Bleach: Belmont Legacy and Anime Series

Chōjirō Sasakibe

Bleach – The Heart of the Matter

By Tayla Drago

The story about Count Dracula's Castle to be more than just a very big palace, its also his power that lies form within...Or so the legends has been told. Let me explain:

Dracula's Castle, also known as Demon Castle or Castlevania, is Count Dracula's lair and symbol of his magic. It houses an army of his supernatural minions, and tends to collapse when Dracula is defeated. Yet, it is able to restore itself and reappears intact in later games, even the ones where Dracula has not yet revived himself. The exact location of the castle is impossible to determine. Being an entity of chaos, it has the ability to reemerge in different places whenever it revives. Still, the vast majority of times it has reappeared was in Europe, in Transylvania. If one takes into account the events from the original 1897 novel that inspired the series, as well as real historical landmarks where Vlad III Drăculea was known to inhabit, that may be indication that the castle from the series was at some point located somewhere in Transylvania or in northern Wallachia, where one of the voivode's real castles, Cetatea Poenari, is located. Nevertheless, due to its supernatural nature as symbol of Dracula's magic and its ability to revive in different regions, the castle in the series cannot be considered the same as the historical landmarks. It does not exist in the earthly plane but is, in fact, a spiritual world atop another dimension.

The appearance of the castle also varies; in artwork for the original Castlevania it appears to be on top of a mountain, while in Symphony of the Night it is located off the shore of a lake, and in Curse of Darkness it resides by the ocean (maybe the Black Sea).[citation needed] In Symphony of the Night, Maria Renard remarks the castle is different from how she remembers it (she had fought in it five years earlier during the events of Rondo of Blood). Alucard, who had probably once lived there, notes the castle is "a creature of chaos", hinting at the castle's origins and explaining its constantly changing nature. It is possible the castle originally belonged to Walter Bernhard. His castle had the familiar strange keep structure present in Dracula's Castle. If this was the case, the castle dates back to at least the 11th Century. In 1094, the castle appeared more like a traditional medieval castle than the more elaborate Gothic architecture seen elsewhere. One factor in favor for Walter's castle being Castlevania is that, in Curse of Darkness, the abandoned castle is the place where only a Belmont's blood can gain access to the infinite corridor. Seeing as Leon Belmont was the first Belmont proclaimed at Walter's castle, the abandoned castle could be Walter's original castle.

A factor against the theory of Walter's castle becoming Castlevania is that at the end of Lament of Innocence, Mathias Cronqvist (Dracula) leaves the castle in the form of a bat and it is not known where he went, or if he ever returned. The Japanese instruction booklet for Castlevania: The Adventure outright states Dracula to have built his castle himself at the outskirts of Transylvania. Koji Igarashi has also expressed that one of the reasons for the change of the franchise's Japanese title from "Akumajō Dracula" to "Castlevania" was due to there being no Dracula, nor his castle, on a given game, indicating that the castle seen in Lament of Innocence might indeed not be the same castle that Dracula uses later down the chronology. Following Dracula's defeat in 1999, the castle was sealed into an eclipse, and was visited by Soma Cruz in 2035. In 2036, Celia Fortner and her cult built a castle immensely similar to Dracula's to foster the growth of a new Dark Lord. As her plan was left in ruins, the castle completely collapses. The castle ultimately returned due to Olrox effectively taking over as the Dark Lord, until Death put an end to him.

Castlevania was constructed sometime before 1455. Lisa of Lupu visited the castle in 1455 and became the student and wife of Dracula shortly after their first meeting. After Lisa was killed by the Church within Targoviste in 1475, Dracula returned to Castlevania to summon an army. He dueled with his son Alucard within the castle and then gathered an army of demons. In 1476, Dracula teleport Castlevania directly into the center of Targoviste. He unleashed his army of demons and destroyed the city in short order. Dracula's army was then deployed across the whole of Wallachia with the goal of exterminating all humanity.