Ninja Scroll (1993)

Writer: Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Director: Yoshiaki Kawajiri

Studio: Animate Film

First watched: 29/07/2025

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Ninja Scroll

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
5		4	6	7	4

Ninja Scroll. Kinda cool but sadly over-hyped. I wouldn't necessarily say that Ninja scroll is a bad film but it's certainly not deserving of too much high praise. The main thing about it is that it absolutely has so much of that aesthetic, thematic and stylistic character of dope 80s/90s anime and undoubtedly is one of the big contributors to making that whole sub-genre what it was (and still is). However, although it's very visually appealing, the film itself, i.e. its story and characters, lacks substance and any kind of direction. So while it's a pretty cool nostalgic memory, it's not actually a great film.

Frustratingly, I have to kick this off with noting that the role of women in the film is absolutely atrocious. Every single woman character (which is a grand total of 3) had personality traits and story beats that revolved exclusively around sex or sexualisation, usually in a terrible way. They also had barely any impact on the plot for the most part.

First, you have the 2 female members of the '9 monsters': Benisato and Zakuro. Benisato is the first to appear, when she strips naked in the bathouse to show off her tattoos and activiate her snake technique. She then of course has the snakes glide around her breasts before she attacks. She later on appears completely naked again in the temple (meaning the context of being in a bathhouse was irrelevant the last time, apparently), to use the snake attack again; however, this time when she gets cornered, she has a snack pop out of her pussy for a sneak attack (not joking). The only other aspect of her character that we learn about is that Gemma (the main antagonis) regularly "makes love to her". That's it. You then get Zakuro, whose first lines of dialogue are her confessing her love to the leader of the 9 monsters, then trying it on with him. Her character story then concludes with her killing him for rejecting her advances. She has no other elements to her character.

Then we finally get to Kagero, the main female character of the film. She does actively participate in and influence the story, however it's all through insane or pathetic misogynistic means. Firstly, her 'power' is that she is immune to poison but also that any man she sleeps with will then die by poisoning. This is conveniently exploited by Dakuan (a government official), as the poison he uses on Jubei (the main man character) will be neutralised if she shags him. And as the story plays out, since he's the only man who views her as a person and not a tool, she ironically falls in love with him and wants to shag him for both reasons. This is the kind of role for women that you can only come up with when you genuinely do no view them as actual people and instead think they're just sex toys and romantic prizes. But the thing that really solidifies the mistreatment of women characters is for her troubles, we see Kagero get sexually assaulted not once but twice on screen. The first time you could argue is plot related, as she 'allows' this so that she can kill Tessai with her poison. Even then, the concept of her having to get sexually assaulted to win a fight shows an insane level of hatred and disregard towards women. But even if you did give that one a pass, you'd still have the second time, when Shijima, the sneaky shadow ninja of the 9 Monsters, manages to kidnap her to lure Jubei into his trap, he makes sure to take a moment to quickly sexually violate her for good measure. To be honest, I would find it difficult to describe this film as good when the treatment of women in it is blatantly terrible. So I guess that is something that should be kept in mind if anyone else ever reads this.

(Oh, also just remembered there is another woman character who appears - an unnamed woman who is very literally just there getting fucked by the head of Kagero's village when she goes to report back the death of her squadron to him. The guy doesn't even stop to have this conversation with her and just keeps fucking this women, who of course has to scream and moan the entire time. She's presumably a concubine, again showing the type of women the writers wanted to see in their film).

To speak about the other elements of the film then, I'd say that its concept, design and style are genuinely pretty cool. The 9 monsters is a great vehicle/set-up for driving interesting action sequences and overall creating obstacles in the story. Sadly, none of the monsters themselves really get enough screentime to properly create a problem, let alone have the main characters solve it meaningfully. A lot of their powers were really cool and very thematic for sneaky, hidden ninja technique type stuff, but the fights semed to end as soon as they started, pretty much. There was also randomly one of them whose power was just like... bees? That was a bit odd; maybe there's some Japanese mythology I'm not familiar with.

The story is pretty much a nothing story and doesn't really make much sense (to me, at least). All of the aura and mystique of the secret ninja techniques and the Edo period is kinda lost in the main storyline basically revolving around government representatives and a trade deal for blocks of gold(?). Super boring and just means the plot has no real weight to it. We're kinda just told that we should care about this trade deal enough to follow it, rather than it being geuinely interesting. Then right at the end of the story, Gemma, the big bad, decides to change up and want all the power to himself, which is so unbearably boring and predictable. Again, it carries next to no weight, because both he and the people he betrayed only appeared on screen 2 minutes prior. (I will however excuse the plot being boring and predictable, given the fact that this is one of the films that would have laid the foundation for these types of stories on the big screen - it is now 32 years old!). Gemma himself as the main antagonist is also very surface level. Pretty basic design, no interesting powers to speak of, just immorality (which is conceptually huge but narratively pretty pointless).

Even Jubei (the main character)'s journey to halt this evil plan is literally forced, so there's actually no real buy-in to wanting to see how it all gets resolved. Jubei has no specific or even general motivations in the film, which is good for forming his identity as this rogue shinobi but terrible for making the story engaging in any way. Also, the hatred Jubei feels towards Gemma is all based off an implied past that we learn very little about. We see a few flashbacks here and there, then get told that Gemma's an awful person and a demon over and over in the dialogue. It's a little bit patronising.

The animation is good! However, I think I could only give it 'good'; no higher. The fights are animated really well, with lots of environment, clothing and flowy hair also moving pleasantly and believably around it. And generally, whent things move, they move through 3 dimensional space very convincingly. The artwork is also fantastic throughout, especially how they use light and shade to describe forms in quite a lot of visual detail (which really adds to the sense of depth to the characters and movement). There is a fair amount of the animators being 'economical' but that's understandable; it also happens to a point that it breaks your suspense or looks uncanny.

For the storytelling, I think the fights, the tone, the style and concept etc. all come together to create a decent viewing experience. Your eye is directed well and it's clear what's happening, where things are etc. Although there aren't any particularly interesting storytelling devices, like. Plus the explanations around the plot are a little bit clunky. So not great but can't say it's terrible.

To be honest, I've struggled to find the focus to sit and write about this film and I think that itself explains how I feel about it. It's a film that didn't really strike me in any way for its brilliance and and no point did it make me feel any emotion more than mildly (other than contempt for its creators). So sadly, although this film is maybe a cult classic, I'd say that overall, it isn't actually very good. I would maybe relegate it to being great for having on in the background for visual interest but even that would be suspect, what with all the women getting raped and stuff. So really there's no place for this film. But it is kind of cool in some parts. That's about it.

