Some of those games are non canon simply because it would mean Dracula being eternally bodied the day or week of his revival would become extra hilarious with that 1700 and 1800 stretch, the ultimate immortal jobber putting over new vampire hunters every decade or two.
I get the feeling we will skip a few Belmonts as time goes on. No one actually cares about Christopher or Juste lol. I feel like after they wrap up the CV3/CoD-era they are currently in we will see a skip all the way to Simon, who is definitely the next most "famous" in the timeline, followed by Richter (which allows Alucard to show back up onto the scene all dramatic-like in a later season).
Just finished watching season three. Not a fan of the pacing, though episodes 9 and 10 are pretty awesome.
Alucard and Carmilla really dragged down this season, in my opinion. I suppose I didn't really know what to expect from Alucard, but I feel as though Carmilla had a lot of potential, so I was really bummed to see her scenes weighed down with a bunch of repetitive banter about this really good plan that others think is actually really bad and difficult to execute on, only for them to continually talk about how it's really a really, really good plan. Ugh.
On the subject of Alucard...
You could see Taka and Sumi's betrayal coming from a mile away. How do characters still manage to get written in this manner? It's one thing for Taka and Sumi to be continually asking questions that should arouse Alucard's suspicion and for him to not pick up on it, but why keep showing Taka and Sumi making calculating glances behind Alucard's back unless it's to mislead people into thinking that something's up when there really isn't? I had my doubts about Taka and Sumi pretty early on, and I thought the potential for the entire setup was really lame, anyway, so the fact that it was so poorly executed in addition to wasting a lot of time really disappointed me.
I really like what they're doing with Isaac, as I feel as though his portions of the series show the most character development.
I have to say that it was really cool to see Legion make an appearance, as well as the fact that Isaac presumably now has access to that level of power after defeating the wizard. The almost-twist of Isaac reaching the wizard, only for him to immediately be placed under the wizards power was a legitimate "Oh shit!" moment for me, and I was actually kind of curious as to whether they'd seriously go that route, despite Isaac's struggle to break free of it. I daresay that Isaac is my favorite character in the series at this point, even if the idea of him riding around the countryside with a bunch of dumb-looking creatures and not expecting problems from bystanders strikes me as a bit naive on his part. I just feel that his character is really interesting, as he always seems to be trying to learn more about the ways of men, and he tries to challenge his preconceived notions about them, only for him to be continually burned by the results.
I didn't find Morana and Striga to be very interesting, but Lenore really impressed me.
I think Lenore's interactions with Hector are pretty well-paced, and their relationship is pretty believable to me. I feel as though the writers went full-on Skeletor with her at the end, as though anyone actually needed the slave thing explained to them, but whatever. I thought Lenore was an interesting character, and the manner in which she manipulated Hector into feeling a sense of comfort and happiness was pretty well-executed. I was sort of hoping that she'd do something to overtake the entire operation, maybe even leading the other three vampire sisters into a trap similar to Hector's, but I suppose I'll have to wait until season four to see what if anything comes of that.
Sypha and Trevor continue to disappoint. I generally like Sypha, as I think she's well-voiced, but I feel as though the banter between these characters just makes it all the more apparent that this series is at its best when people aren't talking. It'd be nice for some of these stories they reflect on to take the form of flashbacks or something, anything to increase the amount of action in this season.
I don't really have much to say about the rest of the characters. Honestly, at this point, I just think there are too many characters vying for screen time, and not many of them are used effectively.
I was really glad to see Cthulu (or Malachi, if you go by the always-infuriating bestiary in Castlevania games) make an appearance. The inclusion of the Fire Demon was really odd, as I don't think that particular enemy ever really stuck out to me, despite its unique design. I just don't feel as though the Fire Demon has ever been used particularly well in any of the games.
Thought it was pretty poorly written how the same exact situation is what drives him back towards not trusting humans after two humans were exceptionally kind to him. His trust should have been broken in a different way and a little later than immediately after leaving the ship. Felt almost like a parody/recurring joke. "I can't believe I immediately got stopped by town guards who weren't trusting of my demon army again just like every other time I've stepped into town with a demon army! Human's suck! They all deserve to die!
overall.... a pretty large step down from season 2; it felt even more meandering than the first half of season 2 while also being two episodes longer. And Alucard's storyline was awful.
