This essay contains spoilers for the novel Yokohama Station SF by Yuba Isukari
In Minnesota there’s a saying – there are only two seasons: Winter and road construction. The weather in our region does a real number on the quality of our roads; the freeze-thaw cycle leaves us with potholes the size of moon craters that are the first flowers to bloom once the snow melts. Soon after, the streets are dotted with orange traffic cones as machines dig and scrape and patch until our thoroughfares are passable again.
Sometimes these projects are more long-term. Every weekday I hop in my car, driving from South Minneapolis into downtown via interstate 35W, which has for months been a winding maze of diverted lanes, temporary partitions, and signs warning motorists to slow down and heed the construction workers. This has been ongoing for almost four years and will soon be completed; the rebar and concrete that for weeks could be seen just over the concrete barriers, as well as the shiny new bus station that will accommodate a new high speed bus line along that corridor, speak to the project’s imminent completion.
Review: This review contains some spoilers for episodes 1-4 of the Netflix Castlevania series.
Content Warnings: These episodes contain depictions of extreme graphic violence against human beings. The story also partly involves corruption within the Catholic Church.
The video rental shop from which I used to rent NES games as a kid had quite the eclectic mix of cartridges from which to choose. Along with the typical things like Super Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda, they also had less memorable titles like the deplorable Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde stinker, Legendary Wings, and Milon’s Secret Castle (an exercise in frustration, to say the least). They didn’t carry all the entries in the Castlevania series, but they did have the third title, Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, for rent. My first experiences with the franchise were based around that game; I would call it a formative experience in my gaming fandom.
Castlevania III combined the standard whip-based monster hunting from the first game with unique features like branching level pathways; completing certain stages gave you a choice of multiple paths to take forward. The protagonist Trevor Belmont also had the ability to partner with one of three secondary characters, each with their own strengths and abilities of which the player could take advantage. I spent a lot of my parents’ money renting that game, until I eventually acquired a copy of my own. Even as an adult I still occasionally go back to revisit the game (luckily my cartridge still works!).
Lisa meets Vlad in his imposing home. Copyright 2017 (c) Netflix/Frederator Studios
When Netflix and Frederator let on that a Castlevania animated series was in development, there were definitely a lot of questions. Was this to be based on one of the games specifically, or was this outing planned as a separate, new story set somewhere in the existing timeline of the franchise? It was only within the past week or so that I learned about Castlevania III serving as the source material, and it was very welcome news to hear. Not only is the game regarded as one of the best in the series, it also features elements like multiple characters and a richer, more well-defined setting. It seemed like an obvious choice to adapt. While at this point it’s difficult to tell whether the endeavor has been entirely successful, since the first chunk of episodes released feel like a first act rather than a full narrative, I think the show is off to a good start.
The show takes place in fifteenth century Walachia, a territory inside what is now Romania. A woman named Lisa visits the castle of Vlad Tepes and seems mostly unafraid of the experience despite the desolation of the surrounding landscape and copious amount of skewered human remains lining the path to Vlad’s front door. Her thirst for knowledge and desire to bring medicine and science to the superstitious populace has brought her here, and her curious attitude and lack of fear intrigues Vlad, who is otherwise cynical about humanity’s value as a species. The two begin a relationship, Lisa convincing Vlad to explore what it means to live as a human. Unfortunately, over the years, Lisa’s proclivities towards science paint her as a witch and heretic, and a motivated local bishop acting under what he interprets as the will of god has Lisa burned at the stake. In his pain and anger, Vlad, known also as the legendary horror Dracula, curses mankind, giving them a year to get their affairs in order before unleashing the creatures of Hell across the land. He makes good on this promise, and the cities of Walachia begin to fall under the wrath of the king of vampires.
Sypha Belnades is returned safely to her grandfather. Copyright 2017 (c) Netflix/Frederator Studios
Enter Trevor Belmont, a member of the disgraced Belmont Clan. Excommunicated from the Catholic Church, Trevor has been skulking around the countryside living only for getting drunk and surviving – barely. His travels bring him to Gresit, the last remaining large city in Walachia not to have been taken over by Dracula’s army. He means to pass through and get out of town, but encounters a group of Speakers, a nomadic group who maintain a wholly oral history that predates the advent of the Church. One of their own is missing, and though Trevor would like to leave them to their own devices, he allows himself to become entangled in their affairs due to his family’s connections to the group. He rescues the missing grandchild, a magic-user named Sypha, then chooses to defend the Speakers against the Bishop, who has turned them into scapegoats by blaming the current demon infestation on their heretical beliefs.
Trevor and Sypha, somewhat by accident, begin their descent into Dracula’s ever-changing castle. It is within the shifting walls that the two encounter someone who could ultimately turn out to be a friend or foe.
As I mentioned above, this group of four episodes feels much like the first act of a larger tale. While there’s still a self-contained story revolving around the errant Bishop and a demon “mid-boss” of sorts, the fourth episode ends with our intrepid heroes beginning their descent into the castle in earnest. Considering how Netflix typically releases its shows in larger chunks, I was expecting something more like a 13 episode release of the entire narrative adaptation. That said, I suspect that a gritty animated series aimed at an adult audience was farther from a “sure thing” than Netflix would have liked, so in a way it makes some sense for them to dip their baby toe in the water before diving right in. That aside, I’m optimistic about what I’ve seen so far and about where the series might be headed.