Rant About Attack on Titan (2013)

After literally years of patiently waiting for the anime to finish, I finally watched Attack on Titan in January 2025. I finished the run in mid-Feb and felt very strongly about it - especially the final series. After letting my initial feelings marinate for a few weeks, I'm ready to commit my thoughts on the series to words. 

Overall assessment: the final series is terrible, in my opinion. Like honestly, really awful.

The 4th season pretty much trashes everything that was good in the previous 3 seasons (which wasn't everything, mind).

From the very start of the series, we basically get completely separated from the main character we've been on this insane journey with so far. First of all, he's practically absent throughout, especially in terms of his inner thoughts and feelings; secondly, he's acting and thinking completely differently to everything we've seen before. In my opinion, you can't do both: if he's going to have such a big personality shift, we should see it happen and understand why; if we're going to be given no insight into his mind, then it should remain somewhat unchanged from what we've learned about it. With what we got, the character journey we'd been on up to that point pretty much got trashed on the spot.

Alongside this, the objective we were chasing (freedom for humankind) got completely warped and lost the 2 things that made it so compelling: 

1. the sense of scale and stakes - it was about humanity braking out of the wallsand achieving freedom; and 

2. the absolutely terrifying and completely mysterious nature of the titans.

In season 4, the titans are a somewhat significant plot device but nowhere near the main objective. It very much becomes more focused on other things, which I personally found boring in entertainment but more importantly, is just such a massive shift from the initial premise of the series. Also, opening up 'the world' to include all of these other peoples and nations just makes the struggles within the walls seem insignificant and inconsequential. This is all typified and exacerbated by the fact that the walls turn into "millions" of Colossal Titans. Like, that thing was an unimaginable horror that seemed completely insurmountable before this - if there are millions of them, the impact of the 1 is completely lost.

Now I completely get a story goal changing (I in fact love a character losing what they *want* in exchange for what they *need*) but this was just so abrupt and honestly felt completely unrelated to the old story. Same thing for it ending up as Attack on Eren. It felt so random and there was no gradual heel turn that led us there.
And ultimately, the story just became generic and corny. Fighting for the freedom of the small cast we'd grown attached to somehow became literally saving the world - the most overused and boring storyline that exists. I couldn't help but wince during all the "let's save the world together" moments of teaming up with the Marleyans and the Warrior Cadets. Even the Nine Titans of old coming back to save them; that was very Naruto and basically made it feel like a kids movie. This again flies in the face of the early episodes, because part of what made the series so so great back then was the fact that these characters you were watching really, truly did get straight bodied. Like absolutely, unquestionably and sometimes unceremoniously killed - permanently. Having them survive as thoughts or spirits definitely undercuts that a little bit. What they did with Erwin and the scouts was fine but the Nine stuff was a bit disappointing.
Similarly, having all the Eldians at the last battle turn into titans, only to then have the transformation reversed again shat on the previous premise. If anyone got turned into a Titan, they were gone forever. Even in series 4, that includes Pixis and Levi's squad. So that just undermined some of that and used one of the previously most heartbreaking things in that universe for a bit of cheap shock impact.

Another thing that was a key feature of the early seasons was the exact level of technology that was available. They could use compressed gas and had figured out cannons. That's exactly where they'd got to. Not only did that establish and characterise the universe of the series but also set the scene and context for the battle against the titans. So every tiny, miniscule victory or step forward vs the titans felt absolutely massive and was so hard fought, because they had to do it with so few tools. Of course, you expect the characters to create and invent new technology but it took way too big a leap forward in season 4. The invention of the lightning spear honestly felt right on pace and it was pretty much their trump card against the armoured titan, which again seemed an impossible task before that. That's as far as it should have gone, in my opinion. Suddenly jumping forward to having trains, airships, way more guns etc. just made it about a completely different type of fight. And swords are cool! Slicing through a titan's neck is infinitely cooler than hitting it with a missile! I think that's a big part of it for me, as well. Slicing with swords is very much fantasy, which is so so cool, whereas shooting with guns is incredibly real-world, which is bland.

On top of the world itself getting bigger, the story just completely changes focus as well. Suddenly it's all about the warrior programme, the euthanisation plan and the Rumbling. These are all ideas that are only introduced in season 4. So again, they just don't really close off the narrative that was built up in the 3 seasons prior. Not to mention, all of this centres around a bunch of characters that are either brand new or uninteresting. Do we really need to spend so much time finding out about Porco and Marcel, Gabi and Falco? As characters, they're fine but introducing and giving so much time to so many new characters out of nowhere is just random and not at all satisfying. Also making it so incredibly explicitly about the ethnic cleansing of Jews during World War 2 was such a bizarre choice. It came out of absolutely nowhere. Also, what started off as an amazing action-fantasy series ended up being a LOT about foreign diplomacy and geopolitics. So so boring.

And all of that is made way worse, for me, by the fact that the story itself is absolutely terrible. Eren's titan powers completely change and he becomes this ethereal, all-knowing sage and can see into the future (I also don't think the importance of Eren kissing Historia's hand is emphasised clearly enough). But then this means that he has seen everything that's to come and it's all predetermined and he has to become a global terrorist. First of all, if everything is predetermined, there is no point in following the story - no one we're watching is influencing it! But secondly, the first 3 seasons are very much about defying what's set out in front of you, so this feels like another betrayal. But okay cool, let's go with it. The ultimate driver of the story is the fact that the founder Ymir remained a subservient slave to a king out of love (abysmal writing btw) but that meant she spent 2,000 years suffering. And because she is all knowing as well, she determines that Mikasa is the only person who can put an end to her suffering by killing her, somehow. No one else. And in order for this to happen, Eren has to allow all of this other stuff to happen (such as murdering kids) to make Mikasa hate him so that she can make peace with killing him. And in the process, he has to kill 80% of the people on the planet, and in spite of this, humans will still all remain at war with each other for all eternity.
That's a fucking awful story. It's so pointless. Oh and it's all only explained literall in the last 5 minutes of the final episode. I'd say in general, I really enjoyed Attack on Titan's non-linear storytelling but this didn't work at all, in my opinion. 
Also it's really unclear how this led to the end of the titan race. Does Armin say it's something to do with the choices Mikasa has made or was that maybe an issues with the subtitles on Crunchyroll? It does make sense that Ymir could and would do that to end the suffering but it just wasn't really well laid out/set up.

To be clear: Eren being a raging fuck is fair. It seems like a very natural conclusion for him to go too far for so-called revenge and kill masses of innocent people in a frenzy. But it's the fact he's composed and resigned to it and the fact it's prede-fucking-termined! That's what makes it so weak to me.

Throughout that finale, they just kept on lumping on more and more things to make it worse, as well. Like Eren saying he wanted Mikasa to pine after him for 10 years, Mikasa kissing Eren's severed head on the mouth, Eren saying he had to intentionally divery Dina Fritz's titan to make sure she killed his Mum. Like, all of that legit did not need to happen and just made the finale so much worse.

