Castlevania: Season 1

Heard about this, watched the clips decided to buy a copy of the first season.Now have watched it and decided to post that I thoroughly enjoyed it!Simply incredible that this season consisted of four episodes and by god it was incredible!Well worth it!Now I'll have to seek out the rest once I can afford to buy the following seasons to find out about the rest of the story!

Loved these series and i am very happy we got them on physial media :)We need more Netflix stuff released on BD or DVD :)

I really liked this series and enjoy the dvd. It arrived even earlier than expected.

Arguably the most eloquently entertaining adaptation of any video game franchise.

Love castlevania

Castlevania is an animated series based on the Gothic vampire video game series of the same name (Castlevania III specifically). This show was a great surprise to me at just how much I enjoyed it, I didn't think it would be very good yet I loved it although it feels more like a prologue that stops just as it's starting to really get really good (Season 2 is double the episode count and if anything is even better and more complete.).The first season focuses on a mixture of characters including the legendary Vlad Dracula Tepes, who needs little introduction (kind of a famous vampire, you might have heard of him), Trevor Belmont, a drunkard and the last survivor of a family whose lineage has hunted the creatures of the night for centuries, and Sypha Belnades, a speaker with powerful magic. Each character has their own reasons for what they do including a surprisingly good look at Dracula which really help give the show, motivations, tragedy and depth.What really brings the show to life though is the surprising quality of the voice acting including actors from The Hobbit, Battelstar Galactica, Max Headroom, Stargate, etc. The performances are excellent (Especially Graham Mctavish as Dracula) and with the surprising high quality of the animation, art and music really nailing the Castlevania atmosphere. The production values are all surprisingly impressive.In short, it's a great show with great art, music, voice acting, writing, action and characters. It's one flaw is it's only four episodes and stops literally as it's getting going but having seen season 2 recently it's worth the commitment if you are a Castlevania, animation or vampire fan though you may want to watch both seasons back to back. It's worth it.Recommended.+ Fantastic atmosphere.+ Great art, animation and music.+ Voice acting is great.+ Surprisingly good pacing, writing and exposition.- Season 1 is far too short and stops as the going gets good.

This DVD is region locked to America, and will not work in Europe, Asia or the uk without a lot of extra effort. Be warned.

It's actually kind of amazing that the Castlevania video game series hasn't been adapted into an anime before. But it took Netflix to actually turn the long-brewing adaptation into a reality - the first season of the "Castlevania" show is a richly-animated, well-developed retelling of "Castlevania III," although these brief four episodes eventually turn out to just be the prologue of a much longer story.When his wife Lisa is unjustly executed for witchcraft, Dracula (Graham McTavish) declares war on the human population of Wallachia - and exactly one year later, he unleashes an army of demonic monsters on the cities of his country. Not long afterwards, Trevor Belmont (Richard Armitage), last of a family of famed but disgraced monster-hunters, wanders into the city of Gresit and finds it braced for another wave of attacks from the demons.He soon finds a small community of Speakers, and learns that one of their number has gone off in search of a legendary savior said to sleep under the city. But when the bishop makes it clear that he plans to kill all the Speakers - and Trevor, if he doesn't leave by sundown - the downtrodden vampire hunter takes a stand against his foes, both human and supernatural. Can he stop a torch-wielding mob from killing the Speakers? And what exactly is sleeping below the catacombs of Gresit?It becomes obvious by the end of "Castlevania's" first season that these four episodes (yes, only four - it's like a TV movie chopped into quarters) were just the prologue to a much bigger story - the massive conflict against Dracula is only just being set up, and the protagonists are only just coming together in their quest. Presumably the second season will bring the clash with Dracula to the forefront.In the meantime, writer Warren Ellis spins up a brief but compelling tale of corruption, mystery and a dollop of dangerous magic (baby-eating batlike demons, a cyclops with a laser eye). The entire story is very gory (expect floods of blood, lots of severed body parts, entrails, bisected bodies and Trevor whipping an eye out of a man's face), and the action scenes are beautifully acrobatic and fluid.And the animation is absolutely gorgeous - there's such a strong anime influence that I initially thought that it was animated by Madhouse or a similar studio. The beautifully crisp animation is richly detailed, depicting both the beauty (the catacombs) and the rot of Wallachia's society, and the interplay of light, shadow and color is exquisite. The attack on Gresit is heralded by red and orange lights reminiscent of flames and blood (matching the burning of Lisa), while the climactic battle is all sleek, silvery and pale.The downside? Warren Ellis is kind of bigoted against Christianity, and he delivers his "ORGANIZED RELIGION IS TOTALLY EVIL AND SO IS EVERYONE IN IT MMKAY?" message with the subtle touch of a sledgehammer to the eye socket. While there is some reluctant admission of Christianity's beliefs being real in the final episode, the entire storyline is basically there to hammer that the vaguely-Catholic Church is evilbad, and every priest save a single weedy, mute cleric is just an evil thug or a fanatic.Trevor is a man who wants to drink away his past, embittered by the mistreatment of the Belmont clan by the Church and the people. Over the course of the story, we see him growing more concerned with the people around him, not just the Speakers but the ordinary citizens of Gresit. Sypha is a bit of a blank slate, more of a believer and an idealist than Trevor, and the final episode of the season introduces a vitally important character who promises to make things more interesting in the future."Castlevania Season 1" is hampered by the anti-religion message, but is otherwise a vibrantly beautiful, well-animated start to an epic story - rich animation, solid writing and a world-weary hero.