Ha, i knew it'd be Greta of Danesti
Well anyway, I like how the main cast ended up being in this season, although Carmilla's final scenes could be treated better than how she ended up decided to suiside
.
I also like how Saint Germain looks a tad bit similar to Dawn of Sorrow Julius during his flashbacks.
(https://i.imgur.com/Fgt66oz.png)
Well there's a random monster who roughly resembles this incarnation of him during the late fighting scene when the trio retruns to Castle Dracula
Still Grant could be treated a lot better than these.
The final fight between Trevor and Death
was the best moment of this season, and almost made up for all the source material deviations I disliked starting Season 2. For a few minutes, everything truly felt like Castlevania. And although I knew this was the final season, I still hoped we'd get an ending that moved everything closer to the status quo of the games i.e. setting up the Belmonts' eternal war with Dracula. Because that's what Castlevania is all about, right?
Haha, nope. Sure, Sypha is pregnant and the Belmont line will continue, but that's it. Dracula and Lisa are alive again and this second chance at life doesn't feel earned. The Demon Castle does not vanish into the abyss either; it's there to stay just like the end of Season 2 established, only with an entire village set to grow around it. Hector and Isaac get unsatisfying, almost handwaved conclusions and don't get me started on Lenore and the other two non-Carmilla vampire chicks whose names I forget.
As Alucard says, "It's been a strange ride. I'm happy it's over." I definitely did not hate all of this adaptation; I'd watch it again in fact. But I'd stop at the end of Season 1 and just imagine that everything afterward follows the games we know and love.
Now if you'll excuse me, imma get off this soapbox and go back to pining for new games. :'(
Finished season 4. Not much I want to say but
I had fun with episode 6 (Isaac vs Carmila) and the battle between Trevor and Death was cool because the matchup is so iconic. That final battle helped drag the story back to its roots to some extent, which was not to the case for the rest of the season.
I hope our wishes come true and we get to see a new writer taking on a different era of the Castlevania series, and hopefully it will be more consistent with the source material.
Props once again to the artists, although I wasn't feeling the story and dialogue most of the time at the very least I enjoyed the visual aspect throughout.
I definitely enjoyed it more than Season 3 myself.
I hold by my ideas that this sort of thing would be way better served as a movie, or fewer, but longer, episodes, like an OVA.
As someone who liked Lords of Shadow, my take is always that it's interesting to see where they go with the source material.
Super super spoilery thoughts ahead:
If I had some serious complaints it's that there's a fair bit of padding, in the form of a lot of throwaway characters. The handful of vampires that the trio fight on their way to St Germain, for example, served absolutely no purpose but as padding. Even the foreign vampires from Season 1 were at least somewhat established as minor characters.
The whole Targovista thing was way beyond under baked I felt. They introduced that character and don't do anything with her. her plot arc has little substance beyond the twist that the royal family is dead, which itself was kind of a worthless item which exists solely for that character, but nothing really comes of it other than Trevor finding some loot, and advancing the plot forward.
St Germain's part in all of this surprised me, and then surprised me again that they didn't go where I thought they would go. The moment Isaac started talking about change and how his goals had changed, I knew they weren't gonna do him like in the game. He no longer sought Dracula's return. but St Germain did. I was *certain* they were going to sub him for Isaac. He has the facial structure for it. I was sure, practically right up until the end, that they were going to do that, since the whole alchemical hermaphrodite seemed really contrived to actually happen. So surprise surprise when it actually does, and actually works. Well. For the brief moment, anyway.
The twist of Death being the final boss surprised me, I definitely didn't see it coming. I saw them acknowledge his existence early on, but the twist of him actually being both Varney and the Infinite Corridor lady, caught me off guard. Pleasantly surprised me though, that the shithead Varney turned out to *actually* be the big shot he kept claiming to be. Although, it was a bit off putting to see big bad death still talking with that generic cockney kind of foul mouthed accent. Considering how he spoke as the woman, they could've toned that down a bit in his death form.
Greta of Danesti was a surprise, but felt a bit underused at the very end. But, it's still better than Grant has had in a long time, and the character was fine, so whatever. It works.
