James Merkel

Forget anything and everything you know about Castlevania. Leave the characters out of your mind, leave the stories closed on the shelf, and sit a while and watch this show. Disregarding any relation to the namesake series, the show still comes off as overly sociopolitical for applause. The characters are 1 dimensional, the plot is stale and unimaginative, the theme is abused and themes cherrypicked to fit the common narrative used to retain views by people who don't know any better and don't care to learn more. It's everything that caused Egypt to start defending their own history against activist television, wrapped in an anime shell and tied to a successful name for false clout. Here's three things they could have done to make this exact show worthwhile. 1: Make it it's own show, don't tie it to something popular to dredge up free views, it's how you get a 50% 1 star rating. 2: at least take the time to write honestly interesting characters that are fully developed. The 5* reviews are from people who feel like their angst fantasy self got put on TV, they don't care about quality, just that they're there. 3: write a plot that makes sense and possesses depth and cohesion. You can write a fantastic story representing the foul atrocities of slavery, the joy of blue hair, and strong feminine characters and timid heartfelt male characters without devolving into sociopolitical tripe. It's been done before in books for years, yet every time it gets to television they fall short. At the end of the day, I'm unlikely to convince anyone one way or the other, make your own judgement. However, if we really want exceptional shows we need to stop the political pandering for views. It really has been destroying both entertainment and a basic grasp of reality.