User reviews

Compared to the first one this one disappoints due to the writing. The animation is beautiful, the characters are interesting, but the plot just feels... lacking. Things happen a little too conveniently. The story doesn't feel natural, but rather like some things were thrown in to 'solve' plot problems. Some of the themes and tropes are a little too much modern Hollywood for my taste. It's too much about trauma and empowerment and such. The atmosphere is still stellar though and the world is well built. Also, once it get's going towards the end, it really gets going.

The first one was 10/10. This one is still worth watching, but with lowered expectations.

The drawing style is pretty good though I feel the previous series was slightly better as it had better atmosphere.

The main issue is that the story moves too far from the original formula.

The new story is set in Revolutionary France but everything is "micro-adjusted" to fit a specific artificial narrative. Feels a like like the characters, story, dialogue all are forced into specific boxes.

The characters are more diverse cast now. Dracula no longer relevant instead is been replaced by another antagonist and she's not as scary to be honest. Belmont has been nerfed into a an insecure, young weakling. They tried to make it look strong by giving him raunchy lines but just looks bad.

The show keeps trying to associate revolution with emancipation and freedom and monarchy with vampires and evil at every corner.

Overall I'd say is not worth watching. The quality of their shows is getting worse and worse. The dialogue of the show is just terrible.

Animation 9/10 Characters 5/10 Story 2/10.

Its the ride of peak and nostalgia for any castlevania fans. Waited for years and get some thing brutally amazing. Amazing moment surely caught up and season interval was adore dramatic and brutish... Some lacklustre here but ok there's lot of things should get enjoyable. And last moment surly it's a treat for who watched Castlevania previous... But missed blody tears and dead like theme.. But got some better music top notch quality... Some Opera music has to be goosebumps but there's lacking also available... Overal enjoyable good memorable a English anime with making stylization surely got japanese.. And voice cast is exceptional.

After the highly unexpected and absolutely gobsmacking brilliant four seasons of Castlevania, we now get a sequel in Nocturne. We can rejoice with the Belmonts back at the wheel, so let's dive in.

Castlevania was a revelation. Instead of getting a bit of nice fan service that stayed close to its rather simple videogame narratives, we were treated with an emotional rollercoaster of a plot that was perfectly paced, dripping of incredible character development and jawdropping animation, that even touched on subjects like depression or life's bigger question. The slow, mysterious build up was just phenomenal, and the blood superb.

Now, although Nocturne does not disappoint, it lacks that surprise depth of its predecessor. The story is kinda cool, touching upon divine Gods and Godesses, and throwing in some ancient myths, but it doesn't have the same brilliant pacing and the build-up is just less interesting.

However, the animation still has the same sheen, and the music is very good, with sound effects being even better. And the characters do have good depth and development, and some really good twists, all helped by the new later setting of The French Revolution.

And that's why it still shines. The 'feel' is very much intact of the original, and the new setting gives it the freshness it needed to be a good follow up. It's just a lot quicker on the action.

So, in short, it's fun and looks great. Let the whip crack for the return of the Belmonts.

Right, I'm not a fan of animation, but I really enjoyed Castlevania. But this? What on earth did I just watch? The characterisation, the richness and depth of characters. The amount of grey areas when you don't know who is right and wrong. It's just such a joy to see such fully realised characters, and also shockingly relatable. This show didn't miss a beat; it just kept keeping it real

I've never seen anything like it. Everything about it just blew me away, and the final few scenes. Just perfection. I can highly, highly recommend this to anyone, even if you haven't seen the previous Castlevanias, it's strong enough to stand-alone.

This show LOOKS amazing, but the storytelling and dialogue fall short. It struggles to keep an interesting pace and the characters have little to no chemistry that doesn't feel extremely forced. When lines are delivered that are meant to be strong and impactful they instead fall flat and sound cliche. It doesn't help that sometimes this show seems to be preaching to its audience instead of letting them create their own opinions. The animation is still great in most places and the fight scenes are excellent, but the story drastically suffers from my before mentioned points. Some interesting concepts are sprinkled throughout, but they are too few and far between to keep some viewers interested.

Well as been said In other reviews it doesn't pop off the screen the way the first one did. To say the least it starts of sloooowww but it does have its charm going for it. This time around its seems that we are treated to much more of a character build in Castlevania with protagonist that will grow on you slowly. Not having it clear how powerful the antagonist is in the first episodes of the new series makes it all the more interesting. The story in true Castlevania style throws you curve balls when you least expect it. The artwork is absolutely breathtaking even better than the first one if you ask me. It's a thrill that again starts slowly but at the end of this first season, you might ask the same question "who is Dracula" !

I really loved the first series as far as adaptation goes, back when Nocturne got announced I was stoked to see how they could keep the plotlines fresh. In this case, Nocturne is a beatifully animated show, with a few hiccups which don't retract from the experience, the sound is good, however voice acting ranges from good to fine.

As for story, this is where I'm conflicted, on one hand the plot is good and Erzebeth Bathory is a good pick for a villain, but... what the actual hell is up with the writing? Dialogues seem stiff, leaving little depth, they get so bad at times that it just took me out of the experience. With that said, I like Nocturne despite these issues, I hope that they will improve when the second season comes out, there's still a chance for it going from good to great..

