SummarySet in 1972 France, the anti-revolutionary aristocracy has aligned itself with a vampire promising to end the revolution. However, Annette, a sorceress from the Caribbean, finds the last descendent of vampire hunters, Richter Belmont to lead the resistance in the latest Castlevania animated series.
SummarySet in 1972 France, the anti-revolutionary aristocracy has aligned itself with a vampire promising to end the revolution. However, Annette, a sorceress from the Caribbean, finds the last descendent of vampire hunters, Richter Belmont to lead the resistance in the latest Castlevania animated series.
Castlevania: Nocturne fires on just about every cylinder it needs to. Action, horror, and period-specific turmoil coalesce in a sequel series of comparable quality to the first season of Castlevania.
Castlevania: Nocturne is an exemplary way to take a popular game series and turn it into one of the most exciting animated adaptations yet. It remains to be seen the heights that animated Richter Belmont will reach, but we’re confident we’ll be left impressed.
The most interesting parts of the show come toward the back half of the season, when characters like Erzebet are introduced or long-lost family members make an appearance — but leading up to that, the team is rather aimless at times.
The upgrade in the animation is to praise and the direction of Sam Deats and the other directors have improved considerably, I can't say the same for the writing, its story and its characters.
The dialogue was really lame, kinda looked like Clive Bradley was trying to copy Warren Ellis style, cracking little jokes that are not at all funny or trying to make his characters look cool and.witty by just causing cringe.
I know that every writter has their own style but it's funny, Warren Ellis in just 4 episodes manage to.devolp his characters and villians while Bradley looks like an amateur. If it gets a 2nd season hope it gets better because there is a lot of good potencial.
Score: 5,8
Castlevania: Nocturne ventures further into the animated universe based on the games of the same name. Picking up centuries after the first show, its setting of France during the French Revolution is a perfect backdrop for a story revolving around vampires and vampire hunters. Sadly, most of what this show tries to do are left falling short of the mark. Richter Belmont proves to be a more relatable character than the protagonist of the first show, and his sidekick, Maria probably has the best story in the short season. The most glaring issue is the use of Richters trauma to prop up the daring women of the show, which leaves the main character feeling weak and dishonourable, something all too common in the modern era of film and television. Annette is a good character at times, but feels truly obnoxious throughout most of the show. Overall it misses the magic that made the first series so special, but still is a solid take on the universe, even with its unfaithfulness to the source material.
Ughhh... how should I put this? I think that wasted potential is the right way to explain it shortly. Here we have the marvelous opportunity to have a wide cast of really great characters from the Castlevania game series put together, and what is done with them? Well, nothing. That is the entire problem with this show, it wastes characters on nothing. The first Castlevania show was great, specially the first two seasons, the third season had a little bit of a drop in quality, but it picked up with the 4th season. And then we have this show, the drop in quality is, well it is hard to miss it. Lets start with technicalities, shall we? The art style and the animation are far less good than the previous show, especially when it comes to the animation, they have been saving on frames as if it is the end of the days and frames are the only thing that can save the Earth... The shading and the lighting are also either non existent or badly placed, usually blurred, which makes everything look bladn at times. As for the story... Like I said, a wasted time. The characters talk, oh and they talk a lot, but the problem is, they say nothing of importance, the dialog is there just because, we as the audience don't really learn much about the plot or the motives of the characters, well, we do for some, at the end, but that is too late at the point where we get it. And there is even worse than that, one of the character "sings", and it is one of the worst singing I have ever heard, someone was paid to do that, dear Lord they could have at least hired someone who can sing, not whatever that was! This show has eight episodes yet anything of significance happens only in the last two, seriously if you remove 80% of the show it will loose nothing, the previous six episodes before the epilogue are simply not important. I will not delve into the lore accuracy, even in the games Konami in their infinite stupidity tend to change things so it is pointless to speak about it. The most funny thing is that Netflix decided to actually show us two Belmonts in this show, and that by itself as an idea is awesome because we never see that in the games, and what they do with that opportunity? Nothing. The biggest betrayal for me comes from the fact that we finally have the best, the greatest Belmont of all times, Richter Belmont, and in this show he is just, well, there, we see him around. Sure he shines in the last two episodes, but until we get to that point is just a boring slow slog of endless and pointless dialogs, characters that absolutely are not important and do not move the story in any specific direction... The cameo at the end and the good cliffhanger are not enough to make this show good, if anything it is just ok, and that is if I am being generous. Hey, it was nice that I heard Bloodlines, Richter's own theme, but even that is not enough to save the show.
Such a waste of potential. The visuals are gorgeous, the action is stunning. But the blatant wokeness of the show ruins everything. Maybe I could've bought it had the story been interesting, but it's not. It's extremely boring, and the forced drama that gets shoved down the viewers' throats is insufferable to the point of being obnoxious.
Somehow the creators expected us to empathize with these characters that basically have zero setup and don't do anything particularly interesting.
Remember how in the original Castlevania series the characters of Trevor, Alucard, Sypha, Carmilla were gradually expanded upon, revealing their complexity and difficult morals behind their every decision, scene after scene, episode after episode, season after season? Yeah, forget about all that. Here, the creators quickly establish some characters and expect you to immediately empathize with them just because some of their relatives died and/or they were enslaved at some point.
The real world parallels are just awful and show these almighty vampire supervillains in an extremely cartoonish, childish manner.
Overall, just everything aside from the visuals is a major downgrade from the previous series. I'm glad that, unlike critics, at least the viewers were able to see this series for what it really is, which is woke garbage.