i havent seen any discusion on this seasson here on lemmy so what the hell, im gonna start my own.
I had some very mixed feelings on it, for one the action and animation was very cool, and the second season seems that its gonna be a break it or make it kinda deal in terms of the plot because the writting was mediocre and worse compared even to the 3rd season of the first series, which is the weakest season by far of the first castlevania.
This is specially the case with the main 3 characters, first Maria is very passionate about the revolution and thats cool but the way they portrait it is very annoying, she just spouts the same revplutionary speeches over and over, and its never explained why she is so pasionate about it, you could say because freedoom is a universal motivation but it really isnt, speciallybfor her since she as well as her mom live away from the town, they arent really shown interacting with the townspeople so that to make a connection to understeand why they want freedom for them, or at the very least they could have shown her that she whent to college and learned about it on her philosophy class, or anything, luckilly they tone it down at the end by giving her more character and a conflict that goes into spoiler territory that seems that its gonna be cool how they expand upon it in the next season, but the first parts are very annoying and unexplained.
Second is Richter, which is this seassons flagship belmont, he kind of makes no sense, it wasnt shown or mentioned that he was trained in vampire killing yet he is super good at it, you could say that thats because he is a belmonth, but due to his “spoiler” being “spoiled” its not possible he could have been trained as well as say trevor with the wip, not even by the people that he is living wirt now since they are magic users, not vampire hunters, yet he is impossibly good with it, and he really doesnt have a good explanation as to why he is a vampire hunter in profession, and to pretend he has a character arc they gave him a barely justified shonen protagonist anime power up scene where he kills a bunch of powerfull vampires with magic and this was specially made to justify having him running of crying in one scene where his “spoiler” shows up, this imo really shows the intentions of the writers, wich takes us to the last character i want to complain about: Annete.
Annete was kinda like the writers darling, the first parts of the show focus on her and one whole episode its entirelly dedicated to her backstory, while the other characters barelly have foundation, and this wouldnt be as bad if she wasnt so annoying, since she causes some problems and one of them being a characters death due to her not being able to control herself at a very bad moment and isnt even at the very least made responsible for it, the whole contrary btw, and its not because she is clumsy or made a mistake, she has some very OP magic and its very good at using it, which while it shouldnt it kinda gets aded as a negative, not that she shouldnt be powerfull but you kinda understeand what the writers are trying to do and i dont like it, and when richters runs away they made her snap, throw a temper tantrum and shit talk him, making her come across at the very least as very unconcidarate, and granted, they have someone tell her that she shouldnt do that and she accepts it but still, but aggain, its very obvius why the writers added this, they whant to piss pepople of for controversy and about that, thats the characters purpose at its core, to be controversial, you could think it is not but it is. Not that a character shouldnt be diverse, but when they are made diverse nor even for diversitys sake, just for controversys sake, it brings the ehole character and discussion down. And it makes me sad that they are using a culture that has some cool potential for very nice stories and characters be used for just to piss people off and as a twitter argument, but well what can you do.
It may not seem like it but i do recomend it if you liked the first castlevania series, its more of it at the end, but if you like the games you will probably be more perplexed about it, but if thats the case then you probably seen the first series and again, its more casltevania. And if you like diversity in you media then you will like this series, i know it sounds condecending, but i heard is a genuine thing people take into concideration to rate something, so yeah, its very diverse, you will like it. Other than that, the second seasson its already confirmed so, like i said, they could redeem themseles or make it worse, so we will have to see…
Overall I enjoyed it. I really liked the setting of the French Revolution and the way that the Church allied itself with darkness in the face of an existential threat. Very relevant I think to many religious institutions today.
I REALLY liked Olrox. An Aztec vampire that can transform into a serpent god? Yes please. And they made him a three dimensional character, neither totally good or bad.
I agree that more time could have been spent on Rictor and Marie’s upbringing, but that wasn’t critical. I assume Rictor just comes by his skills naturally by way of being a Belmont and doesn’t need formal training. Marie was obviously trained by her mom. I really liked her power of conjuring creatures from another dimension, especially that one particular moment on the last battle with her foot.