I'm a *bit* disappointed we didn't get a nice sequence of the 4 of them all being badass together.
The twist at the end of Dracula and Lisa both being back to life definitely surprised me, but creatively, was clearly a loose end to continue the series again down the road. I am more than willing to bet that if they were to take up Simon, you can easily see a scenario not unlike how the story started:
Lisa over the decades dies due to human lifespan. Dracula continues to hide around, accepting that she died happy, etc etc whatever- and then someone does something to wrong him, and the whole thing starts all over again. And they can macguffin some magicky bullshit too if they like.
As for the infinite corridor itself, Can someone say, "chaos"? because I definitely got those vibes from it, as far as being a weird extra-dimensional energy/spacetime thing.
As for Hector and Isaac themselves, I was interested in how Isaac turned around. Hector was kind of... "There", and it doesnt feel like he really grew much as a character with goals, like Isaac did, by the end. The Vampire sisters broke up and that's that, they didn't have to *die*, but something about it felt a bit disjointed. Again, I feel like things like that suffer from being a continuation of plot threads from last season. you've already forgotten the character motivations and inner workings, etc.
Overall, better than Season 3, way better- In fact, You could say it feels like 3 and 4 should've been one long season, with some of the inbetween cut out.
I do definitely hope they do more. I'm not expecting a whole animated franchise out of this or anything, but overall, I was pleased enough with the whole thing that I would be curious enough to want more at some point. Taking the story up a hundred or two hundred years later.
Hopefully slightly smoother animation when we get there.
final thought which bugged me:
What the fuck was with the whip disappearing every other episode. One episode it was there, then in the next it seems as if it's gone, and Trevor acts as if he had no weapon, only to pull it back out of his ass again later. This is reflected in the animation, mind you- And this is the same animation that made *sure* to include the tracking beacon on the back of whatsername's collar in every scene she was in after it's placed there, so it's not like they are overlooking details. Then near the end, when the trio is fighting those vampires, Trevor pulls out the leather whip that we haven't seen in ages, only to again pull out the chain whip for the final fight. That really genuinely aggravated me, bot more specifically confused me, because I'd find myself thinking "wait, did he lose the whip? When did that happen, wait where did I miss that part?"
Once again I have to give credit to the art which was fantastic this season. Unfortunately the same can't be said of the dialogue and story... is it too much to ask for writing that doesn't sound like an edgy rendition of mahvel movies? Death looked awesome, until he started talking.
So, is this last season worth the watch? I skipped season 3 after I heard all the things in it. You do you but please Castlevania is a story about fighting monsters in a giant castle.
If you skipped season 3, you might as well skip season 4 also. There's not much new you're going to get from things. I've honestly told people who are more interested in the parts of the show that were more in-line with the games to just stop after season 2, and pretend Alucard went into his eternal slumber in his coffin and that Hector wasn't kidnapped and fucked off to somewhere quiet. The end.
I wasn't impressed with season 4 at all, except for maybe the Death vs. Trevor fight. The dialogues were all a slog to get through and were all drawn out, repetitive messes of scripting that could have been condensed into 1 or 2 minutes instead of 10 (I was actually bored a lot just because characters kept droning on).
Characterization seemed off too. Isaac's motivation was a fucking pendulum swinging back and forth between "I want to get revenge" and "I want to settle down and be my own person" several times through the season. (Seriously, did anyone else kind of get whiplash when he decided to go full "conquest" after just having the extensive monologue about settling down and rebuilding?) Then he just leaves Hector alone in the end, which pretty much negated a lot of his motivation in season 3. I know it was supposed to be seen as "growth" but it felt off. Hector didn't get treated much better, in that he seemed perfectly okay with just letting Lenore and the sisters off the hook for torturing and enslaving him. St. Germain going full-baddie came off forced to me and hypocritical at best.
And now we have Dracula and Lisa alive and well again, and that seems like it kind of kneecaped what they can do in the future in terms of spinoffs, if Dracula's main motivation for being an evil bastard is no longer a thing. I'm all for happy endings, but this was out of left field and, again, felt forced and weird.
