What I heavily enjoyed about the first Castlevania and its characters was regardless of ethnicities, it didn't detract from the identity of the series. The dungeon crawling grimdark fantasy vibes focusing on a band of adventurers coming together to cleanse the world of greater evils. It was bleak, it was fun, it was action packed, and it never detracted from staying on target. All the characters, even the villains, had their roles to play in this setup and it was executed perfectly. Each season had substantial plot progression and action, from the main cast getting acquainted to raiding Dracula's castle all by the end of the first season. It was an incredibly fun watch, that only continued to build up with the following 2 seasons.
Meanwhile Nocturne has turned the series into your typical political drama, pulled straight from the news networks of the modern day. No longer is every episode about venturing into some new bleak unknown territory of a grimdark fantastical world; instead, it's about corrupt political figures, slavery and the complacency of white people, the ethics of conquest etc. Every episode seems to have sacrificed the adventurous dungeon crawling aspects instead for monologue about the ethics of the listed talking points above. I didn't mind it at first, but when it dragged on the entire season I'd long since grown tired of it. Especially when you consider how much plot was covered in the first season by comparison, from meeting in a village plagued with demonic undead to storming Dracula's castle. Let's just say, the main cast barely accomplished anything by the end of this first season, one could argue they didn't actually accomplish anything at all.
Overall, the animation was beautiful, but the plot in itself dragged and didn't seem to accomplish anything substantial. It's obvious the creators have a new vision in mind when it comes to what they want this story to accomplish. Less adventure and action, more political talking points and debates about religions, race, conquest etc. 80% of this series is them monologuing about these topics while remained secluded in the same village throughout. What little action there is feels like meaningless filler that doesn't really progress the plot in any form outside of the last 1min of the season for spoiler reasons. However, the rest is meaningless. Definitely in no rush for a Season 2 and I "may" check it out, but overall, this series has pretty much killed my interest in following the plotline of Castlevania.
