Castlevania

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**SPOILERS AHEAD** I was really looking forward to this show, as many people praised it. However, so many things that the show was acclaimed for, are the exact reasons why I hated watching it. Season 1 was promising, it was short, straight to the point. It did an amazing job at introducing the characters and the world. It piqued my curiosity and I needed to know more. I can’t say the same for the following seasons, as the biggest crime this show commits is telling you everything and not showing you. Which on its own is bad, but when the dialogue is bad as well, it makes for a boring watch. There are many examples of lazy writing in the show. One scene that I found just plain bad, was the flashback when Dracula was recruiting Isaac. He has this line: “Say the words. So I know you are still my friend”, to me this line stood out from the moment I heard it. The line is just such a poor attempt at forcing the other character to talk about how they met. They don’t even try to have a good set up for the flashback, they force it in instead. There are many other bad pieces of dialogue, but I am sure I got some of my point across. What also does not help is how bad the voice acting is. The voice actors are whispering a lot of the times, which for me does not work. They also have no emotion in their voice, so a lot of the deliveries make some normal scenes so boring to watch. I am not sure if the voice actors are to blame, or the director who guided them. Whoever it was, the show was really hindered by it. **Season 2 - 3/10:** The actual story of the show has some interesting plot threads, but the writers chose the most boring scenes to show. Our main hero cast is stuck in a library for most of the season. They barely have any fighting scenes, and we are mainly learning on how to kill Dracula. Many scenes that they do show of them, are jokes, some comedic bits to lift the tension between the other plot threads. Which is disappointing, because I was hoping they would build up the world more, or something like that. Instead, we got even more poor dialogue which is again childish at best. I must say I was intrigued by Dracula, his court and the two forge masters. I loved learning about their past, and how they got to this position now. However, considering Dracula was killing every human on earth you would expect some more action. That is not case, we spent so much time bickering and learning about Hector and Isaac. You forget they are actually doing genocide. When Carmilla was introduced I already knew where this was going. She is a 1D character, I had hoped this would change through the later seasons but no. She continues to be this plain character, who just wants to conquer everything and anything. I do wish that they had at least tried to make her manipulation a bit less obvious. I also did not fully understand why everyone just went along with her plan. Overall she felt more like a plot device, which has no substance. The fight scenes are indeed what save the show, they are well animated and really fun to watch. Especially because of the unique weapons Trevor has, it makes for some pretty interesting scenes. While the animation shined in the fights, in the more normal scenes it looked really stiff. The character faces also varied on emotion, sometimes it was pretty okay, other times there was zero emotion. There are some scenes in this season that are too quiet. I understand the final scene with Alucard is supposed to be emotional. However, because of the voice acting and animation, not having any ambience made for an extremely awkward moment instead. This issue isn’t as frequent as some of the other problems, but it happened enough for me to remember. One final note for the final fight, I was disappointed by how little Sypha and Trevor contributed. The fight mostly fell on Alucard. The final scenes of Alucard and Dracula fighting, that is them actually talking. Were again immensely awkward due to poor voice acting. I was also caught off guard by how Dracula changed in those final scenes. Those silhouettes that Alucard saw, should have been added here as well. So that we have an idea of what Dracula was thinking, just so it feels more believable. **Season 3 - 3/10:** The problems with animation, voice acting and dialogue still persist in this season. However, there is a new problem in this season and that is how they utilized the time in each episode. They added many different characters arcs which were hard to fit in a 25 minute episode. We had a lot of cuts, we were everywhere all the time. They never had a strong focus on any of the plot threads, so when they all concluded it actually was not that satisfying. Some characters got way too much time and some way too little. Alucard and his, well whatever that was, was the definition of wasting time. When I finished the season I felt like that was pointless, now that I have finished the show it also added nothing to his character. Why they gave those side characters as much time as they did is confusing. They ignored the trust issues that the side characters ended up causing. You could have skipped every scene with Alucard and have a better understanding what happened to him in the next season, than actually watching it. I did like what they were trying to do with Sypha and Trevor, but they got way too little screen time for what the show had set them up for. I was really pulled into this little town, which had so many secrets to tell, and yet we just rushed past everything. I did like their story, it was the highlight of this season. Seeing how night creatures could communicate with Sala and his men, and how it manipulated them was really interesting. I am slightly confused as to how it knew how to do the spell, but I will give them the