Although not exclusive to season 4, I also found all the internal "human" conflicts really boring as well. The Jaegerist insurrection honestly bored me to tears. Again, it's all centred around a very new character in Floch, so there's very little buy-in. And although it did result in some cool moments, it ultimately wasn't necessary. I'd say the same thing about overthrowing the government and installing Historia as the Queen, as well as the whole Kenny the Ripper subplot.
For real, the overthrowing the government had zero consequences on the story. Historia was the key person. It could have just been explained that she was sent away as a kid but then the Royal Family accepts her back after she learns the truth or something. All the stuff they did was quite unneccessary - the 'False King' had literally 0 dialogue, I'm quite certain. But all the important and good stuff (Grisha killing the Reiss family) did not need a military coup in order to be told. And the same for Kenny. That legit drives about an hour's worth of PVP fighting (again, kinda shits on the main premise of the series) and does not affect the story in any meaningful way. We could have learned about the Ackermans several other ways.
They also completely wasted all the intrigue they built up with Zeke. He pops up like a whack-a-mole and then gets his head sliced off. And that's just the end of that. He was a very interesting and pivotal character but then just kinda ended up being a pawn to Eren/Ymir. Pretty disappointing.

 
And lastly, I won't hold this against them too much because it seemed like a forced production issue, so not a conscious writing choice, but the animation in season 4 was pretty terrible at some points. Like a lot of the character drawings honestly looked really bad. I noticed it in particular on Armin and Erwin across the two studios. And lots of perfectly side-on headshots, which looked terrible. Looked like a lot more pinning drawings down and rotating or sliding them around in the final season, instead of redrawing. And of course, WAY too much 3D modelling. Certain titans did look good in certain shots (the Armour, for sure) but the way they moved, ultimately just looked uncanny and did not fit in with the rest of what was going on. Then, in that mission in Marley and a couple other places, they even 3D modelled the scouts and that looked fucking terrible. I will say though, in the 2 finale episodes, the animation was noticeably significantly better.

As for the 3 early season, I can't say anything less than I absolutely loved them. I was thrilled, intrigued, hyped, invested, all of it. I loved the horror and intrigue of the titans, the sincere sense of hopelessness you felt for humanity and the scouts, even the brutality of the fights and deaths. I especially loved the strategic manouevering as the scouts learned more about the titans or even just gambled on their hunches.I loved the varied and interesting characters, like Erwin and Annie.

The series also just had some incredible moments. Like Eren and Mikasa having to watch Hannes being eaten alive after having just felt so optimistic about how different things would be with all the progress they'd made. Another amazing moment is the entire sequence after Reiner and Berthold's reveal. The emotional impact there is amazing and I have to say, that's a great example of how the anime actually added an awful lot to what was present in the manga. They elaborated on a lot of the drawings (surely completely redrawing most of it), as well as making some amazing decisions from a directing point of view, like how the ribs of the Colossal formed around the wall or the flashes of the titans' faces as they transformed. And the music! Honestly the music for the series was absolutely incredible, probably some of the best I've heard in any series of movie ever. Just do have to note very quickly though that the decision Isayama took to have the big reveal be abrupt and anticlimactic really didn't work for me. I appreciate that he tried to do something to subvert expectations but that was just too good a plot point to undersell like that.

Oh and the voice acting! Eren's voice actor for sure (Yuki Kaji) but honestly, the whole cast did an incredible job. It's a super intense script with a lot of powerful moments, both subtle and direct and I have to give them full credit for bringing incredible energy and emotion to the whole thing!

I think that's everything I have to say. It's an odd feeling, having enjoyed the series so much and then finishing it feeling so let down. But I've made my peace with it now and do accept that I loved the early seasons and hated the final season. That's TV. That's art. That's life, ain't it? I also think it's worth admitting that I really can't imagine any story that could have perfectly cashed the massive cheque written by the very first season. There's no explanation for the titans that could have matched the intrigue and wonder from that first episode. So although I do think the ultimate explanation could have been significantly better, I don't think it ever had a chance at being perfect.

When I did finish watching the series, I was pleased to stumble upon Attack on Titan: Junior High, which actually helped me to pacify some of the frustration. It's a really fun show that takes all the characters (and VAs!) from the main series and just puts them in a silly comedy spin-off set in a high-school. Honestly, I think every viewer should cool off with it after watching these kids go through so much. And it is funny and very sweet too!

Other thoughts:
-Who was in the Okapi in the finale? Presumably it was a previous Beast Titan but why were they given so much prominence?
-Season 4 really overdid it with the moments of realisation of "oh these people aren't demons after all". Like they had this happen about 5 times and even 1 would have been a bit too on-the-nose.
-It was a bit unclear what the author's broader message was through the series. Like, yes clearly it's all anti-war but then comes across as "well war is inevitable so what do you expect" (which to me is a very clear and quite right-wing justification for war).
-Also a massive criticism has to go to the poor and very clumsy use of the oppressor vs. oppressed narrative. Because the metaphor and real world applicability completely breaks down when one of the races in question actually *is* different. That's the whole flaw of racism: that so-called 'races' really aren't very different from each other. Yet in this, there is one race - verifiable by blood test no less - that can turn into giant brainless killing machines. It's even more fucked up when that race is the allegory for Jews. Then to top it off, of course someone comes along in their world and makes everyone's racist fears come true, effectively justifying it all. So yeah, that is a massive L all round for the series.
-Mikasa loving Eren romantically is a crazy kind of fucked up emotional incest. They gave themselves plenty of chances to decide to make it a strong sibling love but chose to make it romantic at every turn. It's gross.
-What was the deal with that bug millipede thing? Wasn't necessary at all and again, you could have cut out that transforming gas moment in the finale.
-Also, how did the first King create that many Colossal Titans? Using the founder's power? Does that mean more than the original 9 could have been made? Either multiples or even new types of shifting titans.
-Did they ever explain the titans being able to move at night in season 2?
-Why did Eren attack Mikasa when he first transformed to move that boulder?
-"He suddenly transferred his consciousness into his nervous system" was also one of the dumbest and most unnecessary ass pulls I've ever watched. Why not just NOT have the scouts cut off his head??
-Why did it need to be Mikasa to kill Eren? It literally could have been anyone - Eren's a fucking idiot.
-What was Ymir (the scout) even thinking when she fled with Reiner and Berthold? She knew that Eren had founding powers and that she would definitely get killed if she went back to Marley. Also the story just subtly implies (by Porco having the Jaw) that she was killed and they never even acknowledge it.

