The series was originally planned as a direct-to-video movie back in 2007, but entered development hell until around 2015, when it was picked up by the streaming service Netflix. Over the years the script had morphed from a movie to a trilogy and a proposed live-action production. Netflix allowed the writers to keep the original 2007 script and the team worked closely with Konami, who helped to identify continuity issues. The show drew visual inspiration from Ayami Kojima's artwork, particularly Symphony of the Night, and used a production staff consisting of members with experience in the Japanese animation industry.
Opening Song: Main Theme (by Trevor Morris)
Credits Song: Let Me Kiss You (by Trevor Morris)
Spoiler Warning: I am going to give a synopsis of each episode and my opinions at the very end.
Episode 1: Bless Your Dead Little Hearts
Carmilla
returns to her home in Styria to report the failure of her mission to
the Council of Sisters - an alliance of four powerful vampiresses. A
shoeless Hector is stripped and caged until the Sisters have time to deal with him.
Since the death of Dracula, night creatures have started running amok, humans are fighting humans, and low ranking vampires are vying for power. Trevor and Sypha battle a werewolf, were-bull (elk?), lizardman and merman,
taking one with them to the nearest town, Lindenfeld, as a trophy. The
Judge (leader) of Lindenfeld is pleased with their work, as are the
monks of the priory who support Dracula, believing he tried to unite all
of humanity in Hell until the night creatures betrayed him.
Episode 2: The Reparation of My Heart
Isaac visits a shop in Tunis to look for a Carpathian transmission mirror. The blind shopkeeper instantly recognizes Isaac as a Forgemaster by the sent of Hell clinging to him, and informs Isaac that the mirror he seeks was sold some time ago. However, the shopkeeper has a small distance mirror (for viewing distant things) which he gifts to Isaac because he appears to be a man who "has not received many gifts in his life." Isaac then catches a boat to Genoa, the Captain agreeing to take him provided his "beasties" do not eat anyone
Now that Dracula is dead and there are no power structures or organizations standing in their way, Carmilla shares an ambitious plan with her sisters to capture everything from their home in Styria to Braila. However, Morana (tactician) points out that their forces are depleted and there is no way Hector will forge them night creatures after the way Carmilla treated him. Striga (warrior) reminds everyone that the creatures are loyal to their creator, so there is a chance Hector could turn the beasts against them. Lenore (diplomat) volunteers to win Hector over.
In Lindenfeld, a man named Saint Germain approaches the monks to request access to their priory. The monks leader, Sala, does not trust Germain but allows him limited access to decipher texts in languages they do not understand. Meanwhile, at Dracula's castle, Alucard is approached by two people, Taka and Sumi, claiming to have been slaves of Chō (one of Dracula's generals). They have come to Alucard to learn how to fight vampires and Alucard, believing that his mother would approve of the transfer of knowledge, agrees to teach them.
Episode 3: Investigators
Trevor and Sypha have tea with the Judge of Lindenfeld, who expresses his concerns about the priory. The Judge claims that during one of the night creature raids, a multi-eyed demon broke into the priory and could be heard speaking with the monks. The monks came out a short while later to tell him that the demon had been dealt with. The following day the monks starting denying entry to the residents of Lindenfeld wishing to give thanks to God for his mercy.
Elsewhere, Isaac shares his journey and philosophies with the ship captain, who counters Isaac's views of humanity by suggesting there may be more good in the world than Isaac cares to realize, noting how Isaac was given a valuable gift the previous day but all he can remember are the men that hassled him on the way to the port. The Captain encourages Isaac to stop chasing Dracula and to start living for himself; to stop causing so much fear in the world and start being the sort of person he wishes everyone else was.
"One day Hell will be emptied and its doors will rattle in the wind. Through my hand, God lifts the damned from Hell in his mercy to enact their penance on the earth as my soldiers." -Isaac
Lenore tries cozying up to Hector with small talk and good food, but
Hector doesn't buy the goodwill and tries, unsuccessfully, to force
Lenore into setting him free. Lenore gives Hector a thrashing for the
attempt on her life and reminds him not to mistake her peacekeeping for
weakness.
"Vampires. You like to play with your food." -Hector
Episode 4: I Have A Scheme
Taka and Sumi share stories of Chō's human honor guard and how she would battle a chosen warrior while everyone else watched to demonstrate her power over them. The pair took the opportunity to learn and used that knowledge to escape Chō. The duo insist they must learn more in order to stop other vampires from rising to power in Japan, to which Alucard offers to teach them magic. Instead they inquire about the mechanism that moves Dracula's castle and are told it was melted.
