Castlevania: Nocturne is an American animated television series based on the video game series of the same name. It acts as a stand-alone follow up to the Netflix Castlevania animated series and loosely adapts the 1993 video game Rondo of Blood and its remake Dracula X, with elements taken from Symphony of the Night and Harmony of Dissonance. Select characters from the game Bloodlines also make an appearance.
Spoiler Warning: I am going to give a synopsis of each episode and my opinions at the very end.
Episode 1: A Living Legend
Three years ago Alucard traveled to Egypt in search of Sekhmet's sarcophagus. The Egyptian deity had two souls: the Ba (her blood) and the Ka (her heart). The blood was found preserved in vessels in her tomb. Sekhmet's heart however, is located within her mummy, which has been moved to Paris. Maria blames Richter for failing to keep her mother from becoming a vampire and refuses to accompany him to Paris.
"They're not all Erzsebet. My father, in the end... I believe there was good in him. I've known human men who were far worse." -Alucard
Olrox tells Tera that being a vampire doesn't make her a beast because she still has a heart and a mind, which inspires Tera to abandon Erzsebet. Meanwhile, Emmanuel refuses to make Night Creatures of "Christian men" because they sometimes retain their intellect and memories, as seen with Edouard. This gives Erzsebet the idea of resurrecting Drolta as a Night Creature, although Emmanuel initially refuses because the "undead do not have souls to resurrect". Erzsebet refuses to hear it and Drolta is revived as a Night Creature.
"These men died because they believed in you. So you pray for them, hoping it will help. But not for us. The Night Creatures you will burn because you think we offend your God." -Edouard
Episode 2: Angel of Death
The National Guard arrives in Machecoul to liberate it, but the citizens, now worshiping Erzsebet, resist. Drolta slaughters the National Guard, much to Mizrak's horror. Mizrak tries to intervene, but Olrox holds him back in order to preserve his life and explains how Drolta is the Abbot's latest work.
Episode 3: The Widow's Window
The slaughtered soldiers are turned into Night Creatures by Emmanuel, and after a pep talk, Edouard becomes friends with the transformed captain of the National Guard.
Tera reunites with Maria and teaches her how to use dark magic. Like with the creatures summoned using white magic, Maria realizes that in order to control the dark beasts she needs to be more like them - "powerful, predatory, deadly." Juste arrives to defend Maria from her mother, but after a duel realizes she isn't a threat.
"I thought I could use Hell's weapons to fight for Heaven. When Erzsebet finally swallows the sun and floods this world with darkness, we'll find that they were the luckiest of us. The ones who didn't live to see it." -Emmanuel
Episode 4: Monstrous Things
Drolta was a priestesses of Sekhmet, the Egyptian goddess of war and medicine. In 1199 CE she became a vampire and tried reviving her goddess in the flesh, but all the human hosts were too weak to contain Sekhmet's soul. In 1614 Hungary, Drolta approached the serial killer Countess Elizabeth Báthory, as she was a bloodthirsty soul capable of housing a bloodthirsty god.
In the present, Drolta retrieves Sekhmet's mummy from the Louvre Palace ahead of Alucard, Richter, and Annette.
Disgusted with her father Emmanuel's actions, Maria confronts him. She uses her newfound magic to fight off his Night Creatures and summons a dragon to burn Emmanuel alive. Afterward the dragon becomes uncontrollable, forcing Juste to use his magic to protect Maria.
Episode 5: Into the Abyss
Maria gets caught up in the sheer power of her dark magic and considers becoming a vampire. Realizing that she has become a corrupting force on her daughter, Tera leaves Maria in Juste's care.
"None of us counts for much. All of us will be forgotten eventually. But there's something miraculous about us being here at all. To see this world." -Juste
Olrox decides to return to America, an act of treachery against Erzsebet. Mizrak tries to persuade Olrox to stay and fight, but Olrox just recounts how great and splendorous his Tenochtitlan was before the Spanish Christians arrived; and how he knows when a fight is lost.
Episode 6: Ancestors
Through the ghosts of her ancestors, Annette comes to believe that Sekhmet has a third soul: Akh (virtue) in the spirit world. Annette separates her soul from her body in order to travel the spirit world, where she is reunited with Cecile and her mother. Cecile directs Annette towards Ògún, the warrior god of metal work. Ògún explains that the old gods are being forgotten or misused by worshipers, and while Annette has only seen the harm Sekhmet can do, she is also a god of medicine and healing.
Armed with a shield, Annette finds Sekhmet in the Duat (place of judgment) fretting over the scales, which are out of balance. Annette battles Ammit (the punisher of souls), while Sekhmet borrows her physical body to confront Erzsebet.
