Pretty sure that the reason the Abbot’s night creatures regain their memories and rebel so easily is because he’s putting souls back into their original bodies. The only time I can think of that possibly happening in the first Netflix series is when Hector resurrected the Bishop because he needed holy water, and all the others were just souls from Hell.

Maybe he’s too poor of a forgemaster to call a soul into a random body? He does need a machine afterall. Or maybe it has to do with his religious position restricting his access to Hell?

i have but one wish for castlevania nocturne s2

edit: WAS NOBODY GONNA FUCKING TELL ME I SPELLED CASTLEVANIA WRONG

Samuel Deats and the entire #CastlevaniaNocturne crew somehow topped the original show!! I would like to point out one thing that made me chuckle, the subtle little poke out how outsourcing/automating your night creature creation ends badly. Hehehe. Loved it!

Been doing more traditional art this month as I challenge myself to draw a Castlevania character each day.

Here are some of my favorites so far.

Since I can’t find any art of this guy I’ll do it myself 😤😤😤😤

I think the main reason no one talks about him is because he was literally just an NPC in the game. HOWEVER despite being Diggoried (for lack of a better term) Eduoard meant quite a bit to me (probably because he got Diggoried.) He and Annette were like family, and he meant a lot to Annette too. You have no idea how devastated I was watching him get turned into a (beautiful, nonetheless) night creature and then continuously going to visit him in the prison.

The scene where he saved Annette!? Heartbreaking. He looked ashamed of himself!!!!! That shit hurt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And the singing!!! I have gone back and just listened to him sing. I sound silly, but still. And in case we all forgot, he has someone waiting at the island for him!!!!!!!!!! A#feshenrnfsrgsfw.

Anyway thank you for coming to my Ted talk.

I’m about to be very petty. My roommate’s family are snobs. His aunt is some big time opera person, his dad is an art professor and fine artist, and his sister is a sometimes professional soprano. Me I’m a first generation college grad who went back to blue collar work because the money is better. I’m a philistin who doesn’t know much about or like a lot of the “concert music” they dig. I’m also a smidge tone deaf and neurodivergent so I don’t enjoy high pitched singing. My brain responds poorly to it most of the time.

My roommate is mostly free of their snobbishness but occasionally it blends through. I love him. He’s my dearest friend. But there it is.

I’ve also been listening to a bunch of lectures explaining concert music because I’m not an anti intellectual. I want to understand. I have found that I kind of like Haydn. I’m learning.

So the other night we are watching Castlevania: nocturne and Eduoard starts singing. At first I was making Kermit scrunch face because if sopranos sounds bad to me, falsetto sounds worse. But then he gets to the “Remember Me” bit

And I’m all

“That’s Dido’s aria! That’s what Dido sings just before she kills herself! Remember me, but forget my fate!”

Roommate looks at me like I have grown a third head.

“Dido and Aeneas! Baroque opera by an English guy!”

Everyone, I need you all to know that my blue collar ass recognized music from an opera and “my sister’s a soprano” roommate did not. I will be riding the petty high of this victory internally for days.

Castlevania Nocturne's Colors Aren't Just More Colorful

I watched Castlevania Nocturne and y'all are gonna hear my Specific Ass Takes. [full video transcript under cut]

[ The whole video plays over a background of a multicolor evening sky with a shooting star, and starts with a light blue silhouette of bunnies and a lantern. When the speaker begins reading, a cartoon bunny head appears ]

I'm working on a bigger video that I thought I'd have out, like, Last Week. Unfortunately, the scriptwriting stage is giving me disproportionate difficulty. So this week, to get something out, I'm gonna be making a small dissertation on the color work in Castlevania Nocturne to all y'all 'cause I watched it on Friday the 13th this fine spooky month.

Spoilers. Obviously. But like specifically I am Not arranging my thoughts linearly, you will get no incremental building to the bigger late game spoilers, they can come at any moment.

[ The video transitions to a speedpaint of a coloring page ]

Colors are by far some of my favorite things to see being used well and played around with, and even if the colors weren't expertly planned and were used for nothing except as a way to differentiate the characters, I'd still love just how much More Colorful Nocturne is compared to Castlevania The First. Something that especially made my brain go absolutely brrRR is the weird interesting thing they did with the color pink. How Anette says Eduoard called her soul pink but her favorite color was always green (the opposite) and it zooms in on him in his fancy green opera coat, which you cannot help but relate back to the tiny jewels Olrox's earrings have in them, and how they alternate between pink and green.

