#beev rewatches nfcv

[beevean]

Rewatching NFCV with @woodchipp and @the-crow-binary has been miserable so far.

Not because of them, of course: we all need each other to bear the Peak. but holy shit I forgot how mindnumbingly boring the show is. it's way worse at a second watch because now I know how much it falls apart! We're only at S2E3 as of this post!

S1 is the best season, and even that is largely forgettable, especially S1E3 which wastes 22 minutes of my life to say "here's the bishop. he's proof that CHURCH BAD". But S1E1 may be the best or second best episode of the whole show thanks to Dracula and his performance... and isn't that sad, that the show peaks at the very beginning? The rest of the show is just... Trevor doing his stuff (while the framing mostly makes fun of him), talking, some fighting, and CHURCH BAD. As positives, I still like Trevor's mini-arc in this season, and the vague effort to be faithful to CV3 (Sypha being petrified by a cyclops, falling down a chasm to find Alucard).

S2 is terrible. Yes we're still less than halfway through. I already hate everything.

I hate Alucard becoming a legend to the point that the Wallachians name his Alucard (as in, Dracula's opposite) after only a year - why couldn't he name himself Alucard? Why complicate matters so much? Isaac calling him Alucard, and Dracula recognizing the name, makes absolutely no sense: how do they know about it? Dracula lost contact with his son one year ago and I doubt Wallachian human legends have reached him. And Isaac was in the Sahara until sometime after Lisa died!

I hate Alucard himself. He's a cunt. He does nothing but insult Trevor and the Belmonts without provocation, and it's not funny banter, he's mean! He's genuinely cruel! He hears that Trevor lost his family at 12, and he can only say "lol and lmao I had more of a childhood than you. anyway they were mentally ill and child killers, they sacrificed chickens and hoarded dead cats". And this piece of shit is the most popular character of the show??? he's not even pretty what are y'all seeing 😭

(it's also weird how he's all angsting about killing his vampire father, but he hates the Belmont for being vampire hunters. bro. bro you're also about to hunt a vampire. why are you defending a race of monsters so staunchly. not even a hint of, I don't know, a Belmont hurting him when he was a child because he was confused for a full vampire? Remember that logically, a vampire child is a child turned into a vampire, we have no other indication that dhampirs are running all around the world. I know that in the games he seems fully on board with "vampires bad and me bad for being half vampire", but you have the chance of making it better and you squander it?)

Sypha is also ruder than I remembered. I think she suddenly became more cheerful in S3 and that's why I liked her, but also girl, you keep criticizing Trevor for being rude and not consoling you, but you look at him with a perpetual resting bitch face and insult the Morning Star calling it an "ugly thing"? Why does Trevor even bother with the likes of you? How is Trephacard the most popular ship in the franchise?

I hate Isaac. Oh, I gave him the benefit of the doubt back then, because I really wanted to understand why he became the fan favorite. But now? No, I'm sorry, he's overrated as fuck. He's so damn pretentious, his speech about how he wants a pure world without love is terrible from the lens of him being a Muslim who is devoted to the Devil, and his backstory is so tryhard and historically inaccurate that I almost prefer Hector's past being exposed through voiceover.

Oh, and Hector, I hate his scenes. Because he's actually treated with dignity. He's fine! I actually like the guy! I like the scene where he rebukes Godbrand (who as a character only exists to attract infodumps and to question Dracula) because "I have to work" - he sounds actually proud of his role, if not even competent, perish the thought. Also by reading the scripts online I forgot that he was the one who yelled "you do not question my loyalty!". Which I like a lot? I can hear the real Hector protesting like that out of pride, even if in private he would admit that he disagrees with the bloodshed. And the scene where he soothes the newborn Night Creature... yeah, this character used to be written with respect, and knowing how he gets tortured and disrespected and used for rape apologism by a sex pest hurts even more. Also, in retrospect, the scene where he stares at the fire while reminiscing about the day he set fire on his own childhood home doesn't go anywhere, even as the finale of S3 echoes it :^)