I'd give it a 6/10
Season 1+2 were an 9 out of 10 together.
I don't mind the setup nature of this season, but Alucard's 'arc' was completely unnecessary. Unless somehow he later becomes an antagonist because apparently Warren Ellis hates Alucard. I don't even know why they blew a chunk of the budget to a flashback of Cho's fight against a random samurai in North Japan. Cho's dead, Zed. Move on. Maybe Warren Ellis wanted to please the Japanophile crowd. That would explain the creepy sex scenes. Alucard's part could have easily ended with his conversations with the dolls.
The rest was great. As a Diablo fan, I loved the horrific attempt to resurrect Dracula and loved Isaac's journey and his philosophical themes. He's certainly a better character than Hector. One thing I don't understand though: the bigger transmission mirror Isaac found ended up being useless? I couldn't quite understand what was going on there. It would have been nice if he could have at least talked to Dracula through the mirror to know he's dead. I also don't really buy Trevor's and Sypha's response to help Saint Germain travel to another dimension without questioning his motives. Also the evil church letting him read books and snoop around for no reason. I guess being dumb is a common character trait in this show. I won't even mention Hector and Carmilla. That went nowhere either.
I guess we're not going to get Simon or Richter at this rate, huh?
- Love the animation!
- Voice work is top notch again. Yesssss Bill Nighey!
- Isaac is amazing
- I like Trevor and Sypha
As for the Season...
Story spoilers watch out!
Alucards storyline felt pointless; I did like his little puppets of Trevor and Sypha, but his storyline was just to underline that he can't trust anyone? The two wanting to betray him and being overly interested in the warp capabillities of the Castle was so obvious it hurt. Still, the Final scene was brutal.
Hector is extremely dimwitted. Sure redheads can be cute, but dude was waaaay too thirsty. He went from the urge to kill to having sex with Lenore pretty quickly. Another phoned in move, but I like that Lenore is still acting like a diplomat afterwards. Well at least Hector gets something out of it eh?
Isaac storyline was good due to the dialogue. The shopkeeper, the captain and certainly the talkative demon were highlights. Especially the latter with his creepy story and thanking him for a second chance. (Essentially embracing sin)
Lindenfeld bit was great because of the action. Sala was an idiot. Judge was a piece of shit, but something felt off from the start. The ending felt bad :(
I don't mind the setup nature of this season, but Alucard's 'arc' was completely unnecessary. Unless somehow he later becomes an antagonist because apparently Warren Ellis hates Alucard. I don't even know why they blew a chunk of the budget to a flashback of Cho's fight against a random samurai in North Japan. Cho's dead, Zed. Move on. Maybe Warren Ellis wanted to please the Japanophile crowd. That would explain the creepy sex scenes. Alucard's part could have easily ended with his conversations with the dolls.
You must not be familiar with Warren Ellis lol. He went pretty easy on the characters so far in this particular story all things considered. Well till next season that is.
I love this (depressing) season, especially the characters & voices of the vampire sisters, but OMFG it's laughable how many different accents are in this!
Like does almost every character need an accent from a different country? There's way too much!
Yeah it was very disappointing after that end of season 2.
You can't fucking beat Dracula's arc and that finale where they storm the castle.
The only thing I really liked in this season was Trevor and Sypha's adventures together.
Nothing else going on was 1/10 as compelling as Dracula and his arc. Carmilla and her family squabbles bored me. Isaac was cool but he was by himself just wrecking shit but at the end of the day they are all just Dracula's lackeys and none of them are as awesome as he was. And it was not connected to anything, it was 3 or 4 separate stories. I was also not a fan of the sex of Hector and Alucard as part of the crescendo of the season. It just didn't work for me. I don't think I have ever liked that angle though in any movie or tv show.
I knew it couldn't match Dracula's arc and I still watched because I like the main 3 characters. I hope they get the gang back together for the season 4. I would guess the way it ends is Trevor dies but Sypha has his child and somehow Alucard help raises it teaching it the Belmont secrets and continuing the line.
