Castlevania is an action anime released in 2017 produced by Netflix
and Frederator Studios. You remember Netflix right?
The streaming service that, while they sometimes help to produce
great shows like Devilman Crybaby, also have a habit of locking
their shows up for months before releasing them long after
the audience for them have moved onto the next season.
WHY IS BEASTARS NOT COMING OUT TILL NEXT YEAR?
YOU HAVE IT.
JUST RELEASE IT OUTSIDE JAPAN DAMN YOU.
*Ahem*
The problem however with Castlevania is that it’s biased of a
video game franchise, and while that’s cool and all,
I am not as well versed in Video Games as some people are.
I dabble like others might, I can quarter circle punch like the best of them,
but if we actually want to talk about video games and
castlevania specifically in a more knowledgeable manner
I’m going to need a little help. Thankfully I happen to work in
a studio with Video Game youtubers that I can request
and or force to help me out!
So follow me!
No seriously follow me.
TRISTAN: Hi SHANE!
SHANE: Yeah?
TRISTAN: Are you playing Castlevania?
SHANE: Ghost and Goblins
TRISTAN: Good enough.
Alright, alright, alright, here.....no here.
Hi everyone.
and welcome to Glass Reflection
where today myself and Shane from Rerez are talking about the Netflix adaptation of Castlevania.
Let’s Jam.
SHANE: Oh I know this one!
LET'S HAM!
TRISTAN: WHAT?
TRISTAN: First however we should probably cover a bit of history.
SHANE: Castlevania is a long running series of video games produced
by Konami that originally saw a release with the titular ‘Castlevania’
on the Nintendo Famicom Disk System in 1986.
Eventually it would make its way to the Nintendo NES in
North America on May 1st 1987.
When we talk about notable game franchises, Castlevania is among the elite.
Having continued to this very day with multiple entries spanning several generations of video
game consoles.
TRISTAN: and pachinko machines.
THANKS KONAMI.
SHANE: While the creators of this show could have pulled
any of the stories from the games, they decided to make something
that was inspired by the games while not directly repeating the story from any one entry.
TRISTAN: This is where Warren Ellis enters into the picture.
In 2007, a rumored direct to DVD series of 3 animated films based
off of the third entry of the castlevania series “Dracula’s Curse”
was teased to the public, with Warren Ellis as lead writer.
But for many years the project never seemed to get off the ground.
At least until 2015 where the project resurfaced, now as an
animated mini-series still written by Ellis, and then released by Netflix in 2017.
SHANE: Warren Ellis isn’t a household name when it comes to Anime,
but let me tell ya, in the world of Comics I’d consider him an icon.
Ellis has worked on countless comic series and created and co-created
multiple characters like Spider Jerusalem from Transmetroplitan,
one of my all time favorite comic series. So when I heard he was on
board for Castlevania the animated series, I was quite excited!
But also a little worried that we would only get one season and then he might call it quits.
TRISTAN: But quits he did not call it! As Castlevania made it into a second season.
SHANE: Now, you might be tempted to smash all 12 episodes together and consider it one
whole season…
TRISTAN: But we would argue that you should NOT do that!
These seasons feel distinct and have completely different pacing between each other.
So let’s take just the first season and look at it a bit closer.
SHANE: CASTLEVANIA - SEASON ONE
TRISTAN: Can You Seriously Make Vampires Cool Again Mr. Ellis?
SHANE: Twilight has long since altered the public perception of what vampires are supposed
to be!
TRISTAN: Sparkly hunks with big eyes and modern fashion sense.
SHANE: But that’s NOT what we get here. The show opens up in Wallachia in 1455,
with a field of impaled dead bodies. The tone is set right from the very start.
TRISTAN: We are introduced to a young women passing through the rows of dead.
She finds her way to a castle where she meets Dracula.
SHANE:Who surprisingly doesn’t kill her right away-
TRISTAN: And the scene ends. Ta DA!
SHANE: Some years pass and we see that same women being
BURNT AT THE STEAK.
TRISTAN: Turns out that woman and Dracula fell in love.
So who do you think might not be happy about her being burnt alive?
SHANE: Well, hmm, I don’t know…
maybe THIS GUY.
TRISTAN: This sets the story in motion as now it’s all about Dracula
getting revenge for the death of his wife Lisa. But this was all backstory,
this story starts were all good fantasy role playing stories begin:
SHANE: At the Tavern! With drunks!
TRISTAN: Introducing our lead character Trevor Belmont.
