After his wife was burned at the stake for witchcraft, the powerful vampire Vlad Dracula Tepes declares that all of Wallachia will die. He summons an army of night creatures and summons his vampire allies to carry it out.
However, as he plots destruction, the last living member of the House Belmont, a clan of famed vampire and monster hunters, Trevor Belmont tries to stop Dracula with a nomadic mage named Sypha and Dracula’s own dhamphir son, Alucard.
Castlevania is one of those shows that causes fights in the anime community as to whether it actually counts as an anime series. However, regardless of where you land on that issue, after you finish the enthralling four seasons of Castlevania and maybe its upcoming spin-offs series, you will want more without a doubt.
Live action series definitely won’t allow you to capture the same ferocity and certainly not the same flashy magic that is seen throughout Castlevania, but these anime recommendations can.
Anime Like Castlevania
For Fans of Vampires and Other Dark Creature Slayers
Hellsing Ultimate
In this world, there are monsters that lurk in the darkness. Ones waiting to devour everything you are and hold dear.
To stem the tide of this darkness is the Hellsing Organization.
Commanded by Integra Hellsing, the organization’s powerful military force dedicate their lives to fighting monsters. However, their most powerful weapon is the vampire, Alucard, who turned against his own kind in service to Hellsing.
Now with his new vampire assistant Seres at his side, he must battle not only monsters, but anyone that stands in Hellsing’s way.
Both Castlevania and Hellsing Ultimate are about slaying vampires as well as other night creatures created and commanded by evil. They also feature a vampire named Alucard doing some of that slaying. However, the lonely and oft-adrift Alucard in Castlevania is vastly different from the vicious antihero Alucard in Hellsing.
It is also notable that the settings differ. Castlevania is medieval Europe while Hellsing is set in post-War England. Regardless, they both enjoy making their vicious battles into a spectacle of gore.
Demon Slayer
After the death of his father, Tanjirou has taken up the role of the man of the home, supporting his mother and five siblings. However, after selling charcoal in town, he returns to tragedy.
All his family was brutally slaughtered, save for one of his sisters. Unfortunately, she has been attacked by a demon and mingled their blood, turning her into a demon as well.
However, she still shows signs of humanity, thrusting Tanjirou onto a quest to find a way to change his sister back and preserve what is left of his family.
Both Castlevania and Demon Slayer are about slaying demons, but with different flair. Castlevania explores vampire nobility and night creatures in medieval Europe and Demon Slayer explores the hierarchy of demons in pre-War Japan.
While Castlevania is more sword and sorcery in its action, Demon Slayer and its magic come from its sword arts. The swords are more than just tools for slashing, they have elemental styles to their fighting that looks as visually flashy as magic.
While Demon Slayer certainly looks like a show for younger audiences, it can punch with the best of them when it comes to gore and its particularly tragic backstories for its demons.
Claymore
In Claymore, the world is overcome with demons called Yoma that constantly plague humanity. After Raki’s parents were killed by Yoma, he teams up with Claire, a Claymore, an order of powerful half-human, half-Yoma women that are shunned by society but fight to rid the world of Yoma.
Together, each learns more about the each other and work towards their own goals.
If you like bleak medieval settings with a lot of death and nothing happy, then Calymore is for you. While, like Castlevania, is follows someone from an organization of demon hunters, Claymore sucks every ounce of joy out of it.
While the Belmonts lived hard and often short lives, they didn’t quite live the lives of a Claymore. This all-female organization slays Yoma, is hated by everyone because they are infused with Yoma blood, and their ultimate fate is to become a monster and get slain by their fellow Claymores.
The series embraces the darkness of demon-riddled medieval worlds, but doesn’t have the same occasional passion for levity like Castlevania does.
Goblin Slayer
A young priestess fresh out of the temple is excited to start her life as an adventurer. On her first day, she joins an adventuring party to go slay some goblins.
However, like so many young adventure parties before them, they underestimate the goblins. It ends with two dead, one viciously raped, and the priestess saved from fate by a man whose only mission in life is to slay all the goblins.
While Castlevania is about more than slaying vampires, Goblin Slayer is rather more on the nose. It’s called Goblin Slayer, and the main character, due to a personal vendetta, only slays goblins. There are certainly other fantasy creatures in the world, but he is focused on goblins.
Both series paint medieval fantasy worlds where humanity lives small lives threatened constantly by other creatures. However, while Castlevania embraces the grittiness of medieval life, Goblin Slayer takes on a rather cleaner, colorful anime fantasy tone to its world – outside of combat, that is. Both shows, when it comes down to combat and violence, do love graphic gore.