The show is definitely taking influences while doing it's own thing and you know what, I like that.
Were people really that surprised or thought it didn't make sense that Taki and Sumi turned on Alucard? They were kept as prisoners by another vampire, they wanted to get back home as soon as possible to protect it knowing someone would fill the void that their former owners death would cause. They kept talking asking about how the castle could travel and wanted to see the room. Alucard was a means to an end for them and when they thought he wasn't teaching fast enough or going to tell them everything they turned on him. They said it themselves, other people had lied and tricked them upon their journey, add to their former prisoner past and there's definitely going to be trust issues. If Alucard wasn't going to help them fully they would do whatever it took to remove him from the equation. Almost succeeded at that.
Lenore with Hector, she see's him as a pet. That's all there really is to it. You take care of a pet, you treat it well, you feed it, make sure it's comfortable, happy and able to do as it please. You love it. You dot on it. But if it bares its fangs you don't take that shit. You show who is in charge and who owns who. Who is Master and who is property essentially. That's basically her mindset. That's her thing.
Isaaic's talks with the Captain, the Fly Demon and the old woman were enjoyable, it definitely helped to evolve Isaaic's viewpoint. He's had quite the journey, where he goes from here is one of the best parts of the show.
Trevor and Sypha. The fact their trip to the town ended so horribly helped show why Trevor is the way he is when we first met him, that and the whole his family was basically hunted down and wiped out for being what they were. It's Sypha that's been his salvation, without her he'd wander aimlessly without caring because he's seen so much of the worse sides of humanity and what's beyond it. She finally got a good hard dose of that herself. A little wake up call in a way. I figured the Judge was keeping people and torturing them or dealing with demons himself, I knew there was something nefarious going on with him after he exited that room once and was acting as if he had seen/done something horrible . A locked door and a key teased? Of course it isn't going to be good. The question was what.
My big question is.........who the hell was St. Germain trying to reach via the infinite corridor. I thought it was his wife or a former lover first. But what's the chances it's Lucifer.
Watched up to episode 7. After loving the first two seasons, I'm sad to say this season falls way short so far.
It's apparent that the writers know very well how to write brooding, snarky characters that are down on their luck. In contrast, the lovey-dovey, 'look at us having fun!' scenes in this season almost come off as parody.
Also really not digging Shuri and Taka. Having characters who are clearly not fluent in English use idioms that the voice actors themselves are not familiar with will never not sound distractingly unconvincing.
It's not all bad, but I'm pretty bummed out after loving 1 and 2.
They didn't have murderous intent from the beginning and their motivations did come out of nowhere. That was the point. They thought it was kind of odd he wasn't telling them everything (he straight up just didn't show them the movement room, probably because it's a place where he and his father fought) and after that scene, where they finally confront him about it, they don't cut back to Sumi and Taka alone ever again. It was abrupt, because they're broken, and thought he was fucking with them.
I agreed it was rushed, but they did seed it fairly well. Over and over, they insist they need to learn how to kill vampires fast and then get back to Japan. Castlevania is a literal teleporting castle that could get them back there in a second, but Alucard quickly moves past explaining why it no longer works, because he doesn't want to dwell on Sypha not being there. They impress upon Alucard that this is urgent. Alucard is an immortal being with no sense of time. In his second conversation with them, he says he's been alone for years, or months. It's been one month by that point.
They also really drive hard that Sumi and Taka's vampire captor would bring in hunters so they could watch her show off by playing with them before killing them. Hector makes a point that vampires like to play with their food. In their first lesson, Alucard tells them to drop their usual weapons and picks up swords, then...shows off as part of the lesson and suggests that half of him wants to bite their throat out. Sumi and Taka later have the realization that Alucard likely killed their captor - which would make him more dangerous than her.
Did it need more screen time? Sure. Was it this completely nonsensical thing? I don't think so.
Most baller thing about Sypha in action is the she makes the ice shields as small as she possible can, probably because she has to show the monsters that she's not ever not at the offensive.
