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Forum - View topicNEWS: Castlevania: Nocturne Animated Spinoff Series Unveils Main Trailer
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AiddonValentine
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Looking good as ever. And, damn, Divine Bloodlines hitting gave me chills. Looking forward to it
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LightningCount
 Posts: 238 |
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Wow. This looks impressive. I'm a long-time Castlevania fan who hasn't been very happy with the franchise's adaptation, but the animation and music here are REALLY on point. The story, however, doesn't seem to have anything to do with Rondo of Blood or Symphony of the Night. The setting's motif and enemies feel more along the lines of adapting the masterful Castlevania fan games The Lecarde Chronicles and The Lecarde Chronicles 2, though done in a more generic "evil vampire group" fashion. So, mixed feelings.
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Minos_Kurumada
Posts: 1193 |
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Not gonna lie, I don't like the "In your face" tone.
It worked, to an extend, in season 1 for Trevor/Alucard bromance, here, we have an aged Maria calling Richter a "wanker" and Richther himself trowing F-bombs, because adult animation, even thought everybody is deigned like an aristocrat which creates a huge dissonance. |
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MFrontier
Posts: 14250 |
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The animation looks absolutely gorgeous. And they actually used the game OST!
I see Richter has Trevor's mouth and sass along with Sypha's magic. Although, jeez, last of the Belmont's again? |
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That Little Rapscallion
Posts: 61 |
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That...doesn't look like Castlevania much at all.
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donhumberto
Posts: 825 |
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This looks awesome. Can't wait!
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Vanadise
 Posts: 535 |
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It definitely looks great, but I was worried the dialogue would be unnecessarily edgy, and it sounds like it is. Trevor and Sypha were basically blank slates for characters, but Richter and Maria actually have established personalities, so I'll be disappointed if they get turned into Trever and Sypha 2.0.
To be fair, you're always the last of your bloodline until you have a child. Being the last of your bloodline isn't particularly notable until after you're dead. |
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Aster97
Posts: 161 |
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so i never played the castelvania games and i wouldnt know the songs, but I heard the background ost and sadly my first thought was Lost in Thoughts from Fire Emblem Fates. They sound so similar! Fire Emblem: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDJ-vDfJ6jI&list=PLAs1Kha_R9dL3gLmhK433EyyjSR-ELuBG&index=39 Castlevania: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qwNsj7PY8jQ |
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LightningCount
Posts: 238 |
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I definitely hear the similarities...but unfortunately for Fire Emblem Fates, this Castlevania song dates back to 1993 with Castlevania: Rondo of Blood. While the franchise itself has sadly fallen on very hard times, the Castlevania franchise's soundtracks are iconic in the world of video games. Songs like Vampire Killer and Bloody Tears are on a similar level to the Super Mario Bros. above-ground theme or Zelda overworld theme in video game history. Also, I second what people are saying about the dialogue. Richter is very much an earnest Boy Scout-type; he wouldn't talk like that. I'm not even sure if what I heard of Trevor matches what we see in the game with the opening of Dracula's Curse where he's praying before his battle begins. The Netflix series seems to have heavily distorted the religious/spiritual themes of the franchise. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6362 |
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Hard to distort or alter something that was nearly non existent/not that well established. |
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AiddonValentine
Posts: 2359 |
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The franchise, if anything, has been heavily critical of Christian institutions and authorities. SOTN opens with Dracula and Richter having a philosophical debate about how his resurrection isn't that different from people paying religious tithes. Dracula's entire reason for being a vampire was to spite God for taking away his wife and then escalated when Lisa was burned at the stake just for practicing medicine (which was very common historically). The series has been very consistent in reinforcing that Dracula is not wrong for despising the church, and even God, it only condemns his murderous tendencies towards innocents. Order of Ecclesia also got into this in how an institution can seem benevolent on the surface, but then turns out to have an insidious ulterior motive. Religion and faith are not the same thing, and if anything are often at odds with each other. |
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LightningCount
Posts: 238 |
