be created whole cloth just to keep the pace of episodic storytelling. About the best way you could do a truly "faithful" adaptation that didn't add, change, or evolve the concept would be a webseries of quick shorts, retelling the whole game in about 20 minutes.

But, fuck, if you want that just go watch a speedrun.

[Eric Roman]

The series' polarizing nature is old hat; this is merely the first time the melting pot of oldtime and newtime fans have to contend with such a complicated nature in the Netflix adaption. 

It's quite the different animal compared to, say, the early-2000s news the latest game will be yet another MapQuest starring Micheal Jackson. 

Or ye olde Simon VS Richter debate of opinions/personal preference. 

[Reinhart77]

There’s always been a lot of religious imagery in Castlevania.  Can you imagine how many people would be offended if another group had gotten ahold of the IP and decided to write it from a Christian perspective?

[Eric Roman]

Which side of the Religion divide was Nintendo of America again?  With all its inconsistent cross-editing of the CVs?

[Darkmoon]

The series' polarizing nature is old hat; this is merely the first time the melting pot of oldtime and newtime fans have to contend with such a complicated nature in the Netflix adaption. 

It's quite the different animal compared to, say, the early-2000s news the latest game will be yet another MapQuest starring Micheal Jackson. 

Or ye olde Simon VS Richter debate of opinions/personal preference.

And which one am I? You argument seems to be "old fans don't like it", except...

[Eric Roman]

Only you can answer that one; we haven't been in regular contact since 2008, so I missed out on some character development, let's say. 

Mayhaps the following edit will suffice?:
 
*the melting pot of oldtime fans (acquainted with the game series through its Development Hell) and newtime fans attracted by the cartoon's 2017 debut (whom also may know CV exclusively as such with 0 game background, which could also be a good thing; for example, I enjoyed the 2005 DOOM movie on principle of a cracking good time and 0 first-hand experience)

Your post published moments before mine so it wasn't factored into my thoughts, at any rate.  Had to get ready for the job. 

[Darkmoon]

You're still generalizing. You didn't like it. That's your opinion. Trying to say, "all classic fans hate it" is disproven by one classic fan liking it.

Is it my favorite series? No. But then I don't even generally like anime. But it's a version of Castlevania. It's enjoyable enough.

[knightmere]

The first show on Netflix was bad so I never bothered with the new one. I don't even like anime so it was always going to be an uphill battle for me.

[comeau]

As someone who never liked the first series and felt it was a major betrayal of expectations and promises, here are my gripes:

(click to show/hide)

Hiring Warren Ellis, who is notoriously awful at writing stories about faith or religion with any semblance of nuance or respect (see: Supergod) was a fucking blunder. Muddying the waters on how faith and the power of God works in Castlevania was a massive mistake and they shot themselves in the foot by confusing it, something that Nocturne barely fixes - but in the process also screws over the internal logic of the world in the long run.

Forgetting Grant was a huge blow to the potential of the series, IMO, because without that human element of "a non-powered hero, trying to do the right thing", what we get boils down to Gothic horror superheroes versus the League of Doom (of which the "Dracula's court" plot supplied unnecessarily).

Abandoning Dracula as a recurring villain kills the spirit of the series, and the framing device of the Belmont bloodline's interactions with him from a writing perspective. Each hero is fundamentally designed, ultimately, in contrast to Dracula - and would be in a better or more faithful adaptation a driving point for each season, potentially.

People kvetching about the need for "more plot" have clearly never seen what can be done with a short series or OVA, or shounen in the vein of a "monster of the week" format (see: Stardust Crusaders, Phantom Blood, etc.). Adapting Castlevania, III especially, was a very easy task if they managed to keep the atmosphere for what it was, and embrace the simplicity of "the journey to Dracula's castle". Instead, it got lost in Ellis trying to inject Reddit-tier atheism and quips instead of properly dealing with the subject of 'faith' in a series where religion is objectively real and efficacious against monsters.

You do not have to have a long-form or deeply character-driven plot for Castlevania, necessarily - but you also have to take what you are writing and present it seriously.

Nocturne is a consequence of Netflixvania's failings, directly. Not that I'd expect anything better to come out of it, because they're obviously pandering to the audience they cultivated under the direction they went with the previous series. But the fact of the matter is that you can very clearly tell by the writing (see the clip of Richter's "I was about to say something cool but fuck it" moment) that the series is being helmed and written by people who do not get it (the vibe, the story, the feel of Castlevania), nor do they care. There is an underlying apathy, if not resentment for the content being created, because these people do not respect the "dumb video game show".

These writers are akin to those who look at the Symphony of the Night English opening, the one with the script by that hack Blaustein - and say, "WELL CASTLEVANIA IS JUST A SILLY SERIES LOL LMAO".

I wanted the show to be good. I really did. Shankar outright claimed his hatred for bad adaptations, and promised to capture the series faithfully. But it's not, and the people who are working on it evidently do not care for the original games, because they cannot be bothered to match or even write around the core premise or vibes of the original. There is a fine line between "what they need to change for an adaptation" and spurious inventions and completely missing the tone and atmosphere of a series, no matter how scant the writing is.

That being said, in the hands of competent writers, I think that a Castlevania anime (inspired heavily by Vampire Hunter D) could've been fucking great. I think that AoS would've made a perfect shounen, and actually has 'enough' story to potentially build around with the 1999 Demon Castle War, and with the thematic conflict of Soma's identity, and ESPECIALLY the theoretical fight choreography due to the Power of Dominance. I just wish that the foundation for that to happen was not written by people who are completely apathetic about making something good.

[Abnormal Freak]

Netflixvania's kinda ruff. (Courtesy redrum)

[konamiesque]

comeau, your post really hit the nail on the head on why I also can't stand the Netflix show. Even if there really was too little plot to work with to make a proper adaptation (a sentiment I don't wholly agree with), the Castlevania games still have a certain tone that the show completely lacks. Making an adaptation is so much more than just "recreating the plot 1:1" and I think a lot of people in this conversation are forgetting that. There's a total lack of respect for the source material, which is super frustrating to watch as someone who has a lot of passion and enthusiasm for Castlevania.

Though, I have to say that I disagree with you calling the original PSX SotN script bad. I really like it (definitely more than the redub), but to each their own I guess.