-I also think Zeke's Beast Titan would have been significant;y improved with a few very minor tweaks (shorter arms, more normal or possibly even more beastly proportions, getting rid of the massive hips/pelvis). That thing was terrifying but these features just made it really goofy looking. Remove them and it would be such a complete horror.

-I enjoyed lots of the small character stories, like Connie and Sascha being dumbasses, the several implications that Jean is in love with Mikasa and the really great and interesting friendships Hanji, Levi and Erwin. Also loved Ymir and Historia's romantic love, which was very honest and altruistic from both of them.

Arcane (2021)

Creators: Christian Linke & Alex Yee (various writers)

Directors: Pascal Charrue, Arnaud Delord, Bar Maunoury
Finished first watch: 23/11/2024

Animation Studio: Fortiche

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Arcane

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
8		8	9	9	9

It's tough, because I'm still feeling a lot of emotions from having just finished Arcane season 2, smashing out the last 3 episodes on the day of release as well. So I think this write-up might suffer from my immediate feelings getting in the way of objective assessment. Maybe I'll come back to this after a few months, maybe even a rewatch, and check myself. But for now, there are 2 things I would say about Arcane that I think are undeniable:

    1. It is simply one of the greatest series ever made (and a good candidate for the #1 spot)

    2. Despite this, there are still lots of ways it could have been improved.

Characters

Even above its stunning animation, I would say that the absolute strongest element of Arcane is its characters development, alongside the strength of the characters themselves. Every single member of this ensemble cast went on a journey throughout the series - they changed their attitudes, they fell under each other's influence and they significantly grew as a result of their on-screen experiences (including through some really thoughtfully used time-skips). And it was all driven my the massive, literally life-changing events that we saw them go through as part of the plot. Even side characters had such understandable and realistic responses ('realistic' more so meaning consistent and believable within the Arcane universe, than reflective of our real world); Caitlyn's dad, Salo, Sky(!!), for example, were all complete side characters yet still had really meaningful development throughout the show. And if main characters didn't have amazing development throughout the series, we'd get insight into their back stories which would still give us a really great sense of how they got to who they are in the story. The writers, who cannot be given enoough credit, then of course used this development to create more tense situations and force more decisions, which would lead to more of these seismic life events, building even more development and the cycle would continue.

    The incredible development also wasn't just within the characters' personalities but was also masterfully reflected in their character designs. I have to use a pretentious word like 'masterfully' because the designers genuinely did show a mastery in their craft with this. All the young versions of the main cast are brought into the present era so well, visually. Jinx stops looking like a sweet little kid and instead does look like a troubled teenager. Vi goes from a tough kid to someone who will beat the shit out of you. You even see Jayce's outfit get more and more formal and regal as his political capital increases. Then when you get to season 2, the events get truly foundation-shaking and again this is reflected brilliantly on the characters. Dishevelled Jayce, pit brawler Vi, demigod Viktor, fascist dictator Caitlin. All significantly shifted desigs to reflect the characters' mental state and motivations, all whilst still being so incredibly appealing! That's something that is consistent throughout - every design is just so incredibly distinct and intersting. Even characters who didn't change too much still get thoughtful redesigns; thinking Silco (in the flashbacks and in the Alternate Reality) and Ambessa, who (literally) shows more of herself and gets more battle ready as season 2 progresses.

    The apex of this incredible character design flexibility shows up in the phenomenal AU episode in season 2. Seeing how different Ekko and Powder would look at the same age if they hadn't been through the same events wasn't just creative and very cool to see but also really underscored the fact that they are who they are because of what they've experienced. Honestly, Arcane might have the best, clearest and most tangible character development I've ever seen. No 'subtle', half-baked nonsense - the stuff really happens and it really shows.

The characters themselves are, of course, also great. The cast is varied and deep. They all have understandable motivations and opinions and really interesting flaws and limitations. For example, it's easy to love Vander but still see that he's complicit in the status quo and, to an extent, a coward for accepting it. Silco is cruel and mistreats his own people but still has moments where it seems like he has genuine affection for Jinx, which is endearing. Of course this is all rooted in League of Legends lore but it made for characters who were great ingredients to an excellent story.

Oh and also, even the weapon designs develop over time! Vi gets the v1 rusty mitts, then the hex tech prototypes, then the final enforcer version. Jayce comes back from the Void with a completely overgrown wild rune Hammer. Jinx of course improves her proficiency and makes bombs and tools that are less cute and far more intimidating over time. More attention to detail that makes these characters and their journeys so great.

Plot

The story writing is incredible. Not only does it have the previously mentioned events, impacts and character decisions linked but it also has the different strands of the story interact with and influence each other in really clever ways, as well as managing a really intriguing fantasy/magical component and tying that in with everything else. The story also does reflect very relatable and topical issues from the real world in very entertaining and appealing ways but never relies on the viewers' perceptions of these issues. They always clearly show how each character feels about them and thoroughly explains why. The plot is also constantly evolving and shifting too. So the twists and turns the story takes keep it interesting and keep a great level of tension throughout. And nothing ever feels like a cheap twist, either. I would honestly say that the plot and writing for season 1 are the best I've ever seen, although I'd sadly have to say that season 2's isn't quite as good. The two main reasons being: 1.) the lack of explanation and resolution of quite a few of the storylines, and 2.) the pacing. The pacing for season 1 was perfect but there were quite a few events in season 2 that just needed a bit more time to breathe or maybe a bit more of a build-up. For example, Jinx accepting that she was being heralded as a rebel hero or Caitlin implementing martial law in the undercity. Both were quite abrupt and didn't necessarily follow on directly from where the storylines had last left off. As for the storylines that weren't actually fleshed out enough, here's a mini list:

    -Mel being magical. She gets a whole new backstory, as well as mage powers and accepts and masters both of them within an episode, to the point that she's then war ready. Definitely needed more explanation and learning (for her) and a lot more exploration (for us). I'd also say I liked the way Mel influenced the story as a clever councillor early on, so the magic felt unnecessary.

    -Linked to that, the Black Rose storyline was far too vague throughout. We're given thee bare bones but we then got no real explanation for why they actually wanted to kill/get Ambessa. Then at the end, Mel says "I see through you" or whatever, with zero explanation of what she actually means. Did she save her mother from them? What did she see through them about? Were they dishonest about something? Why did it matter? They were also just too abstract as characters as well. We only ever see glimpses of 2 of them on screen (apparently not even in their true forms), yet they're driving force behind Ambessa's entire story. It would have improved her character significantly if we'd been given the full context.

    -Viktor's actual plan and motivations**. We spend the vast majority of the show hearing Viktor talk about helping people, including becoming a magical healer. To the have him suddenly flip to wanting to evolve humanity(?), effectively make everyone braindead and also be willing to fight a bloody war to achieve it is very jarring. But also it just didn't make sense mechanically. What was he actually doing, how did the wild rune magic work? What even is Jayce's solution?