All three of them have the new world in common. All three of them come from horribly damaged communities, and while the girl who refuses to submit and discovers her command over magic as a result carries the color pink in her soul, the boy who uses smooth deception and a calm demeanor as his main tool in the liberation of his community is commonly wreathed in greens, but the creature older and more weathered than them both with no soul and no mission and no community left enshrines both colors in gold jewelry and dresses in deep saturated purples. As if he understands both those things to be important, so important, but he only has his pride and his history left of all that he used to have and hold dear.

But the pink doesn’t stop here because Drolta's primary color is this neon hot pink that only poisonous things are while Maria's primary color is a light soft pastel pink; Drolta willingly gave herself over to Erzsebet centuries ago while Maria was unknowingly primed as an ideal sacrifice for her, and is only saved by her mother, who wears black from the first moment of the series because she was always marked for death. And the Abbot, too, is defined by black because faith without works is dead! This is also why even though Mizrak wears the same black uniform as the other soldiers, the symbol of his faith emblazoned across his chest is white, for it is alive! And then still so many of his shots focus on the rich maroon of his absolutely gorgeous eyes. You are regularly drawn away from the black he chooses to put on by the harmonious colors his true body is made of, and hammered home by the fact he is one of the only characters we ever see in a state of undress! And who- who could it be who we see with him in that scene, where he's covering up all his pretty colors, and what- what could they be wearing still? What could they have chosen not to take off? What jewelry might they be wearing? Hm! Hm. Curious. You don't say!

It's almost like without his faith and his mission and his devotion to a living god through a dead man, Mizrak is alone, but without his ostentatious persona and vampiric menace and regality, Olrox still has the vestiges of that which he has lost forever. Interesting!!

Drolta and Maria aren’t the only ones for whom saturation matters. Not only can Edouard no longer be green after he is transformed because he can never be of that same service to his old community; as if to add insult to injury, his previously pastel sky blue eyes are now this unnatural electric blue. Which lines up really well with how the neon saturation that defines the pinks on Drolta's color palette also defines the greens on Olrox's color palate!! Unnatural creatures do not get to have natural colors. Yes, even if you really like them. Yes, even Alucard!

Alucard is a balance of stark white and colorless black with two amber eyes to anchor him to the world around him. This same golden-ness is present in the magic Maria and Anette use and the markings on Edouard. His two small graces in his new existence are to take the form of an angel and to be marked with the same colors that mark the magic and the faith which stands opposed to all that binds him. Maria sees nothing of value in the church, because her faith lies in herself and her cause and those who support her, and the church as an institution upholds oppression. Anette adorns herself in gold, and glows amber as she calls on her canonically divine magic. A magic of her ancestors and her community's religious practices, which go against the white man's God. Edouard even in the form of a hell beast touches other people's souls with his voice, which is why the vampires (soulless evil creatures) all hate to hear it so.

Then Alucard appears as a deus ex machina in the final moments of the season framed by an eclipse halo and devoid of color but for his piercing golden eyes. He is such a different Thing than anything else we have seen in this season that the established color language *must* bend to him. God only needed to say 'I AM', and Alucard only needed to appear. He himself is all white, he has been alive for so long that the living on in the face of this relentless world defines him; the sword he uses to kill Drolta, save the main characters' lives, and repel the vampire cronies is white and silver. He is life and he protects others’ lives. Yet his coat is black and he promises immediate death to his foes. Where has he been this entire plot: we don’t know When all this dying was happening: where was he? Where was this power beneath the black? Then finally, he says with his soft voice, “I hope I’m not too late.” And he turns to properly face us and we see for certain that his eyes are the color of devotion and magic and sunlight. Sunlight!!!

Speaking of sunlight, if I might detour from colors, when Erzsebeth has transformed into a thundercat, she says she despises the sunlight because it is worshiped and beloved by these inferior humans, and restricts the power of vampires, the superior beings. Now. We know that vampires are only stunned by crosses because the geometry messes with their eyes and befuddles their predator brains, so you would think The Christian God has almost nothing to do with the repelling of vampires. However, if something is properly holy and consecrated, neither demons nor vampires can touch it without consequence. The Belmont Whip is consecrated, and has been for hundreds of years. That holy water Sypha freezes does uniquely damage the night creatures. However, vampires can enter the church in Nocturne, and hell beasts could enter the church in that town that killed Dracula’s wife that I don’t care to remember the name of. The hell beast says it can do this because that church is not a house of God, and the things the priest does makes God puke. The Abbot welcomes Erzsebeth and her ilk in as messiahs and desecrates his own church with a machine from hell. These are sacreligious places run by people who do not truly follow the faith either willfully or in blind cognitive dissonance.

