Out with a whimper
What They Say:
After the world was infected by a mysterious virus, a pair of orphans named Mikael and Yuichiro find themselves being enslaved by vampires. One day they try to escape alongside the other orphans and all end up being slaughtered by vampires leaving only Yuichiro to escape. Upon reaching the outside world, he joins a group dedicated to defeating the vampires and swears to one day have his revenge.
The Review:
Content (warning as some portions of this review may contain spoilers):
So if you were expecting Seraph’s first season to go out in a blaze of glory, and/or over the top dumb fun, I have some bad news for you. It doesn’t…at all. Instead the season ends on a quieter note and one that doesn’t feel particularly well earned or offers too much in the way of convincing the audience to come back for the next one. However it does do just enough set up that there’s at least a little something to work with going forward.
Despite last week’s ending seemingly offering another big battle when the army’s reinforcements showed up, the ending to that whole bit is pretty much glossed over entirely. The vampires just decided to completely flee the scene after that with Mika still angsting over the humans being in possession of his precious Yu. As for Yu himself, his transformation left him in a coma. The whole thing feels more than a bit anti-climactic, especially since it would have been fun to see those tiger firing sniper rifles from the last time, put to some actual use.
It also seems that Shinoa really wasn’t privy to Yu’s transformation (which just makes the resolution to that more hilarious), and she decides to go question Guren about it to voice her concerns. During this we learn that Shinoa’s family is apparently high up in the army but she herself isn’t interested in climbing up the ladder since their politics got her sister killed, and she was responsible for the creation of the Cursed Gears. This concern extends to Yu being experimented on, but Guren claims that it’s a necessary evil and one they’ll have to keep on committing in order to win against the monsters humanity’s up against. It’s all well and good as far as establishing moral greys go but there’s not really a whole lot to it since the show frankly isn’t deep enough to do much with it.
Though to be somewhat fair that’s not the major thing we were supposed to get out that scene. The bigger take away here is the strong implication that Shinoa has fallen in love with Yu, and that’s guiding her current actions, which to be honest…I’m not too big on. Sure it’s to be expected with the kind of series this is but it feels like it’s just happening because well…the plot demands it be so. Even worse is that it’s taking Shinoa’s fun troll-ish personality and making her into a bit more of a typical shonen heroine Doesn’t help that these “feelings” are reinforced by a cringe-worthy moment where after Yu wakes up from his coma and thanks Shinoa for worrying about him, Mitsuba walks in on them and the two try to clear up the awkward “misunderstanding” *sigh*.
The episode’s not completely devoid of worthwhile substance though as there’s a couple of interesting turns of events. Despite his hatred towards them, Mika decides to come to terms with his vampiredom for the time being as he’s pretty much given up on humanity and it’ll be interesting to see how that turns out. Much more curiously though is the final scene of the episode which gives the impression that Ferid is secretly working with Guren, although exactly what they’re up to is uncertain. With Mika and Yu still determined to rescue each other from their opposing sides, we’ll have to wait and see how that ends for them. Not a very strong season finale, but it’s pretty likely I’ll see the second half of this anyway so I guess you win this round Seraph.
In Summary:
Seraph of the End’s first season ends on a bit of a slow note, as the big battle it could have offered is instead replaced with Shinoa now crushing on Yu and the show re-establishing moral greys that it’s not likely to do much with. It’s not something that leaves a whole lot of incentive to be hyped for the second half, but it’s not a massive turn off either. At the end of the day Seraph is just good dumb shonen fun, and while it’s hard to say how well the second half will continue that trend, for now it’s fairly harmless.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Funimation, Hulu
Halfway through the season we were told that Shinoa’s family basically owns the military. I’m just saying.
A disappointing adaptation. Almost all of the change by Wit for the anime are really bad. They try too hard to make this into the AOT the 2nd by making super grimdark, even though the manga has very different atmosphere and feeling to it compare to AOT, not to mention it’s a lot funnier than AOT. Hardly any of the original material for the anime adds anything and instead change a lot of the meaning of the scene. Guren’s order for Shinoa to stop berserk Yuu in the manga is different from the anime, he actually gave a direct and clear order in the manga. It’s pretty clear he already got a plan in case Yuu goes berserk. Here, somehow he looks stupid and doesn’t have any clear view of what to do. Hopefully the 2nd is more faithful and doesn’t add too much (unneeded) original material