#they've made dracula too sympathetic so they won't be able to adapt lament of innocence

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I finally watched Netflix’s castlevania after having been rekt on SSBU online and, well

It’s uh... weird.

Like, enjoyable.

Not ultra super dope or the second coming of FMAB, and I wouldn’t want every video game animated series to be directed by the same guys, but it wasn’t as awful as I expected when it comes to video game adaptations.

It had a nice animation and even if the pacing is a bit slow it kept me hooked (maybe the pacing issues are due to the fact that it is short for an anime/animated series?).

Annoying stuff though was the depiction of the “Church is evil” pov, we don’t see priests eating babies but we’re nearly there in the first episodes with the dubious priests assaulting Sypha’s grandpapa or being asses to everyone - and the general “they brought this upon themselves” motive of the first season, like those people burnt Dracula’s wife, he let them one year to get the fuck out of their village/city but they didn’t listen so now he sends real baby-eating monsters to “punish” them, but hey, that baby that was eaten somehow deserved it??

I’m glad they decided to get rid of this leitmotiv in the following episodes, especially as Trevor matures and goes from the “they deserved it because they didn’t try to help Lisa as she burnt but hey i’m going to let them die so i won’t try to help them while they burn” to Trevor who assumes his Belmont heritage, as in, it’s not just a name and a shirt.

Sypha’s a good character too. I liked how her empathy manages to bring the two idiots to work together, and she is the one who’s active in the story (in the search for alucard quest) while Trevor just follows because, Trevor. Her magic is badass but she isn’t stupidly broken, in way she reminded me of the traditional mages in jrpgs, they can hit hard and fast, are a bit mobile but don’t ask them to do a backflip to dodge something (that’s alucard’s shtick)

I also liked how despite everything and how determinate he was to save the humans Alucard still mourns for his dead dad.

Carmilla was also interesting, not in her “weak men will never rule Dorne” mindset, but in how she actually planned a coup and successfully managed to execute it, if Sypha didn’t warp Dracula’s castle on top of the Belmont cave.

I was meh about Hector - he sees humans as cattle and thinks Dracula will kill them mercifully without unecessary bloodshed, but then, the guy sees on an everyday basis the results of this war (since he has to rez dead people) so... well, he is supposed to be naive. I wonder what he will turn into.

Isaac is an odd one, and I’ve seen the controversy about his recast but well... Everyone’s a bit deranged in this show, Isaac seemed the most lucid, at least in his deranged pov.

Poor Godbrand you will be missed :’(

Unnamed vampires being unnamed but killed made me sad.

About Dracula though...

Well, I wonder what he ate when Lisa was there, pigs but his bowels were safe? The longest suicide note thing would have been touching, if he didn’t try to kill everyone with him, including his fellow vampires and his own son. Carmilla’s question is left unanswered, why wasn’t Lisa turned into a vampire, if she died of natural causes would he have gone ballistic too?

In the end, and it is sad, the priests who burnt Lisa was right (not about burning her of course!), Dracula is “evil”, in the sense that he can, and did, unleash a horde of monsters to get rid of “brave” humans, and he is a vampire. We’re not in an Ann Rice’s novel or in Twilight, pig blood is mentionned but is it a perfect substitue for human blood? Can vampires stop to hunt humans?

Hell (lel), the bishop/priests mentions that Lisa pleads the “devil” not to harm humans because of what they did, she knew he would take drastic measures to avenge her, like killing all humans in Wallachia? If the guy who smashed Trevor’s nuts pissed on Dracula’s garden, would he take revenge on humanity by eradicating everyone?

and final nail on the coffin (omg), even if i know it’s not connected, we’ve seen Leon Belmont.

So if they go by Lament of Innoncence canon, we should learn about Matthias Cronqvist and Leon’s fiancée.

But at least, when he lost his wife, Matthias decided to shit on God himself and on his best friend Leon due to grief and hatred.

In this animated series, Dracula doesn’t want to shit on everyone, he is fed up and wants to die, so everyone has to.

So yeah, not fond at all of Netflix’s Dracula.