Castlevania Nocturne S02

This season took us a long time to watch, mainly because the first six (out of eight) episodes were slow af. We found very little motivation to watch it because of how slow it was. The last two episodes is where everything happened and those were decent enough. But six episodes to get there... Where five of them are basically nothing burgers of lore that didn't need to be shown because it had been explained and implied throughout the last season. 

The opera sessions were probably there to provide atmosphere, but they proved completely unnecessary and actually just dragged. 

Reading back, it seems like the first season suffered from much of the same issue; the first five episodes were very slow going and then everything happened in the last three episodes. 

Why can't the sequel ever be as good as the original?

I only liked Alucard in this series. 

Even the trailer is 90% the last two episodes.