benefit of the doubt. Saint Germain was a nice addition, I mostly liked learning about the infinite corridor honestly. The concept of it is really intriguing, and it really kept my eyes glued to the screen. The only thing that I am really not happy about, is how they painted the Judge as a child murderer. This just came out of nowhere and added nothing, like our main characters already went through so much. This was an unnecessary final blow. Hector has been established as a gullible character, who is very easily swayed by a few good things. We see Lenore take advantage of this, and she was honestly set up as a very interesting character. She does in some ways care for Hector but she is fiercely dedicated to her sisters cause. I was never sure when she was actually manipulating him or just trying to care for him. By the end we do see that she is indeed twisted as her sisters, but she does play nicer with her pets. I am actually glad she mostly took the spotlight because Carmilla really was not that interesting, and the rest of the scenes with the sisters suffered from tell but don’t show. Isaac had some good moments, and the conversations he had with other people were interesting at times. However, it all falls apart when you realize he has an army of night creatures, and he acts shocked when people want to fight him. He is surprised that people don’t trust him because they believe that his monsters won’t kill them. I mean I understand what they are going for here, but it is so poorly executed, his character is unwatchable sometimes. **Season 4 - 2/10:** I will talk about Trevor and Sypha first, they had a very disappointing story and ending. Their story in this season is best described as spending weeks killing futile attempts reviving Dracula. Then arriving at Targoviste, to get some new weapons, kind of help people. This doesn’t matter as this is never brought up in the end. I was always so bored when they were on screen, as they did not add anything to the actual overall story. I wish that they maybe hinted at Sypha being pregnant or even dealing with it, that would have been more interesting. I also really disliked how conveniently Trevor found a weapon to kill death. The whole fake out death was really bad as well. I don’t know what to say because I was disappointed by that, I almost wish Trevor stayed dead. It could have made for an interesting plot thread for Nocturne. I will mention the one thing that stuck out to me, is seeing Sypha figure out how to use lightning. This is one of the few things we are shown, and she also never talks about it. So, the scenes where she uses it feel really rewarding. As time goes on she spends less time focusing on generating lightning, I really loved this kind of detail. Alucard I already mentioned that his arc from the previous season adds nothing here. I liked this arc a lot more though. I just wish it used some of the elements that were set up the previous season. The characters just felt a bit mismatched from where we left them. Overall while I don’t anything amazing here, it is at least watchable. Isaac made me confused this season, while many of the characters say that he has changed, but we are never shown this. So, I have a hard time believing it. I understand he rebuilt that city, but that is not enough proof that this man still doesn’t want to kill every human. Change is not one and done thing. His beliefs were challenged in the previous season, but we needed to see him still lean into those decisions. Where he chooses that he wants to make the world a better place. To me he is still highly volatile, and a few pushes could easily make him go back to murdering everything. The sisters' plan to take over the world fell apart the second they actually started doing anything. Why, well Isaac is a master fighter somehow, and he can easily go one on one with Carmilla. The power scaling in the show is bad, and this moment is easily the worst it gets. I understand Carmilla was tired, but she used none of her vampire abilities and she was always shown to be really powerful. So, her losing to Isaac was just really unexpected. I know she technically killed herself, but still Isaac pushed her to it. I will just mention Striga and Morana leaving because they had enough of Carmilla’s scheming was such an out there idea, but it actually worked pretty well. They didn’t get much screen time, but the bits they got they used it pretty well. Hector is not the same character we left at the end of season 3, he's suddenly close to Lenore and they chat often. Lenore also lost all the spice she had in the previous season. These two are just different characters, Hector is suddenly in love with Lenore. He wants to spend time with her, even after everything she has done and said. None of their moments feel right at all. Lenore also ending her life was a bit unexpected, we got very little time with her to believe this. These two probably got the worst of the bad writing. Few final notes on the ending, highly disappointing mainly because that random annoying vampire that is actually death. I mean this came out of nowhere, was not hinted at all and just ruined the flow of the show. The final battle did not feel earned or epic, and was actually underwhelming.

It gets good and good, as the show progresses, season by season. Season 1 got a bit slow, but that was only because there were 4 episodes. Season 2 got interesting, and it concluded with an epic confrontation between the three heroes and Dracula! Season 3 was excellent. Up until the last episode, which had a pretty bleak conclusion, how they left it with each character; just when you see a glimmer of hope you get disappointed with the dark reminder of humanity! Castlevania, while based on the popular video, to me is like Game of Thrones, but animated, and with vampires!