(L) Owari no Seraph

[Wandering Soul]

Originally Posted by HayashiTakara

OR, he could use that opportunity to cleave her in half, down the middle. From what we've seen so far, drinking isn't instantaneous and only an idiot will sit patiently while a vampire finishes drinking in front of their face.

The weapon Yu was using can't kill her. Guren even said that he was not using the right type of weapon.

[Irenesharda]

Originally Posted by the one above all

The weapon Yu was using can't kill her. Guren even said that he was not using the right type of weapon.

Yeah, but it could have slowed her down a lot. The vampire that Yu "killed" last episode isn't dead, but he also wasn't getting up right away from that head shot. And he had just eaten. It probably takes more time to heal worse wounds.

Yu might have been able to kill her, but he could have stalled her long enough for the cavalry to come. And if he took the half of the body that he bifurcated and hid it far away, it would take her a long time to reform again. She might not be able to do much in that case.

[Guido]

Episode 01: A World Joined by Blood

I practically missed the last season due to steady and overt laziness, and I do not want to repeat that habit now that the spring season is at full effect.

Last week I watched the first episode and watched again today.


IMO, Owari no Seraph is anything but out of ordinary. It plays the theme about humanity's survival being tested at the extreme while being constantly ravaged by an invincible predator, draining any speck of hope out of the protagonist.

This is what became of the Hyakuya family after being made to mince meat by that noble vampire, save for Yuuichirou whom managed to escape into the surface due to Mikaela encouraging him to do so.

With the pros I liked the style of animation that the studio employed for settings both at the Vampire underground and above the surface, since it somehow reminded me of those animated movies from my childhood years that I used to watch back in the 1980's. The colors particularly accentuate the depressing atmosphere in which the world has been plunged into now that the era of the Vampires has jumpstarted.

As to the cons, honestly, I disliked the use of the soundtrack at the time the kids were making their escape and later to be slaughtered by Felid. Simply, it did not match with the grief and loss experienced by Mikaela and Yuuichirou over the deaths of their adoptive family members.
That soundtrack felt out of place to me; it made me to think or reminisce on the pieces of music and the score I heard when I watched Suisei no Gargantia, but that would be just me.

Anyways, I'm not planning to stop watching Seraph of the End, since I can hope there will be more into the story as the pacing progresses one episode at the time.

[zeando]

Originally Posted by Guido

As to the cons, honestly, I disliked the use of the soundtrack at the time the kids were making their escape and later to be slaughtered by Felid. Simply, it did not match with the grief and loss experienced by Mikaela and Yuuichirou over the deaths of their adoptive family members.
That soundtrack felt out of place to me; it made me to think or reminisce on the pieces of music and the score I heard when I watched Suisei no Gargantia, but that would be just me.

finally someone else pointing this out, i found it mismatching too, that should have been a tense and tragic moment (if not at east an "action" moment) but the music was light and relaxed :/

[Arya]

Originally Posted by kukuru

Well now there's a lot of assumptions. For one thing why on earth would vampires want to genocide the human race.

In any event why the heck would vampires be the one who created the virus in the first place. They clearly not scientists, nor are they even magicians.

Heck even the random monsters outside hurts vampires more then help.

The director and the writing is pretty good in that, they made it just believable enough that people are making assumptions, when it's really completely illogical. There's clearly lots of subtle hints that screams "Things don't make sense".

I agree with your last paragraph, something is off, everything seems a mess, the monsters are the more glaring thing, but then the school and the oddity of the virus that apparently should have killed all the grow-ups. That's obviously not a viable possibility, since that would mean all the know-how would be lost, the practical know-how, so how to maintain generating stations or just make them go on. Apply this to every needed resource like water, oil, gas, etc or means of transportation like airplane/airports ships / harbors, trains and so on. (Not even counting vampires and monsters being around ) And so in no way the world could have went back to his prior state. It should have regressed more toward the Stone Age.

I'm with the regulated fallout theory if I had (that because somehow I'd prefer a less convoluted plot, due to the main vampire plot that wouldn't add up much for my tastes). Having only selected people with the vaccine and also a short lifespan virus.

