Webtoon Review: Castlevania Season Four
Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for the first three seasons of Castlevania. You may want to check out my earlier review first if you haven’t seen the show.
On an alternate Earth where vampires are very real, Trevor Belmont is the last known living member of the monster-hunting Belmont family. When Dracula’s wife Lisa was murdered, the vampire lord swore vengeance on all humanity. Trevor was pulled into fighting Dracula’s plans, along with the Speaker (nomadic knowledge seekers) mage Sypha Belnades, and Dracula’s own half-vampire son Adrian “Alucard” Tepes.
They won, with the help of infighting among Dracula’s minions, and Dracula was killed. But some of those minions were still alive. The misandrist vampire Carmilla wants to conquer the territories of those vampire lords who were slain in the battle, the demon summoner Isaac has raised an army to attack Carmilla for her treachery, and other minions, including the snarky British vampire Varney, want to bring Dracula back to Earth.
Trevor and Sypha discover traces of the conspiracy to bring Dracula back as they travel across Wallachia, and eventually wind up back in Targoviste, the first city to feel the vampire lord’s wrath. It turns out to have rather more survivors than earlier scenes implied, and a woman named Zamfir claims that the royal family still exists in an underground court that she works for. Too bad they’re doing nothing for the commoner refugees on the surface!
Meanwhile, Alucard finds his preferred isolation once again disturbed when he’s asked to help out a nearby village that’s facing an overwhelming attack by night creatures. Danesti’s leader Greta quickly impresses the lonely protagonist with her skill and no-nonsense personality… unlike another inhabitant of the village, who we have met before.
And over in Styria, Hector has finally regained his full powers as a Forgemaster… just as Isaac becomes ready to attack the Sisterhood’s stronghold.
Two of these plot threads eventually connect up, though the third is related.
As previously, this series has some great monster designs (inspired partially by the work of the late Kentaro Miura of Berserk), exciting action scenes, and some pretty decent acting. (One character in particular really gives their voice actor the chance to show off.)
A key to this season is a repudiation of the sunk cost fallacy. No matter how much time and effort and atrocities you’ve put into a bad idea, it is absolutely okay to change your mind and not go through with it. You can choose to do something else, even at the very last instant, and even if that means the outcome isn’t good for you. This leads to a surprisingly hopeful ending for what has been a dark series.
Content note: Lots and lots of gory violence, body horror, suicide, a bit of nudity, harm to children, foul language a-plenty. For “mature” viewers only.
Overall: An exciting, fitting conclusion to the series. Show creator Warren Ellis is unlikely to be attached to any future related projects due to his personal behavior (see news websites for more), but this is well worth watching if you enjoyed the first three seasons.
