June 10, 2008
Comic for Gamesetwatch.com

Quoted from commenter Tollmaster MS-06J:
----------------------------------------------------------
On the surface, this is a joke about the faux theatrics of the beginning of Symphony of the Night. However, like all of Persona-sama's works, nothing is what it first appears to be.

First, Dracula stepping on his cloak is an obvious attempt at humor, but not just for the usual slapstick reasons. Later in the game, when you fight Dracula with his son Alucard in the second castle, Dracula transforms his cape and uses its monsterous form to fight you from the comfort of his throne room seat. Had Dracula actually tried to fight Alucard with his full strength, perhaps he would have won; but he kept back his power unconsciously, to prevent from harming his own blood. Persona hypothesizes through this slapstick humor that perhaps ALL of Dracula's fights were rigged for him to lose. If what the recent DS games have said about Dracula's position as Dark Lord of Chaos are true, then perhpas Dracula does not want to conquer the world--merely to be a visible enemy of all that is good, and in so doing creating a boundary between the forces of good and evil.

Furthermore, Dracula bleeding profusely is a subtle jab at the nobility of Europe often having hemophilia, a gene-linked disorder that prevents blood clots from forming normally. Or, and perhaps a likelier scenario given Persona's previous work, it's a reference to how Japanese artists convey characters having nosebleeds as being erotically excited. Perhaps the battle for the fate of humanity is merely Dracula's "tsundere" side to Richter Belmont? Are Dracula and the male Belmonts merely star-crossed lovers?

Finally, not the "WAUGH" in the third panel. This seems to be a reference to the work of rockstar gaming journalist Eric-Jon Russel Waugh, contributor to Gamasutra and other gaming websites. Is Persona hinting here that the "real" joke can only be gleaned from Eric-Jon Waugh's mind? He has been know to write a few thousand words regarding the Castlevania series at times.
----------------------------------------------------------

I laughed.