Saint Germain questions the monks of the priory about their "crooked wall decoration" (inverted cross) to which the monks proclaim it is facing the right way now because God made everything, including Hell, and so Lucifer (meaning "Light-Bringer") going to Hell was part of God's plan and they are meant to learn from it. Saint Germain then points out that the symbol of their "Visitor" and newfound faith is the alchemical symbol for sulfur (Leviathan Cross). Impressed by Germain's knowledge, Sala implores him to get to work decrypting their texts.
Lenore continues to bring Hector food and things he requests, such as shoes. She questions Hector about his reasons for helping Dracula, pointing out that he received nothing in return for his work and was lied to about a controlled cull of humans - the sort of thing she and her sisters are planning. Meanwhile, Morana and her girlfriend Striga discuss how to bring Carmilla's plans to fruition.
"This is how she does it. The horrible woman gets in our heads and inspires us to make her madness work." -Striga
Episode 5: A Seat of Civilization and Refinement
Saint Germain joins up with Sypha and Trevor in their investigation of the monks. It quickly becomes apparent that the monks are armed and have started carving the alchemical symbol for Saturn (prime or dark matter) and lead (redemption / transformation) into houses; the scythe-like shape of the symbol representing "time" and "harvest". Saint Germain believes the monks are hiding something of occult nature in their basement - a doorway to other worlds and planes separated by time and space called the "Infinite Corridor".
At the castle, Alucard trains Taka and Sumi in melee combat. Their battle turns to play and ends in a diner eaten together.
Episode 6: The Good Dream
Lenore offers to take Hector for a walk on the condition he wear a leash and collar for "security". He reluctantly wears the collar but complains that it reminds him of the one Carmilla placed on him. Lenore agrees that Carmilla can be cruel, but unlike Dracula there is a method to her insanity. Lenore then removes the collar and sets Hector up in a bigger cell with reading material.
Isaac chats with the only night creature in his horde that is capable of "speaking well". The creature, Fly-eyes, claims that it can remember its life before Hell as if it "were a dream". Fly-eyes was a philosopher in Athens during a time of religious change. He believed that philosophy could help humanity to better understand the world and their place in it, but to question the Divine had been made a crime. He was deemed a sinner and tortured, which compelled him to lie in front of a Judge and give up others to make it all stop. If he wasn't a sinner in the eyes of God before, he was now.
"Thank you for my second life. I intend to use it well and make wonderful new dreams of it." -Fly-eyes
Episode 7: Worse Things Than Betrayal
On their way to the Belmont vault, Taka and Sumi wonder if the castle's
mechanism could ever be fixed. Alucard thinks it could but that would
take a long time and he has no intention of moving.
During his travels, Isaac meets an elderly woman named Miranda, whom he instantly recognizes as a fellow Forgemaster. When she learns Isaac is going to Styria, she informs him of a transmission mirror owned by a magician thirty miles away that has enslaved the surrounding villages. Miranda asks that he free the people by adding them to his horde; a boon for his march on Styria.
Meanwhile, Saint Germain finds a human-skin book amongst the priory's collection with the pages for returning people from Hell torn out. As soon as he has an opening, Germain sneaks down to the priory basement where he finds a crucified, multi-eyed "Visitor" demon.
Episode 8: What the Night Brings
Saint Germain rushes to inform Trevor, Sypha, and the Judge of his discovery. The signs inside and outside of the priory, combined with the creature's proximity to the Infinite Corridor, leads Germain to suspect the Visitor is waiting for something to happen. Germain then proceeds to ramble about the ruined human-skin book and how the best part - the creation of "Rebis", a homunculus created by combing two people, was completely ignored.
Taka and Sumi grumble to themselves about Alucard withholding information from them in an attempt to keep them from leaving. They ask about the castles mechanisms again and why there are so many rooms they haven't been shown yet. Alucard assures them that they will get to see everything in time.
Episode 9: The Harvest
As the last rays of daylight vanish, the monks of Lindenfeld enact the Visitor's plan by magically setting every house marked with the Saturn/lead symbol ablaze. The wailing souls of the residents burned alive are siphoned into the priory and absorbed by the Visitor demon who uses them to pay the toll for opening a door into the Infinite Corridor. Trevor, Sypha, and Germain battle a Sniper of Goth (or bible-accurate angel from Ezekiel) to reach the priory basement.
Isaac initiates his assault on the Wizard's tower and is confronted by a writhing ball of human bodies called Legion. He races his vaguely unicorn-like demon to the tower, leaving an especially large night creature to take the brunt of Legion's damage. The Wizard is slain without much resistance.
Hector beds Lenore, who deceives him into pledging himself to her, and in so doing, is bound to her will through an enchanted ring. Alucard is also taken that night by Taka and Sumi, who use the 'distraction' to bind Alucard with a metal device in an attempt to slay him.