Now, it is shown in Nocturne that Vaublanc is very anti-spells on the plantation despite these protective spells and spiritual songs having nothing to do with The Christian God which he so fears. He cannot escape the cage of crosses that Anette makes for him, but Anette definitively does not follow The Christian God. Yet he is burned by these crosses when he tries to touch them. Because Anette is descended from a god, and this is that god’s material. Because this is a divine act. Because Anette and her magic through devotion to her religion are holy and consecrated.

Therefore: Is sunlight only corrosive to vampires because the very concept of sunlight and the sun is sacred to all humans to some degree??? Did humanity’s collective unconscious consecrate sunlight thousands of years ago and continues to this day to do that, and that is why vampires cannot walk in it??? ‘Cause I think that makes The Most Sense Actually.

And lastly for colors, we have my boy, my beloved, my darling, my second favorite, Richter Belmont in his most distinctive deep blues like the ocean we start the show beneath, like the water he stares into and walks through. Like the tears he cries. The way once his magic returns to him, his fire and his ice match his eyes and the colors he wears because of course they match: This blue *is* Richter Belmont. His magic is a direct extension of his self. It is his soul and he dons that pure white headband he previously tucked away and didn’t wish to look at when he makes the decision to go on living and to choose love and choose these people and make them his mission. He chooses to fight against evil instead of hiding from it, he chooses to extend his love and his soul out to these people and whatever cause they support, and because he chooses that, He Is More. The screen and the vampires are consumed by blue because He Has Become More Than He Was with this choice. His soul burns blue, the second hottest color for fire to burn after white.

Of course his is the only color palette that comes close to being as restrained as Alucard's, because Alucard holds magic and devotion and sunlight in his soul (because as we all know the eyes are the windows to the soul) and simply lives and lives and lives on and on to carry those things forward to the people with whom he wishes to share magic and devotion and life and death, and he makes this choice again and again and again every new day, every new year, every new century he lives. He has lived too long to be anything else but this being of magic and devotion and sunlight and life.

So too Richter Belmont carries his love and the love others give to him forward and forward and forward wherever it will take him, because yes water travels the path of least resistance, and yes it takes the shape of its container, but that is why his choice of who he aligns himself with is so important! He finds people he believes in and he allows them to shape him, to direct him, to have his whole soul. Other characters in Castlevania Nocturne believe in messiahs and gods and power structures and ideologies, but Richter Belmont believes in the people he loves and in the love in his soul. Blue is the color of love! Richter Belmont is made from love and not fear, and he must dispossess his fear of its power if he is ever to truly live!

That scene was by far my favorite scene in the entire show. Just unequivocally. I think in part because that was the part where I expected Alucard to show up, ‘cause when looking up the voice actors I accidentally saw ‘James Callis as Alucard’ and I went ‘Oh my gosh! He really does show up! I was hoping he would show up but he really does show up! He’s obviously gonna make a big entrance!’ and so my anticipation of dear beloved Alucard meant I was very pleasantly surprised by Richter pulling a real Magical Girl Protagonist move and unlocking his magic through the power of love and overcoming your trauma.

[ The coloring page pans across the screen and the video transitions into the end screen ]

But did you know that I make these videos through the power of positive reinforcement and fits of passion? Did you also know I have a Ko-Fi page for those of you who wish not only to give me compliments in comment sections about my pretty voice and how my analysis has contributed positively to your experience on this mortal coil, but who wish to be like Raptorous77 and Random NPC Tartaglia Simp Extraordinaire who hath contributed moneys to me and my continued financial stability? I also have little incentives over there like the Kill Your Darlings Graveyard for scripts where I have waaaayyy too much to say and I have to cut stuff from for flow. I also am prepping a thing where you can chuck money at me to make screenshot edits of things like this Rolling With Difficulty/Paranatural thing I did for fun or the cover art I make for the Broadway Nepeta blog because I run that. If you wanna catch me announcing when my image edit endeavour goes up you can subscriiibe~ If I make it to a thousand subscribers by my birthday (I will give you one hint, I am a Scorpio) then I’ll, like… uhh… Make a community post where I will take requests because I don’t do requests otherwise. It’ll be fun, it’ll be a celebration~

Okay, that’s all from me, also I am definitely gonna be making a Castlevania Nocturne AMV to one of the Pretty Cure openings, mark my words. Take care~

[ There is a stretch of silence and the end screen faces out before a blooper snippet plays ]

Not only can Edouard no longer be green after he is transitioned-- … pff, after he has transitioned… He’s trans everybody! [laughs] Trans Rights!!

