Tentacle-Free Anime: "Castlevania" (2017)So many times we've seen American adaptations of Japanese-origin concepts hit the screen and somehow lose the basic universal relatability of these stories. Their character is generally lost along with any “Japaneseness” these companies believe is some sort of barrier they need to overcome. For once, I'm just happy to present to you one that finally overcame that barrier. So let's get to it.
Another week, another North American anime adaptation. But this time it's also a video game adaptation, adding to the immense pressure to be something good rather than yet another piece of cruddy American pie. Brought to us by the minds of Adi Shankar, Warren Ellis and more, as well as written by Warren Ellis – the same one who is considered a comicbook legend – the show had a very interesting line-up of creativity going into it.
I say “quite” because, like with anything, the show is not perfect. And in 4 episodes it does have some major pacing issues, which in turn leads to some puzzling story choices. Now let me explain, I enjoyed the series overall as I watched it, but I did find myself questioning story beats along the way. 
The demons of hell arise at Dracula's command.
For instance, the entire first episode feels very rushed and more like a prologue, focusing on Dracula and his reasoning for unleashing the armies of hell onto the world. This transitions awkwardly into episodes 2-4, which then drastically shift focus onto the last remaining member of the Belmont family, sworn enemy of vampires like Dracula. With such a hard focus change I felt jarred by the experience the show was giving me. Episode 1 was a rushed story about one character, and the remaining three are a slowly paced adventure about an entirely different character. And to top it off, neither Vlad nor Trevor Belmont end up meeting by the end of the show. So why do I say it's pretty good? Because of the ending. The literal last few moments of the show. The series ends on a pretty fun reveal that makes the story leading up to that moment feel justified, even if it was rather odd on how we got here. My time was not proven to be wasted watching this and it left me wanting more, which, given the critical success of the series, we'll most definitely be getting. After watching it my fiancé turned to me and said that if this can be seen as a prequel series, sort of a season 0 to the main story, than we can call it pretty good. And I agree with that. Going forward, if the next seasons can feel a bit longer and more fleshed out, with a heavier focus on one specific overarching story set up by this season, then that's the way to go in viewing this series as it is now. 
Karma comes for all of us.
I think what could retroactively ruin this show is if the focus continues to change episode to episode and nothing feels cohesive. However, I have a lot of faith going forward and I look forward to what season 2 brings. The animation and art for this series was incredible, with fast, smooth, fluid action not unlike Avatar: The Last Airbender. The character designs and monster designs were pretty great as well, fitting into this world nicely. My only complaint is that the show chose to focus an entire subplot on the peasants of one of the cities Dracula attacks. While that in and of itself is not a bad thing, what I disliked was that at some point it draws attention to just how out of place your main character designs are compared to the common folk. Some of which do get a slight boost past what is no one as background characters, but overall, everyone looks too normal compared to our much more intricately-designed main characters. The fight scenes were all a lot of fun and there was some really fun moments that were nice twists on old tropes we've seen before. Almost all of which were pretty gruesome. Characters themselves were all written pretty strongly. From Dracula and his bride Lisa in the bit of screen time we saw them together at the beginning, to Belmont and Sypha who have great chemistry together as future partners in world-saving. Sypha especially steals the show with her no-holds-barred, straight to the point manner of speaking. I loved every time she was on screen. 
The last Belmont really doesn't want anything to do with Vampires.
Trevor is an interesting fellow to follow throughout the show as someone who doesn't really want to live up to the Belmont name, but so chooses to out of eventual need to be better than the person he's allowing himself to become. Though after the way the show ends I'm curious to see if he will remain the main character, or suddenly be relegated to a main/supporting role. Like I said before, keeping the main character of the story unfocused could cause a lot of upheaval in how the story flows later on, so with season 2 they really have to be careful with how to approach what comes next. I had fun with Castlevania. It's a show I thankfully feel like I can recommend to those who can stomach animated gore and a hard R atmosphere. Which is an incredibly nice change of pace. Whether or not you consider this show an anime (I know I'm still on the fence about it), Castlevania succeeds in having that spirit which only a few before it have managed to pull off. In my book that makes it a good show, a good pseudo-anime, and if the success of this series is to be believed, a good video game adaptation. I can finally say it: Thank God. Final Score: 4.5 Demons From Hell out of 5 Have you checked out Castlevania yet? Looking forward to season 2? Let us know in the comments! 
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