For Castlevania fans, it's hardly news that the series has undergone some serious shifts in art direction over the years. But with the recent release of the Castlevania retrospective art book -- a Portrait of Ruin pre-order bonus -- it's gotten easier to track just how much things have changed. From romance novel-esque to stunningly stylized to "Didn't I see this anime on Fox Kids?," Castlevania's art aesthetic, if not its gameplay, has covered a vast range. But it's not just the approach that's different, it's the characters themselves. In the beginning, titles like Castlevania II featured heroes with rippling muscles, loincloths, and virile locks of coarse blond hair. In contrast to these manly men, protagonists from later games, like Symphony of the Night, became thin bishounen, elegantly dressed, with delicate and undeniably feminine features. Most recently though, Castlevania heroes have reclaimed some of their traditional manhood. The protagonist of Portrait of Ruin may have fancier duds than the he-men of earlier titles, but he's grown back his six pack, his unromanticized features, and his save-the-day blond bangs.
Of course, the art direction for long-running series changes all the time -- as popular taste differs, as people come and go. But the thing that makes Castlevania's art history so interesting is it's hit on such extremes -- in terms of style and attention to details, but also in terms of representation. There aren't many franchises that, at one time or another, have had as their poster boys both archetypes of masculinity and curvy male beauties in leather pants and eyeliner. That's especially true for the American video game industry, where Castlevania has flourished despite its intermediate years of super-feminized male characters, heroes and villains alike.
The fact of the matter is, for a Western audience at least, it's a pretty radical move to take a stereotypical, hetero-normative protagonist like the firm-bodied Belmont's of Castlevania and transform them into gender-defiant Alucards, lacy sleeves and all. Remember, we're not just talking about abstract figures, these are avatars, characters with whom players can't help but identify. In a culture so testy about threatening masculinity, how could Castlevania get away with it?
It's important to remember that the switch in art direction came at the same time as a switch in plot. Symphony of the Night, the first Castlevania game to portray male characters in the bishounen style, was also the first to feature a vampire hero. Since the vampire is logically the Other, it wasn't such a stretch to make Alucard, Dracula's son, what might otherwise be considered despicable: sexual, effeminate, the dandy of the paranormal. Besides, since Stoker, vampire stories have been thick with homoeroticism. No biggie.
From there it's a matter of simple transference. When the series switched back to human heroes, it was a much subtler jump to retaining the "I'm powerful but I wear mascara" style. Consider the original vampire-whooper, Simon Belmont, who went from hunk to pale-faced redhead. How shocking would the art for Castlevania Chronicles have been if it hadn't been preceded by Symphony of the Night? These new traits had to be adopted by the vampire Other before they could be acceptable for the human self. But where does that leave humanity? Like Dracula's castle, it gets turned on its head, inverted -- in other words, queered. The old fear of vampiric contamination has come back around, infecting our masculine ideal with wind-swept hair, high mink collars, and makeup so perfect it must be supernatural.
After all that, why switch back to a simple aesthetic and an old-fashioned hero? Check back for a continued look at the changing of art of Castlevania and the comfort of cleavage, whips, and happy endings.
Bonnie Ruberg is a writer, researcher, and all around fangirl with a big crush on games. Find more of her work at Terra Nova, Gamasutra, or her blog, Heroine Sheik. She can be reached at
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(Page 1) Reader Comments
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The feminine nature of the male characters is another backwards step in the art direction. I think Soma displays this at its most absurd level. He's tall and skinny, holds his hand on his hip, and as I used to say wears a "fab-u-loussss" fur coat in his first Castlevania adventure. I gave him a bit of a pass on his delicate pale skin and snow white hair because that was probably done to make the character easier to see on the horribly dark GBA screen. I know the American entertainment industry is becoming heterophobic, but I had no idea that Japan may also be in a full-blown frenzy with its obsession of homosexuals.