Binged Nocturne yesterday, so here are my spoilery thoughts on the matter, in no particular order:

Watching this season was certainly an experience. Neither I nor my sibling have any knowledge of the Castlevania games beyond "there's a guy named Alucard who kills his dad multiple(?) times and also Belmonts are the player characters probably," so it's not like we were expecting anything, but there were a lot of "oh wouldn't it be funny if" or "I bet they'll do X" moments BUT THEN THEY ACTUALLY DID. "Why don't we continue this conversation somewhere more comfortable?" (Oh lol he's gonna fuck that priest.) *smashcut to Orlox and Mizrak naked in a bed together* (OH WAIT WHAT?!!?!)

"There's an underground secret passage to the abbey." (Uh yeah and how do YOU know that? 'I bet she fucked that old man.' Pfff I bet she did. 'I bet he's Maria's dad.' Ehhhh I mean maybe? Bit far-fetched.) "But then we wouldn't have had Maria!" (*unified unholy gibbon screeching*)

(I'm not saying this series is bad, I'm just going to be a little disappointed if absolutely nobody from the original series gets even mentioned.) *Alucard shows up at the very last second* (Oh we are winning this season! 'We are WINNING!')

Orlox served astronomical levels of cunt and I hope he continues to hang around being a nebulous problem for everybody else for the rest of the series. And then go be evil and gay somewhere else at the end, like Striga and Morana.

While I respect the power move of Drolta's heel-less platforms and the environmental storytelling of "ooh wow look how vampires can balance effortlessly on floating heels like it's nothing" personally speaking it did look a bit. weird. Like just give her stilettos, man.

Drolta was otherwise an absolute delight to watch for every moment of her time onscreen and her character design was absolute peak. Every outfit and hairstyle was immaculate.

Maybe this is just me having read up on her a lot, but having Erzebet Bathory be mixed with the Egyptian goddess Sekmet was... jarring. She was a Hungarian noble and had absolutely fuck-all to do with anything further south than the European frontier of the Ottoman Empire, so even the "drank a goddess's blood and got possessed a little bit" still feels cobbled-together and forced.

Personally speaking, I think it would've served the writer's "dread vampire Messiah come to swallow the sun and usher in a new age of blood and doom" purpose if they had EITHER the vampire Erzebet Bathory who committed all of her (mostly mythical/exaggerated) serial killing crimes and then some, OR an ancient vampiress infected by drinking a goddess's blood. You either pull the cachet of an infamous vampire-tangential historical figure or make up a story about a vampire being consumed by and becoming a channel for something more powerful than even them out of whole cloth, but please don't do both. Especially when both versions originally had nothing to do with each other.

We all none of us deserve Eduoard. I hope he gets to transform into something more human-looking by the end of the series (so he doesn't get mobbed) and then go home to his nameless boyfriend and live happily ever after. Maybe after kicking the Abbot's teeth in, since he deserves it.

Speaking of which, this was Annette's season. Richter may have had his name on the tin but this season was for her and she killed it. Absolutely stole the show, man.

I love the way her summoning was animated and find her realistic for both her age and her time period in terms of enthusiasm for revolution and a tendency to act with emotion rather than thought, but Maria was just kinda... also here. Presumably she'll have more to do next season.

I'm liking Castlevania: Nocturne so far. The animation is great (most of the time), the dialogue is solid (some of the time) and the plot so far is... a downgrade from the previous four seasons, but that can be forgiven because I assume the writers are scabs.

That said, there are a lot of non-sequitors in the show. Like, people will just say things. And I don't know why they say them. "Eduoard says my soul is pink. He's wrong though, my favorite color is green" what does that mean??? Annette can't see her own soul, how would she know??? What's it got to do with her favorite color??? It feels like they asked chat GPT to write a script, then they just touched it up a little bit sometimes.

Occasionally the animation inexplicably falters, switches to 3D or another art style, or just generally looks like it's not correct in some way. It's jarring as hell, because the animation for castlevania is very good at being good at the things they're trying to use stylistic art styles/3D for. So I don't know why they swap it around.

