This week, the eagerly anticipated second season of Castlevania premieres on Netflix, continuing the story of vampire hunter Trevor Belmont teaming up with Dracula's son Alucard, as well as the warrior priestess Sypha Belnades, to stop the vampire lord's reign of death and destruction over Transylvania.
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Even with the first season only running for four episodes, the animated series boasts a solid 79% on review aggregate site Rotten Tomatoes and a Metacritic score of 71. While not universally praised, it still stands as the highest rated video game adaptation of all time, with this year's Rampage holding a 53% on Rotten Tomatoes, and fan-favorite adaptations from years past, 1995's Mortal Kombat and 2005's Silent Hill, holding 34% and 29%, respectively.
Additionally, a significant amount of criticism leveled against the Netflix series is the truncated length, not necessarily the quality of the individual episodes themselves. Of course, to leave critics wanting more is not the worst point of criticism.
Initially written by acclaimed comic book writer Warren Ellis as an animated film, the project was eventually developed for television by showrunner Adi Shankar, which turned out to perhaps be the series' greatest source of success. By design, stories developed for film are restricted to anywhere from one to two hours, whereas the multi-season format the adaptation ultimately adopted gave the narrative the room it needed to breathe and let the story progress more naturally.
And while the first season of Castlevania did feature a noticeably short episode order, the second season doubles the size with an eight-episode order while a third season is already in active production.
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Another significant strength of the animated series is the impressive caliber of talent behind it, both in terms of its cast and crew. Ellis is one of the most celebrated writers in the modern comics industry, co-creating universally praised series such as Planetary with John Cassady, Transmetropolitan with Darick Robertson, and Injection with Declan Shalvey.
In addition to having a scribe of that pedigree penning the episodes, Shankar as the series' executive producer and showrunner is a fantastic boon; a popular indie filmmaker who previously adapted properties, he is a self-professed fan of in true labors of love. Castlevania is no exception.
Voicing the series' characters is classically trained actor Richard Armitage as the protagonist Trevor Belmont, teaming once again with his co-star from The Hobbit trilogy, Graham McTavish, who portrays Dracula. Rounding out the cast is Battlestar Galactica alum James Callis, who voices fan-favorite character Alucard.
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The series serves as a direct adaptation of 1989's Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, the final and arguably greatest video game to be released on the Nintendo Entertainment System. Pushing the NES' hardware as far as it could go, the Konami title featured interchangeable playable characters, alternate routes and endings, and the most cinematic storytelling in the franchise at that time.
Ellis and Shankar's adaptation is faithful to the original story of the game while heavily acknowledging its own Gothic influences from the British Hammer Horror films of the 1950s and 60s without being beholden to them. As such, Trevor is portrayed as a much more flawed, complex character than he originally appeared on the NES.
His alliance with Sypha and Alucard, meanwhile, is more complicated and tense than their initial depiction, with Trevor and Alucard nearly killing each other in a climactic battle in the first season finale, before discovering their common goal in destroying Dracula.
As a fan himself, Shankar is quick to include references to other games in the long-running action-horror video game franchise, with a prologue providing Alucard's origin, as well as the rationale for Dracula's hatred of mankind in a clear nod to the popular 1997 title Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Additionally, the art style and design of the series draws heavy inspiration from character designer Ayami Kojima, who designed many of the classic games, including Symphony of the Night and 2003's Castlevania: Lament of Innocence.
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Fidelity to the source material is clear as the production worked closely with Konami to stay true to the franchise while enlisting the animation duties from the staff of the 1997 acclaimed Japanese animated film Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust and the Berserk animated trilogy.
As a Netflix series, the adaptation has free rein with its content, not shying away from the violence and gore that other networks and studios may have feared would potentially scare away younger, more sensitive audiences.
Made for fans by fans, with an incredible amount of talent behind the production, Netflix's Castlevania animated series is a true passion project for those involved, and a welcome adaptation for fans around the world that have been waiting for the popular video game franchise to translate to a new medium.
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Faithful to the games while expanding on them and exploring new depths of characters and story, the animated series has already surpassed all previous video game adaptations in a subgenre of film and television that is not entirely unjustifiably maligned by critics and audiences alike. More than just a cash-in, the series stands on its own as one of the best animated series currently running today. It just happens to be based on a video game, rather than being completely beholden to it.
Castlevania Season 2 on Netflix stars Richard Armitage as Trevor Belmont, Alejandra Reynoso as Sypha Belnades, James Callis as Alucard, and Graham McTavish as Dracula. Adi Shankar returns as showrunner with the adaptation written by Warren Ellis.