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Cinema Castlevania (2017) - Great, But Suffers From Some Dumb Anime Tropes

Arnox

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4.00 star(s)
I've been eying this series for a while, but I never got around to watching it until now. So... Do I finally have a new favorite anime!?

Eh... It's complicated.

The first two seasons I'd say are pretty damn solid. This is hardly a controversial opinion. Look online and you'll see 95% of people say the same. Whatever people think of the last two seasons, the first two are generally quite liked. Some of the villains can get into cardboard cut-out territory, but whatever. Actually, I think before I proceed any further with the review, I think it's important to keep in mind the themes and the general style of the story and background of Castlevania games.

As with many old game franchises, Castlevania started out pretty damn simply. Evil vampire is up to dastardly vampire things and you're there to bust down his door and kill him and everything standing in your way. Boom. Done. That was pretty much all of Castlevania for a while. As the games progressed, the story and the lore expanded out more and more, but as rich and colorful as the lore and the characters and the world of Castlevania got, I don't know if I'd ever call any of the games masterpieces in story-telling. Not to say that all of the stories are bad, not at all. But I'd liken Castlevania stories, with perhaps one or two exceptions, to a good popcorn flick. There's the excuse for why you're there, the raw action and build-up which takes up most of the game by far, maybe a nice twist at the end, and then a final boss to put into the ground.

And there's absolutely nothing wrong with that. But I bring all of that up because it's important to keep our expectations at least a bit in check here. Good writers will try to stick to the general themes of a game or book when adapting it to the screen, even if they aren't slavishly adhering to every detail in them. Alright then, so with all that said, let's come back to the review.

I think this show is at its best when it takes the time to flesh out and explore its characters and themes. For example, in the very first part of the show, we are, without any dicking around, thrust straight into exactly WHY Dracula has such a beef with humans, and the show proceeds from there to explore this motivation further and show us how it plays a part in Dracula changing as a character. This was an incredibly effective portrayal and it got people to immediately sympathize with the villain even if not agreeing with him.

Ok, so the first two seasons are great. But now let's fast forward and go to Season 3. After I had watch it, I think I saw what the writers were going for and the impact they had wanted to make at the end, but regardless, a lot of Season 3 feels like after the second season, the writers were all sitting there in the writing room, staring blankly at each other and saying, "... Now what?" They managed to pull it together nicely in the end I think, but regardless, there was definitely a whole lot of meandering there.

Season 4 was less good than Season 3 as well, but I'd say it was still watchable. We see some interesting things and have some interesting moments for sure, but there are definitely some bigger mistakes I wish they hadn't made in Season 4 that aren't in the other seasons, or at least, aren't as bad. Some characters got too much expansion, and others, not enough. Or some just make these weird-ass decisions that don't line up.

Which brings to mind a problem that started as a nitpick in the first two seasons but, it seemed, slowly got worse. And that is the problem of the unnecessary fucking swearing. It really rips me out of the show to hear certain people in the show talking, as I so entertainingly read from someone else, like a sweaty tryhard Discord moderator. This is Castlevania. Let's have more class here. Now, again, starting out, they don't do it very much at all, so it's easy to overlook, but the problem gets worse as time goes on until it gets into ridiculous territory at the end.

I also have a problem with the very ending of the show.

Having Trevor survive that nuke blast felt silly and it takes away the weight that his death would have had in the story. I totally understand that the writers didn't want everything grimdark for every single episode in the show, but consequences are important and they could have had a hopeful and bright ending while still allowing for the fact that Trevor died.

And then there's the thing with Lenore.

The four sister rulers of Styria do not, uh... Look like kind rulers, and Carmilla especially looks like she was and is a bitch to pretty much any human and even many other vampires. I feel like Lenore probably allowed this awful treatment to happen, even if she may not have entertained Carmilla's more depraved wishes. Nevertheless, Lenore is made to seem like she's the good cop in this good-cop-bad-cop dynamic. Someone who actually cares for those under her. I mean... Maybe? I feel like the writers wanted to explore this much more and her beliefs in vampire and human culture and relations, but for whatever reason, it just wasn't executed properly or given enough time, so Lenore kinda doesn't work nearly as well as a character as she could have. Also, her death doesn't make a lot of sense either.

And THEN there's the sex...

Actually, I'm gonna have a controversial take here and say that I think the sex scene with Lenore and Hector actually generally fits. I could perhaps buy all that. But the sex scene with Alucard just did not. The betrayal also just comes out of left field. We never get any signs in the show that the two are getting distrustful of Alucard, so when they finally execute a plan to kill him, it just kinda falls flat and we're left staring blankly at the screen when it happens.

Putting all that aside, we come to the last part. The combat scenes. The combat can range anywhere from some of the coolest I've ever seen in animation to some of the dumbest I've seen, but admittedly, the quality of them is generally good overall. Usually the climactic fight scenes seem to have more work and effort put into them than the fights in the beginning and middle of the seasons.

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Wrapping it all up though, I liked this show and I'm glad I watched it. Also, Sypha is just such a damn cutie. But it also seems like some stupid anime tropes found their way into the show and got in the way of this show achieving its full potential. Ah well... Remember again that the Castlevania games didn't have the most stellar writing either sometimes. Also be thankful that you didn't watch Castlevania: Nocturne. You did make sure to avoid it, didn't you... ? May the heavens above help you if you didn't.

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I did watch Nocturne, it was just ok imo. Took a bit too many liberties with the lore of the 3 games its basing itself on, although I am curious about how it will continue with Alucard returning right at the end of the final episode.
 
I did watch Nocturne, it was just ok imo. Took a bit too many liberties with the lore of the 3 games its basing itself on, although I am curious about how it will continue with Alucard returning right at the end of the final episode.

The non-stop singing and crying was what pushed me way over the edge with it, although it has a bunch of other issues too. OG Castlevania had its problems as I just talked about here. That was for sure. But it's still wayyyy more watchable than Nocturne. And the first two seasons of Castlevania especially make Nocturne look like a complete joke.
 
The non-stop singing and crying was what pushed me way over the edge with it, although it has a bunch of other issues too. OG Castlevania had its problems as I just talked about here. That was for sure. But it's still wayyyy more watchable than Nocturne. And the first two seasons of Castlevania especially make Nocturne look like a complete joke.
I do agree that the dude that got turned into a demon constantly singing italian operas got old fast lol.
 
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