Castlevania Animated Series - Netflix

Discussion in 'Movies and Television' started by Tekkaman Blade, Aug 30, 2015.

  1. Raiju

    Raiju Navel Shocker Veteran

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    The focus on the villains is what saved Season 2 for me and my wife. We found those characters to be much more compelling than the three main heroes, although making Dracula sulk and brood so much when he was out for blood at the end of Season 1 was kinda baffling. Here's to hoping Season 3 offers a more balanced approach to the characters.
     
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  2. Raiju

    Raiju Navel Shocker Veteran

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    New trailer for Season 3 has been released. It looks bloody good!

     
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  3. Laser_Optimus

    Laser_Optimus Currently no longer giving a shit about the MCU. TFW2005 Supporter

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    That looks fantastic! Not enough Alucard for me, but it still looks fantastic! :D 
     
  4. Scrapmaker

    Scrapmaker Hadar Sen Olmen

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    Hm. Looking forward to it, hopefully it's faster paced than previous episodes.
     
  5. Tekkaman Blade

    Tekkaman Blade Professor of Animation

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    Looks to have more action and less talking, if so should be good.
     
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  6. Mako Crab

    Mako Crab Well-Known Member

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    God I hope not. I don’t think I can take a repeat of season 2, where they spend 90% of the time having the most banal conversations.

    For what it’s worth, the trailer looks good, and I hope the new season is good.
     
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  7. Pravus Prime

    Pravus Prime Wields Mjolnir!

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    Episode 1 is pretty good. My favorite part by a considerable margin is Alucards dinner conversation.
     
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  8. sifu74

    sifu74 Banned

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    IGN gave it a 10, but they did say S2 was good and that's a lie.
     
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  9. Mako Crab

    Mako Crab Well-Known Member

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    My favorite bit from their review is, “the show doesn’t feel the need to chain itself to the iconography of the games...”

    And true enough, not one candle was whipped. Still not sure how ejecting iconic visual cues is a good thing, but they sure tried to spin it that way.

    That’s like the review I saw of Halle Berry’s Catwoman, where they started praising the cinematography.
     
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  10. Laser_Optimus

    Laser_Optimus Currently no longer giving a shit about the MCU. TFW2005 Supporter

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    So just binged this. This season was a pretty mixed bag just like season two. I liked Trevor and Sypha's story, Hector's story was pretty good, Isaac's story was short but got across what they needed, for the trailers making it look like Carmilla was going to be the new big bad she was doing very little this season, and Alucard's story just not only felt like there was very little to it but that it wasn't properly thought out... especially the "twist" ending. Overall these ten episodes feel like filler and build up for whatever they have planned for season four. Which doesn't bode well when you have a show that's only getting a small number of episodes once a year.
     
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  11. hellrasinbrasin

    hellrasinbrasin Well-Known Member

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    ...I think that after having viewed the current series of Castlevania more than once that I quite liked it. What I think they did proper is focus on the characters post Fall of Dracula and in the backdrop of that set the stage for the next conflict. And you have to pull back for a breather with Trevor , Sypha , and Alucard before chucking them back into the deep end again.
     
  12. sifu74

    sifu74 Banned

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    It's a 30 minute cartoon, we don't get the nuance acting that a live action show can like The Walking Dead did in the early seasons to be able to slow down. Imagine if Transformers or GI Joe back in the 80s had them all just sitting around talking about BS?
     
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  13. Murasame

    Murasame 村雨

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    The third season was meh
     
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  14. BB Shockwave

    BB Shockwave Behold, Gagatron!

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    This was more "people talking about things while the plot proceeds at a snail's pace". In fact, people talked in ways no human being (or vampire) would, constantly repeating things and telling stuff past stories in great details that should have been shown in flashbacks.Hell, I identified mostly with Trevor Belmont because he seemed as bored out of his skull as I was watching this.
    Warren Ellis should go back to writing comic books. He clearly has no idea how to handle an animated medium.
    I don't think we would be here, talking about Transformers, today, if it was like that. :D 
    Seriously, these writers need to go back to school and learn how to do a one-episode story. Stop writing for trades/ Netflix bingewatching.

    Indeed, this barely felt like the game, at all. Were any of the monsters Isaac created from the games, btw? I checked the "Innocent Devils" you can summon in that game and they don't look anything like the ones he had.
     
