Castlevania: Nocturne

I share some of the sentiments with regard to the other reviewers. The visuals are great but the story is lacking.

But seeing as I don't know the castlevania storyline from the game, I don't care if the show is true to the game storyline.

My biggest gripe with this show is just how weak the monsters are. Vampires and night creatures are star wars storm trooper levels of useless. They are just fodder for the heroes to kill, so they have no intimidation factor.

The second gripe is related to the writing, stuff like how when one of the characters goes on a spying mission how they immediately find what they are looking for and are within hearing distance of important conversations. All this while the Vampires which are supposed to have heightened senses cannot detect that someone is following them and listening in on their conversations. That's just hack writing.

Its the ride of peak and nostalgia for any castlevania fans. Waited for years and get some thing brutally amazing. Amazing moment surely caught up and season interval was adore dramatic and brutish... Some lacklustre here but ok there's lot of things should get enjoyable. And last moment surly it's a treat for who watched Castlevania previous... But missed blody tears and dead like theme.. But got some better music top notch quality... Some Opera music has to be goosebumps but there's lacking also available... Overal enjoyable good memorable a English anime with making stylization surely got japanese.. And voice cast is exceptional.

The drawing style is pretty good though I feel the previous series was slightly better as it had better atmosphere.

The main issue is that the story moves too far from the original formula.

The new story is set in Revolutionary France but everything is "micro-adjusted" to fit a specific artificial narrative. Feels a like like the characters, story, dialogue all are forced into specific boxes.

The characters are more diverse cast now. Dracula no longer relevant instead is been replaced by another antagonist and she's not as scary to be honest. Belmont has been nerfed into a an insecure, young weakling. They tried to make it look strong by giving him raunchy lines but just looks bad.

The show keeps trying to associate revolution with emancipation and freedom and monarchy with vampires and evil at every corner.

Overall I'd say is not worth watching. The quality of their shows is getting worse and worse. The dialogue of the show is just terrible.

Animation 9/10 Characters 5/10 Story 2/10.

What I heavily enjoyed about the first Castlevania and its characters was regardless of ethnicities, it didn't detract from the identity of the series. The dungeon crawling grimdark fantasy vibes focusing on a band of adventurers coming together to cleanse the world of greater evils. It was bleak, it was fun, it was action packed, and it never detracted from staying on target. All the characters, even the villains, had their roles to play in this setup and it was executed perfectly. Each season had substantial plot progression and action, from the main cast getting acquainted to raiding Dracula's castle all by the end of the first season. It was an incredibly fun watch, that only continued to build up with the following 2 seasons.

Meanwhile Nocturne has turned the series into your typical political drama, pulled straight from the news networks of the modern day. No longer is every episode about venturing into some new bleak unknown territory of a grimdark fantastical world; instead, it's about corrupt political figures, slavery and the complacency of white people, the ethics of conquest etc. Every episode seems to have sacrificed the adventurous dungeon crawling aspects instead for monologue about the ethics of the listed talking points above. I didn't mind it at first, but when it dragged on the entire season I'd long since grown tired of it. Especially when you consider how much plot was covered in the first season by comparison, from meeting in a village plagued with demonic undead to storming Dracula's castle. Let's just say, the main cast barely accomplished anything by the end of this first season, one could argue they didn't actually accomplish anything at all.

Overall, the animation was beautiful, but the plot in itself dragged and didn't seem to accomplish anything substantial. It's obvious the creators have a new vision in mind when it comes to what they want this story to accomplish. Less adventure and action, more political talking points and debates about religions, race, conquest etc. 80% of this series is them monologuing about these topics while remained secluded in the same village throughout. What little action there is feels like meaningless filler that doesn't really progress the plot in any form outside of the last 1min of the season for spoiler reasons. However, the rest is meaningless. Definitely in no rush for a Season 2 and I "may" check it out, but overall, this series has pretty much killed my interest in following the plotline of Castlevania.

I really loved the first series as far as adaptation goes, back when Nocturne got announced I was stoked to see how they could keep the plotlines fresh. In this case, Nocturne is a beatifully animated show, with a few hiccups which don't retract from the experience, the sound is good, however voice acting ranges from good to fine.

As for story, this is where I'm conflicted, on one hand the plot is good and Erzebeth Bathory is a good pick for a villain, but... what the actual hell is up with the writing? Dialogues seem stiff, leaving little depth, they get so bad at times that it just took me out of the experience. With that said, I like Nocturne despite these issues, I hope that they will improve when the second season comes out, there's still a chance for it going from good to great..