I'm glad it's done and over with. I'm glad some people enjoyed it and hope it leads to continued interest in the games and the rest of the series enough to get Konami to finally make a new game that isn't a Chinese knockoff exclusive. Other than that, maybe if they do a spin-off with Simon, they'll hopefully have a better writer than Ellis.
I think that the best way to make Drac "evil" again is to have him sacrifice himself to contain something worse, like Satan or The Forgotten One. This could happen around the RoB/SotN era or for maximum spinoffs potential, during the Simon era. Something similar happens in the Lords of Shadow universe obviously and also in the Bayonetta series with Father Balder.
I think the best part of watching this season was the fact I did it with friends for the first time. We had a lot of fun. But that's about it, the show itself continued to try too hard to be edgy and adult and all this farcical nonsense until its final breath. The one time a character starts talking something smart, and it drones on and on for so long you'd think the script is parodying the idea of ACTUALLY being deep.
Not once I was surprised whatsoever, the script is predictable and scared shitless of challenging the show's status quo, plot threads that go absolutelly nowhere or have no payoff at all, and again new OC donut steel types that hog so much attention that other arcs hyped-up previously end up crippled, such as Striga's and Morana's. God forbid you say they were trapped in a nothing-plot in some places over the internet - you can't speak ill of vampire mommy Striga and her Dark Souls Berserk armor killing a bunch of farmers and their terrifying pitchforks. It's like the script takes every opportunity to subtly make fun of you. Stealing a friend's observation to make my point: Dracula, a vampire, ends the season sleeping under a huge window where sunlight will shine straight through by morning. It's like the script is calling you stupid to your face.
A spirit that pretends to be Death cussing like a teen was the cherry on top of it all. It's the solidification of everything this show is - a barebones adaptation using swearing as synonym for maturity, thinking itself to be the real deal just because everyone agrees on the name it uses.
Greta is cool, despite being more of the "everyone is sarcastic all the time" trope. The art took levels up that are very noticeable, the artists and art direction continue to deserve honest praise from me.
I have an ocean's worth to say, but I'm beyond patience for it. So I'll stop here. But someday I'll share my compilation of "the writing does everything backwards on purpose and I can prove it" details.
PS: Enjoy your genocidal maniac getting a good ending after spending a month in hell and making zero effort for it, with zero explanation behind that at all!
I think the best part of watching this season was the fact I did it with friends for the first time. We had a lot of fun. But that's about it, the show itself continued to try too hard to be edgy and adult and all this farcical nonsense until its final breath. The one time a character starts talking something smart, and it drones on and on for so long you'd think the script is parodying the idea of ACTUALLY being deep.
Not once I was surprised whatsoever, the script is predictable and scared shitless of challenging the show's status quo, plot threads that go absolutelly nowhere or have no payoff at all, and again new OC donut steel types that hog so much attention that other arcs hyped-up previously end up crippled, such as Striga's and Morana's. God forbid you say they were trapped in a nothing-plot in some places over the internet - you can't speak ill of vampire mommy Striga and her Dark Souls Berserk armor killing a bunch of farmers and their terrifying pitchforks. It's like the script takes every opportunity to subtly make fun of you. Stealing a friend's observation to make my point: Dracula, a vampire, ends the season sleeping under a huge window where sunlight will shine straight through by morning. It's like the script is calling you stupid to your face.
A spirit that pretends to be Death cussing like a teen was the cherry on top of it all. It's the solidification of everything this show is - a barebones adaptation using swearing as synonym for maturity, thinking itself to be the real deal just because everyone agrees on the name it uses.
Greta is cool, despite being more of the "everyone is sarcastic all the time" trope. The art took levels up that are very noticeable, the artists and art direction continue to deserve honest praise from me.
I have an ocean's worth to say, but I'm beyond patience for it. So I'll stop here. But someday I'll share my compilation of "the writing does everything backwards on purpose and I can prove it" details.
PS: Enjoy your genocidal maniac getting a good ending after spending a month in hell and making zero effort for it, with zero explanation behind that at all!
