castlevania tv series

content/post/2023/01/license-to-kill.md

@@ -3,6 +3,7 @@ title: License To Kill
 date: 2023-01-31T18:54:00+01:00
 tags:
   - james bond
+  - TV shows
 categories:
   - braindump
 ---

content/post/2023/04/an-impression-of-the-castlevania-tv-series.md

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+---
+title: "An Impression of the Castlevania TV Series"
+date: 2023-04-12T15:12:00+02:00
+categories:
+  - braindump
+tags:
+    - TV shows
+    - castlevania
+---
+
+Feeding a newborn apparently includes sleepless nights where the best my brain can do while waiting for the burp is watch a TV show. After years of push-back, we _finally_ signed up for a Netflix account to keep my increasingly less mobile wife entertained during the last month of pregnancy. Out of curiosity, I did browse what's available before, but the sheer volume on shows and movies gave me nothing but analysis paralysis. 
+
+Until I found out about the [Castlevania TV Series](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castlevania_(TV_series)) by Warren Ellis. As a huge Castlevania video game fan---although I prefer the modern _Igavania_ hybrids---I was keen to find out how such a Dracula hunting setting could be translated into a series. If you've played the (old) games, what immediately becomes apparent is the plot that resolves around the vampire hunter Trevor Belmont, the magician Sypha Belnades, and Dracula's sun Alucard: it's essentially 1989's _Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse_ for the NES. In the game, you start off as Trevor in Warakiya Village, where branching paths lead to the rescuing of Sypha and/or Alucard, until you reach the Castle Courtyard and make your way to the Castle Keep to confront the most powerful vampire of all time. 
+
+![](../sypha.jpg "Left: TV Series, Sypha is about to cast an ice wall. Right: Castlevania III, Sypha is rescued after a boss fight.")
+
+I liked the fact that the color palette of the characters was roughly matched with the NES game. The obvious use of the same colors returns in another scene with Alucard later. It's also very cool to see that the anime art style in general is influenced by [Ayami Kojima's art](https://duckduckgo.com/?t=ffab&q=ajami+kojima&iax=images&ia=images), the illustrator for most of the Castlevania video games. It's not the first time we've seen Castlevania anime; a cool trailer servers as the intro movie in the Nintendo DS game [Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdRCsskJ8Uk).
+
+Even more impressive: according to [an interview at Polygon](https://www.polygon.com/tv/2017/7/7/15934226/netflix-castlevania) the plot of the TV show was solidified into Koji Igarashi's Castlevania timeline:
+
+> We've worked with Koji Igarashi to get the film solidly inside the Castlevania timeline, and he's approved everything I came up with, including some new embroidering to the timeline. To make it work as a film, I had to introduce new backstory, and I went through five drafts of the premise and three of the full outline to get the material where IGA wanted it.
+
+It was supposed to be a feature length film but Netflix decided differently, resulting in what I'd call a sometimes awkward cut-and-paste job that ends abruptly after each episode. Season 2 also introduces characters from _Castlevania: Curse of Darkness_, such as the Devil Forgemasters Hector and Isaac. It tries to tie everything together but the side-cast grows out of proportion where Dracula suddenly has to create order in a battle room of bickering vampire warlords, while in the video games, he mostly operated alone, except for a few confidants such as Shaft or Death (both not present in the series).
+
+![](../gaibon.jpg "Left: TV Series, Gaibon and Slorga are about to attack. Right: Castlevania IV, the fight with Gaibon.")
+
+Speaking about confidants, I was hoping to see epic fights with bosses materialize in the show. Until now, a brief one appeared at the beginning of season 2, where Alucard, Spyha, and Trevor a bit too swiftly manage to kill Gaibon and Slorga, two iconic bosses, that first separately appeared in _Castlevania IV_, not III. It's clear that some _Castlevania: Simphony of the Night_ influences also leaked through, where both appear together, and the flying demon Gaibon picks up Slorga who launches itself with its spear at you, just like in the TV show. In the game, they're much tougher to deal with, and the party of three never encountered them---wrong game!
+
+The way Dracula appears and disappears in the first few episodes made me smile: in a cyclone of fire, which is again a reference to the video games, although in the show, it seemed much more menacing. 
+
+As for the plot and characters introduced, as the show progresses, it gets more messy. Camilla, spelled Carmilla in the show, is a recurring antagonist in the video games, usually floating almost naked on a skull. However, she's nowhere to be seen in the plot of _Castlevania III_ or its plot-wise sequel _Curse of Darkness_---and she's never betrayed her master. Then there's a few random characters such as the vampire viking Godbrand that never existed in any video game and probably just was made up to give the show a bit more meat to the bones, which bothered me a bit. 
+
+![](../alucard.jpg "Left: Alucard reading a book in Belmont's treasury/library. Right: Castlevania Symphony of the Night, Alucard running around in the Long Library.")
+
+The first season felt like an original retelling of the events in _Castlevania III_, but from thereon, it felt like the writers were struggling with which video game material to include. The result is a bit of a mix from different games, which is fine I guess, as long as you don't expect the TV show to faithfully follow Igarashi's timeline. Perhaps the first season of the show sets people on the wrong foot, making them believe they'll focus solely on _Castlevania III_.
+
+Again, the resemblance in some episodes between a scene and a portion of the castle in the video game is the proof of dedication of the design team. In the above screenshot, Alucard inspects old books left behind by previous Belmont generations, looking for clues to defeat his father's army. The color palette and the depiction of the huge library in the Belmont vault in those scenes is very reminiscent of _Symphony of the Night_'s (SOTN) _Long Library_ castle section: dark hues of brownish yellow, endless stacks of books, huge stairways. 
+
+But then again, in SOTN, you play as Alucard only, and there's no Speaker magician to be found. According to the official timeline, SOTN's Richter Belmont's era is from 1792, while Trevor lived in 1476. The NES couldn't pull off those colors so I don't mind. And for completeness, let's assume that the vampires and/or antagonists not present in _Castlevania III_ that appear in the show, also set in the 1470s, live almost forever. There, fixed!
+
+But where the hell is Dracula's right-hand, Death? It seems he was completely removed from the show, which is a shame. They could pull off so many cool things with Death's character. In the video games, Gaibon and Slorga are faithful servants of Death, not of Dracula. They're always the boss to face before the inevitable encounter with Death. 
+
+Despite my initial reservations and the bothersome cast mix-up that tends to stride too much from its initial story-line, as a Castlevania fan, it's still a highly enjoyable show---especially in the middle of the night. Luckily for me, the fluid animations, grim tone, and bloody battle scenes don't require much brain activity. If you've ever played a Castlevania video game, like dark anime or stuff with vampires in it, give this one a go.