
Join the Discord →
Learn More →
See Project →
See About page
| "Mature Content" | |
| This character or verse has mature themes and concepts, thus those of young age are ill-advised to look through these. |
| “ | You are yourself. There's no one else you could be. Don't second guess yourself. Be confident. That's most important. | „ |
| ~ Yoko to Soma Cruz about his dark powers |
| “ | Good morning, Soma. I just heard about what happened to you... I told you this before... You are who you are, and you mustn't let him win. | „ |
| ~ Yoko to Soma Cruz right before he goes to fight Chaos |
| “ | I'm sorry, Soma. I will free you from your torment. | „ |
| ~ Yoko to Soma Cruz if he turns into Dark Lord Soma |
Yoko Belnades is a descendant of the Belnades Clan and a powerful witch, much like her ancestor, Sypha Belnades. She shares a close bond with Mina Hakuba, the daughter of the owner of the Hakuba Shrine, and acts as an older sister figure to her. Yoko works for the Church, assisting in their efforts to locate Count Dracula and the remnants of his power.
| This dropdown contains the synopsis of Yoko Belnades’ story. Read at your own risk as you may be spoiled otherwise! |
|---|
|
Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow |
Name: Yoko Belnades[1]
Origin: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
First Appearance: Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow
Latest Appearance: Vampire Survivors
Company: Konami
Creator: Koji Igarashi
Actor
Gender: Female
Sexuality: Heterosexual
Pronouns: She/Her
Age: 24 in Aria of Sorrow (Listed as 24 years old in the manual[2]), 25 in Dawn of Sorrow (A year has passed since the events of Aria of Sorrow[3], listed as 25 in the Dawn of Sorrow manual[4]), 26 in Requiem of the Divine Abyss (The events of the novel take place a year after Dawn of Sorrow)
Birth Year: 2011 (As she is 24 in Aria of Sorrow[5], which takes place in 2035[6])
Time Period: 2035 (During Aria of Sorrow), 2036 (During Dawn of Sorrow), 2037 (During Castlevania: Requiem of the Divine Abyss)
Timeline: Main Timeline
Homeworld: Earth
Residence: Church
Story Role: Supporting Protagonist
Legacy: Worldwide Legacy (The Belnades are renowned Vampire Hunters, with Sypha's aid in defeating Dracula making her well-known, becoming known as one of the three legendary warriors)
Influence: Event Influence (Aided in the defeat of Dracula, saving the world from his darkness)
Language: English
Classification: Witch, Member of the Church[7], Member of the Belnades Clan
Species: Human
State of Being: Regular
Physiology: Humanoid Physiology
Occupation: Vampire Hunter
Affiliations: Belnades Clan, Belmont Clan, Genya Arikado, Julius Belmont, Soma Cruz, Curtis Lang, Michelle Danasty
Enemies: Dark Lord Soma (In the Dark Lord Ending), Graham Jones, Celia Fortner, Dmitrii Blinov, Dario Bossi, Orlox, Puppet Master, Legion
Height: Unknown
Weight: Unknown
Date of Death: Unknown
Alignment: Lawful Good (A member of the Church[9] out to stop evil creatures of the night. Aids Julius Belmont and Genya Arikado in preventing the re-emergence of Dracula)
Protection Level: Global Protector (Aids Julius Belmont and Genya Arikado in preventing the re-emergence of Dracula, where in Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse, Dracula plans to take over all of Europe[10], proceeded to amass an army to kill hundreds of soldiers to take over Europe, plagued the beautiful land located in the Southern Part of Romania into darkness by having devils attack it, planned to spread his evil grip to the rest of Europe[11])
Grade: S
Tier: At least 7-C, Far Higher with Sheer Will
Cardinality: Finite
Dimensionality: 3-D
Attack Potency: At least Town level (Potency) (With the aid of Julius Belmont and 2000s Alucard fought and defeated Dark Lord Soma Cruz[12] who serves as the absolute evil, the opposite to God[13], where for God to be perfectly good, there must be a being of perfect darkness[14], being the entity opposite to God[15], making him superior to Golem from Castlevania Judgement, as he died to a random unknown hunter after his return from the time rift[16]. Golem with his ultimate can shoot out a mouth blast that vaporizes everything it touches as far as the eye can see getting these results[17]. Can harm and fight against enemies stronger than characters who can take hits from neutron bomb[18], that have a yield range of 1-10 kilotons of TNT), Far Higher with Sheer Will (Simon claims that the Belmonts and Morrises did not defeat Dracula because of the Vampire Killer, with the reason behind heroes' capacity to fight against evil lying not in their physical strength but the noble desire to drive away evil and usher in all that is good, the desire to protect the world for all of humanity, with the courage to fight to protect others being the true essence of a hero and a Belmont's strength, with this even applying for other heroes such as Shanoa, Maria, Charlotte, and even Arikado[19]. Alucard notes that having something to protect surpasses the limits of strength[20])