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  15. Tekkaman Blade

    Tekkaman Blade Professor of Animation

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    Yeah most of his animations have been fairly bland, I wasn't impressed by the writing in his Marvel anime either.
    His comics are also hit or miss.
    The animation in Castlevania is great, but it's just so slow.
    That's been a problem in modern comics with writers like Bendis and Ellis. All talk little action. Older writers of comics used to be able to get the same amount of story and action in 2 issues what takes modern writers 6 to 12. They also all seem to have agendas now instead of just writing a simple tale of superheros fighting evil that the old books used to have. Now half the time the heros aren't really as good as they seem and the villains aren't all evil, everything is grey.....and boring. And they keep retreading the same ground over and over again. Not good vs evil but they keep getting into the same political narratives and think they are being subtle, but they aren't. Then they start killing characters again....who just came back from the dead less than a year ago. And oh look another mega crossover that crosses over into every title...... rinse repeat do the same thing again with a barely different story line after only a 3 month break from crossovers.
    And they wonder why readers are abandoning comings in droves.
     
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  16. Mako Crab

    Mako Crab Well-Known Member

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    Last night I had a choice between starting season 3 of this show or playing Untitled Goose Game.

    I went with the goose.

    Your guys’ reviews are confirming my worst fears- that it’s just more of the same with all the same problems that plagued the first 2 seasons. Still gonna watch it to see for myself but damn if I wasn’t hoping it’d be better.
     
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  17. Murasame

    Murasame 村雨

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    Nah, the first two seasons were great. Season 3 was boring. I was on my tablet half of the time, waiting for the story to finally pick up pace and then it was over and felt like it did not really start at all.
     
  18. Mako Crab

    Mako Crab Well-Known Member

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    Season 1 was short enough that I didn’t really develop an opinion one way or the other aside from “decent enough to check back.” But season 2 was plodding and aimless IMO.

    I’ll keep checking it out just because. But nothing about this show makes me want to rewatch it.
     
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  19. Skekgar82

    Skekgar82 Banned

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    Great show, one of my favorite adult animations and netflix shows.

    Been a fan of the games for 32 years since i got my NES when i rented them and also when i got my SNES back in 92 as i dug Castlevania IV.

    This show reminds me of Vampire Hunter D films in aspects
     
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  20. BB Shockwave

    BB Shockwave Behold, Gagatron!

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    Also, can someone explain to me the whole dumb plot of those two japanese vampire hunter siblings? (they did not even look japanese, btw... in an ANIME! hilarious).
    What was their plan? Ask the literal son of Dracula for help in vampire hunting, and when he has been nothing but helpful and kind to them, decide to kill him because they feel he has been holding out??? And why use a BDSM threesome to kill him? Because the show needed some nudity? They were idiots, frankly. And heck, the show even went and showed their vampire master, Cho, as some badass boss level vampire... when in reality she died in seconds in season 2, and I think she never even had a line to speak. This just reminded me again how much the second season wasted all those cool looking vampire lords from all corners of the earth...


    I do admit the giant ball of mind-controlled humans was an impressive sight in the second to last episode. I think that was a game villain, too, no?



    I too wish I had played AoW Planetfall yesterday instead of watching most of this.
    I can basically summarize what happens to most of the characters in aa few sententces, so effin' little happens!!!
    -Isaac travels back to Styria and gets even more disillusioned by humanity and makes a legion of night creatures.
    -Hector is imprisoned and seduced by Carmilla's sister to help them in their plot to take over the lands left behind by Dracula. (Oh my this guy is such a colossal, naive idiot, it is staggering. Was he like this in the games too?)
    -Alucards takes in two vampire hunter youngsters who, for absolutely no reason other than that other people betrayed them in the past, suddenly out of nowhere betray and try to kill him, so he kills them.
    -Trevor and Sayfa arrive in some remote little town where some mad monks (geez, we get it Warren, you like most anime writers, hate the church, can you grow up please?) are trying to resurrect Dracula. But we have to endure 7 episodes before this is even revealed. Then they open a portal to Hell and Dracula is shown, but the demons are killed before he could come through.
    -Oh and Saint Germaine is introduced, he is some quirky old man who like everyone in this show, loves to talk to himself. He seems to have lost someone during time travels, he helps our heroes and jumps through the portal at the end. Nothing is really revealed whether he is some traveler or what.

    Well, that show also has a boring protagonist who just spends most of his time traveling from place to place and fighting monsters without much reason or plot, so... I can see the similarity.
    Oh, he did the Marvel animes as well? Blade and Wolverine and the X-Men? I found them really boring too. I think I never even finished Blade only the other two.
    Indeed, back when Furman was writing 1-issue stories they used to be great. He can still do it, frankly - but maybe the last time he did it was that Armada comic version of Rashomon. And most Marvel and DC comics are like this too, they are just a big lot of nothing happening that only add up together if you read 6 or 12 issues. And let's face it, who is that patient anymore? Not even us old codgers, especially not the ADHD youth of today - who most often likely never even held a comic in their hands.
    And agreed, I am bored of the shades of grey turning everyone into the same flawed anti-hero. Anti-heros worked well back then because there were few of them. Punisher, Venom, Ghost Rider, John Constantine, the Question... they were the exception. Now they are the rule.
     
    Last edited: Mar 8, 2020
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