Medieval Action Anime Review: Castlevania Nocturne

Written by Otaku Apologist, fucked with by Sexy

My first impressions of Castlevania: Nocturne were filled with dread. But midway into the season, the mishmash of polarizing political dimensions took a backseat, and the drama began flowing. Richter Belmont got over his pussy moment and actually became a hero to root for. At the time of writing, the first season is fully accessible, and it’s just about a worthy successor to the first Netflix adaptation.

Released in Autumn 2023, this anime has cool ideas. It’s worth a watch.

Castlevania is based on Konami’s gothic horror platformer franchise.

The story is simple enough, but each character comes with a backstory. We have so much female empowerment this time, that we have literally three bitches as part of the main group. And of course, they are all well-developed, strong, and oh, so complicated. Contrasted with the one-note male protagonist, who seems to have had literally one interesting event happen in his entire fucking life, I argue, the girls are more developed. The African mage gets so much screentime, you’d think she’s the one destined to save humanity. It’s disturbing how the power dynamic shift in company writing staffs is affecting all these little details in the media they create. These revisionist bitches don’t respect the source material.

Let’s talk briefly about the main villain, the Vampire Messiah.

Yeah, it’s a woman. She’s seemingly a lesbian, because of course. Also a goddess, because of course. She is strong and cunning and cruel and oh, so complicated. Dresses sexually provocatively, her cleavage wide open, but nobody dares make a pass on her for that, because of course.

But, fed up as I am with the predictable force-feeding of feminazi propaganda in my entertainment, the drama and action are good shit. The French Revolution is an interesting backdrop for the events that follow. Everything makes enough sense that you can enjoy the fireworks. The magic and mayhem make for violent fun. It’s totally alternate history, with vampires being corrupt French aristocrats and African slave owners. There are even vampire characters from Russia and ancient Egypt. Very globalist indeed.

I’ll say it again, the action is good. The whip tricks and magical spells are visually spectacular.

It’s the production values that make everything shiny. The backgrounds are rich in detail, the character art bursts with intricacies. You always get a sense of space in shots due to camera angles that catch everything from a bird’s eye view. The gloomy church, the ballrooms, the forests, the city.

Entertainment should be taking you to places around the world. This one does. There’s never a dull moment, because the scenery keeps changing scene by scene. We are often taken to the other side of the planet, even back in time sometimes in vivid flashbacks rich in storytelling. Whether you like those stories is another matter entirely, but the scenery switches are refreshing.

Perhaps the biggest gripe I have about this anime is just how little you see of the male main character. Richter Belmont does not stand out. He’s just there, part of a group. And because his backstory is so lacking in complexity, he comes off as a one-note character with simplistic motivations.

Briefly on the voice acting. English voice acting in anime has come a long way since the early days. I enjoyed all the voice artists’ work. How swear words are tastefully mixed in at just the right moments, I took note of that. There is a clear aesthetical philosophy showing in even little details like that. There’s a great quip at the start with Richter and one of the waifus having friendly banter. That moment shows everything you need to know on whether you wanna dedicate time to watching this in full.

Oddly enough, I’ve forgotten every song in the soundtrack since I binged this a few nights ago. Despite epic orchestral performances and even singing, this soundtrack flew in from one ear and exited another. Above is a video showing what’s up with it. It’s good music certainly, but not memorable to me.

CONCLUDING WORDS

If you can get past the blatant woke clickbait that seems almost strategically embedded to incite people into talking about this release, there’s a strong cast of varied characters and enough drama and bloody action to keep you engaged from start to finish. First season is up now on Netflix.