And Dracula, oh my poor man Dracula. He's already being presented as an ineffectual depressed old man spending his time staring at a fireplace, who can't even command his presence in the war room, who allows Carmilla to insult him and Lisa in front of everyone - it's so embarrassing how he gets the Red Eyes of Fury and then he simply... lets her go after he gets the flimsy explanation of "yeah I humiliated you because everyone is asking themselves the same question. I wanted to help <3" girl (Dracula), she's a mere regional ruler, as she herself said??? why do you need her so much that you allow her to do this shit??????? oh but then you posture to godbrand, he gets to be threatened because... he's not relevant to the plot i guess. fucking pathetic. what have they done to my man.

(and I hate Carmilla. but that has never changed. annoying smug ass #girlboss with the charisma of spoiled seafood. her way of manipulating Hector isn't even manipulation, it's just her telling him very plainly what she wants him to do. She and Lenore utterly suck at their job, and they only get their way because muh plot)

And then there's the infodumping. Oh my god these people won't shut the fuck up. Godbrand is like "why should we listen to two humans?" and Dracula dumps twice that he trusts Hector and Isaac for their human nature (which, again, it's a decent reasoning, but it goes on and on and even they should know, I get it). Alucard dumps about the apocalyptic scenario where Dracula wins and rules over a world without humans... but he only describes it as we look into his ugly face, instead of doing something more creative like actually showing what would happen. Hector gets this random flashback-through-sound, shoved there as if Ellis didn't know where to put it in the script; later on he explains to Carmilla the origin of Night Creatures, as if ever remotely matters. Isaac dumps about his jihadist philosophy about how by killing humans he and Dracula will create a pure world. Carmilla randomly reveals her Tragic Backstory after kicking Godbrand down the stairs, another scene I can't stand because it's all about what a #queen she is and how she's better than Dracula. At one point they seriously discuss about the myth of vampires unable to cross running water, which is a moot point anyway because Carmilla resorts to using a zombie bishop to bless the river!! No I will never let it go!!!

(also I love that in the one occasion where Alucard has the chance of describing his childhood, he retells the tale of Lisa meeting Dracula, something we've already seen and he was also obviously told about, not something he experienced himself. They couldn't even come up with another anedocte to actually tell us what kind of mother Lisa used to be. so lazy)

This show is half people sitting in a circle and talking, and half average fight scenes. Yeah at this point not even those impress me anymore. I'm serious when I say that Knuckles' fight scene in Divergence, also animated by Powerhouse Animation Studios, is of a better quality than what the show has offered.

And this is why I'm so reluctant to watch Nocturne. If the best seasons of this highly acclaimed show are so painful to sit through, how are we going to survive a sequel series that not even the fans liked it as much?

[beevean]

And finally we reached the end of the show. I'd almost be touched, if the finale didn't bore me to tears.

Also we skipped episode 7. Again. I wish we had skipped more episodes at this point.

I love how the last time I laughed at this scene:

and now I can laugh even harder because Nocturne completely retconned this stupid explanation!

(and I realized we never see vampires getting confused by crosses in the show either. Beautiful)

I still don't care about anything. But, of course, how could I ignore the best line of the show:

This is the "Wheres the DAMN fourth Chaos Emerald?" of NFCV. I love it. I tip my hat to such unbridled cringe <3

Not much to add about the epic reunion of the Trephacard gang. Alucard is still a cunt who hasn't earned the right to treat Trevor with snarky scorn. I still love how, for how hyped and shipped those three are, they don't even spend half of the runtime together, and when they do they are bitches to each other.

Death is still the character of all time, of course. I wish he'd be loyal to Dracula, like implied by the constant "he was one of the first people in Dracula's court", but I've long given up on the show giving any respect to the game characters. And yoohoo, Trevor got to do one thing without being portrayed as an idiot! Which is fighting a villain with barely any ties to him or the rest of the setting! He really is the funny penis man of NFCV.

