Seraph of the End: Half Way Point Review

Watched until episode eleven then wanted to shoot myself

From Wit Studio, the creative force behind Attack on Titan, comes a brand-new action series—Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign! After a mysterious virus wipes out ninety percent of humanity, vampires emerge from the recesses of the earth to enslave mankind, treating them like livestock. After growing tired of donating blood in exchange for protection, 12-year-old Yuichiro Hyakuya and his best friend Mikaela Hyakuya plot an escape along with the other orphans. After being the only successful runaway, Yuichiro joins the Moon Demon Company, an extermination unit of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army dedicated to killing off vampires.

The first episode didn’t make much sense but did grab my attention enough to watch the next episode. I really liked the opening scenes of this anime with everyone dying, planes crashing, car accidents and so on. It was chaos as adults seemed to be dying from a terrible outbreak which occurred in a manner of seconds. We then see the Vampires emerging, from where? I don’t know but they are obviously unaffected. We then see the children being harvested for blood and ushered to live in this underground city. Watching their harsh lives play out while living below was very interesting. The power dynamic was excellent and well shown. Everything was good….up until the main character escapes and the entire anime seems to take a massive nose dive into poo.

A military group called the Moon demon company somehow knew of the of main character’s escape and simply shows up at the right place and time to fetch him. We then learn, from the leader of this company, that a prophecy is what lead him there. Sounds more like a cheap half assed excuse to rush the story along. So now as the story progresses we learn that 90% of the human population is gone, the world looks like crap, there are monsters roaming the streets, and Vampires lurking underground but I’m supposed to believe that in four years or so they got a full scale working Military with clean uniforms, plenty of food; including packaged food and working vending machines, oh yeah, and a large school in perfect condition…cause what would anime be like if it didn’t have a school setting?

So now we have this Main character named Youchiro who is the typical shonen main character. Full of false bravado and is generally an annoying little asshat. He’s now in school, surprise, surprise, and the purpose for him being in school is to make friends. Like that couldn’t have been done anywhere else. But Youchiro is a little angsty bitch who doesn’t want any friends due to losing the last group of friends he was an angsty little bitch to. But for some reason, everyone is a masochist so he ends up making friends anyway.

So now he gets to join the Moon Demon Company and get himself cursed demon weapons that can kill the vampires that came out of nowhere. So far I have no idea where the demons come from, how the military realized this power existed much less how to use it, but it looks cool…so I guess that’s it.

So he gets his weapon, makes his new friends, and they all are on the same team. Their job is to go out…in formation….and kill Vampires. Problem, when were they ever taught this formation? This little annoying blonde haired girl keeps yelling about this formation they are supposed to keep, yet never really go over what the formation is. It just seems like all she wants is for them to stick together. Someone ought to inform her that’s not a formation. So the main character acts like an equally annoying asshat and leaves the team to rescue a little girl, do whatever he wants blah blah, fight vampires blah blah and no matter how crappy their situation gets he’s told in the end that he did the right thing.

Anyhow, he is eventually reunited with Mika, his best friend and family who he thought died during the escape. If you wanna get mad over that spoiler, don’t. The anime’s opening credits pretty much spoils Mika’s fate so his death isn’t as heart wrenching as it should have been. Mika, is now a Vampire who wishes to save his friend from the people who are just using him. But instead of just freaking telling him this and explaining the situation he tries to whisk him away…ya know, for tension reasons. So combined with Youchiro watching his friends get ‘playfully’ bitten by the Vampires…who for some odd reason don’t just kill them outright when they had the chance; and his friend being turned into a Vampire. He loses his shit and turns into a fugly half ghoul angel demon thing who of course wants to kill sinners….oh yeah I forgot that this has something to do with the Bible….I think.

And don’t worry folks, he can be brought back to his human self through the power of hugs.

So far this story has Vampires, biblical apocalypse monsters, a prophecy, a random plague, a full underground vampire city, a human army with demon weapons, and some sort of possible scientific experimentation, and a main character half demon ghoul thing who can be cured by hugs. It’s like the creators just decided to toss anything into this anime that sounded cool and/or moved the “plot” along.

I’m on episode eleven so far and I have no questions than answers.

When did this experimentation take place? How did the Moon Demon Company know the kid existed? Where he was? And when and where to search for him? What is this prophecy? Where did the Vampires come from, the demon weapons, the apocalypse monsters, a school, vending machines, and prepackaged foods.

I don’t know if I want to continue to find out…