As iconic as he is, theres really not much dramatic potential to wring from Simon. His story is basically "Go kill Dracula!" in its purest form. Theres' a bit more to Richter - kindapped girlfriend turned vampire, Shaft, posession, new dynamic with Maria, friendship/conflict with Alucard - but if they were to do a timeskip I could see them going all the way to Bloodlines just to mix things up. Or the Soma Cruz games I guess, but then we're full-on anime…
Castlevania Mini-Series
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@Count:
! By the way, which Castlevania games have you played? I don't often get a chance to meet other Castlevania fans. I've mainly played the classic first four side-scroller games and the Lords of Shadow reboot trilogy, the latter of which I still liked a lot despite Lords of Shadow 2 being a very messy game (still loved the music and combat system though).
The side-scroller games would kick my ass at the second half of it. I was that dumb of a kid. And even though I didn't had to chance to beat (Alongside several PS2 games), Lamment of Innocence deserves more respect than it got it.
To this day I wished they made a game about Julius menaging to kill Dracula once and of all in 1999. (It was a bizarre summer.)
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I reject the notion that the main dracula slayers weren't all relevant and cool stories that lead to the sealing of the castle of the 1999 eclipse. We don't need to get Juste, but Richter, Simon and Julius/Soma, plus the slayers of 1800s, are a must, if they don't end it with just Trevor. I have the feeling that they would skip Christopher just as I did.
I wouldn't be mad if they let it end with Trevor, a clean closure and ready to be picked up later, but I feel like that is going to take a while.
Vampire politics don't leave enough room for other monster's societies.
The thing that bothered me the most:
! Tomatoes in 1400's europe. Was it the 1400s right? I doubt a fancy tropical new world fruit would be in the wild or in any poor eastern european farmer so far away from the sea.
! Loved: Legion, Isaac's journey really, endeared himself to me way better this time around. Trevor and Silpha were cool and cute together. Carmila is way better when she's among peers instead of lesser company. Her court was a fun bunch.
! Bracing myself for: The inevitable Kotaku article of "Lenore is capitalism" "the ring is debt" "we are all slaves" and the such.
! WTF: the judge being a serial killer (at least not a pedophile), what was the point of making the one competent human leader a (figurative) monster?
! Was that a metal gear in a savanah in St Germaine's crazy dream? -
@Daz:
As iconic as he is, theres really not much dramatic potential to wring from Simon. His story is basically "Go kill Dracula!" in its purest form. Theres' a bit more to Richter - kindapped girlfriend turned vampire, Shaft, posession, new dynamic with Maria, friendship/conflict with Alucard - but if they were to do a timeskip I could see them going all the way to Bloodlines just to mix things up. Or the Soma Cruz games I guess, but then we're full-on anime…
They could always go Captain N's Simon, lol.
! Was that a metal gear in a savanah in St Germaine's crazy dream?
! I had a feeling each of those portals led to another world based on another video game franchise, but none of them look familiar. I think what I though it was a futuristic egypt was actually Prince of Persia, but the rest I can't figure out. I do know they want to do a shared universe with an upcoming Devil May Cry series.
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The side-scroller games would kick my ass at the second half of it. I was that dumb of a kid. And even though I didn't had to chance to beat (Alongside several PS2 games), Lamment of Innocence deserves more respect than it got it.
To this day I wished they made a game about Julius menaging to kill Dracula once and of all in 1999. (It was a bizarre summer.)
I never got to beat the 2D games either for that same reason lol. And as blasphemous as it sounds, I haven't touched Symphony of the Night yet.
I'd kill for Julius Belmont eventually becoming the last protagonist of the show. But I doubt we're getting there becayse this series really feels like it's being written on the cuff with little longterm planning.
@Daz:
As iconic as he is, theres really not much dramatic potential to wring from Simon. His story is basically "Go kill Dracula!" in its purest form. Theres' a bit more to Richter - kindapped girlfriend turned vampire, Shaft, posession, new dynamic with Maria, friendship/conflict with Alucard - but if they were to do a timeskip I could see them going all the way to Bloodlines just to mix things up. Or the Soma Cruz games I guess, but then we're full-on anime…
I see your point. They could expand on Simon's personality but that's only conjecture based on nothing.
