REVIEW: Castlevania: Nocturne – Season 2 (2025)

Television Reviews

A year and a half after Netflix released season 1, Castlevania: Nocturne is back. Season 1 of this show was okay but nothing special, and it couldn’t even touch Netflix’s first Castlevania series. Erszebet Bathory, or at least Nocturne’s version of her, doesn’t compare to Carmilla or Varney from the first show, let alone Dracula. Richter, Annette, and Maria lack the compelling personalities and dynamic bonds of Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard. I prefer the crisp, sharp animation style over Nocturne’s blurred lines and frills. Is it just me, or are these animators really into drawing eyelashes? However, Castlevania’s first season was its weakest, too, and I did want to see Nocturne similarly improve over time. I was particularly hopeful after Alucard appeared at the end of season 1 to kick some ass. Let’s have a look.

***SPOILERS***

Season 2 begins with a bang and a whimper, as Alucard infiltrates an Egyptian coven of vampires who foolishly choose violence. However, when he enters Sekhmet’s tomb, there’s nothing there. Three years later, in the present day, Alucard enlists Richter and Annette to help him stop Erszebet and her horde of monsters as she plans to march on Paris. Erszebet orders Abbott Emmanuel to revive Drolta in the night creature machine. Maria stays behind because she is, for some reason, mad at Richter for somehow causing her mother’s misfortunes. Drolta’s past as a priestess of Sekhmet plays out in flashbacks throughout the season. Maria and her mother, Tera, reunite. Now a vampire, Tera quickly realizes they can’t stay together and asks Juste Belmont to look after Maria. Maria takes out her rage on her father, Abbott Emmanuel, by summoning a dragon that kills him. Alucard tells Annette and Richter that gods like Sekhmet have two souls, and they conclude that perhaps there’s a third one in the spirit world. Annette ventures there to reason with Sekhmet, who possesses Annette’s body and accompanies Alucard and Richter to fight Erszebet. Erszebet merges with two of Sekhmet’s souls and becomes super-Erszebet. Can Richter, Alucard, Maria, Juste Belmont, and powered-up Annette defeat Erszebet and save the world? 

This season is bizarre in that the stakes become earth-shattering out of nowhere. I know Erszebet had crazy plans in season 1, but it feels like we rather quickly escalated from “stop the crazy vampire lady” to “team up with a sun goddess to save the whole world.” It doesn’t flow naturally, and I wonder if Nocturne’s plans for multiple seasons were condensed into this one. This season’s ending feels like a series finale, and that also comes out of nowhere. I looked it up, and evidently, Nocturne has yet to be either canceled or renewed. It could go either way, likely depending on this season’s performance. Like almost anything, I have positives and negatives for the season, but the show is probably in trouble. 

Season 2 does nothing for the characters, who were my biggest problem with season 1. Richter is something of a blank slate. He has remarkable powers, and his backstory with his mom is heartbreaking. But this and the occasional sarcastic remark don’t make him an interesting character, especially compared to Trevor from the first show. Annette’s whole character honestly feels like virtue signaling to me. I obviously agree slavery is wrong, and this could have been an interesting backstory for a character. But she’s always angry about her life and has no actual chemistry with Richter. Their romance feels forced and adds nothing to the story. I know these two were together in the games, but Annette was also a completely different character. I also find Richter’s progression from whiny child to capable warrior rushed and, as a result, unfulfilling. 

Maria is unbearable this season; she and Annette have essentially switched places. In season 1, Annette was patronizing and always had to check Richter’s privilege. In season 2, Annette is relegated to being dull, and Maria is constantly on one. She blames Richter for what happened to her mom, which is just wild. That was Abbott’s (Maria’s father) fault and Tera’s choice, ultimately. She chose to be sacrificed so Maria could escape. In what way is that Richter’s doing? And then, she just shows up and murders her dad. I’m not saying he was a good guy; he betrayed almost every one of his vows and was making night creatures for the villains. But I didn’t need to see a little girl summon a dragon to kill her dad in cold blood. Also, aside from the moral implications of one of the heroes doing this, it looked ridiculous. The power scaling was just right in Castlevania, but it’s way off point in Nocturne. We have dragons now?

Also, the designs for the night creatures have gotten out of hand. I can’t say the animation in Nocturne is bad; it’s done by Powerhouse, the same exceptionally talented people who did Castlevania. There is clear technical proficiency on display in the fight scenes in particular. However, this art style is vastly inferior to the first Castlevania series. The character’s faces are too wispy and not expressive enough. Meanwhile, the designs of the villains are way too goofy. I never felt this way about the vampires or night creatures in the first Castlevania. Maria’s magic dragon made the final decision for me; I cannot take this seriously. 

However, my biggest issue with the night creatures has nothing to do with their appearance, as dumb as many of them look. Do they have to obey their master or not? In Castlevania, a night creature was supernaturally bound to the will of his master. But here, they seem to do whatever they want, at least at the end of the story. Edouard leads a charge of rebel night creatures against Erszebet and the rest of the night creatures. How is this possible? What use is such a show of defiance if it breaks the established rules of the story in which it occurs? They also don’t flesh out or explain the split between the two groups of night creatures. The dialogue and ideology surrounding the night creatures are a big disappointment after Castlevania. Isaac’s conversations with his night creatures and the ship captain he enlists were highlights of an already incredible series. The characters discussed topics like religion, one’s purpose in life, and whether humanity is even worth saving. I’m not saying these are original ideas, but they were explored in a compelling way. It’s hard to make dialogue this exciting, but Castlevania consistently did it. In Nocturne, the writers seem to think that Abbott Emmanuel’s denying that night creatures have souls is similarly intriguing. It’s not. They don’t. They’re demons summoned from hell, regardless of the poor humans whose corpses are desecrated to do so. The plot line about Sekhmet’s three souls is boring and drags the story to a screeching halt. 

