Castlevania (netflix)

Really enjoyed this, and I liked the humour too! :)
Looking forward to the second and final series of 8 episodes. From what I’ve read it’s not supposed to be longer than two series sadly :(
 
Watched s2 last night, animation has been improved from the first 4 and the backgrounds looked stunning, fight scenes looked ok granted not as good as other shows on Netflix and the voice acting was decent enough.

They did a good job this time around showing how OP Dracula could be without making him look way too powerful, hopefully we get another season.
 
Glanza said:
Watched s2 last night, animation has been improved from the first 4 and the backgrounds looked stunning, fight scenes looked ok granted not as good as other shows on Netflix and the voice acting was decent enough.

They did a good job this time around showing how OP Dracula could be without making him look way too powerful, hopefully we get another season.
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Polished of s2 too. Effortless series to watch.

The only niggle was that Viking vamp was a tad annoying., might have just been the voice actor.
 
Just finished watching it. It's not bad but overall I was kinda disappointed, it's almost as if 8 episodes was too much for what they intended to do. It felt over extended which meant it exposed some narrative/character problems which may not have happened if it were only 5 episodes long.

The biggest problem is that it took way too long to go anywhere and the old cast were sidelined.

  • Dracula went from essentially being Satan in the first season to suddenly becoming a mopey depressive instantly following on in the second season and he spends the entire season that way, except for a brief moment during the fight.
  • Dracula didn't really care about the "war" so it makes you ask why he even bothered gathering his people if he was that apathetic in the first place. The show even says this near the end.
  • The main 3, while their back and forth dialogue was interesting at first, had the entire season play out in a library and bickered among themselves which got tiresome in the end.
  • The sense of scale of the "legions of Dracula's army" taking over the earth was so small. You only ever see a few characters standing around, which is peculiar considering its an animation, they could have easily made it much larger - including the castle which after the teleportation scene seemed tiny by the end.
  • Dracula's court generals emasculated him and he allowed it which made his character borderline pathetic, as I said above I think it's partially down to the amount of time they took rather than intention. It's like the story beats were overly stretched and left the characters exposed to different interpretation that went against the writer/directors vision.
  • It was heavy handed how they wanted Carmilla to be the scheming "powerful woman," they basically made the males ridiculous to do it. i.e. Drac, Hector, Godbrand (whose VO could barely pronounce his lines.) It was too much and very obvious, they really could have done it in a much tamer way with better pacing that didn't betray the characters and inturn made her even more scheming and dangerous as a result. Saying that, I did like her character, I loved Carmilla in Lords of Shadow but I want to see her done right rather than force it into place.
  • They used an entire 6 episodes to build upto the fight in the 7th, which was awesome while it lasted, but it was only 1 episode. The last episode was basically a loose setup and a goodbye.

I mean I understand to a degree why they tweaked Dracula because they want to make a show, they needed more characters to take part and they couldn't have him basically smacking everyone down, but... come on, this is Castlevania! They stripped the guy of having any drive and dignity but it only served to contradict his original hellfire intent to destroy everyone in the first place. They should have had him only partially demonstrate his true feelings rather than have freaking Dracula moping around his castle while his underlings talk to him like ****. At some points he genuinely appeared ridiculous. I could see what they were intending with his character arc, they had the ending in mind for him and it was genuinely good how they did it following the fight, but it was so brief. And that's the problem, the good bits were so brief.

The highlight of the series so far is the animation, especially the action scenes. I loved how they portrayed magic in the show, it was really well done. Also some of the dialogue between the cast was brilliant, each character had a distinct presence and personality. Though there were lines and moments that brought me completely out of the show, like the "middle finger" by Alucard at the end and Carmilla's "WTF was that" line. It felt a little amateurish in moments but overall it was very good.

The first season was 9/10 for me. The second felt too forced and heavy handed in parts and took way too long to go anywhere, so I'll give it 7/10.
 
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I agree. I wanted, more episodes, but I didn't want more episode to mean stretching the quality of 4 eps across 8.
Like you said this series just didn't seem as dark. I prefered it when Dracula was solitary and insanely powerful. In so much as this series God brand and the other vampires just devalued him, as did the human generals. Not quite finished it yet and I am enjoying it but 4 episode of greatness is better than 8 average.
 
Does the voice acting improve at all in S2? The dialogue and delivery were shocking in S1; especially the 'we're so medieval we're northern/cockney' nonsense. For the love of the games, I carry on but it's hard!
 
Enjoyed S3, animations felt bit weird at time like they'd tried to bullet time some of the scenes, Episode 9 was weird to watch with how it kept cutting between all the scenes.
 
The whole of S3 reminded me of The witcher netflix run, splitting screen times between 4 different characters per episode to me felt a bit rushed.
Maybe a longer run time or more episodes would help a bit? But overall I enjoyed it and want S4 now.
Predictions S4:
Alucard goes mad and then seals himself for 100s of years until he reawakens whe Richer Belmont is around
Hector will be trying to find a way to break the curse from lenore
Trevor and Sypha hears about some crazy takeover occurring and travels to where Carmilla is after confronting Alucard
Issac overpowers Carmilla army
 
Finished watching series 2 today and it sort of seems a nice point to stop watching. Not sure I’ll indulge in series 3.

What an extremely odd show. The best thing about it, by far, is the world and the characters (in a vacuum) but the dialogue and the delivery / voice acting... and how odd it mixes with the animation at times.... my god! It seems clinical, completely half arsed, yet half intentional. The accents are also completely bizarre. The humour is rare and inconsistent, often jarring, but then sometimes really quite funny (?!).

This is summed up completely by this weird line Belmont gives Alucard at the end (I cant remember it verbatim but it involves calling him a *******). It was so unintentionally awkward yet intentionally hilarious. It really made me laugh.

It you can endure that ‘mess’ it does almost become.... ‘charming’ perhaps because just how odd / out of place it is. I did find myself really quite enjoying the finale / climax, although there is a lot of padding / brooding in series two to make it through that could have been chopped. It’s seemed to be trying to do a slow ‘game of thrones’ politics affair at points, some of that worked some didn’t.

Quite happy to leave it there unless anyone can truly recommend season 3.
 
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