As for Alucard... I just realized that the last time he saw his parents, they got trapped in the Rebis and experienced long minutes of terrible torment before exploding. And they, upon returning on Earth as themselves, simply decide to fuck off and "give him closure". Parents of the century. You know, now I'm even more insulted by Lisa deciding to leave her only son with the grief of the loss of both of his parents. As for my thoughts of Dracula and Lisa coming back, I explained why it was a terrible idea here, and how this ended up ruining Nocturne before it could even begin.

(that being said, the conversation between Alucard and Sypha when they still think Trevor is dead. It's touching, poignant and shows how they are willing to move on. But of course, the last episode was all about everyone not named Hector being as happy as possible, so Trevor couldn't stay dead.)

Of course, I have the most thoughts about Hector. (also rip isaac who peaced out in episode 6. not that i missed him but it's a noticeable absence)

I am suddenly struck with the realization that, after the show made so much noise about how cool Styria was for being a stable reign of four women, the story ends with the main "queen" killing herself out of insanity and the reign getting conquered and ruled by a stable man, possibly two (I don't really know Hector's role in Isaac's rule. Prince consort? lmao). But go ahead and tell me how woke this show is :)

Anyway. You know, after I watched Lenore's death, I am left here to think that maybe I do agree with Lenector shippers that they deserved better.

Oh, not because I wished that they'd live happily ever after having lots of BDSM sex and spawning adorable gray/redhaired dhampirs. But because, as characters, they were written so poorly that I'm still sad about the huge wasted potential.

Lenore's death is beautiful. I love the honest talk about strength and power, interesting but not pretentious. I love how Lenore's decision is triggered by Hector saying that "Power does nothing but eat. Like a vampire", which visibly horrified her. I love how, while Lenore puts emphasis that she won't live in a cage coming off as a hypocrite after what she has done, you can read the subtext that she refuses to live in the cage of her own vampirism, and risk becoming like Carmilla. I love how, after two hundred years of living in the night, she has the chance of seeing the sun again... and she chooses to instead look at Hector in the last seconds of her life, the only person who respected her and actually cared about her beyond what she could offer. And the music? Easily Trevor Morris' best composition in a soundtrack that is largely movie-like and forgettable. This scene is like Dracula's death: expertly crafted and moving, in a vacuum.

And then I remember that the rapist who brushed everything off with "I'm sorry for everything you went through" got to have more agency than her own victim, and I get angry again.

Hector shows so much love to Lenore. He never says it outloud, but it's so clearn in his expressions and gestures that it's almost touching. He takes her hand when she goes to sun herself. He emphasizes with a meaningful glance that he wants to lean about the beauty of things that live longer than he does. He's soft, and vulnerable, and caring. And what does he get in return? "I won't live in a cage, not even with you" said in a quick, dismissive tone. I'm just. This poor man.

The emblem of the absolute fuckery of this relationship is how Hector says "be free, Lenore" while clutching at his mutilated hand. The symbolism being that he, after suffering to achieve how own freedom, is accepting that Lenore finds her own, even if it can only be found in death.

Lenore is the reason he had to mutilate his hand to be free. And it's not like the show has forgotten this, "oh shush you were having fun". We are meant to forgive her for that. Hector has apparently completely forgiven her, and once again, this is the only growth he was allowed to do.

You know what? I will redirect you to this post I found: while I disagree with some parts, like "google for yourself what Ellis has done" or all the praising for S4 ("beautiful animation", jesse what the fuck are you talking about) and especially Isaac, this is an excellent breakdown of how offensively Hector and Alucard have been written. I wouldn't say that Hector has ended the show alone either, because he should have Isaac now, for how much he's worth... but it is a very unsatisfying conclusion to his character arc. As I said the previous time, he has suffered Hell without learning a thing. It was torture for the sake of torture. I grieve the potential of this character.

(on a lesser note, I want you to play Yakuza 0. Or, at the very least, watch Majima's cutscenes. If you want a poignant story of a dog breaking free of his cage, and his jailer who grows to respect him and whose death, despite the lack of catharsis, still hits you, then please play that game. I cannot overstate how immensely better written it is. Maybe one day I'll make a whole post how the relationship between Majima and Sagawa is literally what Hector and Lenore should have had.)

