Castlevania Archives | 100 Word Anime

Top 5 Anime Vampires – Because Having Fangs Just Isn’t Enough

Posted on February 4, 2022February 4, 2022 by Karandi

The list for my favourite anime vampires is kind of always under construction. Largely because I love vampires and also because every year we seem to get a few anime that take their own interpretation on the blood-suckers. I was kind of hoping Mars Red would add a few new names to the list but alas that story kind of fizzled in the end.

As always, I’d love to know your favourites so please share in the comments below.

Who are my favourite anime vampires?

Please Note: There will be spoilers below.

Honourable mention this week goes to Staz from Blood Lad and Alucard from Hellsing (because even if I don’t mention him on the list, everyone else will).

I also need to throw Dracula from Castlevania here as well because after watching season two I’m just not that into him anymore.

Number 5: Kaname from Vampire Knight

I was really tossing up whether it would be Kaname or Zero on this list when I decided that at least one of them had to make the top 5 but ultimately Kaname being a pure blood vampire and not a human turned into a vampire kind of tipped the scales in his direction. More importantly, it isn’t every character that can turn other vampires into confetti. Kaname may spend way too long brooding on things and is a terrible communicator, but he certainly has the whole presence, attraction and air of danger that tend to be defining traits in certain types of vampire stories.

Number 4: Jirou from Black Blood Brothers

Jirou is a fantastic character. He’s pretty traditional in terms of being a vampire who is sensitive to sunlight and salt water, he doesn’t like being awake during the day, but he is definitely a fighter particularly when his ‘brother’ is being threatened. Which makes him a bit different from so many anime vampires that kind of have their own rules. Add to that the usual fantastic vampiric fashion sense (because who doesn’t look amazing in that shade of red) and a very cool sword and you have one very fun character.

Number 3: Carmilla from Castlevania Season 2

A new entry on the list. While Dracula may have been relatively unimpressive throughout season 2 of Castlevania (okay a lot unimpressive unless you like broody and sulky in your anime vampire), Carmilla swept in and shook things up. While a lot of her manipulations really served no purpose and ultimately she kind of got nowhere, I have to admit she had style and was definitely the most memorable of the new characters introduced during the second season.

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Number 2: Mikaela from Owari no Seraph

I still haven’t actually reviewed Owari and I really should get around to it, particularly as I now have the DVD’s and any story that focuses on anime vampires vs humans is worth at least a discussion.

Mikaela is one of my favourite characters because of his transformation from human to vampire (yet arguably he remains the most human character in the show). Even after everything that happens to Mikaela he never loses sight of what he wants to protect and he will go to any length to keep it safe. It would be nice to say the whole vampiric strength thing was an asset but in Owari just being a vampire really isn’t enough.

Number 1: Megumi from Shiki

She absolutely had to make the list of anime vampires and all things considered, given she’s been the vampire I’ve consistently liked the most, she probably deserves the top spot at this point. Another human turned vampire and loving it (at least at first). Megumi always believed she was destined for more than the village could offer her and while she may not have intended to die, she certainly made the most out of her undead life while she could. Megumi gets bonus points for being one of the creepiest stalkers ever.

There’s the list this week and again, feel free to share your favourite anime vampires in the comments below. I’d love to know your picks and your reasons.

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Castlevania Season 2 Series Review: Oh Look, We Got The End Of The Season

Posted on October 29, 2018October 29, 2018 by Karandi

I mentioned repeatedly in my season 1 review of this that it really wasn’t a season. It was a taste test. A preview or introduction to a series that hadn’t been fully made before release. Here, with the so called season 2, we get the rest of the season bringing the total episode count now to 12 which is pretty much a standard season. So other than a prolonged gap during which time I forgot most of the pertinent details forcing me to rewatch the first four episodes before getting into this, was there any real purpose to this? All I can figure is that they really weren’t sure of their market and wouldn’t commit the resources but that’s a really terrible way to deliver a story as all it really did was make the faults of this second season more apparent.

See, there’s a flow to stories. When you get caught up in them, it is easy to miss small details or to stop yourself from asking hard questions or picking at the edges to see what falls out. But once the story has had a jarring pause and you’ve had months plus a rewatch to contemplate, it is much harder to become immersed in the world. Particularly when the series itself seems to be doing everything possible to stop you.