    -Jinx's madness practically disappears. She also becomes very altruistic out of nowhere (if anything she should be more fucked after losing Isha). Even before that, we end Season 1 with Jinx being at her most lost, unable to turn to Silco or Vi but then Season 2 kicks off with her pretty much finding immediate stability and safety. Side note, but I also remember being incredibly disappointed with Jinx's first appearance in season 2, because it was very anticlimactic. Whereas her first appearance as Jinx in season 1 is so fucking good. So impactful.

    -Singed. What was his actual plan and why did it rely on Viktor? And if it did rely on Viktor, why did it still kinda work out even though Jayce stopped him? Also, how did Singed slip out completely free after his role in the war? And did he actually reanimate his daughter? He was another one who was basically the root cause of a lot of stuff but just didn't get the exposition needed on screen.

I would also just say that in season 2, the show kinda lost itself. It got too swept up in the mystique and mythos and lost sight of the storylines that had been so engaging up to that point - the love and hate between the 2 sisters and Zaun's struggle against Piltover. Completely brushing those 2 stories to the side to fight for the existence of humanity didn't create a very satisfying final act for me. In general, I'd say that massive, existential stakes are generally a lot less compelling than small-scale, very human stakes. There were also just some other choices they made with the show that I didn't personally like, although they weren't necessarily bad or wrong:

    -The shift away from very tangible story and magic mechanics (hex tech, shimmer) towards unquantifiable and unknowable magic (the wild runes, Viktor)

    -Bringing back Vander didn't really work for me either. It led to some really beutiful moments (one of which made me actually cry) but it felt strange to (literally and metaphorically) revive his dead corpse as a way of bringing the sisters back together.**

    -Again, definitely just a style preference but it's become very predictable and honestly a bit stale at this point for fantasy series to end in a big war. So that was a bit disappointing too. Same again for multi-versing; it's a bit of a trend recently but fair enough, they made a genuinely beautiful episode out of it.

 

On storylines, I also want to give a specific mention to Caitlin and Vi's romance storyline. I usually find romance stories in entertainment to be a bit boring and forced. A good example of this is AU Ekko and Powder kissing. I think that episode would have had more emotional impact as a reflection of Ekko grieving a lifelong friendship - making it romantic sort of undercut that because it seemed to be more of a fantasy than the loss of the deep bond they already had. However, Caitlin and Vi on the other hand, is possibly the first on screen romance that I have absolutely loved, because it was constructed and executed so well! You see these two characters, who are both in crisis in their own ways, have their worlds and perceptions changed by each other. They each represent the other's enemy but over time, they warm up to each other and that opens up the possibilities of humanising the other side. Their romance also completely mirrors the overarching storyline of Piltover vs. Zaun, so it's thematic and story-relevant. And even if it's not healthy, they find comfort in each other during times when they're grieving or feeling lost. Importantly though, they clearly find really admirable traits within each other during their excursion in the Lanes (Caitlin learns that Vi is loving and principled rather than just a criminal and Vi learns that Caitlin is honorable and tough rather than just pampered and pretentious). This also means that the will-they-won't-they moments even feel real, because Jinx's actions start to erode away at those very same traits - they find themselves in crisis again and retreat back into their old habits but they can still see those admirable qualities within each other throughout it all. I absolutely loved the dialogue before before their big scene in season 2, when Vi says "I choose wrong every time". Because it was so clear that yeah, duh! That's what Caitlin loves about you! You choose to believe that everyone can change and you want to show them compassion, even when you say you've given up on them. And of course, it's great to see a romance between two women that doesn't end tragically. Bechdel test of course passed with... flying colours.

**Last point on plot, I recognise that a lot of what I know as 'Arcane' is built off existing LoL lore. So the two starred points above, were always in the plan, since they were already established elements of those characters' backstories. The Viktor and Vander from season 1 were already destined to become the Viktor and Warwick from LoL (which I now know, following a week or so of watching youtube videos/shorts about the lore). Same with things like the Black Rose, which have their own deep mythology already established, apparently. That doesn't mean Arcane's creators get a pass to not develop or explain these things properly, in fact it's maybe the opposite. I think it highlights the fact they really needed more time to get from the end of Season 1 to where they wanted to end up. What I wll give them credit for, however, is how well they established these new versions of these characters, so that their already published histories felt like they were thrust upon them. I'd also include in that Vi becoming an enforcer - they gave Arcane Vi such a strong identity that even though she has Police Officer skins in game, it still felt strange seeing her become a cop. Side note though, being an underprivileged kid and having served jail time, fucking a cop inside a jail cell is absolutely insane behaviour. Great scene, just insane for a very ACAB character.

Storytelling

This is another thing that the series does exceptionally well! Of course, 'show, don't tell' isn't an absolute law of film and TV but the way Arcane tells its story visually without having to spell things out via dialogue is amazing. I'd even extend the phrase to 'show beyond what you need to tell', which the show does an incredible job of doing. One example of this that I loved was NewJinx heading back to the arcade in Season 1. It's a place of comfort and somewhere that will always be linked to Jinx's past - so we subconsciously get a sense of where she is mentally from that alone. But when we see her actually turn the boxing machine on, not only do we get a great action sequence with really strong, visually impactful poses, we get to learn that Jinx, unlike Powder, absolutely can fight. She's physically strong, she's quick and she's willing to get involved in combat. So that shows us how her character has developed during the time skip. But then the scene finishes with her completing the round on the machine and the scoreboard lighting up to show her high score - 2nd highest. She enters the 3 letters for her name slot but of course, the no. 1 spot, not illuminated, is taken up by none other than Vi. That confirms to us that although Jinx is now clearly an adept fighter, Vi would still beat her ass if it came to it. But beyond that, I think it showed that Vi was still dominating her thoughts and that she was still chasing after her. Especially since the entire sequence has cuts and flases of her memories of Vi. The whole passage also happens over the span of about 2 minutes. So we get such rich, engaging and visually pleasing story telling without wasting valuable screentime. That's pretty much consistent with the rest of the show.

In general, I'd say that the storytelling always keeps things visually interesting, so that even straightforward conversations are coupled with visual symbolism or at least atmospheric/quiet world building. They never leave you just looking at the same angle for long enough for it to become stagnant. The staging/framing is also excellent, especially when they draw parralells. For example, Jinx injecting Silco's eye comes across as such a domineering power play by Silco at first, as we see Jinx being incredibly delicate and precious in how she approaches him. But when she finds out Vi is still alive, this is completely flipped, so that it becomes an act of aggression and assertion from Jinx, to the point that it feels like Silco's life is in her hands as she holds the needle. Especially across season 1, it just felt like they kept finding great ways to do transitions and montages and it was always cool and visually pleasing. It may be a bit harsh to say but there were times in Season 2, however, where they leaned on the great storytelling a bit too much to try and bridge gapw left by the absence of some important story events. It was a bit frustrating, because they effectively found the most interesting way to cover up a lack of substance with literal style, where they actually used different animation and art styles to tell the story. Can't knock the storytelling for that, I guess it too was just complicit in the story falling short.

