i havent seen any discusion on this seasson here on lemmy so what the hell, im gonna start my own.
I had some very mixed feelings on it, for one the action and animation was very cool, and the second season seems that its gonna be a break it or make it kinda deal in terms of the plot because the writting was mediocre and worse compared even to the 3rd season of the first series, which is the weakest season by far of the first castlevania.
This is specially the case with the main 3 characters, first Maria is very passionate about the revolution and thats cool but the way they portrait it is very annoying, she just spouts the same revplutionary speeches over and over, and its never explained why she is so pasionate about it, you could say because freedoom is a universal motivation but it really isnt, speciallybfor her since she as well as her mom live away from the town, they arent really shown interacting with the townspeople so that to make a connection to understeand why they want freedom for them, or at the very least they could have shown her that she whent to college and learned about it on her philosophy class, or anything, luckilly they tone it down at the end by giving her more character and a conflict that goes into spoiler territory that seems that its gonna be cool how they expand upon it in the next season, but the first parts are very annoying and unexplained.
Second is Richter, which is this seassons flagship belmont, he kind of makes no sense, it wasnt shown or mentioned that he was trained in vampire killing yet he is super good at it, you could say that thats because he is a belmonth, but due to his “spoiler” being “spoiled” its not possible he could have been trained as well as say trevor with the wip, not even by the people that he is living wirt now since they are magic users, not vampire hunters, yet he is impossibly good with it, and he really doesnt have a good explanation as to why he is a vampire hunter in profession, and to pretend he has a character arc they gave him a barely justified shonen protagonist anime power up scene where he kills a bunch of powerfull vampires with magic and this was specially made to justify having him running of crying in one scene where his “spoiler” shows up, this imo really shows the intentions of the writers, wich takes us to the last character i want to complain about: Annete.
Annete was kinda like the writers darling, the first parts of the show focus on her and one whole episode its entirelly dedicated to her backstory, while the other characters barelly have foundation, and this wouldnt be as bad if she wasnt so annoying, since she causes some problems and one of them being a characters death due to her not being able to control herself at a very bad moment and isnt even at the very least made responsible for it, the whole contrary btw, and its not because she is clumsy or made a mistake, she has some very OP magic and its very good at using it, which while it shouldnt it kinda gets aded as a negative, not that she shouldnt be powerfull but you kinda understeand what the writers are trying to do and i dont like it, and when richters runs away they made her snap, throw a temper tantrum and shit talk him, making her come across at the very least as very unconcidarate, and granted, they have someone tell her that she shouldnt do that and she accepts it but still, but aggain, its very obvius why the writers added this, they whant to piss pepople of for controversy and about that, thats the characters purpose at its core, to be controversial, you could think it is not but it is. Not that a character shouldnt be diverse, but when they are made diverse nor even for diversitys sake, just for controversys sake, it brings the ehole character and discussion down. And it makes me sad that they are using a culture that has some cool potential for very nice stories and characters be used for just to piss people off and as a twitter argument, but well what can you do.
It may not seem like it but i do recomend it if you liked the first castlevania series, its more of it at the end, but if you like the games you will probably be more perplexed about it, but if thats the case then you probably seen the first series and again, its more casltevania. And if you like diversity in you media then you will like this series, i know it sounds condecending, but i heard is a genuine thing people take into concideration to rate something, so yeah, its very diverse, you will like it. Other than that, the second seasson its already confirmed so, like i said, they could redeem themseles or make it worse, so we will have to see…
I liked the series so far, and as someone who played Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night, I think they did a good job in portraying Richter and Maria. I did not find Maria annoying, but I do agree that more could have been done with her. I also agree that a little more time could have been dedicated to showing how Richter and Maria grew up. One complaint I do have is how Season 1 appears slightly rushed, and as Richter and Maria are two of my favorite characters from the game, seeing how their relationship and skills developed would’ve been awesome. The games don’t go into much about their relationship, other than stating that they are distantly related and have special skills for fighting night creatures and vampires.
However, as this is only Season 1, I am going to wait and see how the story pans out.
Another thing I like about Nocturne is that they went in their own direction with the story, rather than taking the story that was presented in Rondo of Blood. I doubt they would get very far with the whole “hero & heroine team up to rescue damsels in distress” story that was in Rondo of Blood. That might also explain how they took characters like Annette and Tera in a whole new direction. Annette and Tera were two women you had to rescue in Rondo of Blood, with Annette being Richter’s girlfriend. Their roles were so minor in the game that you really didn’t care much about them except as an objective to complete in the game. In Nocturne, they were given pretty important roles, with new backstories and personalities that made you care for them.
Despite my issues with the new show I enjoyed it and am glad you brought up Rondo of Blood and Symphony of the Night! One of the big pros for me was seeing Maria’s powers in action. I’ve got so many memories of these little pixelated birds and creatures from the games that finally seeing Maria summon these beings in detailed, fully-realized animated form years later was super satisfying. It was like “ohhh that’s what her attacks actually look like!”
Yes! Maria was also the character I wanted to see the most. I don’t recall the Castlevania games ever explaining how she controls her animal familiars, but Nocturne gave a pretty good explanation of it. The animal familiars are mystical beings summoned from a magical dimension, and Maria has the ability to conjure portals that lead from the magical dimension into her dimension. But, how she actually formed the relationship with those animal familiars in the first place would be an interesting story. Plus, there’s one animal familiar that did not show up in Season 1. I think you know which one it is, given your experience with Rondo and Symphony, and I think the reason why it didn’t show up is quite obvious. Perhaps this is the growth that we will see with Maria in Season 2.
It didn’t occur to me until you mentioned it but now I’m looking forward to seeing how they’ll bring in that familiar. I think you’re right that it’ll have to be something she works toward summoning. I’m curious if Olrox might assist in that journey with his vast experience in animal shapeshifting and ancient knowledge, but that’s just a thought at this point and not really a theory I’m committed to.
Indeed. Olrox may have his reasons for aligning with the Vampire Hunters against Erzebet, but I doubt he will do something, even indirectly, that will give them more power. He needs their help, but only to fulfill his purpose…whatever that is.
And speaking of what Maria and Richter have to go through to even stand a chance against Erzebet, I can think of one thing that might give them a chance: Item Crush.
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True with Tera, and with the diferent direction they are taking it, the whole french revolution thing is very wasted imo, like i said, they dont interact with any of the villagers, in fact they seem very hermit like if we go about what we see in the series, they just go to the town to rally people like politicians in a political campaign… which now that i think about it its kind of hilarious, it kinda mirrors the stablishment that they are trying to fight aggainst.
And personally i didnt like annete ( i think i made that a bit to clear, lol), besides of the reasons i already whrote, its because it feels the writers are trying to force her to like… happen, while taking away from the main characters and into her, not belmonth, i mean both maria and belmonth and even tera, shes litterally thrown out of another story into this one, and the reason being that the writers whant to piss people off so that it becomes controversial and people incluiding them can complain about it and defend it online (i.e. american culture war bs).
Im hopeing that the character of both maria and richter will be expanded upon in the next season, thats if they give them enough time, i dont whant to say that i doubt it, but the intentions of the writers are not subtle at all in the first season, thats why everything else was so rushed. So if they whant to make a comeback the writers should go in with a different mentality, (i.e. hire diferent writers), otherwise we are gonna get more of the same.