Castlevania isn’t a true anime, as it’s produced by Netflix, and written by Warren Ellis (who is amazing), done in an anime-inspired style of artwork, however it presents itself as one (thanks to multiple anime alumni also being involved) so I’m reviewing it as one. Something it’s also not is aimed at teens, with sexual implications (and at least one soft sex scene), a lot of gruesome violence, and adult language. But teen horror fans are drawn to more adult themes.
What it is is gorgeously animated, with deeply ensconced emotions driving its characters and a large number of complex characters at that. It starts with Dracula, Vlad Tepes, falling in love with and marrying a human, Lisa. However some years later, as a violent religion conquers the area Lisa is burned at the stake for being a witch for knowing the medicines and sciences Vlad taught her. With that Vlad’s time of playing human ended and he gathered his vampires to exterminate all humans for what they’d done to his love.
Standing in his way are Sypha, a Speaker magician with elemental powers, Trevor Belmont, the last Belmont from a long line of excommunicated monster hunters, and Alucard, the son of Vlad and Lisa. The throuple energy of these three is off the charts and one of the things I enjoy about the series.
But also on the plus side are some fantastic fight scenes and more complicated characters on the adversarial side of the story. Vlad’s forgemasters Isaac and Hector are also interesting with full arcs that only begin with them becoming some of the few humans to earn Vlad’s friendship. Other characters, like The Judge and Lenore play with the line between villain and hero and help paint a complicated, horrific story based in love and loyalty, and what happens when those things are endangered or torn away.
I really enjoyed all four seasons (and the follow up, which I’ll touch on later) and highly recommend it to horror fans from, yes, the action and gore, but mostly from the raw feelings tangled up in the events portrayed.