It's easy to tell that something went wrong during production, whether it be the hiring of scabs or the use of AI. The voice acting is good, I'd say, but I don't like most of the voices, and the accents are really weird. I feel like half the accents in the show don't actually exist. Most of the characters don't have much affect in their voice, but sometimes they express proper emotion. It's just strange.

Castlevania Nocturne: a series of highs and devastating lows.

THE GOOD: This series is a shonen lovers' wet dream managing to be action packed, picking up where the last one left off. Seeing Richter use magic he inherited from Sypha is like watching Trevor Belmont brawl with her powers. He uses ice as body armor and throwing knives, fire to augment his agility and punches. Later on these abilities are further expanded by having them channelled through the vampire killer, it's a great expansion of the combat we've seen in the original series and he hasn't even gotten his hands on the morning star. Seeing his cousin Maria conjure portals to summon creatures for combat and traversal adds more spice to the mix since each one serves a certain purpose and seem to have a unique power to aid in a fight. With the birds being bathed in yellow energy to cut through enemies and for personal flight a turtle for defense and riding bodies of water and the cat like beast with what appears to be electricity and short range teleportation. The racial diversity in this series is worth noting. Drolta Tzuentes, the Afro-Egyptian ex-priestess vampire who is calculated domineering and sadistic with a haughty temper, I'm fully convinced she was made for me, decked out in all black looking like a campy goth dominatrix in waist high hoof boots with pink hair talking shit to religious leaders is LIFE CHANGING work THAT ONLY SHE CAN DO. There's Annette an ex-slave and revolutionary who is brash moral compassionate and determined with a background in magic due to being descended from a West African God which expands the magical lore of the show, she travels with Eduoard a gay mulatto who was born free a talented opera singer who uses his privilege in white spaces to gather intel. He's not the only queer character because we also have Olrox and he brings such a complexity to vampires in this world because his identity as an Aztec/Indigenous vampire informs his character. Due to his first hand experience as a victim of colonization and genocide it makes him wary of people and vampire alike who put their stock in a higher power that claim it's their right to rule a region because of religion. He's one of the more well written characters complex elusive and crafty, he spends the series finding out the goal of the big bad and carefully undermining her while feeding intel to her opposition. He's like Cady Heron if she dressed well from the beginning.

THE BAD: THIS SERIES IS A SHONEN LOVERS' WET DREAM. It's rushed with weird character inconsistencies and 0 explanations for new lore added to the world, which is baffling because unlike other shows it has an original series to build off of as well as video game lore to pull from. Not to mention the topics they touch on they don't really delve into which is unfortunate because they're still relevant in our current climate. With the story taking place during the French Revolution it touches on aristocracy class and exploitation of the poor. These issues are discussed and touched on through Maria and our resident antagonist the Abbot. As enjoyable as it is to see Maria go on a rant and roast the Abbot the church and the lies they perpetuate we never really see the effects of the French Revolution in real time. In comparison the OG Castlevania managed to show the impact of Dracula throughout Wallachia when he waged war with humanity and even after his death aimless night creatures that he had his forgemasters create caused chaos and multiple minor & major villains conspired to resurrect him. Another flaw is even seen in the pilot when night creatures show up at the heroes' home Richter asks Tera, A SPEAKER and magician what they are and SHE DOESN'T KNOW. Speakers are a damn near all knowing nomadic tribe that pride themselves on bringing aid and carrying all types of knowledge. Even worse is episodes later Richter makes it clear he knows the history of the Belmont line and is familiar with Sypha because his mother taught him. If that's so how does he not know what a night creature is also how is he such a skilled fighter if his mother died before she could finish training him? The writing for him his even worse when he gets his magic back after meeting his grandfather. The whole reason his magic is gone is because of trauma, trauma he only ever addresses once and never confronts. Yet, when he's about to die and his PTSD is triggered HE GETS IT BACK??? If trauma is the reason it's gone how in the fuck is a near death experience one that parallels what his mother went through the cure? Wouldn't it have made more sense narratively to have him to start by addressing the trauma then confronting it for him to access his magic? There are steps to healing and he only ever takes one. The show also has too many characters for them to contend with and that's clear from the amount of them that are underwritten from Richter our lead to the big bad herself Erzsebet Bathory. Erzsebet is not seen until the last few episodes of Nocturne before that there is so much buildup around her, vampire messiah devourer of light the one who will block out the sun and when she finally steps on the scene SHE'S A BOREEEEE. Unlike Dracula whose motivations are clearly grief Carmilla who was fueled by the sexism and abuse she experienced by men in vampire society and Death who just wanted a full meal of human souls Erzsebet wants to block out the sun because SHE CAN??? Like yes as a vampire blocking out the sun is ideal but what drove her to this point at least with Drolta her motivations are clear through conversation with Olrox that she finds humans fickle as they shift from religions and beliefs in rapid succession, unable to make monuments cities and even civilizations last whereas vampires being immortal have the potential to if they weren't on the fringes of society plus being devoted to the Goddess Sehkmet who she served in her mortal life whose blood is stated to be running through Erzsebet helps you fill in the blanks for her desires for the most part.

