List of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow and Dawn of Sorrow Characters - Character Conception

Character Conception

The characters of Aria of Sorrow were designed by Ayami Kojima, who had previously worked on the characters in Castlevania games such as Castlevania: Symphony of the Night and Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonance. Her dark, gothic drawings borrow heavily from bishōnen-style art. Producer Koji Igarashi decided to set the game in the future because he wished to explore a "different route" for the series. Keeping with Igarashi's "different route" motif, the characters' appearance was made more contemporary, sporting more modern clothing in comparison to the medieval attire of characters in previous Castlevania games.

In Dawn of Sorrow, Ayami Kojima was absent from the production. This was to allow her to concentrate on her character designs for Castlevania: Curse of Darkness, which was in production at the time. In place of her drawings, an anime style was used for the character designs. This was a deliberate decision by producer Koji Igarashi, who wanted to market the game to a younger audience. In an interview, Igarashi stated that he felt that the target demographic of the Nintendo DS was younger than those of other video game consoles that the Castlevania series has been featured on, and he intended to court them with a more simplistic anime design. The usage of the anime style was to be a litmus test for whether future Castlevania games would incorporate the style. In addition, Igarashi initially wanted to introduce a white collar Japanese worker as a character in the game. This character, which Igarashi referred to as a "general Japanese worker," would be a manager in a Japanese firm and have a family as well. Despite Igarashi's efforts, however, opposition from the game's design team forced Igarashi to abandon this prospect.