Who knows, maybe in the next Castlevania game we'll discover that Tom Cruise or Richard Simmons is heir to the Belmont legacy :) Maybe we'll discover that the reason Dracula's been such a pain is that he can't go shopping and buy a handbag that matches his fab-u-loussssss designer shoes! Maybe if a Belmont would just sit down the with 'Count and talk about their feelings while eating a cheesecake everything would be fine!
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In the 80s, Rambo was popular in Japan.
In the late 90s and early 2000s, goth fashion was popular in Japan.
Now, anime is popular in Japan.
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Unfortunately, I've never played any of the Castlevania series, so I don't feel qualified to make specific comments about the games. I have to say, though, I don't understand your perspective of the American entertainment industry as "heterophobic". The vast majority of games, movies, and all media cater to a heterosexual audience. Most stories produced for these media have heterosexual protagonists that the audience is expected to identify with, or even an arc that presumes heterosexual values. I'm not saying that all these characters should be queer, or that heternormative movies don't have value. I'm just pointing out that heterosexuality is very much the norm, and I'm not sure what you're trying to say with the concept of "heterophobia".
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"I had always thought of the Castlevania games as being dark and serious tales against Dracula."
I guess you've never watched the end credits of the original (NES) game then, what with all the corny monster-movie puns in there...
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Two words: Enchanted Arms. I have no idea why Bonnie is bothering with the Belmonts (when did skinny become effeminate?) when there's Makoto, who's got the fun "flaming gay and buff" thing going.
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I prefer the darker look over this poor looking lighter look.
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The argument is made that in identifying the player (through the avatar) as an Other - the vampire, with all its feminine, sexual attributes - it is easier on the player to next identify with an otherwise gender normative male, but with make up. I don't think that's true. I think it's the environment of the games that allows the introduction of otherwise unacceptable (for the intolerant) characteristics. The world of Castlevania is just strange enough, just far enough outside the real world, that it fits.
For players who didn't play the vampire, non of the "transference" of feminine attributes would have had any pretense. So this getting used to the wholly Other, and then accepting an identity that has just a touch of discomforting dress habits, doesn't apply. If it were in the same game, that's one thing, but the Castlevania series has far too many games to expect any single player of one has played another, particularly in sequence.
My other issue with this piece is that it doesn't really deal with the huge discrepancy between masculinity in western culture and eastern culture. He may seem effeminate to westerners, but the uber-masculine heroes probably seem ridiculous to non-westerners.
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The whole matter of the art direction for the series is pretty subjective, with people divided by personal tastes. I find the phenomenon of the androgynous artwork interesting, especially in light of your mention of it being acceptable as a form of the supernatural other. As a side note, it's interesting to point out that western culture tends to looks at androgynous features as weak since our concepts of male and female are very polarized. Eastern cultures, on the other hand, often find it a sign of strength as it can be seen as representing the human as a whole (not just a female half or male half). The yin and yang in human form.
I think the androgynous artwork, done by Ayami Kojima, fits very well with the theme of the game - good vs evil. To begin with, her artwork is very detailed and unique - much like the artwork seen previously in the series. To undestand why her style was chosen, it's interesting to point out the themes of the game. Good versus evil. The games deals with fighting demons (the last form of Dracula is always some large demonic monstrosity). An interesting artistic approach to have the protagonist look angelic (which is supposed to be androgynous in description) as a counterpoint to the demonic antagonists (which contain little or no human characteristics). The hero is rendered as an angel fighting for good against demons fighting for evil.
Of course, this is one stylistic interpretation for the series - just as the heroic uber-man in the older Castlevania games represent an interpretation or the action-orientated, anime style of the most recent. Also, I would argue many male protagonists in anime work contain the same androgynous characteristic - so it's not something unusual to Castlevania. As for the change of style in the DS games, I believe one reason I heard was that Ayami Kojima was busy working on the Playstation 2's Curse of Darkness. Dawn of Sorrow brought in a new character artist and, therefore, a new artistic direction. That game did very well in the US, as most 2d Castlevania games usually do, so the anime style was probably not seen as something that should go.
