Seraph Of The End: Yu

Seraph Of The End Season 1 Part 1 Review

By: Robert Prentice
Funimation Seraph Of The End

Vampire’s Reign After Humanities Fall

Seraph Of The End: In a world overrun with vampires, humans have been hunted to the brink of extinction. The only way they can fight back is with a series of demonic weapons known as Cursed Gear. Reserved for soldiers with exceptional talent, these weapons require humans to form pacts with ancient demons in exchange for their power.

Yuichiro Hyakuya is a young member of the Moon Demon Company, a prestigious army squadron armed with Cursed Gear and tasked with exterminating vampires. After the blood-sucking monsters killed his family when he was a child, Yuichiro vowed he wouldn’t stop fighting until every last one was dead. But when a familiar face from his past appears sporting a new set of fangs, the line drawn between good and evil begins to blur. There’s something special about Yuichiro—a dark power that the vampires call the Seraph of the End. When that power is unleashed, will he be the key to humanity’s salvation or its complete destruction?

When this series first started publishing in Weekly Shonen Jump I was hooked. Apocalyptic stories always intrigued me. It has also been awhile since there was a good vampire anime (at least one I enjoyed). Seraph Of The End focuses on two distinct worlds: The Vampires and The Humans. At a young age our two main character Yuichiro and Mikaela are livestock for the vampires but are both from the same orphanage and stuck together during the downfall of humanity. Mikaela had a plan to escape which went horribly wrong and he sacrificed his life so Yu could get away. Yu vowed to fight and kill every vampire he came across. Little did he know that Mikaela survived and is looking for him, though he might not like what he finds.

Young Love & War

Seraph Of The End: MikaelaThe series has some potential gay love interest between Yu and Mikaela though its never directly shown, but its hinted at plenty throughout part 1. Not a big fan of that, but it doesn’t ruin the story for me. After Yu is brought back to a city full of people, he is back in a military school where he meets Shinoa. She loves to pester Yu about his love interests and his seemingly endless rage towards everyone. She is the team leader for the group that Yu is about to become apart of along with Yoichi and Shihō. Together each of them enter into a pact with demons to secure they cursed gear.

The ceremony for their gear was an interesting one. Each one had to face their demon who used their inner thoughts and memories. The goal was the demon wanted to trick each one of them into giving up their souls to the demon so it could take over. In order to win the power of the cursed gear each one had to out smart their demon. They all managed to survive. This also gave us insight into each ones most desired wish.

Part 1 of season 1 is mostly a character building background affair. Most of our time building up the world around both the vampires and the humans. The action is slow to start but by the time we get to the mid-season episode we are left wanting a lot more. There is a lot going on under the surface that we have yet to figure out. The biggest unanswered question is just what is going on with Yu. This power within him is unlike anything either side has ever seen, yet Guren seems to expect it. Although Shinoa confronts Guren about it in the lab, she doesn’t get any answers.

seraph-of-the-end-11-1The overall plot of why the vampire queen saved Mikaela and what the humans are doing to Yu remains mostly unanswered. Small details are peppered throughout the first 12 episodes. The small flash backs to the past are nice fill ins for Mikaela’s story. I also enjoyed the power struggle we saw from both sides.

After 12 episodes we have background, character development and little bit of forward plot development. I will admit that I am a sucker for long winded character development. Overall I think each of them formed a great background and personality. The conspiracy plot lines for both sides is also interesting as they seem to intersect at a similar goal.

Beautiful Animation And Musical Score

Wit Studio was in-charge of the animation and boy was it beautiful. I think Chad James with Screw Attack said it best, the weapons manifesting is the best part of the animation. I mean what would you expect from the studio behind Attack On Titan? In fact here is a sneak preview of one of the more action packed scenes showing off the animation.

But great story and animation isn’t enough to set the mood, a musical score is also needed. Hiroyuki Sawano produced and co-composed the score for Seraph Of The End. He did another of my favorite soundtracks for Aldnoah Zero. The biggest issue the series has is its pacing against the manga. Part 2 set to be released later this year will cover the manga far behind whats published yet. The end result is it could be a long time before we get more Seraph Of The End. However you will get 12 more episodes later this year for part 2.

The blu-ray release will give you all 12 episodes on DVD and Blu-Ray. It will include textless trailers and musical scores. It will also have “Seraph Of The Endless” episodes 1-9. Think of them as mini after shows. The limited edition version includes a Chipboard Box with Glow in the Dark Specialty Print. As a bonus we included another video at the bottom with the music from the series. Enjoy!

You can purchase part 1 now on Amazon.com or if you sign up for a FunimationNOW subscription you can binge watch the entire first season now!

Be sure to check out our other Anime reviews and follow me on Twitter and Facebook for all the latest anime news.

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