Witchbottle
It’s had a long, bumpy road to getting made, but Castlevania
finally came to be. Sure, it started off as a movie. But a Netflix
series is good, if not better.
One of the first things I noticed was how damn good Castlevania
looks. I don’t mean just that they put money into the backgrounds
or animation in general. Castlevania itself looks like it does in later
games. Mostly since games like Bloodlines and Rondo of Blood and
Super Castlevania 4 had more computing space to work with. But,
specifically, the castle is shaped the same as it was in those games,
including the obvious placement of the final hallway, staircase,
and throne room. I wasn’t really expecting these sorts of details.
But early on, you see the Alchemy Lab, complete with all the
accoutrements. It looks exactly like it does in the games. That’s
sort of when you realize that they’re adapting this right;
everything looks the way it’s supposed to.
We knew, going so far back I can’t even really find a direct link,
that this was to be an adaptation of Castlevania III. We knew it
would feature Trevor, Grant, Sypha, and Alucard. Which is why
it’s so surprising that the lion’s share of the first part is dedicated
to Lisa and her relationship with Dracula. She was both the thing
that humanized him again, and also the reason he became a
problem again. She comes to him for knowledge of medical
science, convinces him to live like a human man, gives him a child.
You know how that song and dance winds up going.
Back in the 1400’s, Catholocism was Christianity. So when Lisa
comes back with all of this crazy glassware and healing
knowledge, it’s really only a matter of time until they decide to
burn her at the stake as a witch. It’s as horrific as you’d imagine,
too. Once Drac figures out what’s gone down, and that he was too
late because he promised to live as a human for Lisa, he turns his
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anger towards the people of Wallachia. The fact that he teleports
to the site of Lisa’s burning in a pillar of Hellfire like in the games
is just icing on the cake. He tells the humans they have one year to
get the fuck out of his country. That one year is both practical (it’ll
take that long for him to raise an army from the depths of hell)
and in honor of his love for Lisa.
There’s not too much for me to nitpick, either. It’s pretty much
relegated to the fact that Dracula pronounces his own surname
only half-correct (it’s supposed to be more like tSepesh, rather
than Tepesh), and the fact that it seems a very short period for all
of these events to happen. Other than that, though… Well, there’s
really nothing rubbing me the wrong way about the first episode.
I will note that you’d probably have a hard time finding any
animation as brutal and gory as Dracula’s attack for a production
this side of the Pacific. You’ve got people getting ripped in half,
impaled with glass, bashed to death, decapitated. It’s like a more
brutal episode of Attack on Titan.
But the one thing that made me grin more than anything else?
Seeing that they included the now infamous tavern goat scene. It
ties in too; the same guy telling the story of smacking a goat fucker
blind with a shovel also drunkenly declares that Wallachia
should’ve gotten rid of the corrupt great houses since they’re to
blame for all the shit going down… especially the Belmonts; they
should’ve killed the Belmonts. While Trevor’s sitting less than 20
feet away from him.
So, yeah, I liked Netflix’s Castlevania. Witchbottle may have been
all setup, but it was good setup. But there are four episode so let's
move onto the next one and see if this adventure is more
Castlevania Symphony of the Night and less Simon's Quest.