Speaking of Sekhmet, I get what they’re going for with Annette’s trek into the spirit world. Annette lost her mother at a young age, and they want to hammer this loss home by showing them together there. Annette also sees her mentor, Sekhmet, as the literal god from whom Annette herself is descended. This doesn’t hit the emotional cords the writers want. It doesn’t feel like Trevor, Sypha, and Alucard picking through the ruined Belmont hold. I don’t feel invested in Annette or her family, and for some reason, making her the descendant of a god seems silly rather than badass. This is partly because of what I mentioned earlier: Castlevania’s characters are endearing, and they have awesome abilities and cool character designs. In Nocturne, they have some interesting abilities but that’s it. If I don’t like a character, I don’t care where they came from. Castlevania did things on the scale of Annette being possessed by Sekhmet. Dracula was magically revived, and in the end, Trevor fought Death himself. I had considered that Nocturne is just sillier in concept, but that’s not it. Things escalate too quickly here. That stuff in Castlevania happened in season 4, but here, Annette becomes a god in season 2 and Erszebet becomes some kind of Kaiju monster. I don’t like it. Strangely, one of my favorite aspects of this season is Drolta’s backstory as a servant of Sekhmet. She is loyal to Erszebet but worships Sekhmet, so that will always come first. Drolta serves as a goddess of the sun, so her being a vampire is ironic. I like the moment after Emmanuel revived her when she basks in the sunlight. 

The more I think about Erszebet, the less I like her. She’s voiced by Franka Potente, who you may know from the Bourne movies. I like her performance in the flashback scenes where Erszebet is a regular human, and I understand the urge to give her vampire voice a little something. But I don’t like how she speaks for most of the show, and I dislike her character design. I get the feeling these writers saw the first show, liked Carmilla, and wanted to do something similar. But this isn’t even close. Being a psychopathic female vampire isn’t what made Carmilla cool; it was her design, her voice, her backstory, and her fighting style. Everything about her was awesome. Erszebet is just silly. It also bothered me when Drolta said Erszebet had tortured and killed “boys and girls;” Erszebet Bathory specifically victimized women and girls in real life. I’ve never heard about any boys. For some reason, I can abide making her a vampire, but not this change. 

However, I don’t want to make it sound like Castlevania: Nocturne season 2 is all bad. It’s mediocre, meaning it has its merits. The fight scenes are well-animated, fluid, and intense. I like the character of Abbott Emmanuel, a holy man who had a forbidden sexual relationship and now creates night creatures. This is very Castlevania. I wish they developed his relationship with Tera and especially Maria before the latter killed him. I’d love to see him struggle, torn between his vows and Tera’s love. Even this good aspect reminds me of something that bothered me, though: Tera’s characterization post-turn. She revels in the violence of Emmanuel’s death and tells Maria she did the right thing. Is the sudden sadism a result of vampirism, or is she happy to see Emmanuel punished for his inability to choose? Tera never seemed spiteful before, and I felt there was genuine tenderness between her and her child’s father. Olrox continues to be the show’s most interesting character that wasn’t in Castlevania; I just wish they’d give him more screentime. He seems hedonistic and malicious, but he’s able to resist temptation and comes to love Mizrak. He also never fully commits to Erszebet, which I can appreciate. Alucard is awesome this season, and I love his dry humor. The bit about there being nothing in the tomb shouldn’t be funny, but his delivery of the line killed me. Richter is really badass this season; like I said, I just wish it was developed more organically/believably. I genuinely really like the character of Juste Belmont. He reminds me a little of Saint Germain in Castlevania, but not in the sense that these writers simply copied that show’s ideas. That happens in plenty of other instances. He’s another fighter with cool powers, and I loved his line about understanding why monks don’t have children. In some strange way, Nocturne would be more entertaining if it was about Juste, Olrox, and Drolta, as unlikely of a trio as that may be. 

I could go on forever about this show’s triumphs and multitudinous failings, but I’ll try to wrap it up here. A shadow figure appears late in this season that Olrox addresses both as Mephistopheles and the Coyote. This entity goes on to enlist Tera for something. If they renew the show and this gets explained, that’s fine. But if not, what the heck is going on? I’ve heard of the Coyote, and I know less about Mephistopheles, but the show’s versions of historical and mythological characters are also very different from the ones we know. This is introduced too late and not explored well enough; I would have left it out entirely. Alucard magically becomes a revolutionary after explaining to Maria that he’s seen so many regimes come and go that it seems hopeless. This could be interesting, except that Alucard seemingly changes his mind off-screen, and we don’t see a clear reason for his reconsideration. Maria owes Richter a massive apology for being a colossal, insufferable brat, but she never does. They reconcile in the end, but she never makes amends for the terrible things she says to him. Castlevania: Nocturne isn’t without merit, but it is a big mess with frustrating leads, disappointing themes, and downright goofy power scaling.

Let us know what you thought of Castlevania: Nocturne season 2 in the comments!

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