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the method is a bit garbled but over all it's a pretty good article.
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The comparrison of androgyny to homo-eroticism is easy to do because sometimes people with same sex sexual orientations do take on the characteristics of the opposite sex. Yet, this is really not what we should see as the ultimate qualifier for someones sexual orientation - but I think our western culture and society press us to believe so. This image is heavily perpetuated by all forms of media as it fits most of our pre-concieved expectations of how a someone with same sex sexual orientation should act.
In any case, like I said, it's easy to connect androgynous images to homo-homoeroticism. But it would be close-minded to believe the analysis started an ended there.
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But I still don't think the acceptance of eye liner could be because the player was a vampire in a previous game. So either the feminine male hero is not such a big hurdle, or there was something else that allowed most players to adjust to the hero's appearance being disjointed with the real life player's appearance or identity.
And since we're on the topic, is there anywhere else sexuality theory is applied to video games? The Escapist magazine has some great articles, but it deals with sex and gender from time to time. Are there others I should know about?
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I don't even know if it's really possible for westerners to properly critique Asian art and vice versa. Certainly if there's any talk of "homosexuality", "androgyny" or "gender identification", you're already way off the mark. And that's usually where discussions like this one begin and end.
When I was in film school, a lot of my classmates and even some of my professors had trouble analyzing the films of people like Yoshujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa for some of the same reasons. You can recognize that there's something going on there but without the proper cultural context, it's impossible to really pin down exactly what. It would be like a Japanese person trying to analyze the original Star Wars trilogy. They could do it, and such an analysis would attract approval from their countrymen, but we'd probably just read it and laugh.
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I think the artistic change for the DS is just more of a technological change than culture, art, or whatever. As for the change with SotN, sure, analyze away.
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The thought occured to me - the tough thing about trying to analyze, or apply various theories to, video games is that video games are foremost made to entertain and draw in revenue. Gameplay comes before everything else. Good gameplay means the game is fun, a game is fun then people will buy it. Unlike a painting, book, or movie. The creator, be it a producer or director, is probably thinking more about how the user interacts with the game so that it's enjoyable and they will continue playing. A game might have a very deep social message, or some wild artistic design with a specific interpretation, and so on and so forth - but nobody will care if it's not fun to play and therefore nobody will buy it. That's not to say the above mentioned media isn't made for pure entertainment or profit - but there are slim occasions when you hear a video game developer say the reason for the game is to demonstrate the hardship of a minority, juxtapose the 80's capitalist mentality in 18th century France, or create a satire of a political group. Meanwhile, purposes, similiar to what I just mentioned, are constantly cited for the creation of books, movies, and paintings (to quickly name a few artforms.) So in that case, we already have a major wall to hurdle if we want to carry on this type of analysis to games. Gameplay is probably the foremost driving factor that determines if a game is popular. The driving motivation for the creation of the game greatly varies from other forms of art most of the time. (side note: independant games would be the first thing to look for deeper analysis (i.e. mods, custom games, etc.) because these developers usually know they are not going to make a dime going into the project and therefore might have alterior notions to prove.
Why is a game with a androgynous hero so popular when he can be considered sexually ambigious or homo-erotic?
Because the game is very fun to play and follows a formula that gamers have grown to love. (Jeff, as a fellow film student this is where one might probably get away with exploring some genre theory)
In the end, I feel the trouble we run into, and I definitely ran into this wall, is the lack of acknowledgement towards the effect of gameplay as to the popularity and longevity of the game. And again, a good majority of the time it is gameplay that is really the focus of games. It's interesting to explore how much weight the art actually has in the final product.
As far as cultures critiquing other cultures' arts - I believe that it's true that some things might be lost. But in doing a critique, one is learning a lot about the foreign culture as well a re-analyzing their own. Critiques and analysis towards other countries artwork can bring about many new ways of thinking and ways of looking at both sides. Artforms have always been shared and critiqued along borders and nationalities - especially by fellow artists. I don't agree that these analysis' end right where they begin. To say so would incline that there is no humanist connection or simularities between cultures - that each one is truly an "other". There was a reason why we watched forign films in film school and were told to analyze them.