My only problem is the actual size of the human population, with Isaacs arc and all. How does this world hold so many people? Hell's and vampire's armies are shown to be huge, while human soldiers are always in very few quantities, how do the towns even have a chance? and where are all these humans coming from? people are struggling to barely survive, trade is effectively null because of the night creatures so the amount of people and kids running around makes no sense to me, you either have a post apocaliptical landscape with these huge size of the armies of hell or these armies should be smaller if they want still functioning towns. Its the only thing messing with my suspension of disbelief.
I was wondering this too, but I think they're just made up for the show. Wouldn't it have been cool if they used this opportunity to reference other Konami games like Contra or Gradius. The one futuristic machine did remind me of Metal Gear a little.
They didn't have murderous intent from the beginning and their motivations did come out of nowhere. That was the point. They thought it was kind of odd he wasn't telling them everything (he straight up just didn't show them the movement room, probably because it's a place where he and his father fought) and after that scene, where they finally confront him about it, they don't cut back to Sumi and Taka alone ever again. It was abrupt, because they're broken, and thought he was fucking with them.
I agreed it was rushed, but they did seed it fairly well. Over and over, they insist they need to learn how to kill vampires fast and then get back to Japan. Castlevania is a literal teleporting castle that could get them back there in a second, but Alucard quickly moves past explaining why it no longer works, because he doesn't want to dwell on Sypha not being there. They impress upon Alucard that this is urgent. Alucard is an immortal being with no sense of time. In his second conversation with them, he says he's been alone for years, or months. It's been one month by that point.
They also really drive hard that Sumi and Taka's vampire captor would bring in hunters so they could watch her show off by playing with them before killing them. Hector makes a point that vampires like to play with their food. In their first lesson, Alucard tells them to drop their usual weapons and picks up swords, then...shows off as part of the lesson and suggests that half of him wants to bite their throat out. Sumi and Taka later have the realization that Alucard likely killed their captor - which would make him more dangerous than her.
Did it need more screen time? Sure. Was it this completely nonsensical thing? I don't think so.
I personally thought it was a bit much that they went straight to murder (attempt); I thought they were going to restrain him and simply interrogate him and search the rest of the castle, but it does make some sense from their point of view that vampires simply cannot be trusted.
Still, I feel like the scene where they're talking about how they pity him and they should give him a gift is a bit weird. Unless they were assuming he could hear them (granted, not a particularly weird assumption), it seemed like they were doing it to deceive the audience.
Nope, although I think Season 2 and particularly S02E07 are still my favorites. This still has quite a lot of meat, and could have been my favorite season if it had better pacing.
Simply moving up some of the plotlines' resolutions so that not every single one of them had to come to a head at the exact same time would have helped a lot. They could have moved up Alucard and Hector's plotlines to spice up a bit of the mid season, and let the audiences focus emotionally on Trevor / Sypha / Isaac's plotlines' resolutions at the end. I also found all that tiptoeing around the priory a bit repetitive and even weird, especially after it was clear that the Infinity Corridor and most likely the creature were both in the basement. Of course it's later revealed why they didn't just barge in; these are some mysteriously multiplying (seriously, how many monks can that priory fit?) super-monks that can fight back an army of actual soldiers plus Sypha and Trevor. :P
Also I don't get how anyone was surprised that
the judge was a child murderer. It was beyond obvious that something really bad was up when he told that child to go to that very specific place his parents told him not to go, and not tell anyone else. Even disregarding the latter, when was the last time you saw a moment like this in this series to be happily taken at face value?
All in all, though, still a delight to watch, and my SO and myself just couldn't help binging the three last episodes in a row. It's particularly impressive since most of this season was really made out of whole cloth to connect CV3 to Curse of Shadows. It feels like there's still going to be another whole season at least before the plot is in place for CoS proper, especially if they respect the time frame, Hector's story, etc.
