Castlevania (animated series)

[Maximinus Thrax]

I watched these series without having prior knowledge of the franchise other than it was about some people fighting Dracula. The word to define Netflix's first two seasons of Castlevania is epic. Some of the best animated series I've ever seen. There are voices saying that it is the best adaptation of a video game ever. According to Wikipedia there is a third season in the making.

[Knight of Heaven]

Yeah it is pretty good. Animation is great, with lots of blood and gore. And the quality of the voice acting surprised me too.

The franchise is based on Video games though. Some quite old classic 90s Genesis, and Nintendo video games.




And Yeah there is more seasons coming from what i hear.

[Morifea]

Looks good, I hope I'll get my girlfriend to watch this, since she despise animes

[HannibalExMachina]

Looks good, I hope I'll get my girlfriend to watch this, since she despise animes

well, i dont like anime either, almost didnt watch. was bored though, and this is actually pretty good

[Ishan]

Alright I'll have it a go as well then Max.

[HannibalExMachina]

i am confused, are you Morifeas girlfriend

[Morifea]

Anime.... connecting People around the World

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Watched season 1 last year I think. Saw season 2 a couple of weeks ago. This series is basically an adaptation of Castlevania III, Symphony of the Night (Alucard is in both and Trevor is in III) and Curse of Darkness (which has Trevor, Hector and Isaac).
Season 1 was definitely the better season due to it not having so many unnecessary episodes. It was quite good and I don't have any complaints (other than only being 4 episodes).

Season 2 was kind of boring not gonna lie. They don't do anything for half, maybe more, of season 2. This could have been much shorter, could have done it in 4-6 episodes. The original cast doesn't get too much development either, instead we focus on two useless Human characters and some level 50 lesbomancer Vampire called Carmila.

So the new characters.
Hector - one of the villains from Curse of Darkness, odd that he is in this series considering that his game did not even have Alucard in it. Hector's character is also completely different, in this Hector is a total wimp. His design is basically the exact same but his character motivations are so completely different. His backstory really sucks too... so I don't like Hector at all.

Isaac - not really anything like the Isaac from the games, in Curse of Darkness Isaac is Hector's sworn enemy. Isaac wasn't that loyal to Dracula either or really a noble person at all. Hector in the game was some kind of creepy sado-masochist who enjoyed pain not someone who was repentant for... what is Isaac repenting for??? His design looks nothing like game Isaac, like at all. On the whole I don't like Isaac either but he is still better than Hector.

Carmila - basically the anti-thesis to Alucard and Dracula, a Machiavellian fem-fatal vampire. Not that similar to game Carmila. The design is certainly more similar to the original Carmila rather than in some of the newer games. Carmila isn't even a well developed character or all that interesting though she has potential and in concept maybe better than Hector and Isaac. In the lore Carmila was basically a lesbo-vampire with a Human lover (slave???) who was also her body guard (actually in a few of the games she doesn't even wear clothes).

season 2 cons
-show takes too long, too many episodes for them to handle, probably not enough budget or poor budget distribution
-nothing happens and is boring
-the schemes are really weak
-old characters get screwed
-new characters suck
-most of the script is really boring or really clunky
-the story kinda sucks
-vampires got seriously nerfed by the game devs... no seriously these vampires are useless
-zombie priests blessing water proves that Jesus is real??? but is never addressed (arguably this is true even in the games since in one game Dracula kills Satan)
-making Dracula a completely sympathetic antagonist makes the heroes opposing him redundant and/or Dracula's evilness unnecessary
-not much world development, nothing is really explained
-pretty much all the vampires are useless
-soundtrack sucks, they only have one good track
-Alucard can run this mission pretty much solo, not sure why he needed help
-Dracula's meteor ult got nerfed
-too edgy, they have to use big kid words like intercourse and excrement
-deviated significantly from the games in a lot of areas... for no reason
-season 3 doesn't seem all that interesting
-too much borrowing from Vampire Hunter D, two anime movies which are better than this

pros
-end battle
-Godbrand is kinda funny I guess
-Dracula is still cool
-Alucard is badass
-had an awesome remix of Bloody Tears near the end, which is kinda the Castlevania theme song
-I guess writers know their game lore

*addendum, this actually isn't Japanese anime, it was produced by Americans using American and Indian studios. The actual art style is in imitation of anime but the animation, expression, script and pacing are noticeably different. Compared to a high quality anime this would be considered average, maybe less than average.

Also if this suits your fancy you would probably enjoy the two Vampire Hunter D movies.
Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust, pretty badass. This movie also has a Carmila ... the end fight between D and Myer is top notch. Not only is D basically the inspiration for Alucard, he outclasses all of his opponents but the scenarios make it interesting enough so as not to have an absolute squash match... so Alucard done better. Plus the themes are a lot better than in Castlevania, similar things such as extinction, duality, paradox, primal instincts etc.

soundtrack is great:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99_ZYBFJIhk

"regina! regina, de la morte" crescendo "salve, regina, salve, regina"

trailers for Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust (couldn't find the 1985 trailer)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LlL4AkStIcY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44xT9LSrgJ4

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

I finished season 3... The actual did I just watch? This show went from having a bad season 2 to having an absolutely dog season 3. The worst part is that at least season 2 had Dracula in it, wtf does season 3 have?

Hey you know how the protags had little to do in season 2? They solved this by giving them menial chores in season 3.

They should just call this the Hector and Isaac show. I mean , Carmila who was set up as the villain does absolutely nothing in this.

Why do they keep using the F word in practically every sentence? Honestly them.

Why does the animation look like ass? In the end fight against the Angel thing the animation was so bad that you can barely see what is happening. Normally though this season looks like flash animation and that is also bad.