Something else I think the directing did amazingly well was having amazing, powerful, metaphorical and cinematic shots, which were story-relevant. One of the best ones, in my opinion, was Silco appearing in the lanes and holding out the vials of shimmer to the shimmer addicts, after they sold out Vi. It's a really cool shot, that frames Silco as being like a god to these people but really, it's more the case that they're at their lowest point. I would compare it to a similar shot in Batman v Superman, when Superman gets adoration from a bunch of people wearing Mexican Sugar Skulls. I'd say both are equally cool shots but in the Superman shot, these characters are not story relevant (they don't appear in any way outside of that shot and are not named or otherwise interacted with), whereas for Silco, this shot is used to give the viewer and Caitlyn/Vi a sense of despair, as they realise these people they had trusted (who are afflicted by Shimmer, one of the central plot points) are actually loyal to Silco (really their addiction), which makes their situation much more desperate. There were so many more shots like that, especially in season 1.

Also, incredible music, fantastic voice acting (and a stacked voice cast!) and an amazing, very well thought out world also support that brilliant storytelling.

Animation

Somehow, I'm speaking about animation last but I think it's all already been said by every other Arcane fan. The animation is absolutely stunning. I genuinely don't think there is a single project, big or small screen, that has such fluid and intentional movement of its character models. Even subtle movements and secondary actions, like eye movement and small smirks were done with great attention and care and added to that phenomenal storytelling. Of course, in addition to this we saw great shots, really strong poses (which were held for just long enough at the right times) and some really brilliant fight scenes. To be honest, after watching quite a few Netflix animated series/movies, I was astonished at the animation quality in Arcane. Of course, that's because it isn't quite a 'Netflix' series in the way that Nimona or The Sea Beast are Netflix movies, but Arcane blows everything else completely out of the water.

Arcane distinguishes itself stylistically through its painted textures, that all look incredible. There's no substitute or software solution for painting all of your props, models and backgrounds and these guys did it beautifully, to create a style that is distinct and clearly video-game-like, whilst never being too abstracted from reality to keep your sense of immersion. They also incorporated lots of different animation styles throughout the run. Most prominently was all of the hand-drawn effects animation. Somehow, this never looked out of place against the 3D modelled world and it was all done beautifully. As far as I could tell, it only ever needed to be straight-ahead animated, so I think the artists who got to work on it really were allowed a lot of freedom. So lots of details did end up looking really gorgeous, like explosions, smoke or even just a little bit of steam from a hot cup of tea. Really pretty. Then of course, there are the full sequences where they change styles entirely. Like Vander's memories being rendered in watercolour, which really added to the feeling of nostalgia and sadness. Or when they rendered Ekko's fight with Jinx on the bridge in a charcoal/stencil style - was clearly still modelled but again, the consideration and attention to render it in a different style amplified the impact of the sequence.

   

The animation is actually probably the only thing that doesn't dip in quality from season 1 to season 2 - in fact, it might even improve in the second half! When you get to these abstract and ethereal passages with Viktor, the animation (and overall concept) is really beautiful. I don't know if Sky in season 2 is her actual spirit or just an apparition summoned by Viktor's guilt (which is actually the kind of thing I don't mind being left to interpretation, because it's completely inconsequential to the story) but the way that the two of them look in this spectral dimension really takes you there as a viewer. They aso really stepped up the combat sequences for the war in the final episode, which was a lot of fun.

Conclusion

The more time I spend thinking about Arcane, the more I realise how well put together it was. It's definitely the kind of thing that people can write analysis and interpretations of for years and years into the future, and I personally can't wait to follow along with all of it. I know there's a whole bunch of symbolism and foreshadowing I missed! Sadly though, I think I'll always remember it as something that was astonishing and wonderful but didn't realise its full potential.

However, to finish off, I have to give massive props to the executives from Riot who decided to create this series and their overall approach and philosophy. Great story and great animation are not easy nor cheap to create. However, they made a clear decision that if they were going to create this show to draw new players to their game, they were going to do it in a way that honours the existing lore and creates a fantastic series that could stand and be brilliant on its own. I especially loved this quote from Marc Merrill, Chief Product Officer at Riot, in response to a question about Arcane's reported $250million budget:

"We're more than comfortable with the spend it took to deliver a show that was worthy of our players's time." 

That alone is enough to make this show great. Right now, most of what we see on our screens, especially in animation, is held back by companies and executives choosing lower costs over a perfect end product. To have someone give a piece of art this kind of backing and commitment is rare and commendable. So alongside anything else I might say, I will always consider Arcane legendary for the fact it was made for its fans and no one else.

Random Thoughts:

-Ambessa's mask design was so fucking cool. I'm sure they designed it to look like the face of a leopard, which is even cooler (although potentially kinda real Earth-centered).

-It should be noted that it's a huge win for the series to feature a prominent lesbian/sapphic/wlw couple between two of its major main characters (and do it so well!). This is something that absolutely should be celebrated, because it isn't the norm yet.

-Similarly, this is a series that included several incredibly well-developed and well written women characters, none of whom were tokenistic in any way. So again, the show's creators should get a lot of credit for that.

-Ambessa absolutely loves a Twink and that was both hilarious and relatable (and tbh good strorytelling still).

-I could have watched Ambessa kicking the shit out of Caitlyn and Mel all day, that was an amazing fight scene (I think I love Ambessa)

-It was very cool how they included character models for the band Imagine Dragons in the actuall meat of the show. Great service to them as artists.

-The more and more I find out about LoL, the more I appreciate how well they honoured the game through the series. E.g. Ekko specifically stating that his time skip tool could go back exactly 4 seconds is actually a nod to one of his in-game abilities

-Jayce and Vi teaming up to go and bust up the shimmer plant was a reall fucking cool scene.

-Shout out to FlowChartKen for loads of great LoL lore videos, which I've been watching since finishing the series. They've really helped give me a deeper appreciation of a lot of stuff. Also shout out to this other random video for catching the Vander-Warwick thing on the spot after season 1.

-Similar to the point about Vander being a coward, I really liked how Ekko ends up putting Heimerdinger to shame in the AU by being so adamant on getting back to their universe. Heimerdinger is so content to just forget his failures and hardships in the main universe and enjoy the paradise here but Ekko knows that he can't do that when so many people are relying on him back home. Similarly, it creates a parallel with Jayce's AU adventure, where Jayce had to fight through a nightmare to get back but Ekko had to make the more difficult choice to leave this perfect paradise and go back to hell. He's a legend for that.