However, it is possible for a simple character like Simon to work depending on how well you explore the reasoning and consequences of why he wants to kill Dracula or any other villain. Like with Guts in Berserk. Or go full throttle on him being obsessed with killing Dracula that he's a barely functioning amusing idiot otherwise. Like Fred Jones in Scooby Doo Mystery Incoporated. Throw in a party member or two like Grant and Alucard to act as foils who can complement whatever Simon lacks
and give him depth.Simple characters aren't bad by default, it all depends on how you play with what unexpected situations and characters you throw their way.
Richter would be great though. Especially if they work in a Divine Bloodlines remix.
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I feel season 1 more and more was a lucky accident in terms of how good it was. People complained about the short length but I feel it was the perfect length for a fast, well paced engaging story filled with the brim with amazing animation.
What I'm trying to say is that while I enjoyed season 3, the story is blatantly padded out, probably to cut costs in animation until those final two amazing episodes. You could have condensed a lot of this story to half the length and gotten the same point across. I understand the importance of atmosphere and ambience but there comes a point where the story is clearly digging its heels through the mud to stall for time. It doesn't help that I feel a lot of the story threads this season were very "fillery" in nature, like they don't ultimately mean anything and are only there to give something for the characetrs to do (especially Alucard's).
Like I said, I still enjoyed the season, the animation and dialogue are especially excellent, but you have many games worth of material to work with so can we just stop making up filler material, wrap up Trevor and his clearly done storyline and start actually using the content from the other games? Let's move on to Simon or Richter dammit.
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@Count:
I see your point. They could expand on Simon's personality but that's only conjecture based on nothing.
However, it is possible for a simple character like Simon to work depending on how well you explore the reasoning and consequences of why he wants to kill Dracula or any other villain. Like with Guts in Berserk. Or go full throttle on him being obsessed with killing Dracula that he's a barely functioning amusing idiot otherwise. Like Fred Jones in Scooby Doo Mystery Incoporated. Throw in a party member or two like Grant and Alucard to act as foils who can complement whatever Simon lacks
and give him depth.Simple characters aren't bad by default, it all depends on how you play with what unexpected situations and characters you throw their way.
Yeah but you'd still have to develop everything from scratch. It'd be Simon in name only. Trevor had the honor of being the first one to face Dracula and a supporting cast that included Alucard, the guy with the most elaborate connection to Dracula. Simon has no supporting cast, and the "Belmont legacy" angle would work equally well for Richter, Juste, Julius, Christopher or even Sonia Belmont just as well. If they want further material from the games virtually everyone is more interesting than Simon, but maybe they could keep his name and make him a hodgepodge of all the others. Team him up with Maria, give him an abducted son like Christopher and a fallen comrade like Juste or Nathan Graves etc.
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@Daz:
Yeah but you'd still have to develop everything from scratch. It'd be Simon in name only. Trevor had the honor of being the first one to face Dracula and a supporting cast that included Alucard, the guy with the most elaborate connection to Dracula. Simon has no supporting cast, and the "Belmont legacy" angle would work equally well for Richter, Juste, Julius, Christopher or even Sonia Belmont just as well. If they want further material from the games virtually everyone is more interesting than Simon, but maybe they could keep his name and make him a hodgepodge of all the others. Team him up with Maria, give him an abducted son like Christopher and a fallen comrade like Juste or Nathan Graves etc.
You could say the same about Trevor given how his personality as a cynical loner drunkard who is easily provoked is something the show entirely made up. Taking paper thin source material and injecting new elements into doesn't ruin or stray far away from something that was already something that was hollow to begin with. As long as he's still killing monsters, new traits only adds to to a nearly naked canvas.