Durability: At least Town level, Far Higher with Sheer Will
Striking Strength: At least Town Class (Potency), Far Higher with Sheer Will
Lifting Strength: At least Class 10 (Should be superior to Hector's Battle-Type innocent devils who can move entire tree logs that are blocking roads out of the way[21] where logs can weigh around 15 to 5 tons[22] and Hector's battle-type innocent devils can lift open large iron doors that "no man could force open"[23]), Far Higher with Sheer Will
Travel Speed: Superhuman regularly (Comparable to Leon Belmont, who was able to escape Walter's Castle while running from the top floor to the entrance, before the entire structure collapsed[24]). At most Faster Than Light through full Aura (Comparable to Juste Belmont where Juste travels so fast that a light projection of him is left behind, enveloping with a blue aura around him[25]. Julius himself can move so fast that his own afterimages cannot keep up with him[26]), Far Higher with Sheer Will
Attack Speed: At most Faster Than Light (Can tag Dark Lord Soma, who serves as the absolute evil, the opposite to God[27], where for God to be perfectly good, there must be a being of perfect darkness[28], being the entity opposite to God[29], making him faster then enemies such as the Sky Fish who moves so fast that it appears as a beam of light and is only slowed down when time is stopped[30] and the White Demon, who can move at the speed of light at short distances[31]), Far Higher with Sheer Will
Reaction Speed: At most Faster Than Light, Far Higher with Sheer Will
Stamina: Superhuman (Traveled across the entirety of Soma's newly resurrected Castle, fighting many enemies and bosses reaching Dark Lord Soma and defeating him without showing any signs of tiring)
Range: Standard Melee, Extended Melee with Belnades Staff (Can reach this far with the staff[32])
Intelligence: Supergenius Intelligence (Yoko is considered an exceptional spell caster[33], , where magic requires one to have a deep understanding of Quantum Physics to utilize it to its fullest, requiring understandings of theories such as "Curse Amplification"[34])
Knowledge: Grandmaster level (With the aid of Julius Belmont and 2000s Alucard fought and defeated Dark Lord Soma Cruz[35], who has all of his memories back as Dracula where he was a genius tactician as Mathias, who they called "Cronqvist the Wise"[36])
Belnades Staff (also known as the Warakiya Staff) is a mystical staff used by members of the Belnades Clan for centuries. In 2D games, it is a relatively quick overhead weapon that deals a moderate amount of damage. In Castlevania: Dawn of Sorrow, it recovers 1%+1 HP each time it strikes an enemy. It is Yoko's primary weapon passed down to her from the Belnades Clan.
Magic Seals are a key tool used by Yoko Belnades throughout Dawn of Sorrow. They are required to open sealed doors are essential for permanently defeating most bosses. Magic seals are automatically used on doors, but if Yoko fails to properly draw one during a boss fight, the boss will regain some HP and the fight will continue.
Standard Tactics: Yoko will utilize her staff along with her magic spells in combat, along with this she will utilize her magic seals to deal with enemies that regenerate.
Weaknesses: To release the souls under Soma's Power of Dominance requires Soma's cooperation and it is not something easy to do[99].
The game was originally meant to be a prequel to all the other games in the Castlevania series, this can be seen with Sonia's boss fight against Dracula serving as the first time Dracula ever encountered a Belmont along with the ending of the game saying "this story marks the beginning of the Belmont family legend that has been passed on through many ages". Along with this, Sonia shared a relationship with Alucard, heavily implying that her child is between her and Alucard. The existence of Lament of Innocence already greatly messes with this. The game manual even mentions that Sonia was the first of the Belmont family to leave her name to posterity as a vampire hunter[106]. Despite Leon Belmont being the one to start the legend of the Belmont Hunters being vampire hunters. Along with this, Trevor is canonically the first Belmont to defeat Dracula. Iga has gone out of his way to note too that Castlevania Legends was intentionally redacted from the timeline so that it doesn't conflict with the timing used in other titles.
Although it was in the original 2006 timeline, it was removed by Iga from the timeline, along with Castlevania (N64), Legacy of Darkness, and Legends.
