Season Review: Castlevania Season One

Does Castlevania deserve its second season pickup?

In 2015 Producer Adi Shankar who’s usually known for doing dark fan-made video projects (including a Thomas Jane Punisher short, “Dirty Laundry”) announced that he was working with Fred Seibert and strangely enough, Frederator Studios on an animated mini-series based on Konami’s Castlevania franchise with the promise of assuring longtime fans that it would be “R-Rated as Fuck” and with unapologetic aplomb, Shankar upholds to those promises.

The main plot is set in 1476, where Dracula has the European village of Wallachia under his brutal grip in retaliation for the tragic witch-burning of his wife Lisa Tempes one year prior because apparently religious fuck-wits blissfully hate science, logic and by extension women who aspire to be doctors. Where does a Belmont fit into all this? Trevor Belmont who’s the protagonist of Castlevania III isn’t even introduced until the very end of episode one. Thankfully, episode two wastes no time actually picking up the story by shifting the focus on Trevor who later on encounters other supporting characters from Castlevania 3 such as the young androgynous sorceress Sypha Belnades and another fan-favorite, Dracula’s half-human son Alucard who’s popularity elevated from the 1997 PlayStation classic Castlevania:Symphony of the Night yet the wall-climbing thief Grant Danasty is nowhere to be found. (Season 2 Maybe?)

The NES games at the time had very little room for complex storytelling or characterization until the later games such as Rondo of Blood and it’s magnum opus Symphony of the Night changed everything we know about the franchise today. Given that the older Castlevania games at their core were your classic “Good vs Evil” stories with the Belmont Clan vs Dracula, the animated series reaches levels of complexity that the older games from the 80’s couldn’t achieve sprinkled with not-so-subtle social commentary by pointing out how the injustice & hypocrisy of religious zealotry can be a just as evil as the very “unholy monsters” they claim to be against.

The voice cast delivers strong Shakespearean-caliber performances all around with Richard Armitage voicing Trevor Belmont with a jaded & snarky attitude you easily grow to love, Alejandra Reynoso’s performance as Sypha Belnades plays well as Trevor’s opposite giving sort of a good cop/bad cop-like dynamic. Graham Mctavish (Loki from “Avengers: Earths Mightiest Heroes”) while giving a grade-a performance as Dracula, masterfully paints him as a merciless yet tragic villain you can also sympathize with but Dracula’s screentime is only devoted to one episode and his rebellious son Alucard (voiced by James Callis) while carefully foreshadowed in episode one, isn’t fully introduced until the final episode. And finally, Matt Frewer also gives a sinister & underrated performance as the “Bishop” who’s heinous and indiscriminate actions become the catalyst for the proceeding events that unfold.

 

Our Take

When working on an ambitious project like this, you need to be both extremely talented and to have all the right people in the best fields within your circle and Adi Shankar delivered that in spades. You have critically acclaimed comic book writer Warren Ellis in charge of the plot, Director Sam Deats, atmospheric & moody music that fits into the brutal Game of Thrones-like fantasy setting and American animation that’s borderline Anime with jaw-dropping details and occasional excessive gore which is miles above Frederator’s past works when you realize that this is the same animation team who gave us The Fairly Odd Parents and Adventure Time.

SCORE
8/10