What I heavily enjoyed about the first Castlevania and its characters was regardless of ethnicities, it didn't detract from the identity of the series. The dungeon crawling grimdark fantasy vibes focusing on a band of adventurers coming together to cleanse the world of greater evils. It was bleak, it was fun, it was action packed, and it never detracted from staying on target. All the characters, even the villains, had their roles to play in this setup and it was executed perfectly. Each season had substantial plot progression and action, from the main cast getting acquainted to raiding Dracula's castle all by the end of the first season. It was an incredibly fun watch, that only continued to build up with the following 2 seasons.

Meanwhile Nocturne has turned the series into your typical political drama, pulled straight from the news networks of the modern day. No longer is every episode about venturing into some new bleak unknown territory of a grimdark fantastical world; instead, it's about corrupt political figures, slavery and the complacency of white people, the ethics of conquest etc. Every episode seems to have sacrificed the adventurous dungeon crawling aspects instead for monologue about the ethics of the listed talking points above. I didn't mind it at first, but when it dragged on the entire season I'd long since grown tired of it. Especially when you consider how much plot was covered in the first season by comparison, from meeting in a village plagued with demonic undead to storming Dracula's castle. Let's just say, the main cast barely accomplished anything by the end of this first season, one could argue they didn't actually accomplish anything at all.

Overall, the animation was beautiful, but the plot in itself dragged and didn't seem to accomplish anything substantial. It's obvious the creators have a new vision in mind when it comes to what they want this story to accomplish. Less adventure and action, more political talking points and debates about religions, race, conquest etc. 80% of this series is them monologuing about these topics while remained secluded in the same village throughout. What little action there is feels like meaningless filler that doesn't really progress the plot in any form outside of the last 1min of the season for spoiler reasons. However, the rest is meaningless. Definitely in no rush for a Season 2 and I "may" check it out, but overall, this series has pretty much killed my interest in following the plotline of Castlevania.

I share some of the sentiments with regard to the other reviewers. The visuals are great but the story is lacking.

But seeing as I don't know the castlevania storyline from the game, I don't care if the show is true to the game storyline.

My biggest gripe with this show is just how weak the monsters are. Vampires and night creatures are star wars storm trooper levels of useless. They are just fodder for the heroes to kill, so they have no intimidation factor.

The second gripe is related to the writing, stuff like how when one of the characters goes on a spying mission how they immediately find what they are looking for and are within hearing distance of important conversations. All this while the Vampires which are supposed to have heightened senses cannot detect that someone is following them and listening in on their conversations. That's just hack writing.

Overall great. Lacked the impact of the first I think due to the audience having to focus on multiple characters at the same time. It can't be helped though as it's the first season and they HAVE to be introduced. They all seem weak which is good for character progression down the line. I don't know what people are on about crying over this and that when they know for themselves they are still going to watch when the second season drops.

Great animation.

Great music.

Writing NEEDS improvement.

I'm hoping that on the 2nd season at least one protagonist dies so there's more focus on the others.

The first seasons were masterfully crafted icons that convinced me to give a chance to all Netflix Animation originals. Upon discovery of a new season in a new setting, I was surprised it was in the works. Little did I know it did not..meet expectations.

There is nothing wrong with setting a sequel of any film or movie in a new setting. This is considered a completely natural move to explore new horizons in a fictional world.

Sadly it did not work for this series sequel, easily as it failed to meet the masterpiece of the first few seasons. The new cast of characters were literally just thrown in without any type of introductions to note. We were expected to be able to understand immediately what was the story and development. This didn't happen, I found myself questioning several parts as the episodes went on and on.

"Why did this happen, where did this happen, what is the point of this"

We all know asking too many basic questions in any film series is not a good sign.

Animation wise, Castlevania still has it down as its still one of the best points of this trilogy.

Maybe this sequel deviated too much from the original masterpiece or suffered from a lack of clarity that was needed for development.

The only reason why I am not giving a abysmally low rating is due to the possible redemption previewed at the last episode.

So let's continue to watch the next season or two of this sequel and make our judgements by then.

I'm writing this after finishing my rewatch of the original Castlevania and Nocturne. Let me say that anyone saying this isn't like the original is horrendously inaccurate. It's different from the last season of the original. That I will grant. But the first three seasons aren't too dissimilar from the first season of Nocturne. Personally I loved the series. I'm a huge fan of the original series and I love this introduction of a more nuanced world and characters. I genuinely can't describe the rollercoaster of emotions I felt in the last four episodes alone. It's beautiful and well done. All that being said, I will address a flaw that I personally would love to see amended. Simply put, a character gets a long backstory and perhaps a sharp turn into a romance with another character. I love the inclusion of a character's backstory but I think the whole story is over 15 minutes long for a resolution that didn't feel as satisfying as it should have. And technically the backstory is for two characters but the other character feels sidelined in my opinion. Which is a shame since they're shaping up to be my favorite character of the series. It just felt too long to me. And for 8 episodes that shape up roughly over three and a half hours...it just sticks out. But anyways, my only gripe is that a side story goes on for a little too long with, for now, a less than stellar resolution. This series is a great follow up to the original and I'd recommend it for anyone who loved the first series.