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I disagree here. The franchise has consistently been about beleaguered holy forces versus the forces of darkness. From a combination of writings from the original developers and then later IGA, Dracula's Curse has the Eastern Orthodox Church battling Dracula, and Sypha, a survivor of a witch hunt, is one of their agents after being taken in by a monastery. Trevor Belmont of the exiled Belmont clan is summoned by the Church as a last resort when the Church's efforts to stop the rise of Dracula through Sypha and others fail. The first thing we see Trevor do before embarking on his quest is kneeling before a large cross, praying. Further, as Trevor is one of the first Belmonts outside of Leon and the non-canon Sonia, he is already, right from the start, using "holy" instruments that include the cross, the rosary, and holy water. These items are thematically tied to faith through religious tradition. Leon Belmont from Lament of Innocence was a former crusader knight of the Church who gave up his title to fight the forces of evil. This showed the political tensions of the Church, and how it came to be that they had suspicions about the Belmonts, but it did not cast them as villains in league with Dracula, nor did it end the faith of the Belmonts. Simon Belmont, when trying to lift his curse in Simon's Quest, is aided by priests who refill his life in churches. When Richter saves Maria in Rondo of Blood, she speaks about her parents watching from heaven, and when he rescues a nun named Tera, she wishes him God's protection and prays for him. Richter later rebuts Dracula's admonishment of humanity by saying: "The sacred, the honorable, the loved... Those things can rule humanity. Something evil will eventually fall to ruin!" In Symphony of the Night, dialogue is added prior to his confrontation with Dracula, and he rebuts Dracula's attack on religion/faith and narrative as a savior further: "Tribute!?! You steal men's souls and make them your slaves![...]Your words are as empty as your soul! Mankind ill needs a savior such as you!" In IGA's rewrite in Dracula X Chronicles, he even declares Dracula's words as "heresy." All of this is an odd thing to do if you are an individual who has no ties to faith and/or the religious structures that are often tied to it historically. In Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow, we see Yoko Belnades, a descendant of Sypha's clan, working for the Church as an agent against dark forces, and that's 100s of years later. In Castlevania 64, we see Charlie Vincent with a giant cross on his back and Reinhardt Schneider, a Belmont descendant, begins his quest by making the sign of the cross, praying for courage in the Forest of Silence. Later, he stops the cursed Rosa from taking her own life, noting, "Whatever you are, God forbids suicide," and when she meets her end defending him against Death, he prays over her, saying: "God of compassion, forgive her. Father, forgive us our sins and lead us into eternal joy…God has forgiven all, Rosa." Carrie Fernandez, another Belnades relative, notes: "Alas, I could not save you…when I destroy Dracula, you will meet my mother in Heaven." Johnathan Morris, another Belmont descendant, and Charlotte Aulin are summoned by the Church in a quest against a vampire artist and are aided by the priest Vincent Dorin in Portrait of Ruin. So while details could be added or changed in fleshing out a cinematic universe of Castlevania, the themes of the franchise are quite clear for decades that the Belmonts and their allies are tied to themes about faith in God or working as agents of God against forces of corruption represented by Dracula. That's not to say there are not moral and political tensions in how to carry out one's faith and where "authority" on the topic lies, and that this causes legitimate tensions like with Leon's decision in Lament of Innocence, but those themes and their motifs are central to Castlevania as a whole. It's part of what separates it from a generic vampire fantasy. For the Netflix incarnations to either ignore or actively denigrate this theme in the franchise shows a misunderstanding of what Castlevania is about as a world and the nature of the franchise's characters. They may show the subversion that can happen, but do they highlight the other side of it strongly enough? That that's where the characters' power and fortitude and ability to overcome the corruption and evil comes from? I'm not convinced.
You posted as I was writing. I think you are right to point out religion and faith are not one and the same, but they are tied together as husk and kernel. And while I also explained above the tensions that can exist, the franchise does not wholesale divorce itself from the value of faith and involvement of God in the struggle against evil, and how faith can be aided or bolstered by religion just as much as it can be let down by it. |
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onpufan
 Posts: 166 |
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I chalk the first season up to it being written by Warren Ellis who is a huge Christophobe. I suppose this season is just following his lead, and because Christianity is about the only religion you can make fun that's socially acceptable. But yeah, it's pretty clear religion is generally held in a favorable light for the most part, even if there's some bad apples or people who use it for nefarious deeds like Shaft and Celia who start their own fringe spin-off cults unaffiliated with the church. I don't see how someone can try to argue the games hate religion as much as this American series does when the Church are unquestionably the good guys in all the games and holy weapons are the Belmont's primarily arsenal. |
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BadNewsBlues
Posts: 6362 |
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And yet the spiritual/religious themes are the aspects of the series people mention/remember the least. Let’s remember threadbare as it may be that these games were made at a time when writing in video games were very very light on content wit some important details about the characters or the narrative being relegated to the manuals. At its core the CastleVania franchise is less about holy forces (ironic in the case of characters like Alucard & spoiler[Gabriel Belmont]) vs the forces of darkness and simply about Demon/Monster Slaying with some religious aspects liberally sprinkled on top. |
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