Gothic Action Anime Review: Castlevania – The Netflix Series

Hey, there naughty!

If you are late to the party – Castlevania is one of those beloved titles that people are protective of. Naturally, there were a lot of worries involved when Netflix was name-dropped into the mix. Would there be a new addition to the disgusting pile of videogame movies or some soap opera circle-jerk live-action such as Arrow or BatShitWoman?

Fortunately – this incarnation of Castlevania is brimming with style, extensive eye candy, and much love for the source material. Making it a happy surprise for many viewers including fans of the games.

The big name in the series – Dracula – is a solid character. Not just a vessel for the might and influence he commands or mired in common lore vampire tropes. He is a man of largess, and carries himself with gravitas, far above the typical allure Dracula characters go for. He’s far more impressive than the vampire stereotypes we’ve seen across many other works.

He is so well done that audiences around the world have largely forgiven the plot for having him in a mostly passive role.

Operates like a true ruler and most things needing to be done are delegated to his royal court and all other subordinates, so he is not a big-name guy running around doing petty fetch quests, just to get more screen time, to appease the audience like a lion in a zoo cage.

A fine example of the overall greatness and points above is that not a single second in the show is spent dramatizing bloodthirst. How annoying it is to vampires, and how big a chore restraint is when interacting with humans they aren’t supposed to eat.

Instead – the most impulsive and loudmouth vampire walks into a room where a human is seriously bleeding and carries on like vampires in that world are of adult enough willpower to not trifle with this.

I quite enjoyed that Castlevania suffers no hypocrites. There is no time and story lost to this bullshit. Characters with their virtues and vices interact in various ways and still connect to each other in sincere moments.

Most characters in the world can be related to and understood, whatever they might be doing. This is a huge milestone for pop culture shows which are usually padded ad nauseam with artificial drama nonsense.

This level of maturity is vitally important in its theme for a show boasting action scenes of raw carnage. The vulgarity of the show is surprisingly well appreciated by both people who like it, and also those who would rather see no vulgarity at all. A great achievement in and of itself.

The main theme of the story is a huge problem that engulfs all. Everyone has experienced loss or is about to lose something as things spiral out of control.

The writers do a great job of defining the stakes. The audience is explicitly told that while the stakes are big, the world is not going to end even if every character in the story gets chopped up to pieces and their ashes sprinkled in the wind. Generally, it only has minor flaws. A world map would have been nice at some point. The maps at the beginning of every episode of Game of Thrones are there for a reason. It helps people grasp the world more clearly.

A possible complaint is that the show doesn’t have much depth and is simplistic. This loss is traded off very well as all the episodes are quite fluid in motion and story development. Castlevania is an action game franchise that really doesn’t have much dialogue and character development, not enough to make a full TV show anyway.

The culture of the Castlevania show maintains a sense of Japanese politeness but trims it down so we don’t spend valuable time as everybody dispenses lengthy pleasantries every single turn. While I appreciate the formalities of shows such as Overlord. I much prefer the story moving instead of maximally serving etiquette.

I can imagine audiences wanting richer subplots and more complex character threads, but then I also picture people waiting for years so the main story points can move forward and argue how certain characters haven’t gotten any screen time in ages.

The main plot in this Castlevania moves at a pace that keeps you engaged from moment to moment and that’s hard in this day and age, given the amount of crappy writing we’ve seen in recent times.

As a whole, the show is very coherent, showing love for both the source material and taking great care as it ventures out into new territory. It is not a move into fan service, but a competent piece of storytelling that removes all barriers to entry for new viewers while treating Castlevania lore and fans with respect.

The show completely strengthens its position by presenting solid ladies. There are no vapid chicks with jiggling tits, prancing around as placeholders for real characters.

A refuge from the “Girl Boss but Victim” clown fiesta surrounding us everywhere else.

The women in Castlevania are competent adventurers. They get their piece of the action without demanding the viewer to sit through a patronizing slew of force-fed feminist Twitter rants as we’ve seen in other shows.

While there is a character who could be argued is running lines of dialogue that you could find in Twitter feminist manifesto. Characters overall are so well established and the show always bothers to take at least a moment to look into their background making these few scenes actually valuable parts of the story and the world at hand.

Also read our review of Castlevania: Nocturne.

For me, it’s heartwarming that the creators looked into the roots of The Castlevania, did their best to understand what is great about the lore, and used those ingredients to create a great work of art that can stand on its own merits, and is not a parasite draining another beloved franchise.

All things considered, it is – majestic, easy-going, brutal, charming, beautiful, funny, touching and delightful.

Balanced above all and still spiced with a conversation about dirty dirty subjects – hah.

-Trevor is there kicking ass with a whip – don’t worry.

I could shower the Castlevania anime with much more praise, but I don’t want to deprive anyone of a single small surprise in watching it. In this show, you can admire a character for simply having a knife, and putting it back in their belt at the right moment.