Now, that isn’t to say Castlevania is bad. Because, it actually is quite a fun little romp of a story provided the copious blood and guts being splashed around aren’t a problem and the clear sequel bait endings for the surviving cast members doesn’t annoy. If this had come out in a solid chunk and I’d binged the 12 episodes altogether, I’d have had an absolute blast and while I still probably would have noted a few of the flaws, I don’t think I would have been as disappointed.

I was going to try to start positive but I realised that every positive I have for this season comes with a caveat so we’re just going to have to wade right in and hope we don’t sink.

If you like your blood and violence (and if you made it through the first four episodes the answer to that is probably yes), then season 2 is going to deliver. However, there’s a different kind of feel to it. Whereas season 1 had kind of a cruel humour with its demons running from the city carrying an infant (the excess of this imagery just made it more amusing than horrific and maybe that’s saying something terrible about me) and Trevor’s whip cracking removing eyes and the like. It was excessive but fun. It was almost pushing things to the absurdist level as it rained fire and blood down upon the masses. Season 2 sadly lacks any of this kind of edge and instead we are left with vampires tearing through small packs of fleeing humans and a few fights between various demons and Trevor, Sypha and Alucard. These conflicts are still bloody but nowhere near the same level as the city slaughtering madness that the first four episodes threw at us.

And that seems to be a reoccurring theme of season 2. We get more of things given there are more episodes, but at the same time it is less. There’s less impact, less care, and generally less involvement. The church that was such a threat in season one gets some mentions but otherwise are completely absent from the conflict. The vampires spend more time squabbling amongst themselves inside the castle and Trevor, Sypha and Alucard spend an inordinate amount of time investigating the museum that is Trevor’s family vault. With the three main groups separated for vast spans of time (and the church more or less vanishing) there’s a lot of waiting for things to get moving. It doesn’t help that the vampires barely attack anything during the run of the eight episodes here so unless you are fresh on the memory of season one you may not even really remember why we should care about Dracula’s whole kill all the humans plan.

But, we’ve just gotten to my big issue with this second season. Dracula. In season one, the time we spent with him was not great but it was well used time. They built up a very strong impression of this character who was literally larger than life. His love for his wife, his fury at her loss, the pain he felt and his anger being distributed amongst the masses in a slaughter that wasn’t justified but understandable. Here, well Dracula is just a hollow shell waiting to be killed (as more than one character points out). There’s a clever line from Alucard about this whole massacre thing just being a really long suicide note, and he’s right but that just kind of makes Dracula’s character seem even more hollow. The fire and fury is gone and we never even got to see it fade. We went from this extraordinary and imposing menace to the guy who spent nearly eight episodes sitting in his chair staring at the fireplace and occasionally having one on one chats with the various minions who were all scheming around him as he sat more or less oblivious or indifferent.

Perhaps if we’d seen this transition and the slow loss of his connection to the war he started and the drive he had, it might have played out more emotionally. However, the transition happened off screen. One season we see him in one form and now here he is a different and much less interesting one.

They do fill a lot of the screen time with his followers though. The majority of the vampire characters are either glorified extras or just annoying, with Camilla being a notable exception. That said, her character remains more or less on the side of things and ultimately hers is a story unresolved so there’s little satisfaction to be found in this one. Also, her sudden swearing at various points might have been amusing but it kind of seemed vastly out of character for her (plenty of other characters swear and that’s fine, but it just sounded so wrong coming from Camilla – and not just because she was female but rather because it seemed like it didn’t fit with the rest of her persona). The two human generals Dracula acknowledges could have both been interesting but instead they come off as fairly cheap characters with contrasting ends just for the sake of it.

It might be fair to say that none of these characters left an impression, except that even when they are just stuffing around in a library, Trevor and Sypha have real chemistry and the addition of Alucard’s comments and provocations actually just worked really well. Every moment spent with the main group (and admittedly, there weren’t enough moments spent with them) was purely fun and once the fighting started things got very good very quickly. It’s just a shame that there’s so much down time focusing on things that aren’t really all that interesting first.

