Just completed all 4 seasons of Castlevania

It is my vacation and I have nothing to do. I could study or complete my notebooks, but I have decided to spend most of my time on my phone. Recently, I came across a series called Castlevania on Netflix and

yesterday, I completed all the episodes of the Netflix series Castlevania. It took me 2 days to complete 4 seasons of this series, which has 32 episodes: 4 episodes in season 1, 8 in season 2, 10 in season 3, and 10 in season 4.

The series was created and written by Warren Ellis, British novelist and screenwriter. The series is based on the Japanese game series of the same name and the animation is also inspired by Japanese animated works.

I read the story of the development of Castlevania and it was hell. The series took so long to start until it was picked up by Netflix and after then new seasons came after a gap of a year or two, mostly one year between the year 2017 and 2021.

I completed this story yesterday around 5:15 pm which I started two days ago.

Story Summary

The story starts in the year 1455 when a young woman named Lisa turned outside Vlad Dracula Tepes' castle. Dracula, impressed by her courage decides to let her in and teaches her scientific knowledge. Lisa in turn teaches Dracula that humanity is not that bad after all. Lisa after learning about scientific and medical technology from Dracula uses it to help the world and treat the illness of others. Lisa also tries to make Dracula love humanity, so she sends him to tour the world as a man on foot and talk to them and know their problems, so he can connect with them. Dracula does as his wife desires. While Dracula is away, the Catholic Church comes to know of the practises of Lisa so the Bishop invades her home and checks her possessions. They found Lisa's lab where all the instruments of higher technology were kept. One of the hitmen of the Church found that some instruments moved on their own and declared that they were gifted to Lisa by the devil. Lisa warned the Bishop that her husband would kill everyone if he found out what happened to her in his absence, out of pity towards humanity. But the Bishop tells his hitmen to capture her and bring them to the centre of the town so that they can burn her alive. While burning alive she requests her husband to forgive them and says they don't know what they are doing. Dracula on the same day returns to his wife after completing the tour of the world and finds the house burnt and an old woman crying in front of it. On inquiring, Dracula comes to know that the townspeople think that his wife Lisa is a witch and they are burning her. Dracula cries, but instead of tears, blood flows from his eyes. He decided to do one last act of kindness and told the old woman to leave the town with her family. Dracula then appears from the same fire which was used to burn his wife down to ashes and tell the people what have they done. Dracula warns them and gives them "one year" to leave the town after which he will destroy the country, Wallachia and kill everyone, after saying this he disappears.

After this, we see the scene of Dracula's castle where the son of Lisa and Dracula, Adrian asks his father to only kill the man responsible and not to kill the whole humanity. He said that Mother would not have wanted this, but Dracula refused to listen. Adrien then says that he will stop his father no matter what and pulls out his sword, but Dracula attacks him and he needs to run away.

The Church convinced the people that the devil always tells lies and no one can harm God's country. After a year, Dracula as promised prepared his army and the scene was like he opened the gates of hell in the sky from which his night creatures fell after a dramatic blood rain. Dracula then appeared from the sky in the form of fire above the Archbishop and ordered his hordes to kill everyone they saw. 

In episode 2, we are introduced to Trevor Belmont, the last living survivor of the House of Belmont who fought night creatures, but the church had ousted the Belmon family because there were rumours that the House of Belmont used Black Magic to fight the night creatures.

"For evil bastards to win power, all ordinary people have to do is stand aside and keep quiet."

— Trevor Belmont

Trevor meets Sypha Belnades after he rescues her and later she becomes his wife. Sypha is a speaker magician. Speakers are the nomadic tribe who pass on the knowledge of the world generation by generation through oral teachings. They both later wake Alucard, the anti-Dracula, who is also known as the Sleeping Soldier. Alucard with the help of his companions enters Dracula's castle.

They had a fierce fight with Dracula and Dracula did not seem to get defeated, he was almost going to kill his son when he realised what he was doing. He apologized to his wife while Alucard put a stake through his heart. Even after that, Dracula did not die and Trevor had to cut off his head, and finally, Sypha had to incarnate him with her fire.

My opinion

The series was overall good and the animations were almost like Japanese ones with little Netflix touch. The story was good and it hooked me up all the way till the end. Now there was more story than I had written but I needed to keep this post short so I could not include the story of the whole series and also I am kind of lazy to do so.

The animation quality becomes a little bit poor where there are small villain fights in seasons 2 and 3, but during the boss fight it was really good. 

I need to point out that the generals of Dracula's war council were defeated easily. They were the most powerful vampires in their region and they should be made a little bit tougher to kill. 

I also need to point out the problem with the story in season 4. In season 4, we are introduced to the Death, or Grim Reaper who was worshipped by the people who wanted to bring Dracula back from Hell. We came to know in the last of Season 4 that Death himself wanted to bring Dracula back to the world, so he could start killing all humanity, who would become the meal of the Grim Reaper and then he would become the most powerful on Earth. We are described in the series as the Grim Reaper is also like a vampire who always wanders to find food. This much was tolerable.

In the last, we are shown Trevor Belmont picking up a fight with the Grim Reaper and killing it with a mysterious weapon which also burned his hands when he held it. We were shown that Trevor died and others also thought. After a month, Trevor returns and he tells everyone that during that time the magician Saint Germain opened an infinite corridor, which is used to travel between worlds and that he was stuck there for a month. We are revealed that Sypha is pregnant with Trevor's child.

In the last of the last episode of Season 4, we are revealed that Dracula is indeed out of Hell with his wife Lisa and they are currently living in a hotel. The couple decides to give a little bit of privacy to their son Adrien for the moment and decides to leave in hiding.