I agree that almost every other Belmont is more interesting than Simon. I personally wouldn't shed any tears if Simon got cut. But there is little to no chance they're skipping the first and most iconic protagonist in the franchise (besides Alucard) if we're ever getting past Trevor's story. So there's no harm in spitballing how to make Simon work, even if the character is "different" to the point he could have any other name.
Although I would still argue calling him Simon still has proper purpose and weight despite the differences. It lets the audience know this is their definitive take on the character and doesn't keep them wondering when "real" Simon will get referenced or show up.
New adaptations should be evaluated as stories on their own first and faithful adaptations second. If the character is enjoyable and they aren't ignoring unique potential from the source material in favor if a wateted down take, that's all that matters at the end of the day.
Otherwise, you may as well say there's no point in calling MCU Vulture the Vulture because he's not an elderly man wearing a green birdsuit and robbing banks. MCU Vulture is still at least a flying Spider-Man villain and has a much more interesting design and clever modus operandi based around tech scavenging a la scavenger animals like vultures. Calling him the Buzzard or the Hawk would not feel anywhere near as meaningful as simply calling him the Vulture.
Adaptations like these need to take big liberties here and there to function whenever the source material is lacking. It's fine. Even if he gets thrown traits from other Belmonts the series like you suggested.
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@Count:
You could say the same about Trevor given how his personality as a cynical loner drunkard who is easily provoked is something the show entirely made up. Taking paper thin source material and injecting new elements into doesn't ruin or stray far away from something that was already something that was hollow to begin with. As long as he's still killing monsters, new traits only adds to to a nearly naked canvas.
I agree that almost every other Belmont is more interesting than Simon. I personally wouldn't shed any tears if Simon got cut. But there is little to no chance they're skipping the first and most iconic protagonist in the franchise (besides Alucard) if we're ever getting past Trevor's story. So there's no harm in spitballing how to make Simon work, even if the character is "different" to the point he could have any other name.
Although I would still argue calling him Simon still has proper purpose and weight despite the differences. It lets the audience know this is their definitive take on the character and doesn't keep them wondering when "real" Simon will get referenced or show up.
New adaptations should be evaluated as stories on their own first and faithful adaptations second. If the character is enjoyable and they aren't ignoring unique potential from the source material in favor if a wateted down take, that's all that matters at the end of the day.
Otherwise, you may as well say there's no point in calling MCU Vulture the Vulture because he's not an elderly man wearing a green birdsuit and robbing banks. MCU Vulture is still at least a flying Spider-Man villain and has a much more interesting design and clever modus operandi based around tech scavenging a la scavenger animals like vultures. Calling him the Buzzard or the Hawk would not feel anywhere near as meaningful as simply calling him the Vulture.
Adaptations like these need to take big liberties here and there to function whenever the source material is lacking. It's fine. Even if he gets thrown traits from other Belmonts the series like you suggested.Oh yeah, I absolutely agree with this, as well as your overall argument. I just think if they want to evoke the games (which is not a necessity, as you say) it would be a shame if they went for Simon out of pure fanservice-obligation, and nothing else.
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Also, if you're into the classicvanias you should definetely give Rondo of Blood a whirl, its the best of the lot. For me Symphony of thhe Night was a bit over-hyped, but I also vastly prefer Classicvanias to the metroidVanias.
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I didn't like the clasic vanias, but I devoured the 7 metroidvanias (Simphony, circle, Juste's psychodelic adventure, soma's 2, portrait of ruin and Shanoa's)
If they are going to do every major resurrection of Dracula,
1500: Christopher, if they are skipping one is this, has the same issue with Simon, but none of the iconic name
1600: Simon is the first, and has the curse aspect to give some fleshing out, like start the season with his first slaying of Dracula, and then slowly figuring out the curse over the season and having to travel around and gathering the relics
1700: Richter and Symphony of the night is practically a given. Also the erotic pachinko.
1800: How public domain is bram stocker's dracula? No Belmont but quite a few games set in this century, and as their descendants or particular stories don't require that much set up or continuity (as long as you plant some seeds of the morris clan, the werewolfs the order of ecclesia, and other such).
1999: Julius, Please please please please please
200X: For completeness sake, even with the full anime aspect, I'd love to see this one.