SHANE: Belmont is a drifter of sorts whose family name seems to not be
the most well liked in the region. A fact of which is made very apparent by the other
bar patrons.
TRISTAN: Patrons who, because of his name, decide that this
would be the perfect time to deliver some butt-kickery and give us
just a taste of Trevor’s abilities as a fighter.
Who while inebriated, still manages to have the upperhand on several grown men.
SHANE:The show progresses following Trevor visiting another city that
Dracula has been laying siege to. Engaging this horrible action with his army of the
night.
TRISTAN: Spooky dookey monsters. Big bats and stuff.
SHANE:In this city Trevor meets up with a Prestest with magical powers and Alucard
TRISTAN: (not that one, that one, or that one)
SHANE:-who is the Son of Dracula.
TRISTAN: Get it… It’s Dracula spelled backwards.
Alllluuuuuuccaaaaarrrrrrddddddd.
SHANE: Huh, you know I didn't actually know about that until just now?
TRISTAN: You said you've played Castlevania before...
SHANE: The three decide to team up with the goal of killing Dracula and ending his evil
schemes.
And that right there is season one.
TRISTAN: Four episodes that act as an introduction to our main cast of three heroes.
Who each were playable characters in Castlevania 3.
SHANE: What about Grant Danasty?
TRISTAN: NOBODY LIKES GRANT DANASTY.
SHANE: Despite this series being based off of Castlevania 3, as you might imagine,
there wasn’t much of a story to the old NES game to pull from.
So largely this story seems to be Ellis’s interpretation of events,
with it’s own spin on the dracula mythos.
TRISTAN: So that starts….
SHANE: CASTLEVANIA: SEASON TWO TRISTAN: Still No Grant Danasty…
SHANE: Our trio of merry adventures continue on to their quest of trying to kill Dracula.
TRISTAN: This season expands from four episodes to eight, introducing several
other characters and expands the world, backstory and universe of Castlevania
far better than the first entry had.
SHANE: The story all comes to a head that could almost act as a satisfying conclusion
to the series itself.
TRISTAN: Yeah I don’t know it almost sounds like they
BEAT CASTLEVANIA 3 OR SOMETHING.
SHANE: And while some people didn’t expect a season 3, we’re apparently getting one,
despite the events that have taken place in season 2 that really,
and I mean REALLY make you question just what that next season will be about!
TRISTAN: So what do these first two seasons have to offer?
SHANE: Well, they’re violent, they’re gory, and boy, did I say they were violent?
Because they are violent violent. Like lot’s of violence that you might not expect kind
of violence.
TRISTAN: With Vampires right? They’re evil.
SHANE: But are they really? The show goes on to really dive into Dracula and his cohorts
where each and every one have different drives and goals,
some even questioning Dracula’s end goal of ending humanity.
TRISTAN: Characters are introduced like Hector and Isaac,
who were pulled straight out of the video games and reflect an aspect of
Dracula that is willing to commune with Humans that he feels are worthy.
SHANE: An aspect probably shown off in the first season when he… you know…
married one.
TRISTAN: A point of contention among some of the vampires by the way.
SHANE: You might expect each vampire to be viciously evil 24/7 with a mad blood lust.
TRISTAN: We’re not saying that ISN’T there, cuz it IS.
SHANE: But we also have some fantastic banter and voice acting from a brilliant cast.
“I like boats! I’m a f***ing viking! We're supposed to make boats out of things.”
SHANE: And not only is the cast list full of minor celebrities,
but we also have a director who is virtually unknown,
and this serves as his first and only directing credit as far as we can tell.
TRISTAN: Which might explain some of the show’s pacing issues like with
how some scenes end awkwardly, while others make me question their relevance.
The whole narrative really seems to suffer from the fact that the first season
was so short. Some parts of the story were stretched,
while others were shortened to fit the two awkward season lengths.
SHANE: With that being said, we don’t feel any one episodes overstays its welcome.
But you do get repetitive points of dialog
re-establishing ideas being brought up several times throughout both seasons.
TRISTAN: So the series is not without its faults, but some of the things
it does well, it does very well.
SHANE: The dialog alone is a highlight, displaying the characters
in a way that some of the early video games never really did.
TRISTAN: Speaking of the games, you might be worried like I was that you would
need to have played some of them to grasp the story.
That’s a fear that I put to rest early on, as the story really does
exist on it’s own with the show serving as a perfect stand alone experience.
SHANE: But there are plenty of game references for fans with familiar weapons,
abilities, locations, characters and even the use of iconic music from the games.
