(L) Owari no Seraph

[FlareKnight]

Originally Posted by AntonKutovoi

I'm on the verge of dropping this. MC is already passed the line of being simply anoying - I'm starting to hate him. And instead of fighting vampires we got school and "U need friends. Have moar friends" talks.

Yeah, I can kind of understand that. At this point not really caring that much about the MC. Pushing him into the making friends business has actually taken away some of his likability.

[Amiluhur]

I'd rather they expand this episode into two because my impression here is a one big meh. They didn't give me enough time to actually symphatise with Mikaela's turning into Vamp, and his "I will save you Yuu" at the end felt particularly weird because, isn't it supposedly the opposite? I was also unable to connect with this Kimizuki guy for the exact same reason. Oh, and Yuu needs to chill down a bit more, because i'm starting to grow tired of his shounen lead genericness.

[Mad Pierrot]

Nice episode. Yu as an angry buttmonkey keeps making me laugh. Still, I can't wait how he will handle Mika's return

[ookamigirl]

Mika has transformed quite a lot.
I'm kinda glad he's alive though..
His side of the story was interesting.
Yu is in for a big surprise.
Time for Guren to start teaching.
Looks like Yu met his match in Kimizuki.
Cursed gear aptitude test should be very interesting.
Looks like the vampires are getting ready to make their move.

[RaymondSageClark]

Yuu still a brainless brat but that doesn't matter because Shinoa is here to save this series.
Well Krul is here but still a shitty cliche with a fucking loli vampire.

Now we're going to have a big war between vampires and humans, seems like Yuu is going full edgy when he knows Mika is alive.

[MgMaster]

Originally Posted by FlareKnight

Yeah, I can kind of understand that. At this point not really caring that much about the MC. Pushing him into the making friends business has actually taken away some of his likability.

Heh, it's working the other way around for me. Yu's arrogance & stubbornness is reaching ridiculous levels now that I find him fun to watch

4 eps in and what I make of Owari no Seraph so far is that it's one of those anime where you only take it seriously partially. In exchange, I'm hoping for a more colorful cast and we might just get that. At least in terms of main characters, I prefer Yu & Shinoa over Eren & Mikasa.

[kache]

Aoi Yuuki enters the stage! With a loli char! My heart skipped so many beats...

[DragoonKain3]

So we got another another vampire loli with the name Tepes, and she's voiced by Yuuki Aoi? Just too bad her counterpart in dance with the vampire loli is voicing the de facto leader of the opposition, so unlikely they have a connection in this show. Unless, Guren has his own set of childhood friends? (I'm looking at you Hiragi... )

But yeah, Tepes saved the show for me. MikaXKrul all the way! Finally, something that can be called childhood friends.

Originally Posted by erneiz_hyde

A show does not have to be a full blown shounen-ai genre to have fujoshi baits, just as the case with yuri baits. It's all in the undertones and subtleties, and those who cannot see them are blessed for still having a purer mind than some (or in the denial phase). The 'fu' in fujoshi (and fudanshi) is there for a reason.

Oh believe me, fujoshis (or at least the ones I hung out with) and I have very similar thought processes. You give us one little thing that sparks our curiousity, and we'll ship those two characters till the end of time. XD

[kuromitsu]

Wow, this episode was like A (Near-)Complete Collection Of Shounen Manga Clichés.

MC is cocky and ambitious, but he has the strength to back it up, also he's always right, and he's better than everyone else, except for the mentor type character!*
MC meets a Rival!
MC and Rival must fight together!
Rival is a dick, but turns out he has an ~angsty backstory~!
MC's passionate pep talk makes the Rival Realize What's Important!
MC and Rival develop grudging respect for each other!

In the meanwhile...

Mentor/teacher type character is wise and reliable, but also kind of lazy and kind of a dick to his proteges!
He belittles his students and is physically violent toward them, but that's just tough love!
He also gives a "Dark Side of the Force" speech to unruly, rebellious teenagers!
MC has an antagonistic relationship with him!