Episode 7: Grenadye Alaso
Alucard and Robespierre lead the army against Erzsebet's forces in Paris, while Edouard and the captain rally the Night Creatures against Erzsebet's followers. Olrox assumes his Quetzalcōātl form to assist Alucard in battling Drolta, but leaves to attend to Mizrak when he suffers a lethal wound on the battlefield.
"I should've known you were just a snake." -Drolta
Sekhmet tries to absorb her souls out of Erzsebet, but is too weak to do so. Richter, Maria, and Juste work together to fight Erzsebet. Once weakened, Drolta snatches Erzsebet away and drains her life-force in order to steal Sekhmet's two souls.
"I am a messiah. I am a goddess. I was destined to rule the world. I am all-powerful! Invincible!" -Erzsebet
Episode 8: A Line of Great Heroes
Alucard and Richter together overpower Drolta, allowing Sekhmet to absorb her souls and return to the Duat whole. Annette returns to her physical body, while Ritcher with assistance from Olrox and Alucard, defeat Drolta. Maria, Juste, and Alucard stay in Paris to rebuild while Richter, Annette, and Edouard sail to Saint-Domingue.
Richter vows to kill Olrox as vengeance for his mother, but "not today". Olrox sees the shadowy figure of Old Man Coyote (implied to be Huēhuecoyōtl, Mephistopheles, or a similar character), hovering near the dying Mizrak. Fearing death and what the afterlife may bring for a sinner like himself, Mizrak has Olrox transform him into a vampire.
Thoughts:
Between Emmanuel, his wife Tera, their daughter Maria, her adopted brother Ritcher and his grandad Juste, or even Annette and her ancestors, the show had the perfect setup to touch on family and bloodlines; Ritcher's theme is literally called "Divine Bloodlines". Instead Emmanuel, Maria, Tera, Edouard and Alucard all get downplayed or pushed into the background. Annette basically takes over as the main protagonist in the last few episodes, and is the only character to get an arc that feels like it comes full circle. Personally I dislike when an original character overshadows those from the media that is being adapted, but the original series also had this happen with Isaac. For some reason Annette and Ritcher are also a thing now, despite the two of them having no chemistry or build up to their relationship. Mizrak and Olrox similarly hook up at random, or maybe it's a fling? I thought they broke up last season? None of the character arcs felt as complete or satisfying as they should've been. Juste is babysitting most of the time. Emmanuel and Edouard are almost non-existent. Tera is off doing her own thing despite Erzsebet making a fuss about having her as a sorceress last season. Alucard is present, but never actually does all that much compared to the original series and is very weak. I mean, Night Creature Drolta manages to down him with a single kick while lugging around a mummy.
Between the slavery, revolution, and so many gods and their worshipers interacting, the show could have delved into hierarchies and abuse of power more than it did. People misusing their gods and creeds for evil - intentionally or not - is actually touched on a bit with Emmanuel, Annette, and Drolta but never fully realized as a core theme. Maria's lessons into dark magic were also a missed opportunity; they looked as if they were going to go in the "we all have a little bit of darkness within us" / "you can't have a shadow without the light" route, but no. It went in the usual "dark is evil and corrupting, don't use it" route, which is fine but overdone. And while the various religions intermixing was a fun take, none of the protagonists had any personal connection to ancient Egyptian mythology, so I just wasn't invested in that aspect of it. They also took significantly more liberties with the mythos surrounding the gods and their respective afterlives; especially with the ancient Egyptian concept of the soul. Oddly, the protagonists all had reason to care about the French Revolution and how it would impact the old aristocracy, but this ended up not being relevant to the bigger picture. So then I have to question why they included it in the show at all. The video games were set during the same years as the revolution but never featured the revolution itself in their storylines.
Season 2 is beautifully animated and action packed, but narratively and thematically messy. Everyone gets power-ups at random. There are long stretches of unearned emotional payoffs or people acting out of character, such as Drolta suddenly becoming disillusioned with her goddess. There is just too much going on and none of it wraps up cleanly. Plenty of loose threads and questions are left unanswered, such as how the soul of a nice guy like Edouard ended up in Hell or if the Abbot's Night Creature machine (which is still intact) can be used by anyone. Why was Emmanuel unable to control Night Creature Drolta, or did he not even try? How big of a threat is Old Man Coyote? Some of Nocturne's story oddities can perhaps be attributed to the uncertainty surrounding a possible third season; the original series also had this problem. Overall, Nocturne is a decent show, but compared to season 1 or even the original series, I was left feeling underwhelmed.
Related Articles:
No comments:
Post a Comment