The main issue that I see about it is that even Dio had to die, how to keep Dracula fresh over this many seasons?
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Having finished Season 3, I'm looking at this discussion with regards to canonicity and lore the series might pull from the games, and.
Warren Ellis who writes the show has given quite a few interviews about Castlevania by this point, and something that's pretty important to know about him is that he hasn't played any of the games!
Most of the story beats he pulls the script from are from what he reads on the fan wikis. It's worth it to read the whole interview because it informs a lot of Season 2, and 3.Now the director Sam Deats, co-director, co-producer, and lots of people on the Castlevania team are huge fans, and deeply invested in the lore. But Warren Ellis who writes the script, is as invested in telling his own stories with the characters he's put in this world, and he's signaled as much. Godbrand, the Styria sisters, Miranda, and so on.
I can't find it right this minute, but there was an interview where they discussed the reason for cutting Grant in the early seasons. Paraphrasing it, not only does Warren Ellis hate his name & concept ("A pirate in a landlocked country?!") but when they considered the balance of personalities between Trevor, Alucard, and Sypha, Ellis didn't think there'd be enough time to flesh out their dynamic with the addition of a fourth character. Which was probably for the best, but anyways illustrates my point: the new characters like Lenore are going to get the same attention as established characters like Trevor or Sypha if the team thinks it suits the story.
So it's probably worth considering that the Netflix Castlevania series is going to be more and more its own thing, with bits of series lore informing the show, rather than the other way around.
(& tbh, I'd take watching Isaac pondering the worth of humanity with one-offs like the Captain & the flyeyes demon over the inclusion of a non-essential character like Grant ten times out of ten.)
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Because this time his new characters worked.
Last time was the mute court of vampires and godbrand who were a waste of a season.
Also, gee I wonder what kind of other kinds of sailors we could have found with Isaac?
I'm over Grant, but he doesn't get to say "it doesn't make sense", when he brings two japanesse vampire hunters wanabee to justify a character playing house for a season.
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Is Dracula in s3 at all?
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Just finished watching the season, It's definitely more consistent overall then S2, but still has a fair share of problems.
! All of the plotlines were solid in my opinion except for Alucards, the ending of it was great, but it felt to me like it took way too long for us to get there and had me the least invested.
! I also felt like the Hector plotline was slightly recycled from last season, but I do think it was excecuted a lot better and Lenore was certainly a highlight.
! And speaking of Hector, I wonder how fans of Curse of Darkness feel about how he's portrayed in this series, because he's such a naive idiot for the most part.
@desa:Is Dracula in s3 at all?
! Very briefly
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! Never really got how Isaac killed Godbrand so easily when we get to see what happened when Hector tried to do the same thing with Lenora. You would think Dracula would choose his generals better.
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Isaac keeps being one with the better character developments and Lenore really stole the show.
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I'm surprised the new Castlevania mobile game doesn't let you play as Sypha, you'd think they'd capitalize on the anime's success
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! Never really got how Isaac killed Godbrand so easily when we get to see what happened when Hector tried to do the same thing with Lenora. You would think Dracula would choose his generals better.
! Hector is an incompetent idiot.
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I'm surprised the new Castlevania mobile game doesn't let you play as Sypha, you'd think they'd capitalize on the anime's success
I wasn't aware that existed.
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! Hector is an incompetent idiot.
To add injure to the insult
! He is now BDSM bait now.
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To add injure to the insult
! He is now BDSM bait now.
! Entirely his own fault. She spoke to him like a dog from day one. And he never countered that. He just kinda went with it. Her shushing him made me laugh so hard. I wanted to feel bad…But he's just so stupid. She had all the power already, but he just couldn't say no to sex.
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This is top interaction with fans. -
! does anyone know what worlds they were showing in the infinite Corridor? I know this is supposed to be a multiverse with Devil May Cry but I don’t know if the other worlds they were showing are from other series as Easter eggs or just random stuff they put in
! I mean the first thing looked like a giant metal gear at first but I doubt that was the case -
[hide]I severely doubt Devil May Cry will be involved since both series come from different companies that have never associated with each other. A lot of people have said Metal Gear Solid, but again, those two haven't crossed paths much even though they are both Konami.