(oh, and Curse of Darkness, obviously. Please play Curse of Darkness. And read the prequel mangas. I implore you. I can assure you that game Hector is what y'all think show Hector is, but much better written. And Isaac is not just a caricature, he's an engaging tragic villain and he did not deserve the slander that he got because of Gary Stuaac here. And Trevor was already fleshed out in his games. All of the games are good, don't listen to game journalist shitting on them to praise this show.)

So, with all said and done... yes, it was painful. NFCV is simply not a good product to me, in any way. Not in the animation which has sharp drops in quality and is overall uncanny, the music which is generally forgettable, the plotlines which are uninteresting and sometimes recycled, the pacing which swings between glacial and rushed, the dialogue, the characterizations which are inconsistent and unpleasant, and even less the themes which are downright offensive to me. As you might have noticed, I stopped comparing it with the games halfway through, because it's not just a bad adaptation, it's a bad work that survives on rule of cool and fanservice, both the sexual kind and the "SEE WE PLAYED THE GAMES" kind. It's mind-numbing when it doesn't make my brain boil with rage. Overall, this rewatch left me sadder than the first time, because after a year, I have grown to see more of the potential buried underneath the lazy, insulting writing decisions.

All my respect to the fans who genuinely see something good in this, of course. But I will never understand your point of view.

Rewatching NFCV with @woodchipp and @the-crow-binary has been miserable so far.

Not because of them, of course: we all need each other to bear the Peak. but holy shit I forgot how mindnumbingly boring the show is. it's way worse at a second watch because now I know how much it falls apart! We're only at S2E3 as of this post!

S1 is the best season, and even that is largely forgettable, especially S1E3 which wastes 22 minutes of my life to say "here's the bishop. he's proof that CHURCH BAD". But S1E1 may be the best or second best episode of the whole show thanks to Dracula and his performance... and isn't that sad, that the show peaks at the very beginning? The rest of the show is just... Trevor doing his stuff (while the framing mostly makes fun of him), talking, some fighting, and CHURCH BAD. As positives, I still like Trevor's mini-arc in this season, and the vague effort to be faithful to CV3 (Sypha being petrified by a cyclops, falling down a chasm to find Alucard).

S2 is terrible. Yes we're still less than halfway through. I already hate everything.

I hate Alucard becoming a legend to the point that the Wallachians name his Alucard (as in, Dracula's opposite) after only a year - why couldn't he name himself Alucard? Why complicate matters so much? Isaac calling him Alucard, and Dracula recognizing the name, makes absolutely no sense: how do they know about it? Dracula lost contact with his son one year ago and I doubt Wallachian human legends have reached him. And Isaac was in the Sahara until sometime after Lisa died!

I hate Alucard himself. He's a cunt. He does nothing but insult Trevor and the Belmonts without provocation, and it's not funny banter, he's mean! He's genuinely cruel! He hears that Trevor lost his family at 12, and he can only say "lol and lmao I had more of a childhood than you. anyway they were mentally ill and child killers, they sacrificed chickens and hoarded dead cats". And this piece of shit is the most popular character of the show??? he's not even pretty what are y'all seeing 😭

(it's also weird how he's all angsting about killing his vampire father, but he hates the Belmont for being vampire hunters. bro. bro you're also about to hunt a vampire. why are you defending a race of monsters so staunchly. not even a hint of, I don't know, a Belmont hurting him when he was a child because he was confused for a full vampire? Remember that logically, a vampire child is a child turned into a vampire, we have no other indication that dhampirs are running all around the world. I know that in the games he seems fully on board with "vampires bad and me bad for being half vampire", but you have the chance of making it better and you squander it?)

Sypha is also ruder than I remembered. I think she suddenly became more cheerful in S3 and that's why I liked her, but also girl, you keep criticizing Trevor for being rude and not consoling you, but you look at him with a perpetual resting bitch face and insult the Morning Star calling it an "ugly thing"? Why does Trevor even bother with the likes of you? How is Trephacard the most popular ship in the franchise?