For Fans of Dark Fantasy
Berserk
Gutts has been a mercenary for as long as he can remember, caring for nothing but moving to the next battle.
One fateful battle puts him at odds with the rapidly rising mercenary group, the Band of the Hawk. Their charismatic, idealistic leader Griffith soon makes him join by force, but the bond he forms with the Band of the Hawk may very well mean the end of the world.
When Castlevania came out, it was looked upon with envy by Berserk fans who are forced to suffer subpar anime adaptations of what is, in all truth, a legendary dark fantasy series.
In essence, while Berserk builds up to it, both Berserk and Castlevania are about the same thing – slaying demons and demons trying to carry out their machinations. Berserk remains the bleaker dark fantasy, but both have a passion for brutality when it comes to action and love to show the worst sides of humanity.
Devilman Crybaby
Akira has always been a little weak and blends into the background, so when his childhood friend asks for help uncovering devils, he agrees. The pair head to Sabbath where many gather for debauchery and to be possessed by devils.
When the devils begin to wreck havoc in their new living hosts, Akira agrees to merge bodies with a devil in order to save his friend. Though he now has a voracious devil inside him, he still has the heart of a crybaby.
Castlevania has its biblical moments, and so too does Devilman Crybaby when it comes to demons. Both shows really embrace the profane nature of demons, something that other action anime featuring demons seem to gloss over.
However, while Castlevania has its grand victories for the forces of good, Devilman Crybaby is, well, there is nothing heroic going on here. Evil is powerful and humanity is simple and small-minded by comparison.
Rage of Bahamut – Genesis
Thousands of years ago, ancient dragon Bahamut terrorized the world.
However, when gods and demons allied themselves to prevent the world’s destruction, they sealed him away, splitting the key among them so he would be eternally imprisoned. After the dragon was sealed, humanity returned to normal.
One day, things are about to get very abnormal for bounty hunter Favaro when he meets a mysterious women that holds half the key to Bahamut’s seal.
A large part of the charm in Castlevania is how glib the characters are even in the face of imminent death. If you like glib and flippant characters in a dark fantasy setting, there are few better anime series than Rage of Bahamut: Genesis.
It features a main character relationship not unlike Alucard and Trevor, though the “girl” part of the trifecta is wildly different in personality. Regardless, you watch these three unlikely allies save the world from building doom. In Rage of Bahamut, it the awakening of an apocalyptic dragon rather than vampires.
Guin Saga
The kingdom of Parros has been invaded. The king and queen have been slain, but their twin children have been spirited away by a strange device in the palace.
Lost in the Roodwood, they are rescued from invading soldiers by a strange amnesiac leopard-headed man named Guin.
In terms of world, Guin Saga is actually probably one of the closest to Castlevania. It is medieval where many fight with the sword and a very small few can utilize magic. However, Guin Saga features distinctly less night creatures.
Like Castlevania occasionally followed Sypha and Trevor traveling around and solving problems, so too does Guin Saga follow Guin and his little royal wards traveling. However, instead of solving problems, they are often running from them if not outright creating them.
Drifters
While forming the rear guard for his uncle’s escape, Toyohisa Shimazu manages to mortally wound Ii Naomasa, but is critically wounded himself in the process.
While trying to limp back home, he finds himself transported from the field to a hallway lined with doors. There a mysterious man sends him spiraling into another world.
Dragged into the forest by two young elves, Toyohisa is patched up by two others from the Land of the Rising Sun that turn out to be Yoichi Suketaka Nasu and Oda Nobunaga.
From there, Toyohisa and his fellow historical figures, named “drifters” must save (or conquer) their new world.
Perhaps due to their immortality, many of the vampires in Castlevania have a bit of an intense psychopathy to them. Drifters, perhaps because they recently died and were revived elsewhere, is the same with its characters. They are all historical figures, but they have a certain intensity and almost maniacal nature to them like the vampires in Castlevania.
Also like Castlevania, Drifters has a plot that commits the main characters to conquering the world, not unlike the goal of some of the vampires.
If you enjoyed Castlevania more for its vicious violence that other aspects, Drifters does that very well.
Akame ga Kill
Tatsumi is a naive boy from a rural village that makes the trip to the city in order to join the military and help his hometown.
However, after he is rejected, he ends up joining Night Raid, a group of assassins part of a revolutionary movement to overthrow the government.
From there, he must fight a brutal and increasingly bloody shadow war.
Akame ga Kill and Castlevania both have an emphasis on toppling kingdoms. Castlevania only does it occasionally while toppling one kingdom drives Akame ga Kill’s entire plot.
They both are set in medieval worlds where combat is weapon-based, but instead of adding magic like in Castlevania, the weapons in Akame ga Kill are often over-the-top overpowered with magic-like effects to them.
