Castlevania (TV series)


Castlevania is an American adult animated web television series based on the Japanese video game series of the same name by Konami. The first two seasons adapt the 1989 entry ' and follow Trevor Belmont, Alucard and Sypha Belnades as they defend the nation of Wallachia from Dracula and his minions. Seasons 2 and 3 borrow characters and elements from the 2005 entry '.
The series was originally planned as a film, developed by producer Kevin Kolde and his company Project 51. Kolde had a contract for a script with writer Warren Ellis in 2007; the project entered development hell until about 2015, when Adi Shankar boarded the project and it was picked up by streaming service Netflix. Powerhouse Animation Studios joined the team and production commenced. Its art style is heavily influenced by Japanese anime and Ayami Kojima's artwork in with the production team including staff members who worked in the Japanese anime industry.
The series premiered on Netflix on July 7, 2017, and was renewed for an expanded second season of eight episodes on the same day; the second season premiered on October 26, 2018. A ten-episode third season was greenlit by Netflix and released on March 5, 2020. On March 27, 2020, Netflix announced they have renewed the series for a fourth season.

Premise

When his wife is burned at the stake after being falsely accused of witchcraft, the vampire Count Dracula declares all the people of Wallachia will pay with their lives. He summons an army of demons which overruns the country, causing the people to live lives of fear and distrust. To combat this, the outcast monster hunter Trevor Belmont takes up arms against Dracula's forces, aided by the magician Sypha Belnades and Dracula's dhampir son Alucard.

Voice cast

Season 1 (2017)

Season 2 (2018)

Season 3 (2020)

Production

In March 2007, Frederator Studios acquired the rights to produce an animated film adaption of ', intended as a direct-to-video production. Frederator brought writer Warren Ellis aboard as the screenwriter for the series. In an interview with Paste, Warren Ellis said that when he was contacted about Castlevania he had no previous knowledge of the series and discovered it was a "Japanese transposition of the Hammer Horror films I grew up with and loved". Ellis explained how he worked with Castlevania producer Koji Igarashi to fit the film into the timeline of the series, including writing a new backstory, and how he was frustrated that Igarashi wanted eight full re-writes of pre-production material before giving approval. Ellis noted that Frederator's Kevin Kolde, who was slated to produce the work, did not want the film to be aimed at children, allowing Ellis to use gruesome imagery and scenes as necessary to tell the story he wanted to write, something that Ellis had found restrictive in working with normal television animation.
In adapting the game for the film, Ellis did not want to make a point-for-point adaption, but instead provide some material to flesh out the game's world and elements behind it. At this stage, the film was anticipated to be only 80 minutes long, which Ellis knew would not be enough to tell the full story he wanted, so was able to break apart his script into a trilogy of works, each part having a self-contained three-act structure; the first part would be to introduce the characters of Dracula, Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard and with a meaningful narrative resolution. In this manner, Ellis noted that if the other two parts were never greenlit, the first work "doesn't demand the presence of the other two parts for it to work as its own thing". Due to the limited time, Ellis opted to drop Grant Danasty, a pirate character in the game; Ellis noted that besides "the stupid name", he felt the pirate was misplaced in the setting and that the limited run time would not allow him to develop the character fully.
Sometime around 2008, work on the production stalled, and entered development hell. Ellis had completed his script in June 2008, and the show's production blog had said in August 2008 that they were shopping around the idea as a theatrical release, but no further updates followed before the blog was quietly deleted.
Around 2012, Adi Shankar was approached to direct a live-action version of Ellis' script. Shankar, who at the time had just finished work as executive producer of Dredd, said that the party was looking to make a film in the style of the Underworld films with a similar budget, representative of a small studio with large independent backing. Shankar turned the opportunity down, saying it felt "250 percent wrong", as he had deep respect for the original game and felt the live-action version would not treat it well. Following this, Shankar stepped back from Hollywood to pursue more self-published works, stating that "the major studios were blatantly disrespecting fandom" as a reason he turned down the offer.
The show was revitalized when Powerhouse Animation Studios's Sam Deats was able to negotiate a deal with Netflix for the production, using the existing scripts that had been written nearly a decade prior. Powerhouse reached out to Frederator to help with the show's production. According to Ellis, Netflix was very positive about his original scripts that he wrote in 2007, and so he had to only make a few changes to fit the Netflix format while staying true to the version of the script Konami had accepted. Shankar was approached with the opportunity to produce the work, which he took as neither Powerhouse or Frederator sought to restrict his creative vision from Ellis' scripts. Fred Seibert and Kevin Kolde of Frederator Studios also co-produce. The series was animated by Frederator Studios and Powerhouse Animation Studios and directed by Sam Deats. Trevor Morris composed the show's music.
The show's art style was heavily influenced by the work Ayami Kojima did for '. They also took ideas from director Satoshi Kon's works for character expressions and series such as Cowboy Bebop and ' for inserting humor among the more serious elements. The show is produced using 2D hand-drawn animation, taking cues from Ninja Scroll and Vampire Hunter D, with staff members that previously worked on '. The manga series Berserk and Blade of the Immortal were also cited as inspiration, with one of the show's animation directors having previously worked on the. The production works closely with Konami, the holders of the Castlevania franchise, who helped to identify small continuity issues but were otherwise very receptive towards the work.
The first season of four 30-minute episodes was released on July 7, 2017. This season represents the first part of the trilogy that Ellis has laid out in 2007. The second season is eight episodes long and was released on October 26, 2018. Ellis said that the second season, completing the trilogy, is where he had been able to deviate somewhat from the game, and has been better anticipate the show's release on Netflix in terms of scenes and episode lengths. Shankar believes that there is an opportunity for more stories to be told borrowing from other games in the series, noting that overall he sees the series as "a story about a family and multiple generations of this family" with many tales to draw from. The production team for the second season included staff members who worked on Madhouse productions such as Death Parade.
Developing the character of Dracula, Adi Shankar made it clear that one of the series' main goals has been to paint Dracula not as a villain, but a tragic, doomed figure. According to him: "The best villains, in general, are the heroes of their own story and the trick to making Castlevania resonate was this idea that Dracula isn't a bad guy, he isn't a villain, he's just a person consumed with darkness. That first episode in Season 1 we start to see why he wants to eradicate humans. He's not just this mustache-curling, one-dimensional villain. What Dracula is doing is not really a war against humanity. It's more a suicide note."
The show's third season was greenlit by Netflix a few days after the broadcast of the second season. Shankar announced in November 2018 that he will also be leading an animated series based on Capcom's Devil May Cry, which he acquired the rights for himself, and will make the show, alongside the Castlevania series, part of a shared "Bootleg Multiverse". The third season was released on March 5, 2020. On March 27, 2020, Netflix announced they have renewed the series for a fourth season. On July 31, 2020, it was reported that amid a wave of sexual misconduct allegations being levelled against the show's creator and showrunner Warren Ellis, he would no longer have any involvement in developing the series after Season 4's release.