Today on "Things that annoy me way more than they should"- Do the writers really have to use so much 21st century meme slang? 'What the actual hell', 'walkies', etc. Guess this ain't my daddy's Castlevania
Today on "Things that annoy me way more than they should"- Do the writers really have to use so much 21st century meme slang? 'What the actual hell', 'walkies', etc. Guess this ain't my daddy's Castlevania
Today on "Things that annoy me way more than they should"- Do the writers really have to use so much 21st century meme slang? 'What the actual hell', 'walkies', etc. Guess this ain't my daddy's Castlevania
While I get what you mean, in reality it's not any more or less accurate than using 20th / 21th century English. They sure as hell aren't going to use 15th century English (or whatever is period-accurate... Romanian?).
So I was not imagining things. The plains of lava and especially the frozen lake reminded me of some circles of the Divine Comedy but it's been so many years since I read it.
My only problem is the actual size of the human population, with Isaacs arc and all. How does this world hold so many people? Hell's and vampire's armies are shown to be huge, while human soldiers are always in very few quantities, how do the towns even have a chance? and where are all these humans coming from? people are struggling to barely survive, trade is effectively null because of the night creatures so the amount of people and kids running around makes no sense to me, you either have a post apocaliptical landscape with these huge size of the armies of hell or these armies should be smaller if they want still functioning towns. Its the only thing messing with my suspension of disbelief.
Look all I'm saying is, if you're going to have a show with vampires and oral sex, it's kind of weird for the vampires to only be on the receiving end. What's even the point of fangs if you're not going to get kinky with it.
Never would I have guessed that a Castlevania adaption would get as weird and bizarre as this season did. The first 2 were amusing but this was legitimately amazing television!
Yeah this season gave me a hell of a Berserk feel. Overall 7/10. It was too slow and none of the fights had the emotional impact of the end of the second season. Dracula is just an overwhelming presence and I can't wait until he returns.
It took far too long for the show to get this far, and I could do with some faster pacing. I had the expectation that season 3 would end with all out Hector vs Isaac war.
Does Saint Germain make more sense if you've played Curse of Darkness? His story felt so disconnected for how prominent it was to Trevor and Sypha's scenes.
Overall the season was okay, it was mostly setup and I'm guessing I missed the notable parts without knowing about Curse of Darkness but I still enjoyed the complimentary stories of Isaac and Hector.
Does Saint Germain make more sense if you've played Curse of Darkness? His story felt so disconnected for how prominent it was to Trevor and Sypha's scenes.
I loved this season overall, but the execution of Alucard's storyline was not very convincing. I liked where it ended up for him as a character, but for the amount of time spent on it I thought it lacked impact.
Overall, it seemed like the point of this season was that it's not just Dracula, the night creatures, or the church, but people who make its world such a sack of crap. Any fun or purpose anyone found in this season was the fruit of self-deception, or being unable to see reality due to their own naivete or personal damage. I have to appreciate the consistency.
St Germain was pretty interesting, though I was distracted by his necklace of golden condoms.
The situation in the village was super metal and had that dnd "let's investigate this creepy town" feel. I think that's also why I liked St. Germain's presence as someone with a different agenda. It was odd to me how
everyone noticed the symbol on the houses and knew who put them there but just went 'huh' and left them.
That seemed like a bad idea, but maybe I missed the reason why.
I really liked Isaac by the end of season 2, and I enjoyed every second of his road tripping convos with random people. His refusal to understand why people react negatively to his entourage is funny.
Lots of table-setting happened, and I look forward to the payoff.
I guess I'm fairly alone with this, but I really hate the voice direction. There's barely any oomph, and fancy dialects seem to be taken over actually acting out the lines properly, and not slurring or completely mispronouncing words.
It really bugs me. A lot of the time it doesn't fit what's happening on screen either.
I guess I'm fairly alone with this, but I really hate the voice direction. There's barely any oomph, and fancy dialects seem to be taken over actually acting out the lines properly, and not slurring or completely mispronouncing words.
It really bugs me. A lot of the time it doesn't fit what's happening on screen either.
No, I read a fair number of people were complaining about the voice acting. I could not understand it without subtitles. Not because of the accents which does take some time to get used to, but because there's a lot of mumbling. It sounds like it was muffled on purpose for whatever reason. I guess maybe their intention was that it shouldn't sound hammy in a depressing world, but it just takes you out of the world when you can barely understand what's going on.
