Let's talk about Castlevania: Nocturne! (A PG review of an R-rated show)

     Hey there, friends! I know we're technically not in the spooky months anymore, but if there's anything that the Twilight craze taught me some years ago, it's that vampires are not just constrained to one month. They could potentially be celebrated year round, as they should be with the "Castlevania" animated series on Netflix. For those not in the know, Castlevania is a video game franchise that revolves around the Belmont family, which is a family of Vampire hunters. The Netflix series of the same name had 4 seasons and followed the adventures of Trevor Belmont, protagonist of the game Castlevania III: Dracula's Revenge. "Castlevania Nocturne," which just came out at the end of September is about Richter Belmont, who is the protagonist in the game Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, or as it was called in the Sega Genesis version, Castlevania: Dracula X. More excitingly for many people, however, is that Richter is also present for the most popular game in the franchise, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night. With this being a video game adaptation, I thought I should talk about my thoughts just a bit this week, since it is somewhat Halloween-adjacent, and speculate perhaps on where the series will continue from here. I will warn you right now, this show is absolutely not for kids, and neither is the other show that I mentioned before. Definitely R-rated violence and language, so reader beware. I promise I won't get too graphic in this post, because frankly I don't like describing just how brutal the show can be many times, but I'll also be covering some spoilers here for the first season of the show, so there are your two warnings that I'll give you right off the bat (pun not intended, but I'm definitely happy about it). With those things in mind, let's talk some about this most recent vampire-slaying show.

French Revolution... but with Vampires!

    Castlevania: Nocturne takes place during the French Revolutionary times, and as such, Richter Belmont and Maria Renard are a few revolutionaries rebelling against "the man," which, in this case, seems to mean mostly Vampires. I'm sure they're also in protest of the ruling class, but in this show we mostly just see them fighting vampires, along with Maria's mother, Tara. Richter and co. are nearly wiped out by some "night creatures," meaning various monsters like zombies, giant wolves, etc. but are saved by Annette and Edward (I think was his name), who are two revolutionaries in their own rights, but they're from the Caribbean. I think this show implied that the Haitian Revolution happened because the slaves kept there grew tired of their vampire owners, and revolted and killed most of them. It's very confusing, and it seems kind of distasteful to imply that such a serious historical event happened because of vampires, but that's what they went for I think. Annette was told by her Grandmother to find someone with the name of Belmont, since the family has always been well known for dealing with things that go bump in the night. One of the vampires mentions a "vampire messiah" which is capable of blotting out the sun, and that's the basic set-up for the show. The concept of a "vampire messiah" is very weird, and they repeat it over and over again like we're supposed to understand how serious a threat this character must be, even when it seems like it's just a title for a vampire that wants to brag about how great they are. Before I go any farther, I have to say that this season is pretty good, and does a good job of establishing the characters, as well as the trials and tribulations that they face and things that lie ahead. Now that I've laid out some of the background here, let's talk about the deviations from the game.

Is this season all just prelude?

    In the game, Castlevania: Rondo of Blood, Dracula is the main villain (as he is for most of the Castlevania games) and Richter is involved because Dracula has kidnapped a bunch of women, including his girlfriend Annette, and his friend Maria. In this show which is very loosely based on the games, Dracula isn't mentioned until maybe 30 seconds before the season ends, and the aforementioned "vampire messiah," who does eventually appear two episodes before the end, isn't anyone from any of the games as far as I can tell. It seems weird that from a franchise with so many monsters and interesting villains, they just created a powerful vampire to be the main threat of the show, at least so far. Olrox, who is an actual enemy in Symphony of the Night, does play a pretty beefy role in this show, which is nice to see, and many of the monsters that attack the party are from somewhere in the games, as you might expect. 

    Spoiler alert ahead, because at the very end of the season when our heroes are hopelessly outmatched and everything seems lost, seemingly out of nowhere arises Alucard, alongside his trademark flying sword familiar. Who is Alucard? Well, besides the winner of the "worst named child award," he also is the son of Dracula. Another funny thing about Alucard, do you know how he got that name? Spell it backwards and you've got Dracula. The vampire lord was not great at naming, clearly. Speaking of names though, Dracula has not been mentioned a single time in the whole show so far until Alucard introduces himself as his son, which prompts Annette to say, "Who's Dracula?" I have to say, I was shocked that Annette hasn't heard of Dracula before, since she's known seemingly everything that there is to know, and even is seen convening with spirits at a certain part to ask for guidance. If this show follows the continuity of the games, Dracula rises from the dead every 100 years in a different place to wreak havoc on the countryside. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems like a vampire-hunting fanatic, who has basically devoted her life to tracking down and killing vampires after being enslaved by them for many years, would probably know about Dracula. Also 100 years isn't a very long time, it seems like her mother or grandmother could have easily told her some story about a long time ago when he was last around. Maybe that's just wishful thinking, but it seems weird to me regardless. 

    As stated before, Rondo of Blood has Dracula as the main villain, and doesn't mention a single thing about a "vampire messiah." I have to guess that they'll deal with this whole threat next season, and then Dracula will rise after that and we'll get the Rondo of Blood storyline as one would expect, but we'll have to see. In the original "Castlevania" series, Dracula was actually killed in Season 2, and then the last two seasons were... very different in tone, so honestly who knows what we're going to get in "Castlevania: Nocturne." I also have to talk about Juste Belmont, Richter's grandfather (the protagonist from Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance), who shows up to give some well needed Belmont family history. He lost the ability to use magic and the signature "Vampire Killer" whip a long time ago and passed it down to Richter's mother, who dies at the beginning of the show when Richter is a little boy. At that point, Richter also stops being able to use magic, but recovers the ability to do so when he needs it the most in the show, making for one of the coolest moments of the whole season, accompanied by an orchestrated version of his theme from the game. I really wish we had more moments like that in this season, because there was a lot of talking about origins and building these characters up to be something special later on, without showing a ton of the promise with the characters now. It makes me excited for upcoming seasons, especially with the reveal of Alucard, but I wish we could have had more here.

    My thoughts on this show are conflicted for sure. We do have a lot of vampire-slaying goodness to play with, we have moments of genuine humanity in Richter that were hardly ever seen in Trevor, but the whole villainous threat I didn't really care much for. I should say that I didn't spoil everything about this show, there's a priest who is definitely not what he seems, in more ways than one, and I'll just leave it at that, because he definitely ends up being a pretty major character by the end of this first season. The ending is definitely a major cliffhanger, and I can't wait to see what they do next, though I hope it will be something pretty spectacular.

    Thanks for reading this somewhat brief review of "Castlevania: Nocturne," friends. I hope you enjoyed the show if you've seen it, though again, I don't know if I can recommend it to people because honestly, it's a little much for me even. Just a lot of mature themes and fairly gruesome elements to it, but I'm still interested to continue watching it just for the small inclusions kept in to keep continuity with the video game franchise. I think it's so interesting that each game (save for a few) focuses on a different family member in a different time period, which is actually a pretty interesting plot point in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, if they make a season about that. Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you'll have a great week! Until next time, I'm Jonathan, a Self-Proclaimed Belmont historian, and I'll talk to you again soon!