I don't believe what Saint Germain was seeing was different worlds, but instead, the past and future. See, Saint Germain comes from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. He is a time traveler who is well aware of the future and comes to the past to prevent… something big that may happen in the show since its the basis of the entire series (the Curse of Darkness). He fights Hector, who he feels doesn't have the strength to handle the upcoming threat, but Hector proves him wrong. Saint Germain allows Hector to handle the situation and returns to the void of time after Hector saves the day.
So all of those visions, I think, were him getting different glimpses in time throughout history.[/hide]
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[hide]I severely doubt Devil May Cry will be involved since both series come from different companies that have never associated with each other. A lot of people have said Metal Gear Solid, but again, those two haven't crossed paths much even though they are both Konami.
I don't believe what Saint Germain was seeing was different worlds, but instead, the past and future. See, Saint Germain comes from Castlevania: Curse of Darkness. He is a time traveler who is well aware of the future and comes to the past to prevent… something big that may happen in the show since its the basis of the entire series (the Curse of Darkness). He fights Hector, who he feels doesn't have the strength to handle the upcoming threat, but Hector proves him wrong. Saint Germain allows Hector to handle the situation and returns to the void of time after Hector saves the day.
So all of those visions, I think, were him getting different glimpses in time throughout history.[/hide]
! it’s not a theory that Devil May Cry will be part of the multiverse it’s a fact, the director/writers straight up said it in an interview
! The only way it doesn’t happen is if one of the companies doesn’t want to work together and pulls out (which is very very possible )
! https://www.slashfilm.com/devil-may-cry-tv-show/ -
You know what would be awesome? A Darkstalkers series that doesn't focus on Donovan and doesn't have a Harry Potter lookalike.
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Finally finished season 2. I'm conflicted with this series.
! The animation is great, the story is good, but there's something about the pacing that throws me off. It's too slow until the final couple episodes. Doesn't need to be action packed every second but maybe not have all the characters' climaxes (pun intended) at the end. It's like Warren Ellis is writing this series as a novel and not taking full advantage of the visual aspect of the world. Talking is great, but I want a balance between that and action.
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Finally finished season 2. I'm conflicted with this series.
! The animation is great, the story is good, but there's something about the pacing that throws me off. It's too slow until the final couple episodes. Doesn't need to be action packed every second but maybe not have all the characters' climaxes (pun intended) at the end. It's like Warren Ellis is writing this series as a novel and not taking full advantage of the visual aspect of the world. Talking is great, but I want a balance between that and action.
Well, S3 is somewhat like the earlier seasons of Game of Thrones if it makes you feel better.
Emphasis on Somewhat.
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Season 3 "felt" better, as in the whole season was more entretaining, but didn't have an episode that could top the last one of the 2th.
It helped that this time we have side characters that are not godbrand or the council of silent vampires.
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Final Season coming May 13th.
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Finally started watching this. Just finished the first season (first four episodes).
I have to say, this is a surprisingly tediously-paced show. I feel like every scene goes on a few minutes longer than it needs to. Still good though, and the last episode with Alucard's debut was pretty boss.
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Alucard's debut was indeed pretty boss.
I haven't even finished season 2 yet though. I'm terrible.
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I personally don't feel the show is slow-paced, but I think maybe I just happen to like slow paced shows. I've encountered a lot of examples of things where people complained about slow pacing and I thought the pace was better than average.
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Season two IS slow paced. Season 3 is briskier, but lacks the punch of the other two seasons had in their ends.
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S4 is here.
! The fight choreography was nice but the in-betweens felt a lot less polished than on the previous seasons, maybe they outsourced to new studio or more likely was do to the COVID working schedule/conditions.
! Poor Saint Germain, played like a fool.
Did not expect the twist with Varney.
