Some people were saying that the cliffside castle was making them want a Castlevnia comic and it seemed to fit in with the narrative okay, so here you go.

Simon Belmont is not exactly a character I’m heartbroken to see redesigned. Every reiteration of the character seems to be equally standalone, and in their own way, oddly generic.

Original Simon was a pretty standard He-Man barbarian of the “I wouldn’t be surprised if this was just American box art in the same vein as Breath of Fire” sort.

DiC Simon was… I don’t even know. Some sort of Air Force pilot? I’m not sure the people at DiC had ever actually seen a Castlevania game.

Ayami Kojima’s Simon was pretty in the same way that all Ayami Kojima’s characters are, I didn’t understand the red hair, but I can only assume it was so people could differentiate her Simon from her Alucard. Her art is very aesthetically pleasing, and it pains me to speak ill of her because her Castlevania is the Castlevania I grew up with, but she has some mighty sameface going on.

Of course, then we have Takeshi Obata’s hilariously mismatched Simon.

He’s even got that seam around the neck to complete my “this is a fifteen year old’s head grafted onto a 35 year old bodybuilder” headcanon. I’m sure I’ll see people coming out of the woodwork to remind me that Japan has different standards regarding machismo, but I’ll also assume these people haven’t seen a lot of Japanese bodybuilders in their day. Regardless of your country of origin you drop down to 2% body fat and it’s gonna chisel out your face a bit, putting the Deathnote star’s head on Macho Man Randy Savage in goth club gear just looks like a clip art joke gone awry.