Castlevania season 1 (2017) · 5:30pm Jul 20th, 2017
When I was a kid I played my fair share of video games. I know, I know that's an admission that changes everything. Nobody ever played a video game. It's like something that just doesn't happen.
My first system that was actually mine was a Nintendo Entertainment System. Previously to that we'd had an Atari 2600 but when that crapped out it was a number of years before we landed a new console. I had a lot of the old standards, two of the Super Mario Bros., the two Zelda games, and a variety of other titles like Jackal, Code Name: Viper, Ultima: Quest of the Avatar, The Dragon Warrior games and many others.
I tended to lean toward RPGs more than the other genres of gaming mostly due to the fact that there was a story line. Plus I always thought it was neat to explore an entire globe, meet various folks and save the world. Another game that series I played (but only owned the second of) that kind of met that description was Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest.
I enjoyed that game reasonably well and eventually played the first one before playing the third game which I thought was way better than the previous two. That said, at the time I never thought they'd make a show about it or that any of the games I'd play would be made into movies.
Fast forward a number of years and it's happened, repeatedly. For the most part video game movies and shows have been a mixed bag of pretty good to terrible. They've all been obviously flawed, so when I heard about a script being written for a Castlevania series a bunch of years back I shrugged it off and figured if it ever became something it would fall into that category. Well, did it?
There are a lot of things they did well with this show. The art and animation are quite good. The settings are well rendered and the voice work is pretty solid. There's a fair amount of gore and the scripts do have an occasional moment of humor that isn't out of place for the characters. That said the show's got issues too.
One of the main problems that faces Castlevania is that it brings nothing new to the table. While the plot is based loosely off of an almost 30 year old game at this point some of that was going to happen. However, when I watched this show I was immediately reminded of stuff like Berserk, Vampire Hunter D, etc. It kind of takes away some of the punch when the feeling of, "been there done that," comes about.
Another problem is the issue of pacing. It's not that the plot points it hits are incorrect but, things happens very fast. Dracula gets a girlfriend/wife in the opening few minutes after a very brief scene that consists of her saying he's rude for not offering to take her coat and him saying essentially, "I've got ancient/future knowledge and potion stuff." Then she dies just as suddenly as they got together and that sort of sets the pace for the rest of the season. Characters flip back and forth on who they are and what they're going to do very quickly because the season is a whopping four episodes long and darn it they need to get it all in there.
Overall though, it's not a bad show. It's just a show that's held back by the fact that it feels like a "been there done that" type of thing and you can check off every point along the way. It would've been nice if they'd have done a bit more with what they had. Still, you could do a lot worse for dark fantasy type stuff too, so there is that.
The stats: A city's worth of bodies, 1 dead baby,1 blonde burned at the stake blood rain, monster rain, heads roll, nut shots, entrails spill, blood sprays, whip fu, knife fu, sword fu, magic fu.
Shout Outs:
James Callis as Alucard for saying after he gets a shot to the balls, "Please this isn't a bar fight. Have some class."
Matt Frewer as the Bishop for doing his best Frollo.
Graham McTavish as Dracula for showering Walechia with his brand of revenge.
Richard Armitage as Trevor Belmont for being a somewhat sarcastic hero and remembering to whip it good.
Random Speaker who looks at the dead cyclops and says, "I think it moved!"
Hey! It's a thing I've watched! Actually my wife and I watched it just on a lark, and we both ended up enjoying it--oddly enough, it was my wife who really got hooked.
I been curious about it but haven't seen it yet. I'll have to check it out. Heard a 2nd season has been announced.
4607898
Yeah it was. I mean they REALLY didn't get into too much in the first season. Honestly it would have been better if they'd made a longer season and took their time on a few points. At the very least it could have helped with some of the quick changes of heart.
4607894
It's not a bad show like I said. I kind of wish they'd had a few more episodes though so that they could have taken some more time on a few points. On a different note was it just me or did the bishop kind of remind you of Frollo from the Disney version of The Hunchback of Notre Dame?
4610646
Yeah, definitely too short a season.
I can't hardly believe it, but I haven't seen Hunchback since it came out in theaters... 21 years ago.