Trevor meets with the Speakers, who wish to remain in Gresit despite the Bishop’s promise to execute them. Copyright 2017 (c) Netflix/Frederator Studios
It’s an inevitability that this series will be compared to Japanese animation, so I’ll go ahead and do that without reservation; this animated serial incorporates a lot of anime’s positive traits to its benefit. While serialized stories are no longer a rarity in Western television entertainment, it hasn’t been until more recently with series like Avatar: The Last Airbender and Steven Universe that specifically American-created animation has more often chosen to take that path. But those of us who are avid anime viewers are more than familiar with the technique of depicting limited stories that unfold across a relatively small number of episodes, and this series already has that sort of feel to it. There’s also a fairly obvious aesthetic similarity between the two; while the character designs do tend towards the more obviously Western-style, my partner remarked (having seen some of the screen shots I’d taken) that he wouldn’t have been surprised to hear that the show shared staff with the Boondocks animated series, known for its anime-inspired look.
The series also doesn’t shy away from adult material, though whether some of it is to its benefit or detriment might be up to the tastes of the viewer. There’s no other way to say it; this show can be graphically violent at times. In incarnations of the source material, there’s a lot of demonic death; in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night there are enemies called “Bloody Zombies” that explode into a gush of blood when you kill them, screaming before they disintegrate, and that’s just one of the many examples from the broader game franchise. I expected there to be some of that kind of content in this adaptation, but what I wasn’t prepared for was the extensive depictions of human death; beginning almost right away in the first episode as Dracula unleashes his minions, people (men, women, and children) are torn in half, decapitated, stabbed, burned and bloodied in multiple creative and horrific ways. There are human entrails draped across the rooftops in one unfortunate town, in addition to things like rotting heads on pikes. This kind of content is pretty much par for the course for a lot of TV series that aren’t restrained by the rules of regular television broadcast standards, so I expect that a lot of people will be used to it. However, this is one area where the show really differs from anime; while a lot of anime can be violent, depicting detailed gore is often avoided or at least censored somewhat, and it’s hardly ever the focus of the scene. Castlevania seems to revel in it sometimes, and that’s something I’m not really used to.
Sypha uses her magic to rescue Trevor from the angry townsfolk. Copyright 2017 (c) Netflix/Frederator Studios
Something else that felt a little bit artificial to me was certain aspects of the writing and dialog. There seems to have been an effort to depict Trevor Belmont as a cynical, somewhat-smarmy asshole, and to try to accomplish that he occasionally expresses a bit of nihilistic gallows humor and some “witty quips” in his lines. There’s also a lot of swearing sprinkled throughout the entirety of the dialog, and while I like to swear a lot when I’m speaking casually and can recognize that this is occasionally entertaining to others, oftentimes in this context it feels forced and sort of anachronistic to the particular setting.
On the upside, the animation was generally of pretty good quality, and in some instances stepped over the threshold into “awesome” territory. The creators and animators seemed to recognize where best to focus their resources, and this falls into step with how a lot of anime looks and feels. During dialog-heavy scenes, there’s more focus on atmosphere-building through color choice and the relatively static positions of the characters. When warranted, however, there are some excellent action sequences that are on par with some of the better Sakuga scenes from recent anime productions. I think this is generally a good approach that places focus on the cooler, more memorable scenes in this chunk of episodes without having to put quite as much strain on the animation staff.
Adrian Tepes (aka Alucard) makes his appearance. Copyright 2017 (c) Netflix/Frederator Studios
That said, there are a few visual missteps that I think are worth pointing out. There’s some use of 3DCG for a few elements, including a mirror apparatus Dracula uses in the first episode, and some CG demons in scenes where there are large groups flying through the sky at once. Generally the slightly uncomfortable coupling of 2D and 3D doesn’t bother me much anymore, but the frame-rate of the CG elements seems overly-smooth and out of sync with the traditional elements which ends up inadvertently calling a lot of attention to it. There are also some scenes in which the characters aren’t joined well with the background art; it’s difficult to explain what I mean, but it can feel like they don’t entirely exist in the same universe as if they’re floating above a painting. I think part of it is that there isn’t enough grittiness to the visuals; there’s a good use of color and darkness to create a good atmosphere, but it looks too shiny and clean to feel real. Perhaps some different kind of filtering might have avoided this issue in the final product.
The last item that came to my mind and that I thought might be worth mentioning is that the Speakers, the (ethnic?) group to which Sypha belongs, are a pretty obvious analogue to the Roma/Romani people, a persecuted nomadic ethnic group now found all over the world. I don’t know whether this group was depicted this way for a reason beyond that of narrative flair and flavoring (and I have a worry in the back of my mind that the creators might get something wrong in the future), but I found it heartening to see that a group that is still maligned to this day in some areas by some people was used as inspiration in a positive manner.
Overall I would have to say that I’m very pleasantly surprised with how Castlevania has panned-out thus far. Considering the failure rate of properties based on video game source material, I was hoping for the best but expecting the worst. However, it seems like this adaptation is taking what’s there from the game (which is extremely bare-bones, typical for NES-era games) and expanding on that in a way that isn’t slavishly-devoted to its game origin and feels fairly natural. Netflix has already ordered a second season of 8 more episodes, and I’m looking forward to seeing the continuation of the story.
Pros: This feels like a good adaptation of the source material – faithful but not “like a video game.” The look and feel take good parts from Japanese animation and Western animation.
Cons: There are some visual missteps that can be jarring. There is a lot of graphic violence and quite a bit of strong language.
