'Castlevania' Season 1 - TV Review

"Castlevania" started out as an "action-adventure gothic horror video game series." That's Wikipedia's classification, and they carry on to say "It is one of Konami's most critically acclaimed franchises and also one of the best-selling of all time." Konami released approximately a game a year from 1986 through 2014. In 2017, Netflix released the first season of this animated TV series based on the video games.

This season consists of only four episodes, each of about 25 minutes in length. The first one lays out Dracula - who's very good with technology - falling for and eventually marrying a female (human) scientist. This doesn't end well, and Dracula basically unleashes Hell on Earth. Even not knowing the video games, it was really clear at the end of the fourth episode that we'd just met the trio that will lead the crusade to save humanity and defeat Dracula. The whole first season admittedly short - was just ... setup? The equivalent of the game video intro. Yup.

Low rent animation (lots of still shots, or shots with only one small moving element) is combined with reasonably good artwork and a lot of blood. The series has swearing, there's lots of gore, there's definitely the implication of sex, and some sort-of adult themes ... and yet it still feels like it's aimed at kids (it's the logic, and the way that the adults interact that gives this impression) even though it would be inappropriate for them.

Despite my complaints, I was kind of enjoying it. I'll get into the second season (which is considerably longer) and see how that goes.

UPDATE: the first two episodes of the second season introduced a plethora of new vampiric characters, and the whole thing felt ... silly. I probably won't continue.