Castlevania (2017)

Creator & Writer: Warren Ellis

Directors: Sam Deats, Spencer Wan, Adam Deats, Amanda Sitareh Bautista

Studio: Mua Film, Tiger Animation

Finished first watch: 14/11/2024

Review contains ***SPOILERS*** for Castlevania

Ratings:

OVERALL	NB: These are not weighted equally (if at all)	Plot	Storytelling	Animation	Characters
4		3	4	5	3

Easily one of the weakest series I have ever watched. I hate to say that about something so many artists worked on over several years but it's honestly inescapable how poor this series is in almost every department. I'm genuinely confused how it got 4 seasons, especially considering how boring that 3rd season was.

I'll start with the one shining positive from the series, which is its artwork. Every drawing, painting, background and setting in this series is really beautiful. It has a clearly anime-influenced style that looks great and they use it to great effect. I'd say it has a strong visual identity. It even has a clear direction in terms of colour, with everything obviously being shifted towards dark and broody. The designs are also brilliant. Trevor, Alucard, Dracula, the forgemasters, the vampire sisters, all legitly fantastic and appealing designs. Big big shout out to Striga's day armour as well, fucking sick design. Someone clearly loved Berserk on that team. And of course, the castles, laboratories and libraries all felt very grand and wondrous. They did a good job of creating an aesthetic and a feeling of the series's world and it all fit together with the overall dark and sinister subject matter.

That leads onto the most disappointing aspect of the series, which is its animation. It's so upsetting to see such beautiful drawings move so lifelessly, if they move at all. The vast majority of screentime is taken up by super limited animation; maybe just a chin moving up and down as a character speaks, or drawings literally just being slid across the screen. I get that studios and producers want to save costs as much as they can but it made the show feel completely lifeless most of the time. And how much they did it was absolutley eggregious. There was an episode where Isaac talked to a night creature for about 10 minutes straight, with almost no animation to it. And the conversation they had was not relevant in any way to the story (which I'll come back to). So it didn't come across as being savvy and saving costs for the bigger moments; it honestly felt like they were trying to pull whole episodes out of their arses with as little substance as they could get away with. Another thing that I personally dislike and that makes the character acting/posing feel super uncanny is characters' heads being completely side on. Just makes for really flat animation and breaks any sense of immersion.

    There were, of course, scenes with significantly better animation quality. But they didn't do anywhere near enough - in my opinion - to make up for the low effort marathons across the rest of the show. That's partly because they were really few and far between but also because they weren't actually that good in themselves. All of the fights generally have lots of quick cuts, rarely show multiple characters on screen at the same time and never show complete, fluid action - it's always the wind up from one angle, then a flip to show the outcome from another. So so so much implied action as well. They had lots of detailed guts and gore (again, great drawings) but it would always be shown after something had already dropped dead. You'd never see the actual slashing and the gore as a clear single shot - and any slashing you did get was very Fist of the North Star. It's really disappointing to watch, because the fights were actually really well choreographed. The characters had cool and unique fighting styles and would usually pull off impressive and unorthodox manoeuvres; it was just a shame that we only got to see it in bits and pieces. Also in the later seasons, you could sadly see the quality of the drawings drop off noticeably in quite a few of these action sequences, which honestly felt like an insult being added to an already pretty bad injury. The later seasons are in fact a consistent disappointment across the board too.

Just watch this clip and look at how stiff and robotic all the animation is. If it's animated at all. This is very standard for the show and what the vast majority of screentime looks like. Watching it without sound really helps illustrate how lifeless it is. Listening with sound on highlights how mismatched the voice acting and character acting are.

Although you can still see how nice the character designs and drawings are - look at Saint Germain's jewellery, for example!

This clip, I think, gives a very fair representation of what the approach to fight scenes is like throughout. It's very cool, dnyamic, stylised and well choreographed. It might be entertaining to a lot of people. But there are so few drawings over such a long clip. And the two characters never really interact. Everything is implicit, which is made to look good but to me, just glosses over a lack of substance. Draw the fight!

Moving onto the plot: there basically isn't one. The first two seasons at least have an overarching story of Dracula wanting to kill all the humans and Trevor, Sypha and Alucard (TSA?) trying to stop him. That was incredibly loose, because there was a whole heap of inconsequential nothing that happened in between this. Dracula's war council being summoned and then having in-fighting all had close to no impact on the story at all. Even Carmilla's successful betrayal is kinda just... nothing. Like okay, she becomes the queen or whatever and usurps Dracula but that all just has so little significance. We don't care about Dracula very much (as we've had very little insight into who he is outside of the backstory given in episode 1) and Carmilla is a genuine side character, even after this whole thing. Then you have whatever TSA was up to; finding the library, getting into random night creature fights etc. All very cool and flashy but did very little for the plot. You could remove most of it and still have the same storyline play out unimpeded. Then the last two seasons were just totally unnecesary. The main reason for these characters to exist (in fact literally the only reason Alucard exists) was gone. They then set up these random, regional conflicts that meant absolutely nothing to anyone. Definitely dragged the show out for 2 Seasons 2 Long and in my opinion, ruined any chance Castlevania had at being remembered as decent.

    Supposedly significant scenes having very little impact was basically the theme for entire 4-season run, to be honest. For example:

•The final fight vs. Dracula at the end of season 2. Firstly, it comes after basically a full season of people just talking and posturing for a war that might happen; there's no real fuel given to the fight. Add to that the fact that we also never ever saw Dracula engage in combat (other than a flashback in which he kills a bunch of villagers), so we had no sense of how powerful he actually was or what sort of abilities he had. Defeating him didn't feel significant in any way or like any kind of challenge.

•You can add to that the fact that Alucard has zero on-screen interactions with Dracula - not even in flashbacks. So the first interaction you see them have is when Alucard arrives to kill him. That makes Alucard's crying scene another one with absolutely no emotional weight.

•Why was Death the final enemy? Of course we all understand the concept of death as an entity but he has no establishment whatsoever in the story. Literally appears and disappears in the penultimate episode. We have no attachment to him whatsoever and again, no idea how to kill him nor whether it's a big achievement to do so. Trevor says some shit about some ancient weapon but these things are really not plot relevant and spoken about completely off-hand.

It's extra disappointing because the idea of Death being a vampire with an insatiable thirst for human life is a great concept. Even Death's plan to play Saint Germain and bring back Dracula to feed his hunger is great. Was just executed in a really underwhelming way. Plus I honestly don't think I could have been any less invested in Death's analogue, Varney, as a character. Also why bother making it seem like Trevor died for like... 19 minutes? It's a cheap tactic and it achieved very little.

