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Castlevania Season 3 Review

The third season of Castlevania is another very good season of this terrific show, though it is admittedly the weakest of the bunch.

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“Maybe your gift is being in denial?“

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The first season was pretty much a prelude to the powerful confrontation and conclusion in the second season while this third one is mostly a build-up for the fourth and final installment. Some may call it filler, and it does resemble one in a couple of episodes, but it’s still a phenomenally written season ripe with amazing dialogue and superbly realized characters.

Although I loved the season for the most part, I do still have some qualms about it. One of those is the themes. By now, this show has pretty much become an anti-human, nihilist hellhole that I personally found overbearing. I know that modern American series tend to be like this, but still all of the pessimism and edginess did feel over-the-top, though its shock values are definitely immensely memorable.

The anti-religion overtones have become prevalent by now, but the series is of course critical of Christianity, but not of Islam in another one of Hollywood’s hypocritical moves. It even endorses the latter religion in one questionable Isaac scene. I also found its feminist elements problematic and the show simply needs more positive characters to counteract all of the horrible ones.

Speaking of good people, Trevor and Sypha are the closest that we got to those. They are now a full-on romantic couple and I love that for them. Their dynamic is super cute and charming. But them being separated from Alucard did leave a sour taste on my mouth. The loss of Dracula was also deeply felt.

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Alucard himself got the least to do here and the two Japanese vampire warriors that he befriends end up betraying him. He proved to be too naïve in this instance and I expected more from him. These two warriors were too on-the-nose in their ridiculous goals, but the bisexual sex scene was at least quite memorable.

The sex was surprisingly graphic here, but also used for manipulation in both of the instances in the penultimate episode. Yes, Hector is here being controlled to an extreme by one of the vampire sisters who are basically the feminist vampire warriors of Styria. I did like them as they are all fun and terrific as the villains, but Lenore manipulating him so easily was ridiculous. Again, it was fun in a nasty and perverse sort of way, but still the slavishness of the guy rubbed me the wrong way. Why do the characters on this show have to be either terrible or dumb?

Isaac got a fantastic arc with the captain character and their conversations provided the only glimpses of hope and humanity in this overbearingly dark series. He is one of the coolest and most powerful characters on the show. As for The Judge character, I honestly gasped at the twist that he killed all of those children in the village. It was the most shocking moment on the entire show.

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This third season of Castlevania also introduced the idea of the multiverse through the character of Saint Germain. He is so much fun and very interesting as this mysterious magician and intellectual figure, but the multiverse is becoming an overused trope right now in media. Still though, it was phenomenally utilized here thanks to amazing animation, especially in those hell sequences. The show is brutal and dark, but always beautiful to look at.