Parents' Guide to

Castlevania

By Joyce Slaton, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 14+

Arresting anime adaptation has over-the-top brutal violence.

TV Netflix Drama 2017
Castlevania Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Community Reviews

age 16+

Based on 16 parent reviews

age 17+

It's definitely for adults

One of the best animated series. But not for kids.

This title has:

Too much violence
age 12+

Fine mostly

Season 1 &2 are great with good characters and an engaging story. However season 3 ramps up the innapropriate stuff. So maybe just let your kid watch season 1 & 2

This title has:

Great messages
Great role models

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (16):
Kids say (30):

Stuffed with both gothic imagery and startling violence, this adaptation is not for kids, but teens and adults, particularly gamers, may find something intriguing to chew on. The main plot isn't anything new, but there are some interesting angles. That's the worst thing about Castlevania -- it vacillates between comic book tropes and fresh, innovative ideas. One moment, Lisa is murdered solely to give Dracula a reason to go vengeful-demon on humanity, and the next, the show is making sophisticated points about the Church being as much of an evil as Dracula himself.

Matters are enlivened considerably by the show's beautiful animation style -- which calls to mind 1990s cult fave animated series Aeon Flux -- and plenty of Halloween-y sights and sounds. Viewers who watch with closed-captioning on may be amused to see the wealth of captions describing the nonverbal spookiness: "Aings fluttering," "screeching bats," and "choir vocalizing somberly" are only three descriptions in the show's first episode. It should also be said that Castlevania is easy to binge-watch; with only four episodes in the show's first season, totaling just under 100 minutes, it's sort of like Netflix made an anime movie and tried to fool us into thinking it was a series.

TV Details

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