So we ended with and all wells that end wells finale. -
I'm mid season 04 and one thing that I can't understand is why they are so cautious in using the series' IMENSE monster catalogue. I've seen the flying dog-bat-man almost every episode but no gargoyle, medusa, dragon, witch, succubi or golem so far.
action scenes are cool, character moments are…gestures vaguely present...let's see how it end (is the last season I believe?)
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! Man, Death was fucking awesome.
! And yeah, no Grant. Even though you could totally replace Greta with him and still keep that subtly romance atmosphere since Alucard is Bissexual here.action scenes are cool, character moments are…gestures vaguely present...let's see how it end (is the last season I believe?)
Yes.
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! I'm not sold on the golden ending, Carmila and Isaac solving themselves in a neat little bow, rendering most of their plotlines completelly tangent to the main characters, and I can't forgive the fact that there was no castlevania music was used during any of the awesome battles of the end.
! I am confused if Varney was part of dracula's court or not, it makes more sense if he wasn't but he keep much of Varney and very little of the alchemist after becoming death, so I am not sure.
! Trevor surviving at least was set up with St Germain's deathrattle, and was worth it for the town of Trefy, but the Tepes go to England feels cheap, and un-castlevania on top of an already un-castlevania ending. -
Finished up Season 4. I'm sorry, but I just couldn't get too into this series. I kept watching hoping it would get better or it would "click" for me, but…it really didn't.
As I said before, this whole show just feels really tediously paced. Like, the whole story could have been done in half as many episodes. And did we even need the third season? Trevor and Sypha spend the whole season looking into a cult that's trying to revive Dracula and then spend the 4th season basically doing the same thing. And then Alucard trains two Japanese twins, which goes nowhere. The only stories that were kind of interesting and were Isaac and Hector's.
Also, I'm really not a fan of the voice acting. Most of the characters talk like they're on fucking Ambiens, which only adds to the dullness for me.
I'll admit the last few episodes were genuinely enjoyable, so at least it went out on a high note. And the show certainly had fantastic animation. I won't deny it that.
Can't say I'm thrilled for the new Richter series, but maybe I'll give it a try.
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Oh, I didn't talk shit about the new series here yet?
Like, I'm willing to give it a shot, half of the Trevor series was good, so.. Let's see.
They are skipping simon (and… Christopher? who?) to get to Richter, from late 1400 to late 1700. Kinda get it because Simon didn't had side characters, but I hope we do get a cool flashback in an alternate animation style to fill it out.
! But considering how the Trevor series ended with Happy Dracula, what are they going to do to for villain? Just have it have nothing to do with Castlevania nor Dracula?
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Anyone watch the new season?
There’s a fan review on Rotten Tomatoes calling it Wokelavania
Because of course there fucking is
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Castlevania Nocturne was good, endearing cast and an interesting theme for the series. The era in which the series is set is also neat.
Well if people are against black main characters and a gay vampire they shouldn't watch it.
We had Alucard in Castelvania and he was bisexual, not sure if Nocturne is more woke than that.8 episode with a runtime of about 30 minutes each.
We start with a young Belmont boy who witness his mother's murder by a vampire dragon. They were out on the street so the young boy could go to France to stay with his aunt.
Present, the series is set in the early days of the French Revolution which is a neat theme. Compared to the Castelvania series which was set about 300 years before that according to Nocturnes timeline. The Belmonts are now able to wield magic cause Trevor and Sypha had a child.
The aunt, which is a refugee from Russia, and her daughter both of them are Speakers, the aunt can do what Sypha did in Castelvania and the daughter is able to summon animals and let them fight with and for her. There are some amazing fight sequences with her and the animals.
We have two black main characters, one boy who is an opera singer and a former slave who freed herself and others from the vampire overlords and the enslavers who worked with them together, which is the main theme of the series, vampires and human clerics and aristocrats working together.
There's also a gay soldier who works for the church and the cleric either doesn't know or care about that.Without getting to spoiler heavy, I liked the theme of the first season and I am sure there's gonna be a second season, which picks up where this season ended.
Spoiler for the ending of the last episode:
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