Back to Castlevania!
In the terms of the analysis on Castlevania, the mistake being made is considering this just an endeavor to be enjoyed by Japan. These games are made for a global audience, therefore, it is understood that the art design will be consumed across the globe by gamers. I won't go any further then just to mention the whole concept and the characters are greatly inspired from various films, books, and legends from all over the world - not solely Japan. The game is definitely up for interpretation and analysis by all target audiences.
I think if we want to analyze video games like we do other forms of art, we should probably start at the foundations. Why do we play? What is the role playing relationship at hand between ourselves and the character(s) we manipulate? Especially when so often, we are doing acts we would never try in real life? Perhaps thats your next piece, Bonnie?
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Call my crazy, but I think you can find "gender issues" overtones absolutely anywhere, if you just look hard enough to convince yourself they're there.
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No, I think this is being over analyzed as well. Although, about the only thing that annoyed me about the SotN's drawings was when I saw her rendition of Simon Belmont. That was when I thought "Can she draw men in any way other than with long flowing hair and girlish features?" That's when she seemed like a one-trick pony to me, personally.
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Feminine guys are ok, but only if not ALL of them are. And not TOO feminine.
The current anime-like art is decent, but I'd prefer the gothic art style with more normal characters, like the current ones.
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Any single analysis can be seen as over analyzed, but without analysis of popular culture, you miss out on a huge part of society. Maybe this one case is no indication, but major social trends are often seen in popular consumption - blackface, for instance, was much more than just entertainment. So it seems more dangerous to overlook aspects of culture that should be analyzed than it is to over analyze things.
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Then came Aria of Sorrow with Soma Cruz, the effeminite looking vampire hunter who (SPOILER) actually was Dracula reincarnated. Sort of.
In my personal experience, the first effeminite hero of the Castlevania series was Aria of Sorrow, and both the Sorrow games with Soma Cruz are among my favorite of the entire Series. Did it have to do with the art style? Probably not so much as just the soul collecting and gameplay. But it didn't matter to me. The art was cool, and Soma was his own person.
Digression: My friend played Aria of Sorrow as the first Castlevania game since the NES Castlevania, and lovingly named it (and the entire Nintendo handheld Castlevania series since) Metroidvania.
Back to topic: I think that the Western stereotypes for masculinity and feminimity are just that: Stereotypes. Most men don't have He-Man muscles. Most women don't run around in bikini-like armor, are not thin with huge breasts and helpless damsel in distress. Those are the stereotypes of half a century ago and beyond. I think it's time to move on.
I can relate more to Soma than I can to He-Man. He-Man was perfect. Soma had flaws and insecurities and inner struggles. I'm a thin, tall guy who weighs about as much (little) as most women would like to. (Notice the stereotype there?) Yet despite any flaws and insecurities and inner struggles I have, I believe I can accomplish great things. And I can share that belief a lot better with Soma than I can with Simon or Julius Belmont.
There's a lot more to people than the way they look. Art isn't everything. Character is a huge part. I know people who aren't very attractive by the normal standards, I'm sure you do too. And when you get to know them, find out who they are, you don't care how they look. If someone is likeable, you like them, even if they don't meet the stereotype for their gender.
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In those days such features equated to beauty. The wealthy were beautiful. Pale skin and white hair were features of nobility. Watch a movie like Amadeus or Rob Roy. Nobility wore makeup and powder wigs. I alwys felt that the gothic art by.. what's her name? Ayumi Kojima... much reminded me of Amano, who both I see as having a very classical style of illustration.
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Exactly. And you hit on something that people here seem to be missing; Everyone is wondering why us in the manly man west are able to accept feminine male leads, as if this is unprecedented, but the popularity male feminine beauty has had a long history in the west.
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