It’s all played together well and could even give
newcomers to the game series a connecting point straight from the TV show.
TRISTAN: An aspect of the show that is very interesting to me is the use
and reference of the Church as an entity that is almost weaponized.
Priests in the series use their holy order as an excuse to dole out
horrendous punishment and murders. In fact the church at moments feels
worse than Dracula could ever could be. To the point that our trio of heroes
and the cast of villians all seem to agree that the Church kinda sucks.
An interesting aspect of the show given the extreme use of religious
overtones in a negative light. Typically with movies and shows that deal with Vampires,
the Church is always the good peoples. The right peoples.
But in the world of Castlevania the series,
they’re not good, not at all.
SHANE: The games were violent for their time. Yeah I know right,
doesn’t look exactly like it now. But back in the day this was pretty violent.
But there was a limitation for graphic fidelity given the hardware they were using.
The violence in the show seems to accurately kind of get as close to the original video games
as they could, but sometimes the series gets way more gory
than the games ever really dared venture.
Considering that the NES was originally made for kids
(and adults that were kids at heart)
these original players have grown up since.
TRISTAN: Likely they would appreciate and understand the violence in the show,
and the religious and political themes as adults.
If there was ever a thought that Castlevania is a kids show,
it’s simply not. Not even a little bit.
SHANE: But there is a cute little undead puppy!
Awwwww look at em! He's missing an eyeball...
Now that really seems like an anime thing.
Actually, is this even considered an anime?
TRISTAN:Ehhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
TRISTAN: Ok so this series often gets mistaken for a japanese anime and I can see why.
The character designs look very japanese inspired, probably an homage
to the franchise’s origins. But outside of still frames the actual animation
of the series is very American. How the characters move, interact,
and hell even the lip syncing in how they talk has far more in common
with like Gargoyles or Cybersix then it does with Hellsing or Vampire Hunter D.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
Different does not equal bad, and while I wouldn't technically call this an anime
by any stretch, it’s definitely inspired by that style and the whole
production despite its flaws really comes off as a labour of love on the side of the
producers.
SHANE: And I think that’s what is so impressive about Castelvania.
This isn’t just a quick slap dash attempt at cashing in on a beloved game franchise.
TRISTAN: And when it comes to Konami, they REALLY know how to make cheap cash-ins.
SHANE: METAL GEAR SURVIVE!
TRISTAN: It's freaking everything really...
SHANE: This is a well written, well animated, well preformed show that
could potentially serve as a blueprint for other video game adaptations in the future.
TRISTAN:It does this by following the golden rule of adaptations:
“DON’T JUST EXPECT PEOPLE TO KNOW THAT OTHER THING YOU IDIOT!”
I'M LOOKING AT YOU
MASS EFFECT!
Because it has an anime adaptation. That was actually animated.
SHANE: Ok.
You ever watch Buckaroo Banzai?
SHANE: If you like Castelvania the games, you’re in for a treat.
TRISTAN:If you like Animated shows, you’re in for an experience.
And so, with all that in mind, after meticulously considering our thoughts
on the categories of Story, characters, animation, sound,
and our own personal enjoyment, which we then sit on and ignore entirely
for a year until...
SHANE: What's "Princess Monanokey"?
TRISTAN: It's "Princess Mononoke".
After all of that.
We are awarding Castlevania with the recommendation to Watch it!
Which you can do in the
only place it’s available. On Netflix.
Of course if you are looking for a good followup in a similar vein
then the two obvious recommendations would be Vampire Hunter D Bloodlust
and Hellsing Ultimate. But I’m also going to throw in the additional
recommendations of the Blood: The Last Vampire
as Blood+ the series that somewhat follows it...
SHANE: Is this Dragon Ball?
TRISTAN: No that's Angelic Layer.
Because no one talks about the Blood series and it’s a
real shame because they are pretty freaking good.
Lastly, I want to give a very special thank you to my patrons,
who not only support my work in general, but who also allow me to do what I do.
I love and appreciate you all. Specifically though, as I like to do,
I want to give particular shout-outs to patrons
Ryeban Boneapart, Rune Jakobsen, Calhoonboy, Richard Emil Bradley,
Hector Montemayor, and Siri Yamiko for being especially awesome.
You guys are great! And until next time – ladies, gentlemen, and others –
watch more anime…and stay frosty.
Now get the hell off my set!
Ok.
SHANE: Can vampires have erections?
[Laughter]
TRISTAN: I don't know how I'm can use that but I'd like too...