I hate Isaac. Oh, I gave him the benefit of the doubt back then, because I really wanted to understand why he became the fan favorite. But now? No, I'm sorry, he's overrated as fuck. He's so damn pretentious, his speech about how he wants a pure world without love is terrible from the lens of him being a Muslim who is devoted to the Devil, and his backstory is so tryhard and historically inaccurate that I almost prefer Hector's past being exposed through voiceover.

Oh, and Hector, I hate his scenes. Because he's actually treated with dignity. He's fine! I actually like the guy! I like the scene where he rebukes Godbrand (who as a character only exists to attract infodumps and to question Dracula) because "I have to work" - he sounds actually proud of his role, if not even competent, perish the thought. Also by reading the scripts online I forgot that he was the one who yelled "you do not question my loyalty!". Which I like a lot? I can hear the real Hector protesting like that out of pride, even if in private he would admit that he disagrees with the bloodshed. And the scene where he soothes the newborn Night Creature... yeah, this character used to be written with respect, and knowing how he gets tortured and disrespected and used for rape apologism by a sex pest hurts even more. Also, in retrospect, the scene where he stares at the fire while reminiscing about the day he set fire on his own childhood home doesn't go anywhere, even as the finale of S3 echoes it :^)

And Dracula, oh my poor man Dracula. He's already being presented as an ineffectual depressed old man spending his time staring at a fireplace, who can't even command his presence in the war room, who allows Carmilla to insult him and Lisa in front of everyone - it's so embarrassing how he gets the Red Eyes of Fury and then he simply... lets her go after he gets the flimsy explanation of "yeah I humiliated you because everyone is asking themselves the same question. I wanted to help <3" girl (Dracula), she's a mere regional ruler, as she herself said??? why do you need her so much that you allow her to do this shit??????? oh but then you posture to godbrand, he gets to be threatened because... he's not relevant to the plot i guess. fucking pathetic. what have they done to my man.

(and I hate Carmilla. but that has never changed. annoying smug ass #girlboss with the charisma of spoiled seafood. her way of manipulating Hector isn't even manipulation, it's just her telling him very plainly what she wants him to do. She and Lenore utterly suck at their job, and they only get their way because muh plot)

And then there's the infodumping. Oh my god these people won't shut the fuck up. Godbrand is like "why should we listen to two humans?" and Dracula dumps twice that he trusts Hector and Isaac for their human nature (which, again, it's a decent reasoning, but it goes on and on and even they should know, I get it). Alucard dumps about the apocalyptic scenario where Dracula wins and rules over a world without humans... but he only describes it as we look into his ugly face, instead of doing something more creative like actually showing what would happen. Hector gets this random flashback-through-sound, shoved there as if Ellis didn't know where to put it in the script; later on he explains to Carmilla the origin of Night Creatures, as if ever remotely matters. Isaac dumps about his jihadist philosophy about how by killing humans he and Dracula will create a pure world. Carmilla randomly reveals her Tragic Backstory after kicking Godbrand down the stairs, another scene I can't stand because it's all about what a #queen she is and how she's better than Dracula. At one point they seriously discuss about the myth of vampires unable to cross running water, which is a moot point anyway because Carmilla resorts to using a zombie bishop to bless the river!! No I will never let it go!!!

(also I love that in the one occasion where Alucard has the chance of describing his childhood, he retells the tale of Lisa meeting Dracula, something we've already seen and he was also obviously told about, not something he experienced himself. They couldn't even come up with another anedocte to actually tell us what kind of mother Lisa used to be. so lazy)

This show is half people sitting in a circle and talking, and half average fight scenes. Yeah at this point not even those impress me anymore. I'm serious when I say that Knuckles' fight scene in Divergence, also animated by Powerhouse Animation Studios, is of a better quality than what the show has offered.

