Castlevania Season 2 Review

Castlevania Season 2 Review

So, the second season of Castlevania dropped on Netflix on Oct 26. The series is based on the video game series of the same name and these two seasons in particular are based on Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse that was released for the NES in 1989. While the Castlevania series has many protagonists in III the playable characters are Trevor Belmont, Alucard, Sypha, and Grant Danasty. Grant was excluded from these two seasons and there's currently no word if he would show up in a future season. I myself am mostly unfamiliar with the Castlevania series. I know there are a bunch of games and Symphony of the Night appears to be the favorite, but I have only played Order of Ecclesia for the DS which I found to be overall a pretty good game although with some frustrating RNG.

As for the Netflix series I watched the first season last year and didn't like it. I felt it was incredibly boring outside of the last episode and I couldn't quite explain why until I started this season. I think it was partially the writing and mostly the acting from the first season. The first was heavily emphasized on the townspeople and the priest all who I felt failed at convincing me I was witnessing this world. It was when we briefly saw the priest again in the first scene of season 2 where I felt his dry voice dragged things down. If I'm not mistaken I think this is the same actor that did a couple of the white guy voices in The Boondocks and I think the juxtaposition of his serious voice with the comedic style of The Boondocks fits better there than in here.

But that aside let's get into this spoiler free review of season 2. So to recap with season 1 Dracula's wife is murdered by a group of villagers led by the village priest and in response Dracula rages war on humankind, edging for their extinction. Trevor Belmont is a drunk and meets up with the nomad magician Sypha, some boring stuff in between, and at the end they meet up with Alucard, Dracula's son and they all go on a mission together to slay the vampire.

Season 2 picks up right after this with the trio traveling along to find the whereabouts of Dracula. This season is heavily focused on Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard, and Dracula and his army. I would say that the story leans more about Dracula and his followers than the three heroes and I'm actually cool with that. The relationship between Dracula and his followers is probably the most interesting part of this show. It involves politics, humanity, and loss. It also has my favorite character on the show Carmilla. She's a bad b and the only female vampire that gets some spotlight. Dracula's followers all have distinct personality and you get a sense of their characters and backstory. Out of the vampires I would have to say that Dracula was the least interesting, but he served his purpose to the plot and a climatic battle at the end. I know serious Castlevania fans would be wondering how the fight would play out and despite only playing one Castlevania game I can assure you that you would not be disappointed. Now, Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard are all fine in the show, but it seems like the vampires steal the spotlight. You get fun banter between the characters, mainly jabs between Trevor and Alucard, but the three characters grow into their own on the journey which was a lot shorter than I expected. You get a couple of neat fights with them and all and I'm still intrigued on where the characters will go from here. Something else I wanted talk about quickly is how gorgeous the animation is. The artwork is not only pretty, but it animates well, the frames move with a water-like flow that's beautiful to watch and some of the fight choreography is gory and spectacular.

Overall, I really enjoyed this season. It's not perfect. There are a few parts that do drag but as soon as you start to bore it grabs your attention again. I'm eager to see what a third season will have in store for us. I'm already speculating about who the new villain could be. I never thought a TV series based on a video game could be good. It's been years since I watched one, but my experiences were with Super Mario Bros, Mega Man, and Sonic which were all very brief and I hardly remember them, but I don't think they were any good. I know there's been a few others in past years like Sonic Boom, and I think Nickelodeon had a Tak series, but I've never heard anything good about any of these shows. I watched a little bit of the old Donkey Kong one online, but that was super bad. I caught brief views of the Street Fighter and Kirby ones too and they were also bad, but not as bad as that Donkey Kong one. Well, that's all I have to say. Season 2 of Castlevania was great and I highly recommend it to everyone. If you haven't seen the first season I suggest just watching the season 1 recap and just skipping to 2 honestly, the recap was way better at keeping my attention than all of season 1. Well, that's it. I'll see y'all next time.