Episode 10: Abandon All Hope
The Lindenfeld Visitor demon uses the Infinite Corridor to open a door to Hell in an attempt to revive Dracula. Demons come pouring out of the open door, among them a malachi and buer (different from its game appearance). Sypha uses a combination of fire, ice/water, and her newly learned thunder magic to take out the smaller demons while Trevor dual wields the Vampire Killer and Morning Star whips against the Visitor. Germain tries unsuccessfully to take control of the doorway, but realizing the Visitor can, jams a magical stone (connected to the Corridor) into one of its eyes. Germain forces the Visitor to open a new door and leaps through it, closing the door behind him. Trevor then finishes the Visitor off.
Something sounding like a music track taken from the games - Trevor and Sypha vs. Hell Demons, plays during this sequence, but as far as I can tell it is an original piece made for the show.
Trevor and Sypha find the half-dead Judge outside the Priory, stabbed by Sala. The Judge asks that they retrieve his knife from his house so that he may kill Sala when they meet again in Hell. He also asks that they burn his home. The duo head to the Judge's home, where they find Sala dead in a spike pit not far from an apple tree. Trevor questions the logic of burning down the only house left standing, but decides to inspect the interior for anything of use to the survivors before they torch the place. During their search the duo discover a collection of children's shoes, taken from those that fell into the spike pit while trying to steal apples.
Lenore passes matching slave rings out to her sisters, informing them of what transpired with Hector. Now that Hector is bound to her, so are his night creatures, and the matching rings will allow the four of them to command the horde. If Hector ever tries to take his ring off or run away the ring will stop him. In return for his work, Lenore has Hector set up with comfortable accommodations and free reign of the castle.
Taka and Sumi tell Alucard that they have been lied to all their lives and believe he has been withholding information from them because the castle hasn't moved. After killing him they will plunder the castle and vault, and then start their own empire. Having been magically restrained, Alucard is forced to use his floating sword to slit the throats of Taka and Sumi. He then spends the night sobbing in his childhood bedroom, next to the spot where his father died. In the morning, Alucard stakes Taka and Sumi as a message to others.
Final Thoughts
The third season is the most divisive season and the one I feel cut the
most corners. Photographs are now being used in place of hand-drawn
backgrounds and despite being a rather static season with very little
action, the animation was downgraded, such as having people bob up and
down to indicate walking instead of animating the arm and shoulders
moving with the body as its in motion. The pacing of the storyline,
which is largely an original work, is painfully slow and bloated with
filler. The previous season didn't leave any major plot threads to
follow up so the third entry centers itself around creating new problems
to be solved. And it juggles too much at once, such as having two sex
scenes happening concurrently with two major battles. This was also a
very character centric season that didn't do them justice: Trevor and Sypha
act as an introduction to Germain and his Corridor, but are otherwise
living as close to a perfect domestic life as they'll get. The Judge and
child murder thing was random, but meant to illustrate that even
outwardly good/reasonable people have dark secrets... I think. Isaac had
the most forward development through his blossoming faith in humanity;
he had his preexisting views challenged, took time to reflect and
started thinking about the future. What they did with Legion was also
really great considering there is not usually an explanation given
in-game for why this thing exists. However, the way original characters
made for the show abused two official characters from the video games
remains a topic of much discussion and a stain on the series reputation:
•
A) Alucard's arc was pointless. It didn't reveal anything we didn't
already know about him, move the plot forward, or further his character
development unless staking people counts for something. Alucard's arc
had the additional sin of introducing two new characters, probably
suffering from some kind of PTSD, and not doing anything meaningful with
them. They're completely throw away. Alucard is also a very reserved
and closed off person, so it was pretty odd to see him so accepting of a
threesome with people (possibly siblings) he had only been in a
platonic relationship with up to that point. Perhaps a better path would
have been to have Alucard teach and grow close to Taka and Sumi, while
Taka and Sumi learn to trust a half-vampire after the trauma inflicted
by Chō. The duo eventually have to set off on their own again, leaving
Alucard isolated once more but also having passed something valuable on
and feeling as though he has a purpose. Another idea would be to have
them act as loyal human followers of Chō, coming to avenge her.
•
B) Hector was nothing but wasted potential. At first I thought he might
try manipulating the manipulator because he immediately caught on to
Lenore's game, but was instead swayed by pretty words once more, broken
down again and groomed for an uncomfortably long period of screentime. I
had assumed that the passive Hector of last season may have been what
video game Hector was like before the start of Curse of Darkness and
that they were going to use Carmilla's cruelty to mold anime Hector into
the more hardened person we see in the video game, but instead we got
more of that weird "he's a puppy" thing from last season dialed up to 11.
* The lead writer faced concerning allegations around the time of the third season's release that may help to explain some of the writing behind Alucard and Hector.
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