And this is why I'm so reluctant to watch Nocturne. If the best seasons of this highly acclaimed show are so painful to sit through, how are we going to survive a sequel series that not even the fans liked it as much?

[beevean]

Four more episodes. I wasted an hour and a half of my life.

The Trepha plot literally leaks out of my ears. Nothing sticks to me, no character trait, no plot point. St. Germain is the only intriguing part, with how he charms his way into the prior for his investigation, but I can't be intrigued, knowing what happens to him in the next season. Honestly a shame. Considering this season alone, I'd even say that this is the character that most incarnates the spririt of his game counterpart.

There is, however, one part that bugs me. The Visitor is revealed to be a Night Creature forged by Isaac.

... literally when?

Isaac is not a random throwaway character. He's one of the main protagonists! We are following his journey! How come we never saw him forging a huge Night Creature with the power of brainwashing people???? You'd think it'd come up in his plot!

These details, along with Morana being presented as much more important than she is, are what make me suspect that the writing got mangled in the process.

The Alucard plot is even worse. At least utterly irrelevant stuff happens in the Trepha plot: there is literally nothing here. I do not give a single shit about Cho and her slaves, their tale of horror doesn't match the pretty, prolonged dance of death we have to see. I only question how the Japanese not-twins managed to travel from Hokkaido to Wallachia in one month, if in roughly that same period of time Carmilla and her army only travelled from Wallachia to Styria. Guys. Guys you have no idea how wide Asia is. And I'm generously ignoring how Sumi and Taka shouldn't even know what an Europe is.

Sumi and Taka are also jarring in retrospect. They are full of vigor, energetic and almost naive, in a similar manner as Sypha (despite allegedly being runaway slaves constantly exposed to terror and "betrayal"). When they talk about giving Alucard a "reward" for saving the world from Dracula, there is literally nothing that foreshadows that they'd think of sex.

Hector's scene with Lenore in the cell in episode 4 made me rant a ton about needless changes, so much that I had to make a separate post. But I'm not done! Did you expect anything else? :P

Lenore keeps being infuriatingly smug and condescending, mostly when she takes Hector for "walkies". This is not manipulation: this is only humiliation and fetish. I genuinely do not understand how Hector started to crush on her. Once again, this doesn't come off as him falling for a person who gives him the most basic of kindness. He just has a boner. (the scene of the balcony is better manipulation, I concede, but I struggle why Hector would fall for someone who is basically saying "you're lucky you got beaten to death")

I spoke about the ring here and here. Long story short, after Hector noticed it on Lenore's hand, she could have either slipped it on him while they were sitting close, or directly gifted it to him. He, for some incomprehensible reason, has grown to trust her at this point. Yes, he wanted to be left out, but clearly it doesn't take long to convince him to do anything. Lenore could have used her charm once more instead of immediately resorting to sex. She is a rapist who only wanted to get dicked down, and I won't stop repeating it.

Isaac is infuriating, as usual. I despise how much of a Creator's Pet he is. Unlike Hector, who is framed as being so weak and powerless that he wouldn't be able to survive on his own (unlike... how he had been doing since he was ten?), Isaac has reached the point where he can just stibby stabby everyone and boom instant army. Miranda as a character literally only exists to give him a very convenient solution for his only problem left: reaching Styria with his army. Yes, also as a parallel to Isaac, as she feels responsible for not being able to save the other villagers much like Isaac regrets not being able to protect Dracula (as the show conveniently reminds us by showing us the flashback, thank you for assuming we're idiots), but really, it's all so convenient for him. It's irritating and unfair. Why does he deserve to have such an easy life, when every other character ends up suffering in this season?

The scene with FlysEyes also is starting to bother me. This dude takes about 5 minutes to explain, with excruciating slowness, that CHURCH BAD and humans bad. It makes Isaac's eventual Enlightment™ even more out of nowhere.