Originally Posted by Haruyasha

Out of curiosity, does it bother anyone else that our MC is standing in the snow with his bare feet? I remember during a winter storm I made the mistake of clearing snow from my car with my hand... My hand went numb in about 30 seconds, making me rush into the house and putting my hand into hot water for a good minute or so.

Nothing odd about that, few minutes don't do much to your feet. They also took the time to draw them turning red, just to say that they knew what they were doing. in fact it was just their subtle way to point out Yuu's messed-up state of mind.
If you ask me that was the least bothering thing of that scene. Having him being rescued instantly because of a prophecy?

[White Manju Bun]

I'll ignore Yu's attitude since I do really like the premise of the show and glad to see based on the OP/ED that TakaSaku's character survived Yu's first attack.

Gosh I heard John Brown from Ghost Hunt the second Yoichi opened his mouth Also nice to hear Nakamura Yuichi as always. Seiyuu cast is good, here's hoping the anime delivers.

[Haak]

The episode wasn't bad but there was something really off about it that was preventing me from liking the characters that I just couldn't quite put my finger on. After a bit of thinking I've come to the conclusion that it was probably the voice acting. I think this is the first time I've heard Miyu Irino play a bratty youth and to be honest it didn't work in the slightest for me. And then there's Nobuhiko playing a soft spoken timid boy which was even worse and sounded exactly what you'd expected it to: a 28 year old guy trying to sound high pitched girly. Not deal breakers by any means but it definitely dragged things down a bit for me.

But I suppose the fact that it stepped down from a tragedy of boy violently losing his entire family to a more conventional episode about making a friend, didn't help.

Saori Hayami playing the sardonic Hiragi was pretty spot on though.

And I suppose Nakamura playing a no nonsense leader is about as straight as Miyano Mamoru playing a fabulous idol. XP

Let's hope the story steps up a bit after this.

[Alchemist007]

Show holds promise of being entertaining. Hopefully the plot holds together.

[Draco Spirit]

So finally got round to watching Episode 2, and it's good!

First things first Shinoa is a dam awesome character and helps balance Yu out. Yu is Mr Rage with serous socializing issues, while Shinoa is perfectly at ease with people and has a nice bit of snarky humor.

On the use of school setting... cliche it may be, but it acts as a nice narrative tone changer. Being all dark and depressed is cool, but do it constantly and it can lose impact. The school should also work nice as place for the character to socialize a bit and forward character development.

The fight scenes were goddam awesome. Interesting thing to note, vampires in this setting don't mind sunlight in a lethal way. If a weakened vampire whose been a lab wandering around, then you can bet ubervamps who show up latter will too.

Magic seems a force in this setting, so I assume vampires are of the magical sort, rather than virus sort?

Lots of hints that there conspiracy stuff in the background. The human Demon Army guys seem to have landed on there feet all to well, suspect it be a while before we find out the details.

There plenty of bromance in this that borderline romantic... but I haven't seen anything to make me want brainbleach! The female designs are cute as hell anyway.

[tsunade666]

I have finally read the manga up to the latest chapter available in english and I got to say. Of all kagami's work that has been adapted. So far. Owari is the best and its good the studio didn't turn it into stupid ecchi show like what happen to black rabbit. that abomination.

This is a good show with good plot. I hope for the better.

[Stark700]

Episode 3:

Hiiragi has a badass cursed gear tbh. Decent episode overall. It doesn't surprise me that a certain someone is alive (oh look, he has something interesting in his mouth too). And anyways, Hiiragi and Yuu's chemistry is pretty amusing to watch.

I find Yuu's determination to get his own cursed weapon to be quite daring though, especially in this episode.

Hiiragi logic time:

[FlareKnight]

You have to wonder when Yuu's insane recklessness and complete lack of teamwork is going to come back to bite him or someone around him. It all worked out, but his actions here were borderline suicidal. He'll beat a demon....because he will. I'm kind of confused on how the heck the demon managed to possess the dumb bully if it couldn't pull that off with Yuu, it's not like he's any more emotionally mature.

Zero shock with the friend being alive and being a vampire, no real point in having a dramatic reveal when you have him in half the OP .