•Isaac literally spends about a season doing fuck all in the middle of nowere - twice. Why does he have such a massive fight with a random unnamed necromancer and why does this need a full season of prep?? And coming back to the earlier point of Isaac's conversation with his night creature: the writers raised some interesting and potentially significant questions in that episode. They suggested that the night creatures aren't just mindless killing machines and that they can experience things beyond their forgemaster's orders. They might even have memories of the lives they lived before being resurrected. Then after that episode, the writers just completely ignored that fact for the rest of the show and the night creatures went back to being silent, brainless pawns. That, to me, is the hallmark of a terribly written and generally directionless show. They would have improved the quality of the end product by not raising these profound questions, yet did it and then ignored them. Whatever their reasoning was, it made for an inredibly disengaging viewing experience.

•Both Carmilla and Dracula are considered villains because of completely hypothetical tyranny. Dracula does hit Targoviste hard once but that doesn't really give sufficient gravity of his scorched earth campaign, for me. And Carmilla's plan to turn humans into cattle is actually never actioned nor even depicted on screen. So again, we don't feel any real opposition or hatred towards her.

•Isaac suddenly deciding to kill Carmilla comes out of nowhere. Yes, she killed Dracula but he spends 2 seasons seemingly pretty unbothered about that, then suddenly switches. Decides he wasnts to kill Hector but then equally abruptly decides he doesn't.

•Similarly, Striga and Morana just decide they don't like Carmilla's plan, even though they were very enthusiastically planning it the season before. There was no turning point, no moment of crossing the line. They just decided to switch up. Then didn't even go to the caslte to see what happened after watching it blow up. Insanely bad writing.

There are probably more examples but I think the point has been made. In general, the show did a bad job of actually having a coherent story that made the events on screen have real significance. They basically relied on the viewers' own sense of morality. In fact the entire show hinges on (what I consider) the most boring and counterintuitively low stakes motivation in fictional stories: the fate of all the people in the world (with whom we have no relationship through the events on screen - if anything we'd be justified in thinking what they did to Dracula's wife was worthy of punishment). To finish it all off, there was of course the cowardly meta self-admission in the final scene, when Lisa turned to Dracula and said "none of this makes any sense". That was a big slap in the face. It doesn't make the show any more enjoyable and just confirms that you knew your story was some bullshit but you put it out anyway. CC: Tenet and Evangelion.

Moving on: storytelling. I've said this about so many shows now but Castlevania had very little storytelling to do, because there was so little story. You can't use any clever plot devices if there isn't anything clever in the plot. You can't use a visual metaphor to represent fuck all happening. Equally bad was the pacing of the show. There so many long stretches of nothing happening, then big ticket events would happen upon you so abruptly. All that talking didn't even build any tension nor expectation. Again, this was made even worse with later seasons. You're just spending ages watching characters have boring conversations about absolutely nothing, then suddenly all killing each other. You could maybe consider this standard, does-a-job kinda storytelling but the show then draggs down its own score with its constant need to tell rather than show. It made the the viewing experience mind-numbing for me. Two quick examples off the dome are the realisation that Zamfir had gone crazy and Greta saying that she was starting to like Alucard. Like please trust that your viewers can connect dots in a straight line based on what you have shown them on screen. In fact, rely on that to build up to your big flourishes significantly better!

    I also have to mention one of the sequences in season 4, when Alucard and the villagers are fighting off night creatures in a forest. That was genuinely terrible TV. It kept cutting back and forth between the fights and dialogue and it was so unclear whether the journey was progressing or not. I felt like I was having an aneurism watching it. I honestly expect the explanation for it to be that someone put the shots together in the wrong order in the final edit.

    Also not sure if this is the proper place to mention this but the script for the show is seriously bad. Like really, truly terrible. None of the lines come across as clever nor even thematic. They also just throw in random swear words; I'm guessing that's to make it clear it's aimed at adults but it's so forced and awkward. It honestly sounds like it was written by a 14-year-old who's just been told they're allowed to swear but only during drama lessons. Not natural whatsoever and just adds to the overall very stiff and honestly quite cringey dialogue. I can't think of anything that could have undermined Saint Germain's character story any more than "I get to have sex again". Without a doubt one of the worst lines I have ever watched.

    Visual directing might just get a pass as okay. Some cool poses, cool shots, as I said good choreography of the fights at least. Consistent visual style and good, clear framing. I just have to call it visual directing, because there wasn't any real storytelling to mention.

I think I've said enough in the above to cover my thoughts on Castlevania's characters. Mostly very bland, especially Trevor and Sypha. Nothing remotely interesting about either of them. Trevor is the irresponsible, rash boy and Sypha is the organised, brilliant girl. We've seen it 100 times. Not to mention their romance has no substance to it whatsoever. They just suddenly become in love. Alucard probably has the most significant journey, as he goes through loneliness and lack of purpose once Dracula dies and the TSA team splits up. But that didn't really do anything. The rest of the cast is woefully dull. Honestly, there isn't a single good, well-written and interesting character in the entire thing. Maybe Lenore but that would be me being incredibly generous.

I'll admit, I came into watching Castlevania with some high expectations, given how liked it is and how many clips seem to pop up across the internet. I won't hold the resulting disappointment against the show but even then, it's undeniable how bad the series is, at least in my opinion. I also note that it seems to have opened the doorway for a bunch of similar animated Netflix series (e.g. Blood of Zeus, Tomb Raider). I'm glad to see more animated series and movies, of course, but I honestly hate that this incredibly stiff style of limited animation is becoming so common. Again, won't hold that against Castlevania - I'm already scoring it low enough - but just worth mentioning as not my favourite trend across the industry.

I'm sincerely sorry to have written this review and can only hope that if any Castlevania artists ever read it, they undersand that it's written honestly and with respect for the ways they have to work on animation these days with tighter and tighter budgets and deadlines. But I'll say it outright, I did not enjoy the series and I blame the executives responsible for it.

Some more random thoughts:

-The Isaac vs. Carmilla fight did feel really cool. Even though Hector's secret passageway was some bs (and not even necessary), the staging and overall execution made it feel pretty epic.

-I laughed my ass off when Alucard got his dick sucked so good he started crying. Felt that shit, especially since he was living every bisexual weeb's dream of getting with two kinky japanese siblings at the same time. I know the animators put their heart into that scene.

-Bloody Tears during the Dracula fight was really cool. Wish they'd built up to it more by maybe having motifs throughout the music across the rest of the series.

-Broader point, I'm sure there were lots of little easter eggs in the series for fans of the game and maybe even the Metroidvania genre. That probably contributed to its success and I'll admit I'm an ignorant neutral in that regard.