Review: Castlevania: Nocturne Season One

Overview

‘Castlevania: Nocturne’ follows the vampire-whipping exploits of Richter Belmont, who is a descendant of the Belmont clan from the original ‘Castlevania’ series. The show is set smack dab in the middle of a vamped-up version of the French Revolution, where the ruling class has partnered with a cabal of sexy vampires in an attempt to defend the status quo from rebellious local poor people. The peasants have been organizing themselves to protest over-taxation and having their blood drained like, all the time. Aiding the nobility is pretty much every institution treasured by the Ancien Régime, bolstered by a helpful army of undead chimeric creatures that come in all shapes and sizes, from lamia to Goro.

Standing in their way is Richter and his ka-tet, who have been drawn together to vanquish an entity known as the Vampire Messiah that threatens to conquer first Europe, and then the world. The crew of hunters makes their base at the home of magical mother/daughter team Tera and Maria Renard, and is rounded out by Annette, a former slave with serious matter manipulation powers, and Edouard, who is a great singer and is also just a really good guy.

Also in the mix is Olrox, an extra sexy vampire who plays it close to the vest. He also has Quetzalcoatl powers, commitment issues, and totally killed Ritcher’s mom in front of him when he was a child.

Our Take

The plot of ‘Nocturne’ is partially based on two Castlevania games – Rondo of Blood (1993) and Symphony of the Night (1997). It is also a sequel to the Netflix series Castlevania, which ran from 2017 to 2021. That first series was helmed by prolific writer/sex pest/British guy Warren Ellis, whose illustrious and tawdry career ran from 1986 to 2021.

The Castlevania franchise also got its start in 1986, which was a hell of a year for video games. In addition to Castlevania, ‘86 was the year of  Legend of Zelda, Metroid, and Dragon Quest, and countless other legacy properties. For a lot of people, that was the year that the home gaming experience went from fumbling fingers poking buttons to feeling the first psychic merging with intuitive controls that then led to the current Cronenbergian new flesh nightmare-verse that we all love and struggle to exist in today. That first Castlevania game has spawned many sequels, but Symphony of Blood is a straight-up masterpiece of horror gaming, which means that any animated show based on it better be really fucking good.

So with all of that in mind… ‘Castlevania Nocturne’ is really fucking good. Great vampire stories are not just thrilling tales of lusty death bites, but allegories seeking to explore the fissures that appear in any society where some people have a lot and others have a little. It’s a show that can absolutely be appreciated on the most basic level of human enjoyment – as a stand alone series chock-a-block with cool-looking mayhem. Suitably scary night creatures populate this version of France – (human corpses grafted together with demon souls from hell) You can never have too many arms when you’re a night creature – if you’re called upon to ferry a row boat full of corpses to the night creature making machine, you’re going to want to have a fucking ton of arms.  It’s a show where busty babes conjure dream tigers to battle even bustier babes with electric fire hair, and a crazy hot drawing of a dude comes so close to showing his dick one time that you spill hot coffee on your phone and legs (based on a true story). But you know what else is hot as fuck? Examining historical context with the purpose of illuminating modern day social issues through a post-colonial lens!!

The French Revolution was a time of massive social upheaval – the obvious opulence of the uber-rich hits different when you can’t feed your family, especially when said rich assholes are wearing very stupid wigs paid for with your tax dollars. The French Revolutionaries are represented by Maria, who is deeply inspired by the success of the American Revolution. Annette, who escaped life on a vampire-run plantation in Haiti after the murder of her mother, is less impressed by America’s slavery-driven definition of liberty. Annette’s impressive powers are earth-based, and were handed down to her by the African god Ogun. Her intense friendship with half-Haitian opera singer Edouard drives the show forward in a way that feels more urgent than Richter’s vague mom-avenging white guy brooding whip quest – not bad for a character that started out as a glorified Princess Peach in the original game. The symbolism in ‘Nocturne’ may not be subtle, but it gets its point across. The enigmatic Aztec vampire Olrox further drives home what a long-shadow colonialism casts – he has lost his culture and the love of his life to European interlopers forcing their way of life onto others, and he is unwilling to be lose anything else to them, even if it means turning against his undead brethren.

Despite all the thoughts and feelings ‘Nocturne’ has going on, not so deep down, it’s still a show based on a video game. Weapons and skills get upgraded and unlocked, doomed enemies offer big chunks of exposition for no reason right before they die, and the bosses get bigger as the main characters move from one part of town to the next. The only real criticism I have is that when they eventually reveal the vampire messiah she just isn’t quite as cool as her assistant, Drolta Tzuentes, who slays every single scene she’s in and always looks like she’s on the red carpet of the Met Gala.