I don’t like to say this often because it can be a frustratingly vague thing to say, but both Castlevania and Akame ga Kill also feature a similar vibe. In this case, they both portray viciously brutal worlds where characters die like flies – even major characters. However, despite this heaviness, they still make little moments for levity, but still know exactly when to keep a serious tone.
Bastard!!
The kingdom of Metallicana is just the latest kingdom to be imperiled by the Four Lords of Havoc. They seemingly desire only destruction and no power can stand against them.
Desperate to save the kingdom, High Priest Geo reveals that he sealed their once-leader of destruction, the lord Dark Schneider into a boy, who can only be awakened by a ritual performed by his daughter.
Unleashing Dark Schneider is a risk, but his power can stand against this mighty threat.
Both Castlevania and Bastard take place in violent medieval worlds where people cuss, fuck, and die in a bloody mist. However, while Castlevania handles that in a more mature way, Bastard is distinctly more “anime” about it.
What I mean when I say Bastard is more “anime” about all that grittiness is that it frequently has female characters being put in lewd compromising positions to be rescued by the most eye-rollingly cocky antihero to ever be slotted into a main character role. It is a quintessentially anime thing that you don’t see in other animation types, but that said, isn’t something that afflicts every anime series either.
While Castlevania has strong female characters, even the strong female characters in Bastard are not immune to this molestation. As such, it kind of diminishes the show unless you are specifically into that.
That aside, Bastard revels in violence when it is not reveling in sex, and frequently murders enemies in a graphic way even if its overall plot and world is not particularly deep.
For Fans of Vicious Intrigues
Attack on Titan
Facing imminent extinction, humanity retreated behind a series of tall, thick walls to escape their most dangerous threat – massive human-like Titans with a taste for human flesh.
With an enemy that eats humanity for fun rather than food, they are constantly threatened. As such, it is the duty of every human to defend the species.
Enter Eren Yegaer who, after his village was destroyed by Titans breaching the outer wall, he and his adopted sister Mikasa join the Survey Corps. They are one of three factions of the military that scouts and combats Titans outside the walls.
After joining in the brutal war, Eren discovers a secret about himself that could unravel what the world thinks they know about Titans.
While Castlevania is interesting for the heel-turns of characters and plot twists, Attack on Titan is remembered for them.
Both stories take place in a world where being eaten by something large and vicious is a very real threat. However, while Castlevania has a variety of demons, the titans in Attack on Titan are always some form of large humanoid.
What Attack on Titan and Castlevania most have in common is their passion for vicious death and the transformation that happens in the plot. Unlike Castlevania, Attack on Titan grows wildly different from how it starts off, and does so in a never not interesting or expected way.
Vinland Saga
Ravaging every land they touch, Vikings have become renowned for their thirst and talent for violence. Thorfinn, a son of a great Viking warrior, spends his childhood on the battlefield in order to reap his vengeance on his father’s murderer. A man who murdered his family in front of him, plucked him from his home, and now commands him in a band of warriors.
While Vinland Saga is more realistically historical than the supernatural yet historically-inspired world that is Castlevania, they both do well to emake the main character’s story seem like a small drop in the large bucket that is world affairs. You get a good sense that a lot is happening in the world, but you are still interested in the small bit that that is shown by the characters.
While Castlevania is likely remembered for its fights, both Castlevania and Vinland Saga also have solid intrigue in their plot. The kind of intrigue that doesn’t always play out how you expect because the characters in both series change and grow as the series goes on thus changing their goals.
Both series are also pretty graphic in their violence. Although, because Vinland Saga grounds itself in realism, it isn’t quite as flashy.
Finally, both Castlevania and Vinland Saga also weirdly highlight how shit it was to live in a medieval society. It’s filthy, exhausting, and death is always imminent no matter who you are.
The Heroic Legend of Arslan
The young prince Arslan is ready to prove himself on the battlefield, but on his first battle, his father is betrayed and his kingdom is conquered.
With his army in shambles, Arslan is forced to go on the run in search of allies to bring him back home.
As Castlevania focuses on several different groups of characters, it allows a larger view of the intrigue going on in the world. While The Heroic Legend of Arslan only really focuses on one group of characters, there is always wheels moving in the kingdom.
Whereas Castlevania is a dark fantasy full of demons and slaughter, Arlsan is innately different by being focused on a world in the middle of upheaval as the primary kingdom was betrayed and taken.
If you enjoyed the characters of Castlevania, each with their own plans and differing loyalties, The Heroic Legend of Arslan highlights that well, but in a slightly less violent medieval war setting.
Do you have more anime recommendations like Castlevania? Let fans know in the comments section below.