Who was that old fart with magic powers that Isaac fights at the end? Are they ever going to explain that?

Who was that bald guy that kills children?

So the priests worship Dracula or???

Why is this trying so hard to be Game of Thrones? This is really just a show about people who kill vampires.

Pretty sure that in none of the games Alucard ever became evil. In fact as far as I recall, Alucard never even came close, not even when an apparition of his dead mother told him to take revenge by killing all the humans.

Speaking of GOTs, why was there so much nudity and sex in this season? It really doesn't fit the tone imo. The Alucard scene made me want to vomit. Gay as hell to be honest.

What the actual was the story? Was this supposed to lead to something?

Who is St. Germaine supposed to be? Pretty sure he wasn't in any games, could be wrong though. Well obviously he is the fabled alchemist St. Germaine but what even was his story, he just walked around the entire season looking for a magical portal and basically no other explanations.

Why do all the characters suck ass? All of them are poorly written, barely have arcs, none of the important characters have any meaningful screen time.

Hey you know how season 2 had so many characters that they could barely focus on the three protags? They solved this by adding even more characters that don't do anything.

Why are angels so easy to kill?

When did Saipha Belnades become so annoying?

Why was Trevor so irrelevant?

Man this . This ain't no real anime. I'm gonna go watch Vampire Hunter D for like the fourth time. This is what happens when your writers have to justify a full season and you outsource your animation to a Indian studio. Couldn't even shill out the money for Korean slaves.

This season is so mind numbing and boring and absolutely nonsensical that it isn't worth the watch. Why was there even 10 episodes for this season if they weren't going to do anything. Again same as in season 2, they could have accomplished this with 4 to 6 episodes, and there would be no major differences in terms of significance to the plot.

[Kyriakos]

So it was all a miserable pile of secrets (without the secrets)

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

So it was all a miserable pile of secrets (without the secrets)

I think the issue was more that the series was resolved by season 2. Which makes season 3 redundant.
All of season 3 feels like filler. Carmila who was set up as the main villain doesn't even do anything. Everyone spends this season doing menial tasks.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Never understood that in movies like The Exorcist or The Conjuring. If actual demons exist then where are angels, God, Jesus and so on?

The Castlevania universe was never strongly pro-Christian to begin with. Not least of all because it was created by Japanese people who don't really understand or like Christianity or its world view. In their eyes Deus is an arbitrary and tyrannical deity, not much better than Satan. This tends to be reflected in their material. For example in one of the Castlevania games Satan was defeated by Dracula, who apparently is bad but not as bad as Satan, and replaced Satan as ruler of the underworld, therefore technically making him a hero.

Anyway I've already spoken about the Castlevania series and why I didn't like it. Which has nothing to do with their presentation of Christianity and more so to do with how sloppy and disappointing it is after season 1. The whole show is just talking while trying to give itself an anime appeal but really isn't consistent with anime. But the real take away here is that anime is a dying art form. Other than that Japanese cartoons still exist, but with different art style and vastly inferior animation quality than what we had 15 to 30 years ago.

Castlevania is not anime but uses a Japanese property. The animation quality especially in the latest seasons looks like it was animated on their cheapest Adobe software. The fights are few and far between. But they like to spend more time on pointless dialogue and B-tier political schemes and fedora tipping. I can hardly believe that this is the same as the Castlevania games. The problem is very likely that it was written by incompetent hipsters and outsourced to a poor Texas animation studio. This is so not anime that it isn't even animated in Japan, Korea, or China.

Anime was so successful that it is being copied globally. Castlevania etc are all cheap anime knock offs. But anime itself in Japan is already deviating significantly. It thrived in a period of low wages and limited animation technology. Without that anime has basically outgrown itself as a medium and started to rely on universal appeal and computer software. But the anime we get now generally looks like crap. Even past shows with limited budgets still had the appeal of cell shading but now they are just using CG openly. When even Studio Ghibli is making films using CGI that is a strong sign that the medium has declined beyond what we would have expected.

[Lord Oda Nobunaga]

Made a slight error. Castlevania was animated by a Texas studio called Powerhouse Animation which outsourced to a South Korean studio. But holy crap they must have been animating it during breaks. Though my point is not that it was not animated by Koreans but rather that it did not conform to existing anime standards which these Korean animators are required to have.

Castlevania Season 1 doesn't look too bad. It is passable especially for a first season. They were notably struggling with Season 2. Honestly the series just ends with Season 2, don't know why they kept it going. Season 3 which sucked also has animation that looks like Corel Draw. With Season 4 they switched from Mua to Tiger Animation.

For the record Tiger Animation is their current animator from South Korea. Western animation frequently has relied on South Korean animation. Just as Japan has come to rely on South Korean animation in the past decade. Tiger Animation goes back to the 1990's with shows like Spawn.

They are also one of the many studios that is contracted to work on the DC animated films. As someone who has watched all the DC animated films I can really see the drop in quality both as animation and story writing. One of their most recent films "Justice League Dark: Apokolips War" was incidentally one of the worst in my opinion, only topped in poor animation and writing by "Wonder Woman: Bloodlines".

Now I can't really say much on the topic of Tiger Animation as a whole but with DC properties at least they didn't go with a faux anime art style. That is really the biggest issue for me. The fact that people confuse this with anime, which studios do intentionally. But is obviously not anime. Even though anime and Western animation tends to have a lot of Japanese work done on it, even anime, as poor of a state it is now has better standards than these western shows. Castlevania doesn't, and again I stress how unbelievably bad Season 3 looks.

But it is this attempt to copy anime styles across the globe (South Korea, China, USA, etc) and the obvious declining quality of Japanese anime, which has made anime redundant and is killing anime.