These games were at one point officially a part of the original timeline before ultimately being removed, making them hypotheticals that could be done. This is further supported by an interview in the History of Castlevania - Crescent of the Moon book, where executive producer of Castlevania Netflix Adi Shankar noted that even the "non-canon" games are parallel timelines in the overall multiverse, sharing the same spirit and lore[107]. While one could argue his statement shouldn't be used, it comes from a book titled, "History of Castlevania - Crescent of the Moon", where it wouldn't make much sense if his statement was wrong and there was no correction over it. The book even has asterisks to give further context, yet they never claim him wrong. Along with this, it's consistent with the fact that most of the Castlevania games that are "non-canon" now were originally a part of the timeline. Thus this statement is usable. Thus abilities and the likes from these games can carry over to the main timeline games.
This stems from the belief that when Iga or a producer calls a Castlevania game a "Gaiden" it is therefore non-canon or an alternate timeline and can be dismissed. This, however, is not the case.
The term "Gaiden" merely just means a side story, spin-off, or a separate tale. The term "Gaiden" does not determine the canonicity of a work, it just lets you know if the game is a spin-off/side-story or if it's a main story. Take, for instance, the Kingdom Hearts series. Kingdom Hearts: Chain of Memories would be considered a gaiden, as it's a side-story and spin-off title that isn't a mainline numbered title, however, it is in all manners canon and important to play to understand Kingdom Hearts II.
The same can be applied to Castlevania itself, Castlevania Symphony of the Night is a gaiden game. Yet it is very obviously canon and pretty important to play to understand more of Alucard's backstory. The idea of a Gaiden game for the Castlevania series itself would be any game not dealing with one of Dracula's main 100-year-resurrections, which in this case, even Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest is in a way a gaiden, despite being completely canon.
This is all to say that Gaiden does not at all mean "non-canon" or "alternate timeline" and should never be treated as such, the term itself has nothing to do with the canonicity of a product.
Any statements Iga has made about Judgment that don't come from this IGN interview or a sourced and reputable article are not usable. This is, of course, referring to the popular statements used when discussing Judgment's Canoncity about a fan asking IGA about the game's Canoncity on Facebook, here are some of them below:
Now these seem like pretty clear-cut statements until you start to try to find where these come from.
They come from both a timeline archive discussion on the Castlevania Wiki back on January 15th, 2012 and from a forum post from the same user as the wiki article.
There is no way to find anything sourced or verifiably proven that this person spoke to Iga. Trying to look up the person didn't get any real results either.
Some other issues fall under the inconsistencies within these Iga talks, the person claims that Iga confirmed that Order of Shadows and the Arcade are non-canon because they were intended from the very beginning to be such, however, an officially sourced interview has the lead game designer of Order of Shadows state that Iga was actively involved with ensuring the game was consistent with the current canon, this would be a weird thing to do if he intended it to be non-canon from the very beginning.
He also claims that Iga said Super Castlevania IV was an alternate continuity, when the wiki also notes Iga saying that the games are all legitimate and the same scenario of defeating Dracula, however this quote is also unsourced, they just claim Iga says this with no link or anything.
There is another one not related to the user who spoke to Iga, but a user on reddit who claimed that a magazine claimed that Castlevania: Circle of the Moon was stated to be in a "different time axis". Attempting to get it translated got no wording that said anything like that, with it not even mentioning anything about canon, timeline, time axis, or any other wording of the sort in a machine-translated attempt. Do note however that this is a machine translation so it could potentially be that it is there, but until a reputable and verifiable translator can confirm or deny this translation, the jury is out with it and it will not be used for the canoncity of Circle of the Moon.
Thus all of these quotes are merely hearsay until shown or proven otherwise.
This comes from an Iga quote that says:
Now the quote itself doesn't state remakes or remasters are non-canon despite what people believe. It's moreso a quote of Iga stating that all of them are the same scenario, just with differences. However, an interesting point is that Iga says the NES version should be given "deference", as in to defer to the NES version.
Of course, though, this has the same issue as the Judgment quotes, everyone claims Iga said this, but there is no source of him saying this. In fact, in Castlevania Chronicles, there's a reward interview you receive from Iga himself where he talks about the game, Iga pretty much explains how the game came to be and never says anything about the game not being canon or to defer to the original[110], if anything he treats this as just an updated version of the original. Interestingly to note too, the original he's talking about is not Castlevania on NES but instead, he's talking about the computer version of Castlevania[111], though it borrows a lot of elements from Castlevania NES.
