I came into this series with somewhat high expectations, since I enjoyed Castlevania quite a bit. I ended but being disappointed.
The first few episodes of this series got me hooked, and were on par with the director's previouis work. However, right after the mid way point of the series, not that long after most of the action started taking place, the wholes in the series started becoming too big to ignore. Most of all, the series suffers from a few logic-defying plot points that were created to easily move the story along. Frusturatinlgy, most of these plot points could have been altered without changing the sorty as a whole all that much. Then, as the story moves along and some characters get inevitably more screentime than others, the character development becomes lacking. Seen as Castlevania managed to develop it's cast much better in a short ammount of episodes, the issues is that there are too many characters in Blood of Zeus to be developped in around 4 hours. This causes most of the side characters and even some of the ones that could be considered main characters to feel tacked in. Two underdevelopped side characters in particular serve a single purpose in one episode, but stick arround till the end and feel pointless to the story as a whole. On a less important note, the show seemed to congure up some soldiers out of nowhere in order to have some canon fodder for their fight scenes. This was painfully obvious when only the named characters were still alive at the end of an episode. Being an unnamed character in this series would be suicide. Finally, I also found it incredibly annoying when the director decided to zoom in on the character's faces in pure B movie fashion. I will never uderstand what the director was thinking.
Fortunately though, this series isn't all bad. The animation, especially the backrounds, can look beautiful at times. I feel that the series does a good job of depicting Ollympus especially. Although the characters felt stiffer than in a higher budget production, this never took me out of the experience. The character desin is also quite good. I especially enjoyed some of the titans and gods, and I would say this is one of the strongest points of both Blood of Zeus and Castlevania. The characters that where somewhat fleshed out, mostly the gods and villains, were intriguing. And, despite all it's flaws, the story managed to be entertaining. The enjoyability of the show in an of itself is enough to give it a decent score. And, before the half-way point, this series would have deserved an 8 from my part.
In the end, I feel that this show doesn't deserve a 6, but i'll give it one simply beacause I found it enjoyable. Although I probably wouldn't recommend it, it's a somewhat satisfying and fast pased series that I imagine most Castlevania fans will like. If you're looking for a smart story and fleshed out characters though, steer away.
The first few episodes of this series got me hooked, and were on par with the director's previouis work. However, right after the mid way point of the series, not that long after most of the action started taking place, the wholes in the series started becoming too big to ignore. Most of all, the series suffers from a few logic-defying plot points that were created to easily move the story along. Frusturatinlgy, most of these plot points could have been altered without changing the sorty as a whole all that much. Then, as the story moves along and some characters get inevitably more screentime than others, the character development becomes lacking. Seen as Castlevania managed to develop it's cast much better in a short ammount of episodes, the issues is that there are too many characters in Blood of Zeus to be developped in around 4 hours. This causes most of the side characters and even some of the ones that could be considered main characters to feel tacked in. Two underdevelopped side characters in particular serve a single purpose in one episode, but stick arround till the end and feel pointless to the story as a whole. On a less important note, the show seemed to congure up some soldiers out of nowhere in order to have some canon fodder for their fight scenes. This was painfully obvious when only the named characters were still alive at the end of an episode. Being an unnamed character in this series would be suicide. Finally, I also found it incredibly annoying when the director decided to zoom in on the character's faces in pure B movie fashion. I will never uderstand what the director was thinking.
Fortunately though, this series isn't all bad. The animation, especially the backrounds, can look beautiful at times. I feel that the series does a good job of depicting Ollympus especially. Although the characters felt stiffer than in a higher budget production, this never took me out of the experience. The character desin is also quite good. I especially enjoyed some of the titans and gods, and I would say this is one of the strongest points of both Blood of Zeus and Castlevania. The characters that where somewhat fleshed out, mostly the gods and villains, were intriguing. And, despite all it's flaws, the story managed to be entertaining. The enjoyability of the show in an of itself is enough to give it a decent score. And, before the half-way point, this series would have deserved an 8 from my part.
In the end, I feel that this show doesn't deserve a 6, but i'll give it one simply beacause I found it enjoyable. Although I probably wouldn't recommend it, it's a somewhat satisfying and fast pased series that I imagine most Castlevania fans will like. If you're looking for a smart story and fleshed out characters though, steer away.