As an extra, the conversation between Striga and Morana on the balcony is a pathetic attempt to flesh out two superfluous characters. Who cares that Striga "can't shake the past"? Whomst the fuck is she? This line is never brought up again. Who cares that they're sad that Carmilla "still has nightmares"? We never see them, Carmilla is not allowed to have a moment of weakness. Morana being excited about Carmilla's insane plan doesn't make her look like an "organizer", either, Striga is way more practical than she is.

I do like however that they take the time to shittalk about Lenore for absolutely no reason.

Morana: It's because of Carmilla that we got to fall in love in a fairy-tale castle. Striga: Oh, God, Morana. You sound like Lenore.

Not only because she deserves it :P but it's an interesting parallel with Hector who got this same treatment, and it justifies her suicide later on. Not even her sisters respect her, as shown before when Carmilla mockingly remembers when she wanted to take care of a spider, and especially shown in S4E6 where Striga and Morana immediately assume Lenore is dead and don't seem particularly concerned about it. I'd feel bad for her, if she weren't a disgusting rapist. You deserve this mockery and much worse, bestie. Ah, in a just world, Lenector would be an intriguing ship based on mutual respect in a world that doesn't, and is not... well, what we know.

(also this is another case of show don't tell. This exchange implies Lenore is a hopeless romantic, but she's never shown to be like that; on the contrary, she's shrewd and more than willing to use feelings for her own advantage. Either these two never exchanged a word with Lenore and just assume that she's cutesy because of her appearance... or this is just another instance of bad writing. And I don't trust like that anymore.)

Rewatching NFCV with @woodchipp and @the-crow-binary has been miserable so far.

Not because of them, of course: we all need each other to bear the Peak. but holy shit I forgot how mindnumbingly boring the show is. it's way worse at a second watch because now I know how much it falls apart! We're only at S2E3 as of this post!

S1 is the best season, and even that is largely forgettable, especially S1E3 which wastes 22 minutes of my life to say "here's the bishop. he's proof that CHURCH BAD". But S1E1 may be the best or second best episode of the whole show thanks to Dracula and his performance... and isn't that sad, that the show peaks at the very beginning? The rest of the show is just... Trevor doing his stuff (while the framing mostly makes fun of him), talking, some fighting, and CHURCH BAD. As positives, I still like Trevor's mini-arc in this season, and the vague effort to be faithful to CV3 (Sypha being petrified by a cyclops, falling down a chasm to find Alucard).

S2 is terrible. Yes we're still less than halfway through. I already hate everything.

I hate Alucard becoming a legend to the point that the Wallachians name his Alucard (as in, Dracula's opposite) after only a year - why couldn't he name himself Alucard? Why complicate matters so much? Isaac calling him Alucard, and Dracula recognizing the name, makes absolutely no sense: how do they know about it? Dracula lost contact with his son one year ago and I doubt Wallachian human legends have reached him. And Isaac was in the Sahara until sometime after Lisa died!

I hate Alucard himself. He's a cunt. He does nothing but insult Trevor and the Belmonts without provocation, and it's not funny banter, he's mean! He's genuinely cruel! He hears that Trevor lost his family at 12, and he can only say "lol and lmao I had more of a childhood than you. anyway they were mentally ill and child killers, they sacrificed chickens and hoarded dead cats". And this piece of shit is the most popular character of the show??? he's not even pretty what are y'all seeing 😭

(it's also weird how he's all angsting about killing his vampire father, but he hates the Belmont for being vampire hunters. bro. bro you're also about to hunt a vampire. why are you defending a race of monsters so staunchly. not even a hint of, I don't know, a Belmont hurting him when he was a child because he was confused for a full vampire? Remember that logically, a vampire child is a child turned into a vampire, we have no other indication that dhampirs are running all around the world. I know that in the games he seems fully on board with "vampires bad and me bad for being half vampire", but you have the chance of making it better and you squander it?)

Sypha is also ruder than I remembered. I think she suddenly became more cheerful in S3 and that's why I liked her, but also girl, you keep criticizing Trevor for being rude and not consoling you, but you look at him with a perpetual resting bitch face and insult the Morning Star calling it an "ugly thing"? Why does Trevor even bother with the likes of you? How is Trephacard the most popular ship in the franchise?

