so takarazuka's castlevania play, awakening in the moonlight, is FINALLY available with subs outside of japan. i have finally watched it. I desperately need to talk about this thing and the first thing i'll say is...
it's really fucking good.
LET'S GET THAT OUT OF THE WAY RIGHT NOW SO YOU HAVE NO QUESTION. THIS THING RULES HARDER THAN I COULD HAVE EVER EXPECTED. it's such a labor of love up and down inside and out from takarazuka revue and as a first time tr viewer but longtime castlevania fan this is absolutely splendid
as a brief rundown of the plot for the people who haven't seen it for themselves and care about spoilers: it's basically a loose-ish adaptation of symphony of the night with the setting and certain historical ties reworked from castlevania nocturne. the story takes place five years after richter belmont and maria renard defeated dracula, and sees richter summoned to paris to help the numbers of the burgeoning french revolution. little does he know, the revolution itself is a result of the magic of the dark priest shaft, who aims to sacrifice the blood of the people killed in the wake of it all to resurrect dracula and his castle. with richter's fiance, annette, taken hostage, he is forced to submit to shaft's demands and help the bloodshed continue. with a belmont no longer standing to stop dracula's influence, alucard, without knowing why, is awakened from his long slumber and sets out to understand what has roused him.
IT'S A VERY FASCINATING SETUP and it definitely had me questioning how much i could predict as someone who knows the lore of these games like the back of her hand. it also had me curious to see how they'd go about the clear netflix influence, since i'm not the biggest fan of those shows. so i sat my ass down and buckled my ass up and my GOD was this a damn near indescribable experience but i'm going to TRY ANYWAY
(SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT)
Humans only wish to come together, and move forward! (THE GOOD)
from the moment it started, and the live rendition of Moonlight Nocturne hit my ears, i damn near levitated out of my seat. the music even from minute one is SO damn good, from the renditions of game music to the original songs. hearing richter belmont sing a ballad to the tune of bloody tears was like a religious experience to me. SO WAS SEEING MY HEADCANON THAT NOCTURNE WAS A LULLABY LISA USED TO SING TO ALUCARD CANONIZED!!!
on a similar note, the writing and performances here, my nitpicks about certain character choices i will get into later aside, are basically everything i could have ever asked for. richter is the brash, over-eager to prove himself but always friendly young man that made him my favorite belmont, maria is the romantic daydreamer with the endless desire to tame the untamable, and alucard... i could write essays about this alucard. they got it almost PERFECT the struggle of identity and self-loathing within that character's mind is so well conveyed. sea towaki you are everything for bringing this character to life in this way. And i cannot ever stress enough how much i love when castlevania stuff takes strife and tragedy from real world history and ties it back to dracula as this inevitable figure representing human evil.
plus the COSTUMES??? AYAMI KOJIMA'S ART SHOULD BE LIKE, IMPOSSIBLY COMPLEX TO REASONABLY RECREATE IRL BUT THEY MANAGED THAT SOMEHOW. LOOK BROOOOO
it's everywhere it's all over my screen bro fuuuuuck
this really is more castlevania than castlevania has been in a very, very long time. i would really rather not make too much of this about the netflix shows as this is to celebrate a cool thing more than put down a thing i don't like (and besides many of the reasons i dislike them are more personal than anything) but it really was so refreshing to see an adaptation return some of what i feel has been lost over the years. this is all the things i look for in castlevania, the gothic, fantastical ambience and the melodrama and just all the things i feel used to make it unique.
But even a return to form doesn't fix everything. i have some critiques, and one of which is one that came with the territory OF adapting the game...
However, is it not true that greed has driven the humans' development and that faith has led them? (THE BAD)
...and that is that this is another fucking alucard x maria plotline. brother. AT LEAST SHE'S AGED UP TO BE IN HER LIKE, 20S (i think) THIS TIME IT STILL JUST. idk. i dont like it anyway i think it's SHIT! garbo hetslop. no substance. i really just don't think these characters suit eachother and the only reason writers want them to is because he's a man and she's a woman. that's it. every moment this play spent on building it up i felt like falling asleep AND THEY WASTED LOST PAINTING ON THAT SHIT. DAMN.
also like. is it just me or was the plotline about the medicine lisa developed to cure dracula's vampirism just... weirdly hollow in the end? i feel like there was a lot of potential there to explore dracula himself in the manner of what kind of a person he is. yadda yadda something something drac refuses the cure because, in the end, he desires the life of hatred and some day, for a third time, he would inevitably just choose to forgo his humanity again possibly? but it just ends up being a macguffin to solve maria randomly getting turned into a vampire and propping up the stinky ass romance plot they have going.
ALSO RELATED. THIS IS LIKE, *ONLY* PULLING FROM SOTN AND THE NETFLIX STUFF COVERING THE SAME TIME PERIOD. i don't think the name of a single other belmont than richter is uttered. and i get this weird feeling that mathias cronqvist just doesn't exist here at all as dracula's former self like... idk. there's a definite lack of history in this world felt imo. this is probably nitpicky though
one last thing is that i feel like the sets aren't very interesting to look at. paris is just the actors in front of a french flag, the backdrop of the castle is projected behind everyone, and all the magic effects in fights are just shown on screens above the action. also maybe nitpicky
i... think that's about it for criticisms though!
Farewell, my cursed homeland. (FINAL THOUGHTS)
dude i just feel lucky that this exists at all. so rewarding as a fan of this franchise, ive been fucking STARVINGGGGGGGG and this fed me so well. i really really really really enjoyed watching this and a part of me is hoping and praying on my HANDS AND KNEES that they make another one. Please give me a lament of innocence musical i'm begging you.
five captain n alucards out of 5