Overall due to the quote itself having no source, it is unusable. The way we will treat remakes, remasters, or ports here however is that they are all equally canon unless stated otherwise. Most of these tell the same story with the only real differences being extra background information added, such as Haunted Castle having it be Dracula stole Simon's wife, though the same overall story still applies even here. Iga himself has already expressed that the original Castlevania's story is pretty simple[112] and Simon having a wife does not affect anything in the overall narrative. Super Castlevania IV notes that Simon is a vampire, though this was due to a novel writer making him a vampire in their novel. The novel was originally supposed to be an adaptation of Super Castlevania IV but was then dropped and made its own thing. Super Castlevania IV itself is still canon, but the subplot of Simon being a vampire is not. The most recent timeline even acknowledges it as canon[113].
There is a weirdly believed idea in the fandom that Iga only considers works he worked on canon, however, an officially sourced interview has the lead game designer of Order of Shadows state that Iga was actively involved with ensuring the game was consistent with the current canon, along with this Iga did not work on a lot of Castlevania games considered canon, such as the NES trilogy and the Gameboy games. In fact, he has only made 12 Castlevania games, out of the 30 Castlevania games in total, and most of them from the older console eras are still a part of the canon. Thus Iga does not only allow stuff he works on to be canon.
A Nintendo Power magazine calls Iga the producer of Circle of the Moon, with Iga talking like he worked on the game in that interview. However Iga can be found nowhere in the credits of the game. Making this Nintendo Power issue questionable as to if they were talking to Iga or if the game was mixed up. Though we have direct in-game proof that Iga was not a producer of Circle of the Moon.
This argument comes from Adi Shankar saying that even "non-canon" games are parallel timelines in the overall multiverse, sharing the same spirit and lore[114]. However, the Lord of Shadow games are directly noted in an interview with the lead developer, that the game has nothing to do with the canon, sharing none of the lore or original stuff for the characters. This directly conflicts with Adi Shankar's statement and it was very likely he was not even thinking of Lords of Shadows when making this statement but moreso games like Castlevania Legends. On top of this, Adi Shankar has no actual position within Konami, and being an executive producer for the Castlevania anime, thus he does not have any true say in terms of how Castlevania canon works and can only be used at most as a supporting piece of evidence.
Q: Shouldn't the characters be around Tier 2 for defeating the Time Reaper who would've destroyed the very fabric of time[115], attempted to destroy the specific era of time[116], cause all beings everywhere to disappear, forever[117] and that the age was on the verge of collapse[118]?
A: We actually never get a direct outright method of Time Reaper's plan for doing this, from what Aeon mentions to Golem, if the Time Rift is not erased, all beings everywhere will disappear, forever[119], implying that it's the Time Rift causing this, this is further backed up by the fact that in Time Reaper's boss fight, there is a vortex in the background consuming everything[120], meaning this is an overtime feat that scales to no one physically.
Q: Shouldn't they get tier 2 for Dracula's influence destabilizing the flow of time[121]?
A: This is a potent ability but has nothing to do with Attack Potency, there is no quantification for "destabilizing the flow of time", along with this, even if it was taken as physically, then it would be overtime as the effects are not noticeable throughout most of Curse of Darkness. Thus this is merely potent Time Manipulation.
Q: Shouldn't Dracula and by proxy anyone that scales to him get tier 2 for him being able to sustain his castle?
A: This goes under our Stabilization Feats standards, which treats sustaining feats are non-combat applicable Attack Potency normally, though in Dracula's case the Castle is speficially powered by the existence of a Dark Lord, and doesn't necessarily need their strength to rise. In the Castlevania novel, the castle rose without a Dark Lord as an example. Along with this, no one scales to the collapse of the castle, in Curse of Darkness Hector would've died to the collapse of the castle if[122] Julia didn't come save him, and Isaac died within the castle[123]. In other cases the Castle does not collapse[124], but instead slowly fades away[125]. At the end of Dawn of Sorrow Soma Cruz and Genya Arikado (aka Alucard) must escape the collapsing abyss.
Q: Shouldn't Castlevania characters that scale to Death have Infinite speed due to Death being able to kill distance itself with his attacks?
A: Killing distance to attack is not a speed feat, it's a method of Spatial Manipulation by circumventing and ignoring distance, while one can say the attack spawns on you instantly, this is not really something quantifiable. Along with this, it would only scale to characters comparable to Death during post-Dawn of Sorrow, as Soma notes Death is far faster than he remembered from his fight with him in Dawn of Sorrow[126].
14 - 1 - 0
None.