Anne was a cool character but I agree she took too much responsibility for Eduoard’s death. But she’s also young and he was one of her only friends, so I can also kind of understand. She has a lot of growing to do.
I thought the idea of reformed Night Creatures was intriguing. Elizabeth Bartlett was underdeveloped as a villain, and Drolta wasn’t much better. Grandpa Belmont coming out of left field was weird and didn’t add much to the story since he didn’t do much.
Whatever it’s flaws, they weren’t enough for me to not enjoy it.
The whole church thing was weird to me because they do portrait them like a bunch of blind dogmatic weirdoes, with the priest gaslighting himself into thinking that him spoilling himself with the spoilers its gods plan but at the same time it seems that they are gonna whant to reddem the priest in the future, because it seems he genuenly thought that god was gonna help him and send him a sacrificial lamb to sacrifice instead of spoiler and he does seem genuenly horrorized from what happened next. And not to mention the bara knight that i dont remember his name, being paired as olroxs love interest and not even aknowledging that the church does not aprove of that at all, like, hell, its impossible for him to not have an internall conflict at least for having sex outside of marriage, let allone homosexual relationships and with a vampire/demon! That sounds like a freaking awesome character conflict, specially with the priests bullshit going on, but like the french revolution setting, it was wasted (hopefully just for now) .
Olrox was cool, him being wathever anything doesnt face me one way or the other, i think vampires being homo or bi or wathever is kinda naturall because they usually live for a long time and thend to become hedonistic and with the mentality of nothing is sacred, so i think thats kinda natural, but whe deffinetly needed more time with him on screen thought. Personally i think he is working for dracula one way or the other but who knows.
With belmont it was more believable with trevor because he was constantly reminicing of when he was trained during his youth, him having extensive knowledge about night creatures and how to kill them, and the whole belmonth state made him even more believeable as a fallen hunter, like he wouldnt even be alive if it wasnt for his training and knowledge, but with richter its just feels convenient, like where did he even learned how to use the wip? They could have had this explained with Juste maybe teaching him but they made him a divorsed grandpa, or maybe if they showed richter not being as super skilled with the wip like he is, like if he was just a hunter in training and have juste suplement his training some time in the future, but no, he is already a profesional vampire hunter. Maybe im nitpickng on him but it does make me uncomfortable that fact.
Maria is fine, ilke where they are going with her at the end, but her pasion for the revolution feels kinda random, they should hav gave her a motive like a friend of hers was killed by the aristocraths, or that she is friends wit some townspeople but they are bullied by the stablishment with impossible taxes, or that she and her mom are afected some way by the government which doesnt seem to be the case, since it seems they live kinda of grid? I dont know but they are definetly not villagers, hell it isnt even show that they work, like are they merchants? Does Tera makes potions and sells them? Are they maintained by the priest an dont work at all? I might be wrong and it might have been hinted at in the show but if that it the feel free to tell me otherwise. Like i just dont find the beliebable, they just exist and maria has no real reason as to why shes so pationate for revolution, at least show something lame like she whent to college and learned in a philosophy or ethics class about freedoom and now became an activist due to that.
Bartlett does suck right now, shes just evil for the sake of it. Drolta was very nothing but her character design was annoying, not all of it, just her pink hair and some outfits they gave her, looks more like she came out from marvel or dc rather than castlevania but shes spoiler at the end, so i guess it doesnt really mather annymore i guess.
Juste sucks now, i hope they use him in the future.
The night creture thing is cool, but the singing was annoying and with how long it was it felt cringe unfortunately, like if they cut some time of it it wouldnt be as annoying.
Annete sucks to me, im sorry, i made it very clear already and the writers intentions are very clear and not well meaning, they wanted to make a controversial character for twitter rants and they did.
Other than that im glad you enyoyed it.
I jus hope season 2 does better since its already confirmed.
Edit:
added the maria part.