I got worried when I found out the French Revolution features heavily in it as opposed to just being in background like the original game, given how used I am to the typical “this is Literally Animal Farm” shitlib plotline is (Hello Bioshock Infinite). I’d rather watch my nostalgia-bait anime vampire slop without rolling my eyes every five minutes.
Not to say I don’t have other concerns about the quality of the show (nothing to do with Gamers™️ seething about the POC characters in it).
It's pretty good actually. Rich people are vampires and need to die, basically.
The never have the good guys critique the French or Haitian revolution.
Also the studio is the first animation studio in the USA outside of Cali or NY to unionize.
I told my partner that France is still collecting reparations from Haiti. It's shitty that they didn't go far enough in having the characters give an opinion on real-world events, but I'm glad I had a conversation opportunity like that.
Yeah there definitely is more politics that could be added. However, animation is very expensive and they can only do so much with so little time.
Very true. I've never seen this kinda stuff in popular animation like this, so I'm glad we're getting what we got and pushing for more. And how to do it better in the future.
Unfortunately all the suits hate animation and treat it like shit never funding it then canceling it. And unfortunately animation is too expensive to crowdfund so yeah shitty situation.
I told my partner that France is still collecting reparations from Haiti.
Pretty sure that got paid off in the 1940s. Haiti wasted a lot of money on repayments however, and add to that regular consequences imperialism and some natural disasters and you got one of the poorest countries in the world as a result.
That's a slip-up on my part. I'll read up more on the topic so I can speak on it better in the future. Thanks for taking the time to let me know!
I'd give it 7.5/10
I'll give a mini the without much spoilers.
They don't go out of their way to explicitly compare the way the wealthy in general are like vampires. The vampires are the wealthy people and that's good if you already have an understanding, it just doesn't feel like they went hard enough to explore how vampires are a metaphor for a exploitation.
The latter half of the season (the season ends on a cliffhanger like the previous Castlevania series)
They portray Maria's revolutionary rhetoric as childish and unrealistic, given she's a child, and she doesn't interact much with common people after the first few episodes.
The other characters don't talk about the exploitation too much, granted that makes sense given the more immediate threat of vampires, but it left me wondering why it was brought up in the first place if they weren't going to really talk about it.
Annette goes from Richter's generic girlfriend without agency to a new character - a slave who escaped the Caribbean using the powers of her ancestors.
She's clearly portrayed as opposed to enslavement and exploitation, and supporting characters in her story talk about white people enslaving her ancestors, but she doesn't talk about how Maria is speaking from a place of privilege as a white girl with education, a home, and magical powers.
Also the writers made a pretty deliberate choice in not talking to about the Vampire Killer being a whip. They give Annette flashbacks showing whippings of others, but she doesn't react at all to seeing a powerful white man casually doing whip tricks while sitting at a table outside.
It has a lot of good potential, and as a Black person who enjoys seeing depictions of people in fantasy and historical settings, it does more than what I've seen in a lot of shows.
I like that they decided to have the setting be pre-revolution France. They could've had the story take place anywhere else in Europe and I applaud what they're going for.
I'd suggest watching the show if for nothing else than as a case study of fantasy in historical settings/ a discussion opportunity for your less political friends. You could easily draw connections to vampires in fiction, exploitation by the nobility, the history of slavery, anything else. We don't get a lot of opportunities to talk about politics in mainstream media like this and I'd say jump on it if you can.
I'm hoping they'll listen to feedback and improve on the next season, but if they don't improve anything, I'd still say I enjoyed it.
I have more thoughts, but I don't want to give spoilers. I'm actually writing a professional review on the show right now!
Thanks. Let me know when you release your review.
Most surprising thing to me is Maria being a revolutionary, given how she was just a girl who could use animals as weapons and cared only about rescuing her sister in the original game.
Even then while her revolutionary ideals can be seen as childish, the only people that critique her in show are the villains who are basically not sympathetic at all.
True, but I think it's a flaw (not a huge one) that none of the main heroic characters openly agree or expand on the themes. It's good, but I sense it's from the writers not wanting to rock the boat too hard, or executive meddling keeping the themes less explicit.
Am I dumb for being annoyed that the French characters all have English accents? It annoyed me in Plauge Tale when Amacia and Hugo have French accents in the first game....and then in the sequel they bizarrely are speaking in English accents.
I think that's perfectly reasonable, given that there are plenty of actors out there with French accents. It's not like you needed specific appearances, or to fly out actors to record in person. They're voice actors. It was a choice by the showrunners and you're perfectly valid in disliking that choice.
If you're worried about bad politics in your media then you might as well just go for a walk in the park cuz there's something objectionable in pretty much everything.
True but there are degrees to everything. Some bad messaging, I can handle. But if a show or piece of media goes out of its way to preach...
As far as the politics go its heart is in the right place. I thought the writing was pretty weak and some of the voice acting is more what I'd expect from 90s anime than a 2023 netflix show but a lot of people seem to really like it so ymmv
Looking at the at best "questionable" politics of the average show I would say Castlevania Nocturnes politics are good considering everything. At very least it feels like there was an honest effort to make a lets say "progressive" show.
It's more about vampires being rich assholes than the other way around, but it's a great start.
But it's cool because at least it seems they're deliberate with most of their politics and using the historical period to inform the plot. But they didn't have a Belmont fuck up slavers or rich dudes yet. I'm just hoping that happens in season 2.
It's interesting to me since they're "retconning" Annette from being Richter's girlfriend from the start. On the plus side, it looks like they made her an actual character as opposed to the games.
Yeah, me too. I'd be ecstatic to see the guy from my favorite game in the series slaughter the more human kind of bloodsucking monster.
If it means anything, the precedent for the Belmonts to intervene in mundane human politics was set in the first series since the moment Trevor saved the Seekers from a pogrom (which was heavily coded in themes of historical antisemitism/antiziganism.
That's a good point. The only question is will they (the writers, showrunners, or executives) pass the low bar of having a Belmont being antislavery?
It's one thing to have side characters being political. It's another to make the main character take a stand on a crime against humanity.
It's less a critique of just this show, but I hate the tendency of making side characters take clear stands on issues while the main protagonists never say where they stand on the subject.
It's a cowardly concession that feels like the pandering of a quick same sex kiss. It's there enough to say they did it, but not enough to impact how someone looks at the main character. The main character is ambiguous enough that their status of hero is the only indicator they're a good person. They save the world, but you can decide for yourself what their opinions are on minorities or whatever.
That way, people on the left who want to like the show can have something and chuds can say "_____ was great, but they had to add in the sjw character to say something woke."
I hope Castlevania subverts the trend so the chuds have to reckon with their hero having different better views than them.