And don't forget...

The overly powerful loli character!
The snarky, sneaky, and very powerful bad guy character!

And while we're talking about clichés...

The One The MC Is Doing Everything For is on the other side of the conflict!
But he still loves the MC!
But MC will probably hate him when he sees him again because now he's become the thing the MC hates over everything!
Oh, the tragedy...!!!1!

Yeeeah, so as you can guess I was less than impressed with this episode. I guess this show has a very mainstream appeal, but it not as much as "tips over" into being a tropefest, but rather strides in boldly... in a way this honesty is kind of admirable, but it makes for a snoozefest as far as I'm concerned. It wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take itself oh so seriously, but it does, which also prevents it from just having fun with the tropes and going over the top. It's telling that my favorite part of the episode was Báthory being sneaky and snarky, and then getting his butt kicked unceremoniously, that was funny. Oh, and the soundtrack continues to be really rousing, but at this point I'm getting the feeling that it's wasted on this show.


*There's a name for this type of character, it starts with a G and an S....

[MartianMage]

Pretty decent adaptation IMO... not really fond of this part of the story... and yeah new slightly less annoying character added to the mix.

[BPD Renegade]

Originally Posted by kuromitsu

-snip-

Yup, you pretty much covered all of it. My annoyance climbed and climbed while reading up to here in the manga. The anime's been good about adapting it up until now, but unfortunately, there was no salvaging Yu's part of this episode or the intense game of shonen bingo the author is playing. Maybe this is good for someone new to shonen, but to me the series is tiresome and weak (and I have to admit I almost fell asleep watching this episode).

It's with Black Butler on my list right now -- something I'll keep following out of boredom but have little respect or care for.

One thing I do want to note in the show's defense though, is that while the OP may have one scene that could be described as fujoshi bait (when Mika and Yu touch each others' cheeks), I don't see it as a reason for people to place so much emphasis on it. It's the equivalent of being disgusted with Madoka because there's a "yuri" scene in the OP between Madoka and Homura. Was the scene in Seraph's OP intended to be fujoshi bait? Yeah, it probably was. Was it necessary? No, it wasn't. But a lot of things aren't necessary. Like the vampire queen being a lolita. Personally, I dislike Lolita, but I don't see anyone commenting about that.

[MartianMage]

haha well like I said before... there's no shortage of Yu's annoying antics. There are more to come <_<

[Haruyasha]

I'd tap Krul Tepes. I mean, she's probably several centuries old, so it should be legal.

Originally Posted by BPD Renegade

to me the series is tiresome and weak (and I have to admit I almost fell asleep watching this episode).

To each his own. Bleach and One Piece put me to sleep, possibly some of the worst shounens I know.

[aakun4]

I'm having trouble enjoying this show as well. Ep 1 was awesome and Ep 2 was a completely different thing, then Ep 3 was good and now this week was like a mix of the atmosphere of ep 1 and the "happy-life school setting" from the other eps. It's just a really confusing way to present the story to the viewer, or at least I feel it that way.

The vampire-side part of this episode was interesting, but the school-part was plain boring. I was pretty much counting the seconds for the ep to end... I don't know if the story this week was just boring or the anime writers just aren't doing a very good job adapting it. It felt slow and most importantly, boring. I get the guy introduced this week is in the opening fighting with Yu and co. so he is relevant, but idk, it didn't work.

I don't feel like giving up yet but yeah, this show has its chances to be dropped later on if they keep things this way.

[Triple_R]

Yeah, I definitely get kuromitsu's points, and so I had a somewhat similar reaction to Episode 4.

Owari no Seraph Episode 4 reminded me of why I've watched very, very little shounen over the past few years. Shounen tends to be very formulaic. Right now, it feels to me like going through the anime equivalent of a long video game tutorial where you have to learn the controls and all the possible button combinations for special moves.

