Castlevania

For me it was better than the first season. We received a decent sketch of what could be called a "story". Instead of the overblown action with no backing from season 1, we turned it inside out and pondered, pondered, explained, wove webs, whispered, and dusted off the books. This wouldn't have compromised my enjoyment and reason if it hadn't taken too long and if they hadn’t needed to "savor" the tedium of Alucard and Belmont's childish horseplay and Dracula's tormented anguish racked by indecision, whether they wanted to or not. It all fits together and makes sense, I’m not saying it doesn't, but from episode 2 onwards I felt like I knew exactly how it was going to play out and what was going to happen. The foreshadowing in place culminates in an excellent, action-packed penultimate episode, realizing our wet dreams and fulfilling our longed-for expectations. The fight scenes in Castlevania are TOP: The choreography is extremely creative, the script is brimming with ideas on how to use the heroes' and villains' abilities, and it's all wrapped up in exclusive graphics. The impression is slightly dragged down by the unnecessary last episode, where I was asking myself questions like: "What? Another season? But it’s over, Isn’t it?". I really liked the main trio, led by the pleasantly likable Sypha and the less sleepy Belmont compared to the first one. Overall, it's not that glorious, with good passages interspersed with bad, less action than we'd like, and too much yawning even for the prime minister. "Why can't I talk to him?" "Because you've never met anything you didn't immediately kill, fuck, or make a boat out of." (23.03.2020)

Argh, this doesn't spark joy at all! If this series could have, or perhaps even should have ended the whole Castlevania thing, then it could be palatable, but what was that whole first half?! Looking back, I can't help but admit that the first 5-6 episodes or so were de facto pure filler. Familiar figures were spread out differently on the playing field and they were doing something, somewhere. Even if behind it all is the downright stupid idea of bringing Dracula to life (every character had a lesser or greater stake in it, for veeery weird reasons), the creators at least slightly learned from the past, decided not to put us to sleep with excessive babble, and indulged us in what they do best, without rival: fight choreography. The work with perspectives, angles, and the whole composition of the battles is playful, caressing the visual perception especially. And thankfully there's plenty of that here; almost too much, in fact, given that in order to show off newer and newer tricks, for example, they've already made the character of Sypha into a de facto Superman, who has the eternally cranky Belmont as a practically useless catchphrase. Yes, I've managed to watch the other storylines as well, but they're a) not interesting at all and b) pathetically inconclusive and sadly unnecessary in the overall context of the series (What was the point of the vampire family?). In fact, at some point Season 4 decides to make one giant teleport into the main plot, which for a while reminds me of endlessly spinning in circles (Yeah, I'm pointing at you and your decisions, you sanctimonious little prat!), so that we end up doing an epic highway dance. There's always something about those penultimate episodes of Castlevania – the playing of the main trump cards, be it fine banter or brilliant action, and the instinctive fingers crossed for the main badass trio. Alucard is as consistently stale as a 5-day-old beer, so it's mainly down to Sypha and Belmont, though a much stronger script would have helped the overall impression immensely. And that... that sunny ending somehow doesn't bother me, but isn't it considerably out of place for Castlevania? Sure, I accepted the prefinal minutes, but the hell with those last ones. Make those last 3-4 episodes an OVA, we'll have missed out on nothing; for the good of us all, no more series, please. (15.05.2021)