Why so much hate for Castlevania Judgement Art? (Eric looks good!)

[Khuutra]

Actually, the more I look at these designs the more they piss me off.

Half the point of the Castlevania series in terms of aesthetics is that it's a Japanese interpretation of a distinctly European visual mode. Obata has abandoned that entirely. Dracula looks fine, but that's it. Maria is an abomination, Eric isn't recognizably a man, don't get me started on Aeon, Simon Belmont looks less like that unstoppable Conan-style bad-ass that he actually is and more like a big gay Anne Rice bondage king...

And Death. The Death design is the worst offender of them all. Death and Maria. But ESPECIALLY Death.

So, what, the whole "Angel of Death" motif is somehow old hat, now? They couldn't try to reinterpret what an angel of Death is supposed to look like, so Obata cops out and throws us an overly generic shinigami from Death Note? I understand the necessity for a new design for the character, but if you can't stick to some kind of western aesthetic then there's no point in including Dracula in the game in the first place.

These are Western archetypes and Western characters, they call for an approximation of a Western style, if not for the integrity of the series' aesthetic then for the sake of tradition and recognizability.

Dracula looks fine, but the rest are just God-awful.