However, Yu's over-the-top enough that there is some comedy value to him. I get a vague sense that part of Shinoa's role is to provide a sort of meta-commentary on how silly the typical shounen male lead often is, and I find her effective at that, and it's a big part of the reason why I like her character a lot.

That being said, the main thing I liked about Episode 4 is...

Krul Tepes!

What a great character name for a vampire character. What a delightfully delectable design. Sure, it's not the most original character design around, but I honestly haven't seen this type of character design used all that often in anime lately.

And after hearing Krul's first two or three lines, I said to myself "Wait... is that Kaname Madoka's seiyu?" And sure enough, it is!

Kaname Madoka's seiyu voicing a pink-haired goth-loli vampire villain. In the immortal words of Scott Hall, "2 Sweet!" The quintessential magical girl becomes the quintessential goth-loli vampire, while still maintaining lovely pink hair.

And Aoi Yuki is a fantastic seiyu in general. Her involvement in this definitely helps maintain my interest in it. Especially since it appears that her character is going to be a scenery-chewing show-stealing star!

Regardless of what the rest of the cast ends up like, this show has two big aces up its sleeve - Krul Tepes and Shinoa.

These are two very fun female characters with nice style and neat personalities. As long as the anime handles them well, I'll probably be sticking with this show.

Originally Posted by GDB

I'll never get tired of seeing Kruul spinning in harmony with the melody of that OP.

Agreed. It adds so very much to the OP.

[AC-Phoenix]

70:30 that the vampires were the ones inventing the illness and that it is of magical nature.
So I'll personally blame Krul for it for the time being.

Hints for it:
You only need to look at Telephone Pole's sister. Her neck clearly shows some drawings as if it was actually a curse rather than a virus.
Several of the Vampires also referred to it as 'Forbidden Enchantment'

And Krul was apparently messing around with it.

[Triple_R]

Originally Posted by AC-Phoenix

70:30 that the vampires were the ones inventing the illness and that it is of magical nature.
So I'll personally blame Krul for it for the time being.

It's interesting, though, that Krul seems to be blaming the humans for the virus in her big speech (if their talk of "plague from 8 years ago" is referring to that same virus). Weren't the vampires openly bragging about the virus back in Episode 1?

This is a bit odd. If all of this gathered crowd of vampires were in on "The virus was our doing, to get back at the humans!", why does Krul (and the other speaker) feel it necessary to make it sound like the humans did it?

Basically, it seems like many of the vampires are getting duped.

There's either an internal conspiracy on the vampire side, or it's on both sides (humans and vampires). Perhaps elites on both sides are working together to play the two sides against one another to serve their own hidden purposes. There's an old Star Trek movie that had a plot like that.


The other alternative is that there was a tit-for-tat. The humans unleashed a plague on the vampires, and the virus was the vampire's response to it. It does seem a bit odd for plague and virus response to both happen in the same year, though.

[Witch of Uncertainty]

This show seems to really force stuff down my throat. The drama with the glasses guy was beyond stupid (Hey, your sister is dying, but we're not going to untie you, so you have to visit her with your sister). Really?
I think I'll drop it. 4 episodes in and I can't say I'm enjoying it at all. Seems like incredibly generic shounen to me. Not a single likable character doesn't help either.

[larethian]

As usual, giving some random comment on the show where nobody cares. Sayuri spoke!! But her voice was not really what I've imagined.
I wished Mito has Inoue Marina voicing her. But alas that is not to be, lets see what Shimamurs can do for her.

[GDB]

Originally Posted by Witch of Uncertainty

This show seems to really force stuff down my throat. The drama with the glasses guy was beyond stupid (Hey, your sister is dying, but we're not going to untie you, so you have to visit her with your sister). Really?

If I recall correctly, the manga stated that the handcuffs were enchanted to not come off until you defeated one of the doll things. Since they didn't have time for that, it didn't come off.