After Netflix found a new hit in their hands with the dark fantasy of Netflix The Wizard at the end of 2019, work began quickly plans to expand the series beyond the goal of getting another Henry Cavill monster fighting season. The first step towards this wider world, Nightmare of the wolf, touch the streamer today and, for the most part, does a great job making this step worth doing.
Directed by Kwang-Il Han of Studio Mir and animated by the studio itself, Nightmare of the wolf acts as a prequel to the primary, developed by Lauren Schmidt Hissrich Wizard series, and a prelude to what to expect from one of the characters Fantastic novels by Andrzej Sapkowski reaching this series’ next sophomore season. Vesemir-pestablished here by CastlevaniaTheo James; the will of the older character to be portrayed in live action by Kim Bodnia–whom we get to see moving from a young servant who wants more of his life to a powerful and arrogant monster killer at the height of his power and bragging, provides our lens to a world that is much bigger and more complicated than what we found for the first time through Geralt. Rivia is inside The Wizardfirst season. In part, this is simply because Nightmare of the wolfIts prequel status means there are only more wizards to go through. Vesemir is far from alone in his monster hunt, and not only is there a larger group of wizards for which to bounce, but the existence of wizards as a tangible and relatively powerful faction in the world, it means that society at large has to deal with the imperfect position wizards have in this society, beyond the silent tones and bad looks Geralt often received in his own adventures.
It is this skepticism among humanity and even the remnants of other races Wizards world, like the elves, who inside The WizardThe world they were ancient allies of humans who taught their first magicians the ability to control magic, only to be subjugated and persecuted by the ascending human nations, which form the basis of Nightmare of the wolfThe most interesting world construction. It’s a bleak and sometimes cynical tale, perhaps even more so than its live-action brother. But this cynical lens not only allows him to present a world that feels morally complex and interesting, where there is not inherently “ok ” o “bad “ factions, where violence and fear inevitably and coldly win peace and faith, but also put Vesemir in a process of character-dd-minute runtime. Is it like that gratifying to see him grow as a person beyond the mask of confidence he has as a man at home drowning in guts while completely naked in a luxurious bathtub, boasting of his triumphs (bathtubs are, of course, a necessary part of Wizard the construction of the world which, fortunately, remain here). As a setting to give us an idea of what to expect when a much larger and perhaps wiser Vesemir appears in The Wizard second season, Nightmare of the wolf provides a compelling journey that invites us to consider parallels between the attitudes of Vesemir and Geralt and lays the groundwork for a potentially charged relationship between the youngest wizard and his former mentor when we see them again later this year.
All this moral complexity and character building, of course, is also simply a canvas for Studio Mir animators to pour buckets and buckets of blood around the place, with some really awesome animated action. Leveraging the strength of his medium beyond what we could see The Wizard, Nightmare of the wolf it shows us what these monster killers are like at the peak of their power, giving Vesemir a sense of fast, fast kinetic energy of enlightenment as he takes off through the air, swords, and runic magic that spin. It is sumptuous and magnificent, and exaggerated in the best way. One thing Vesemir has about Geralt, for example, is a chain clamp mounted on the Witcher brand’s waist that allows him to swing through the air; it is very clear someone at Studio Mir or he had been watching a lot Attack on Titus or he simply missed the animation of the cops bending Lin Beifong’s metal from The legend of Korra.
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But it’s also, like Netflix’s legacy made “adult ” animation in front of him, an infinitely more bloody series than its live-action predecessor, with outbursts of blood that thematically and often literally stumble upon storytelling. Sometimes it can be a little too much, between that, Studio Mir itself DOTA series for Netflix and Castlevanialast season earlier this year, I think I saw enough intestines where they shouldn’t be and eyeballs hanging from the coils of the serpentine for a while. But even though it threatens him, the animated action (and with gore) with force never manages to eclipse the interesting layers. Nightmare of the wolf takes The WizardThe world and the gloomy tone. If you miss the continent before his return this December, it is worth tossing some coins of your time here.
The wizard: nightmare of the wolf is now broadcast on Netflix.
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