You hit a lot of points I didn't even bother going into. The entire show has been "cursing and sex as a indicator it's 'mature'" since the beginning with the goat fucking. That's how Ellis works and damned if he was going to change things for this show. I actually had someone recently leave a comment on one of my vids asking me why I hated all the sex and cursing, and didn't take "because it's all just fluff in place of substance" as a good enough answer.
Also, all the plot holes:
- Was Varney really just Death this entire time? Because Saint Germain said he'd heard of Varney prior to their meeting and he seemed to have a reputation.
- When the vampire witches are stitching together the rebis body, we see body parts they're using, including a severed ar with the same red/black twist ring that the Styria queens have to control Hector. It even got a candid shot. Is this supposed to mean something?
- How did Dracula and Lisa come back without bodies? Or come back at all?
- How did Trevor just....survive for 2 weeks after being spit out from the Infinite Corridor and also get a horse, and also get back to the castle?
- Death has had access to the Infinite Corridor this whole time? But needed a human to open it in order to get Dracula back to Earth? HUH?!
You hit a lot of points I didn't even bother going into. The entire show has been "cursing and sex as a indicator it's 'mature'" since the beginning with the goat fucking. That's how Ellis works and damned if he was going to change things for this show. I actually had someone recently leave a comment on one of my vids asking me why I hated all the sex and cursing, and didn't take "because it's all just fluff in place of substance" as a good enough answer.
Also, all the plot holes:
- Was Varney really just Death this entire time? Because Saint Germain said he'd heard of Varney prior to their meeting and he seemed to have a reputation.
- When the vampire witches are stitching together the rebis body, we see body parts they're using, including a severed ar with the same red/black twist ring that the Styria queens have to control Hector. It even got a candid shot. Is this supposed to mean something?
- How did Dracula and Lisa come back without bodies? Or come back at all?
- How did Trevor just....survive for 2 weeks after being spit out from the Infinite Corridor and also get a horse, and also get back to the castle?
- Death has had access to the Infinite Corridor this whole time? But needed a human to open it in order to get Dracula back to Earth? HUH?!
-Im pretty sure it's implied that yes, Death was Varney the whole time. In other words, him being death took all of his boasting throughout the season and actually backed it up. He's just an insanely old vampire, bordering on spirit of nature, that has existed so long he doesnt even feed on blood anymore, he feeds on the very essence of death itself. But nobody was aware that Varney was actually the Death spirit some cultures worshipped.
-I noticed that. I figure it was probably a detail that made sense to the studio when storyboarding, since they did all the in house of what things do in this universe, but they forgot you need to payoff if you show something. Mightve been to control the rebis, mightve been something else. Im not sure that we are ever told just how much the Vampires St Germain is working with are aware of Varney/Death's actual plan.
-¯\_(ツ)_/¯ they did it solely for sequel hook reasons, and if they ever do more, then i'm sure they might handwave some explanation.
-dumb luck that he didnt die from his injuries. Also bad writing. 2 weeks with implied no medical treatment? He shouldve died. Wouldve made more sense if he returned partially healed already, having been taken care of somewhere.
-he had access to the infinite corridor, but not access to hell. that was part of his small rant to St Germain. That only Humans can reach into the afterlife.
you can't speak ill of vampire mommy Striga and her Dark Souls Berserk armor killing a bunch of farmers and their terrifying pitchforks.
hah! that's right, I forgot about that. That came out of nowhere and while amusing in a "hey I understood that reference" kind of way, didn't amount to anything that couldn't have been done at night just the same.
- How did Dracula and Lisa come back without bodies? Or come back at all?
- How did Trevor just....survive for 2 weeks after being spit out from the Infinite Corridor and also get a horse, and also get back to the castle?
My thoughts:
-The body vessel constructed by the witches wasn't complete destroyed but splitted into two by Trevor making them separated and formed.
-We can say how St. Germain's beloved is still alive while still stucked in infinite corridor for years. Maybe while someone is inside of Infinite Corridor your body including age, condition, etc. will remain the same until you get out.
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The only plothole I found was:
Why is there a human residers in Carmilla's castle during Isaac's invasion? Did they let them in thinking it was safe?