I mean, there are questions about Sypha’s seemingly unlimited magical reserves and Trevor not being totally dead because even though he’s from a family of monster hunters he is actually a human, and Alucard just kind of does whatever because apparently half-vampire means worse than a full vampire though how that works is unclear… but none of this matters. This group is awesome fun. Let’s see more of them.

All and all, watching both season 1 and 2 of Castlevania together won’t be a bad watch. There’s plenty to enjoy – again though with a warning about the blood and gore, it is definitely a feature. However, this isn’t something that is unmissable and it probably won’t be remembered for long. But hey, whips, swords, magic, vampire killing… It is all good fun just remember not to ask too many questions.

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Castlevania Series Review: Nice Introduction

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Karandi James

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Castlevania Series Review: Nice Introduction

Posted on August 19, 2017July 29, 2017 by Karandi

Overview:

Based on the games, this is a four episode anime available on Netflix. After Dracula’s human wife is burned as a witch he curses the country. Trevor Belmont, a hunter from an out of favour family is just trying to get by but finds himself dragged in to the fight.

Review:

I’m going to be honest and point out I’ve never played the Castlevania games. I’ve seen them, watched reviews about them, I know the gist of what the games are about, but I’ve never actually played one. Despite that, I was kind of excited when I heard Castlevania was getting an anime adaptation mostly because the basic story and style seemed like it would work well in an adaptation. And for what it is worth, that is true. These four episodes show case how epically a vampire/demon hunter story that includes decent fight sequences, chase scenes, and obvious adapted platforming sequences can translate into an anime.

What these four episodes don’t do is actually give us a series to review. I mean, they can call it a series if they like, but what that doesn’t change that all this really just wants to test the waters and to see whether or not there’s a market for it. Basically, I asked you into my restaurant, asked you to try out our new sandwich and then gave you the crust and said the rest might come later depending on your reaction.

Let’s be honest: no matter how good that crust was you are still going to be disappointed.

The story here ends just as the team for future story is finally assembled and all are actually on board for hunting down a vengeful Dracula. This was a cool introduction into a story that while there are rumours it will come out and possibly next year, it doesn’t yet exist. That makes reviewing this kind of difficult because if nothing more ever comes out, then this is entirely skippable. There’s nothing revolutionary here and it isn’t amazing enough that you should watch an unfinished story. However, if the promised continuation occurs, and you happen to like horror, gore and action with a bit of off-colour and slightly earthy humour thrown in from time to time, this is actually a pretty good watch.

The first episode gives us a pretty decent set up and motivation for the villain of the piece. Though calling Dracula the villain seems kind of wrong given he was minding his own business when the church set his wife on fire. However, I somehow doubt that justifies the mass slaughter of the population of an entire kingdom so maybe Dracula needs to get some anger management lessons and learn how to appropriately direct his anger at the individuals who actually deserve it.

After that, we switch pretty much entirely to following Trevor, our plucky hero who is selflessly dashing into the fray… okay, not quite. He’s a sour drunk who is over the slurs the church and the peasants hurl at his family for doing their job of demon hunting and basically he’s pretty happy is Dracula wants to burn the whole kingdom down as long as he can get a drink. Through various circumstances he ends up getting dragged into the conflict but while he’s fine with stopping Dracula he isn’t making friends with the church any time soon. There’s nothing particularly amazing about this kind of slovenly protagonist who is actually an amazing fighter if given the right trigger but his presentation works and some of his lines are actually pretty hilarious.

However, that’s the end of positives for characterisation. The church and peasants suffer from incredible stereotyping and are mostly just around to be hated. Yes, we hate the priests and most of the peasants more than the genocidal vampire we’re supposed to see as the eventual villain (wait, remind me why we want Dracula stopped). Eventually we do meet a priest and some peasants that aren’t entirely unlikable and they even assist in the final fight in the city before a falling sequence that really should have left both the main characters dead, but it really isn’t enough to excuse the vilification of all the extras for the entire three episodes prior.

Visually, this works as a horror. It has an older style look, which helps it fit in a bit more with the games, and the colour scheme works perfectly well for gothic horror. The music is also suitable for what it is trying to do though hardly noteworthy.

Basically, this could be great, if they get around to finishing the story. As it is, unless you are a die hard Castlevania fan or you are just curious, there’s not a lot of reason to jump into it.

Thanks for reading.

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