I hate Isaac. Oh, I gave him the benefit of the doubt back then, because I really wanted to understand why he became the fan favorite. But now? No, I'm sorry, he's overrated as fuck. He's so damn pretentious, his speech about how he wants a pure world without love is terrible from the lens of him being a Muslim who is devoted to the Devil, and his backstory is so tryhard and historically inaccurate that I almost prefer Hector's past being exposed through voiceover.

Oh, and Hector, I hate his scenes. Because he's actually treated with dignity. He's fine! I actually like the guy! I like the scene where he rebukes Godbrand (who as a character only exists to attract infodumps and to question Dracula) because "I have to work" - he sounds actually proud of his role, if not even competent, perish the thought. Also by reading the scripts online I forgot that he was the one who yelled "you do not question my loyalty!". Which I like a lot? I can hear the real Hector protesting like that out of pride, even if in private he would admit that he disagrees with the bloodshed. And the scene where he soothes the newborn Night Creature... yeah, this character used to be written with respect, and knowing how he gets tortured and disrespected and used for rape apologism by a sex pest hurts even more. Also, in retrospect, the scene where he stares at the fire while reminiscing about the day he set fire on his own childhood home doesn't go anywhere, even as the finale of S3 echoes it :^)

And Dracula, oh my poor man Dracula. He's already being presented as an ineffectual depressed old man spending his time staring at a fireplace, who can't even command his presence in the war room, who allows Carmilla to insult him and Lisa in front of everyone - it's so embarrassing how he gets the Red Eyes of Fury and then he simply... lets her go after he gets the flimsy explanation of "yeah I humiliated you because everyone is asking themselves the same question. I wanted to help <3" girl (Dracula), she's a mere regional ruler, as she herself said??? why do you need her so much that you allow her to do this shit??????? oh but then you posture to godbrand, he gets to be threatened because... he's not relevant to the plot i guess. fucking pathetic. what have they done to my man.

(and I hate Carmilla. but that has never changed. annoying smug ass #girlboss with the charisma of spoiled seafood. her way of manipulating Hector isn't even manipulation, it's just her telling him very plainly what she wants him to do. She and Lenore utterly suck at their job, and they only get their way because muh plot)

And then there's the infodumping. Oh my god these people won't shut the fuck up. Godbrand is like "why should we listen to two humans?" and Dracula dumps twice that he trusts Hector and Isaac for their human nature (which, again, it's a decent reasoning, but it goes on and on and even they should know, I get it). Alucard dumps about the apocalyptic scenario where Dracula wins and rules over a world without humans... but he only describes it as we look into his ugly face, instead of doing something more creative like actually showing what would happen. Hector gets this random flashback-through-sound, shoved there as if Ellis didn't know where to put it in the script; later on he explains to Carmilla the origin of Night Creatures, as if ever remotely matters. Isaac dumps about his jihadist philosophy about how by killing humans he and Dracula will create a pure world. Carmilla randomly reveals her Tragic Backstory after kicking Godbrand down the stairs, another scene I can't stand because it's all about what a #queen she is and how she's better than Dracula. At one point they seriously discuss about the myth of vampires unable to cross running water, which is a moot point anyway because Carmilla resorts to using a zombie bishop to bless the river!! No I will never let it go!!!

(also I love that in the one occasion where Alucard has the chance of describing his childhood, he retells the tale of Lisa meeting Dracula, something we've already seen and he was also obviously told about, not something he experienced himself. They couldn't even come up with another anedocte to actually tell us what kind of mother Lisa used to be. so lazy)

This show is half people sitting in a circle and talking, and half average fight scenes. Yeah at this point not even those impress me anymore. I'm serious when I say that Knuckles' fight scene in Divergence, also animated by Powerhouse Animation Studios, is of a better quality than what the show has offered.

And this is why I'm so reluctant to watch Nocturne. If the best seasons of this highly acclaimed show are so painful to sit through, how are we going to survive a sequel series that not even the fans liked it as much?