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I enjoyed the season greatly. A bit disappointed at all the deviations from what you’d expect from playing the game, but I guess at least it wasn’t predictable that way. A good ride for the most part. Some of the changes in expected outcomes were nice at least. I hope whoever is writing the next series has the right stuff to keep the new fans this series has drawn in and keep the gamer fans happy.
I kept thinking the Dracula/Lisa hybrid thing might lead to an origin story of Dracula’s Bat Soul + Succubus Soul + Fire Demon Soul fusion nature found in Aria of Sorrow. Maybe it was inspired by that at least.
Loved it when Gergoth showed up. Seeing three heros team up against it gave me great Harmony of Despair flashbacks.
I was so hoping the new village would be named Wygol. Well, maybe now that they know Trevor’s not dead they’ll opt not to call it Belmont.
As for Grant, I’m thinking they just took elements of Grant and sprinkled him all over the series to different characters. So that desert bandit boss who got turned into a creature by Isaac was one aspect of Grant, the pirate of the roads was another aspect, and Greta of Danasty yet another aspect. Isaac’s newfound determination to rebuild in a post-Dracula world also struck me as Grant inspired. Maybe a few more that I haven’t picked up on too. Too bad Trevor doesn’t get a best friend out of any of those “Grants” and we don’t see a throwing knife expert.
You know, one thing I tend to really wonder about is what they'll do with the castle going down the road. that is *the* dracula's castle. yet now it's just there, and in Alucard's control. if they decide to bring back Dracula as an antagonist, (which they probably will sooner or later) what will they do? have him make a new castle? reclaim the one now owned by Alucard?
I figure something really doable would be have him reclaim his castle through dark magic fuckery, and then at the end of the adventure, have the heroes find a way to destroy it, which then can be made as a "the castle rises with dracula" kind of deal.
Sometimes I genuinely wonder if the shafting of Grant consistently, isn't some sort of edict from konami on character usage. Like, for whatever reason you're not allowed to use Grant because they constantly want to refocus on Trevor, (main character Belmont) Alucard, (fangirl bait, "cool factor" bait) and Sypha. (sex appeal, cute appeal) and in that kind of strategy, Grant is the odd man out, so they just cut him and give him token mentions at best, and dont let him be fully used.
Ellis has consistently demonstrated a dislike for Grant, and there is a recent interview with Kolde (https://www.monstersandcritics.com/anime/castlevania-season-4-interview-with-producer-kevin-kolde/) saying that they decided to not using Grant at all. If Konami has an edict, Powerhouse/Ellis did a pretty good job at not only hiding it, but also indicating it was their decision all along.
Here's another example of interview: https://screenrant.com/castlevania-season-4-interview-kevin-kolde/ (https://screenrant.com/castlevania-season-4-interview-kevin-kolde/)
I feel I should also point out how curious is that they keep denying any Grant reading from the fans' part. Whenever a character appears that may be or not Grant, they feel the need to do an interview later clarifying it is not. So they don't do actual Grant, and also won't let you have him either. First was the bandit Isaac turns into a monster, then it was nameless Captain on season 3, now it's Greta of Danesti. The single recognized Grant reference was a "pirate of the roads" strawman Ellis made up to make fun of Grant fans, something he admited on his own.
Still, it was inevitable they'd toy with a more popular characters beyond the "niche" one eventually. It was interesting to see how some opinions changed when questionable writing reached them.
Also, just a bit more about this whole Danesti converstation:
Kolde reiterates Ellis' justification, that there is a town called Danesti and Grant may have been named after it. They keep coming with convoluted rationalizations to imply Grant's existence is meaningless, and that makes me think they have something against the character. It's impossible at this point that they don't know that House Danesti was a political enemy of House Draculesti, which Vlad belonged to, giving the name a much more important historical role than a "town name". So I'm forced to conclude they just think the character is crap and want to downplay him.
They could be more forthcoming about it, saying they just don't want Grant here would be OK. But no, they do this:
"It was not our intention to do a Grant reference. We're just referencing a location in a country."
...When they could have referenced any other town that is not literally the name of the most requested character to show up. Doesn't this feel like some kind of prodding? I'm aware my being soured on this show may be coloring my perception, but they give me no reason to change it.
Why do they do this is?