THE FUGLY: One of my biggest gripes has to be Eduoard and Annette, while there’s nothing wrong with their characterizations or them as people I have two serious complaints. The show makes a big deal of Eduoard’s death and resurrection as a night creature, there’s just one problem IT HAS NO WEIGHT. We haven’t gotten to know him and he hasn’t been with us long enough for this to be an emotional gut punch or warrant a single tear from anyone viewing. There’s also the unfortunate fact that if you were somehow excited about his character since there is a limit of black faggotry in fantasy, you’ll ultimately be disappointed because he spends most of the season in a cage. On to Annette, Afro-Caribbean women characters in speculative fiction on screen is already a rarity so when it happens it’s worth paying attention and when it’s done poorly it’s most definitely worth criticizing. My main qualms with this character is the fact that a South African actress is playing her and one who seems to have a very limited range as she is not even a voice actress. The scene in which she broke down crying over Edouard's death did not tug on a single heartstring and felt void of emotion, she’s supposed to be experiencing a deep grief and I’ve never felt so detached in my actual life. Even the scenes when she’s meant to be expressing frustration and fury are lacking. What really stands out is her magic, which is supposed to be rooted in Haitian culture unfortunately the creator Clive Bradley made sure it was strictly West African even tho Haitian Vodou was influenced by not only West African but Central African Indigenous and European beliefs and cultures as well. None of that is showcased which is ridiculous because that’s what makes Haitian culture distinct AND ITS OWN. What makes this even more upsetting is that West Africans were brought into the writers’ room to tell this story ABOUT HAITIANS, were the original slaves West African? Yes, but over time during slavery their own identity and culture was formed. Oh and since Annette was mentored by a Mambo, a Haitian priestess complete with ritual dance, why would her magic be strictly West African? Even if you ignore all of that the way her magic is used combatively is sorely lacking compared to her comrades. It’s well established what the others could do but the most we get out of Annette is her creating swords and tossing them like flying discs, it’s incredibly underwhelming especially if you’ve seen characters like Toph Beifong Gaara Cornelia Hale and Edward Elric. We deserved to see more from her than just tossing metal poles, she’s basically a mystically endowed javelin thrower when there are other powers of hers that would make for flashier and more engaging fights. Especially since in the OG series we see Sypha manipulating fire ice and wind off rip. Still there is room for improvement and hopefully we see it next season. While this series is a rarity in the West an adult animation that isn't a sitcom but combat oriented thematic and diverse its continuity errors underdeveloped characters and inability to properly speak on or even portray the topics it aims to tackle will leave you disappointed.

RATING: 6 out of 10

You Know, When the First Series Came Out...

...I was kind of surprised that there weren't more Castlevania Monster Mash AMVs. I'm crap with video editing, so I wasn't going to do it, but it honestly seemed like low-hanging fruit that nobody was grabbing.

Except, the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. The series doesn't lend itself well to crack AMVs, and Monster Mash didn't work well as a serious Character Song for Isaac or Hector. Both of them had a different relationship to their creations than Frankenstein did to his, so it probably would have been too much of a stretch.

Then we got Castlevania Nocturne, and we see a would-be forgemaster who fits more closely into the Frankenstein archetype, in the sense that his creations go against the purpose for which they were created.

And sing while doing it.

Meaning that The Monster Mash could conceivably be included on a playlist of Character Songs for Eduoard.

And I think that's beautiful.

Castlevania Nocturne good. I was concerned that changing writers might damage the fun DnD party feel of the dialogue, but it's still intact.

Really instantly loved the new cast like I did the first show. Richter a little cocky to hide his trauma, fucking hot, as usual. Maria is perfect. Brave, strong, does not let Richterboss her around. Love their kinda brother-sister dynamic.

Love Annette and Eduoard. Really love that Richter and Annettes stories closely mirror each others. If they go through with the romance of the games, I think it'll feel really good and natural. Eduoard is just beautiful.

Love the various villains but I won't talk too much about them yet.