Shinoa was hilarious as usual and she did get some pretty fancy moments on the roof showing the pure power that her weapon has.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

You have to wonder when Yuu's insane recklessness and complete lack of teamwork is going to come back to bite him or someone around him. It all worked out, but his actions here were borderline suicidal. He'll beat a demon....because he will. I'm kind of confused on how the heck the demon managed to possess the dumb bully if it couldn't pull that off with Yuu, it's not like he's any more emotionally mature.

The point is to show that he actually IS more emotionally mature than people think. He's got a one-track mind, but despite spouting off about revenge that one-track is actually about caring for his family/friends. He just doesn't know how to express that other than to go on about revenge.

Zero shock with the friend being alive and being a vampire, no real point in having a dramatic reveal when you have him in half the OP .

Yeah, they dropped the ball with the OP/ED.

[Haigi]

Guess they knew about the complaints about the transition into a peaceful school last episode and Shinoa just dropped this line in this one:

[ookamigirl]

#3

Spoiler for plot:

My, my how things changed since he saved the school.
Flashing some nice hardware this time ^^
Taking on a cursed gear even in a mock battle was too much for Hyakuya.
Still, he is one stubborn kid!
Determined to get what he wants no matter what!
Dealing with demons is never as easy as he thought it would be.
Nonetheless the kid is impressive, I give him that.
A twist to the story seems to be coming soon.

[desrtsku]

Shikamadouji's aura looked pretty impressive, almost Ohira tier impressive. Nice one, WIT.

Anyway, Mr.Bathory sounds like one hell of a total pervert. Why is a creep like him allowed in a non-late night anime?

[Haak]

Episode 3

And predictably the main character passed the test with flying colours. Not exactly the most compelling episode in the world if I'm honest, but lets hope vampire Mika breaks the MC out of his comfort zone.

[PreSage]

Good ep3...I'm glad they didn't throw in the school setting without some sort of a reason, and I'll take that explanation.

Looks like next ep will explain how Mika became a vampire but, from his reaction to the other vampire (who not surprising wasn't killed), it seems that Mika doesn't like what he has become nor consider the other vampires any differently than when he was human.

I sense a tragedy here - fate set up two best friends on opposite sides and being used by 2 opposing fractions.

It would have been better if Yuu was able to contract with a demon weapon on his own (i.e. one that was fated for him) and not one chosen for him by the Lieutenant. I also wonder how the military group found these demons and contracted with them as weapons in the first place? They're as shifty as the vampire clan.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by Haigi

Guess they knew about the complaints about the transition into a peaceful school last episode and Shinoa just dropped this line in this one:

Yeah, this effectively answers that complaint, at least for me. I like this twist. It makes it easier for me to roll with this school, and I now think it makes this school a nice bit of world-building.

Originally Posted by GDB

The point is to show that he actually IS more emotionally mature than people think. He's got a one-track mind, but despite spouting off about revenge that one-track is actually about caring for his family/friends. He just doesn't know how to express that other than to go on about revenge.

My take is similar, but a bit different. My take is that he really does want revenge, but he's emotionally mature enough to know and accept that not every human shares that desire, including some of the humans he became close to and considers family.

In other words, revenge is a genuine motivating factor for him, and a very important one, but it doesn't cloud his ability to understand other people. And so he was able to see through the demon's ability to trick him.

I have to admit that the Edward Elric comparison is a good one, and fits better than the Eren Yeager one. Like Edward Elric, he chafes a bit under regulation and protocol and being forced into a military approach to things, but he's also mature enough to recognize that different people come from different places and have different goals. Also like EE, his chief bond appears to be to his family. In Yuichiro's case, that appears to mean avenging them.


All-in-all, I really enjoyed Episode 3. I see Haak's point that the plot progression in this episode is a bit standard, but certain elements make it a cut or two above the usual for me. One such element is that Yuu and Shinoa are excellent compliments to one another. She adds welcomed spice and flamboyance to balance out with Yuu's pretty straightforward approach, while his straightforward approach helps to ensure that the show doesn't ever feel aimless or meandering. The show has a good sense of direction and forward momentum, without feeling rushed. Just the right amount of time is spent on each key moment and plot-point, giving the show superb pacing.

I also sense much carefulness and thoughtfulness in the writing.

[Wandering Soul]

The twist about Mika is really not that shocking when he keeps on appearing in the OP and ED.