Audience viewership

According to Parrot Analytics, Castlevania was the most popular digital original series in the United States during July 619, 2017, with the show generating 23,175,616 "demand expressions" on average. According to Parrot Analytics, "demand expressions" indicate the "total audience demand being expressed for a title, within a country," measured by video streams and downloads as well as social media.
It remained the 7th most in-demand digital original show in the United States through October 11, 2017. By the end of 2017, Castlevania was the year's 15th most in-demand digital original series in the United States, averaging 18,137,196 demand expressions throughout the year. It was also one of the year's top20 most in-demand digital original series in the United Kingdom, Japan, Brazil, Mexico, France, Canada, Germany and Australia.
By the time the second season became available in 2018, Castlevania had reportedly garnered nearly 30million viewers worldwide according to Netflix analytics, becoming one of the most successful original animated shows on Netflix.

Critical response

The review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes reported that 80% of critics have given the first season a positive review based on 25 reviews, with an average rating of 7.39/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Castlevania offers spectacular visuals and a compelling adaptation in its all-too-short first season." It is the first video game adaptation in the site's history to receive a "Fresh" rating. Metacritic, which assigns a rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, reported that there were "generally favorable reviews" for the first season, with an weighted average score of 71 based on 5 reviews.
The Verge gave a mixed review, noting that the gore did little to create a sense of danger and felt "intentionally flashy". It concluded that "Castlevania is ripe with potential, but also burdened with cliches." Dave Trumbore of Collider gave the series four stars out of five, praising the chemistry between the cast and comparing the violence with anime such as Ninja Scroll. IGN also wrote glowingly of Warren Ellis's script, but felt some of his humor was a little jarring. In a review for Paste Magazine, Dave Raposo wrote that Castlevania channeled the cutaway gag formula that is seen in Family Guy. He dismissed the "absurd" attempts at humanizing Dracula and called it a "milquetoast imitation of Game of Thrones", noting that the ambitions of the script "fly in the face of the simple ideals that unify the best entries in the Castlevania series". Several reviews lauded the voice cast, particularly Graham McTavish as Dracula and Richard Armitage as Trevor Belmont. Screen Rant Sarah Moran drew attention to the "sarcastic edge" that Armitage brought to the character, and also noted Callis's "air of sophistication" as Alucard. Destructoid also wrote positively of Trevor Belmont as a protagonist, but criticized the animation and added that the character designs were "flat". Dan Seitz at Uproxx left a negative review, writing that it tried too hard to find profundity in the story of the Castlevania series. He also cited issues with the pacing.
Rotten Tomatoes reported that 100% of critics have given the second season a positive review with an average rating of 9.73/10, based on 12 reviews. The critics consensus reads, "Castlevania sinks its fangs into vampiric lore during a devilishly fun second season that benefits from an expanded sense of scale and episode tally that allows the series to fully spread its leathery wings."
Complaints were made towards the pacing and the screen time spent on Dracula's court in season two. Writing for GameSpot, Michael Rougeau was disappointed that Trevor's group spent the majority of their time in a library, and also said Dracula "does literally nothing in all the episodes we've seen so far. There's one medium length flashback in which he massacres a council of merchants who offended him, but it's not like that moves the story along". Rougeau concluded that the action was creatively executed, but he felt that the new cast was given more development and that the previous characters were left to "tread water". Film School Rejects echoed similar sentiments, who said the second season was more of a complement to the first one. McTavish and the rest of the voice cast were once again met with high praise. In Collider's review for the second series, Dave Trumbore mentioned there "isn't a weak link in the cast here". IGN gave the second season a 9.2/10, praising Ellis's approach to Castlevania as "witty and self-aware enough to poke fun at itself when necessary".
Season 3 of Castlevania also received widely positive reviews, receiving 100% of positive reviews on Rotten Tomatoes with an average rating of 8.64/10. The critics consensus reads, "Castlevania's stunningly animated third season continues to build on the game's lore by diving deeper into its characters with humor, heart, and a lot of bloody action."