Also if this series is going to address the affects of colonialism, I want to see a specific vampire's backstory. Especially because of the small comment they make about it in one of the episodes.

There are lots of surprising elements throughout the season. With characters inspired by real life historical people and each story linked perfectly together. There are differences between the ancestors vs the current characters in terms of power, skills and abilities. Some back stories are quite touching. There is not really a feeling that there was only 1 main character, and the story revolving this person only, but there were many. The season also brought a lot of moral and faith questions which make you realized there is light in darkness and there is darkness in light.

There is no doubt that this will be a success after the first Castlevania. If you're a huge fan, do watch this.

What made the first engaging to watch is villains. Or more precisely antagonist.

Then the cast, that clicked right away.

This... This is like recycle the world built in the first and try to pack in with action in compact format to composite for the lack of everything that made first good.

I am not talking about visuals, casting, cgi, animation and etc. That's all on par with first but about any meaningful substance to the characters.

You are thrown into boiling pot and by the end of the seasons it stills, and things get stitched together, no longer is about, why do you so randomly introduce this blank character be it on good, bad or neutral side. What's with the main plot drive, it's lamest.

With first you had Dracula, you had mob, you had his wife burned on stake, let the world burn.

In this one, they try to make more complex but all they do is sluggish build up that's really just convoluted, version of - > rich bad guys - > corruption - >dominate - > peasant equal lifestock.

Monster behind it all from Eastern Europe. God forbid it's from France where its all happening.

All in all really disappointing season and they are just milking on success of first.

Watching the first 2 seasons of Castlevania, where very clear motives of the characters are so well established, its so disappointing watching this. I don't need a backstory of Annette, Richter, or Eduard. Just like I didn't need to see Trevor chased out of the Belmont hold while his family is murdered. You can accomplish great feats of character development simply with good dialogue between characters. The best line of the entire first 4 seasons is in the Belmont hold, "I'm surprised to learn that I had more of a childhood than you." "Yeah and your dad is Dracula." That whole scene was a great way for characters to give a lens of history for Trevor, for the audience to connect with both Alucard and Trevor, and it did it without crawling up everyone's ass with useless time wasting. Maybe the writers felt it was a mistake to not show Trevor's past, but that meant that the show didn't waste time on it and was able to more thouroughly explain and show the actual conflict rather than just dancing around it. It's just bad. It looks beautiful, but the writing, pacing, and overall decisions have just made this whole endeavor a waste of time.

I truly believe that Netflix did their thing with this series. The season was very suspenseful and kept me wanting to continue watching to see the outcome. What I love about this series, it's not like your traditional hero vs evil, where everything works out for the hero; but this series provides some defeat for the heroes. Truly, if you want a very well and engaging series, I would recommended this series. The final episode left me eager for the next season, to see how each characters faith outcome is. But I can't really have no complaints about this series. Netflix animes series might be one of their money makers imo. If you're a person that get attach to characters then prepare yourself because no one is safe.

Castlevania Season 1 wasn't that great. The season get better season 2 onwards. Season 3 was pure Art.

So despite a weak Season 1 of Nocturne,I am hopeful. Those who are complaining about slavery, come on you also get Belmonts who are white and the that ermmm you know the pale Vampire is also white. So why get sad cause of Slavery plotlines? We get to see fair share of Heroic white characters as well. Castlevania series do keep it balanced imo.

I think the real Villian hasn't shown up yet. I got a hunch due to season 4 of Castlevania and there were some indications in Nocture that a greater Evil is about to come in future.

Some of the emotional plotlines in Nocture are weak and felt more of a teen drama. Anyways ' complete with a Whip and verge of defeat' :D.

Sadly that's exactly how i feel about this show. The original Castlevania show was one of the most pleasant surprises because it was the first successful video game adaptation. It had great writing, art direction, animation, action scenes, pacing, music and character development and chemistry. While this show has amazing production values too it falls flat to the most important things.

First is the writing which took a big hit. Every dialogue seems forced, not fitting at all, no chemistry between the main protagonists, no interest villains that have no clear motives. The show also doesn't expand on why the revolution started, how it expanded, how it operates. Also the reason why the aristocrats are bad are because of the slaves? That's only one of the reasons not all. In that time period the problems that pushed the common people to their limit were way more than slavery and religion as this show portrays. Also it's borderline criminal that the show's main protagonist (Richter) gets so little screen time and instead focuses so much on Annette. Her character was the most boring thing out of the entire season. All of her scenes dragged down the pacing of the show. Why there are no flashbacks on the backstory of Maria, her mother and Ritchter when they were young, how they grew up together and their training in magic, combat and lore from Belmont family and history ? Annette of course has almost half of the season dedicated to her and her flashbacks. Not building a backstory or explaining who and what here motives of the Devourer of Light are was big mistake making her one dimensional villain.

Overall i have to say i am very disappointed after how good the original Casltevania was. I really hope they fix some of these many glaring problems next season.