Seraph of the End

"This is a poor man's Attack on Titan." If we are going to make that comparison, well, whatever. Sure the emotional or musical aspect might not be as strong as in Attack on Titan, but I prefer the characters in this show. Attack on Titan has awesome action-packed scenes, whereas this show focuses more on drama and horror. What I particularly like about Seraph of the End is the setting, the vampires who treat humans like sheep and the humans who, despite being decimated, have instilled a clear goal. They team up with demons and the devil to defeat the enemy, and if that does not work, there is still a plan to overpopulate and regain the numerical advantage they lost to the deadly plague. I imagine a post-apocalyptic future like the destruction and ruins of the cities where war is waged in this show, as it promises a lot of conflicts. As for the characters, I am probably most fond of the two main protagonists, Yuichiro and Shinoa. Yuichiro is determined, although he does not go overboard with his emotional outbursts, and Shinoa is wonderfully sarcastic. I was also very curious about Mikaela (I guess his parents wanted a girl) and SPOILER ALERT, his role when he "changed teams." END OF SPOILERS. Oh, and I have to mention Krul because this Lolita girl has an incredible spark, and even though I have not seen much of her this season, I already think I would be happy to get bitten by her. My expectations were very high, and I think the result is commendable. However, it did not deserve five stars even after the last episode. Perhaps the vampires could have been a lot scarier, the atmosphere more oppressive, the animation less cute and darker, or maybe they could have given the riot police some better uniforms. Even though I could find some moments that made my heart skip a beat (like when "seraph" appeared), it did not excite me or give me the feeling that I was watching something amazing (which I had with Attack on Titan, even though the main characters annoyed me). So I am only awarding this show 8/10, even though I am not going to miss out on the second season that will air in the fall. (04/18/2015)

I am enjoying this anime series so far. Even though everyone at the beginning makes it seem like Yuichiro Hyakuya's transformation has not happened at all, they are tiptoeing around him. They do this even though the main male protagonist keeps going on and on about how he has to save his "boyfriend" and it wears rather thin and gets boring. The first episode with the interrogation seemed weird to me, yet it still went on despite all that. The atmosphere of the show is good, the secrets I want to know are there too, and the male protagonists got new abilities that are not as impressive as something like Bankai, although I find them interesting. I am also a little disappointed at times, like when you expect an epic battle with a demon and instead the hero just talks him down like the song "I would like to be more than just a friend." Sure, there is a lot of hype around this show, like Tokyo Ghoul, and even I got drunk on the action scenes. Objectively it is rather average; however, since I am still enjoying it so far, I think it deserves four stars, mainly because I am waiting for that Battle in Nagoya to break out and for it to be epic. EDIT: I just finished watching it, and my feelings are very mixed. I expected it to be epic; I expected it to be compelling, although I also expected it to make some kind of sense. The first two episodes were pretty good; the last few episodes had a pretty decent atmosphere and a bunch of interesting scenes that I liked; however, unfortunately, I did not really get quite a few things that happened. In other words, the conclusion was very rushed, the twists were strange, and very little was explained, leaving me asking a lot of questions; however, the narrative did not seem to dwell on them at all. So, thanks to all the things I had to think about because the anime's creators had not been able to explain them yet, or that I probably did not get right, I did not enjoy it in the end. So I am going to wait for the next season, and maybe I am going to learn something finally, and it will start to make sense; however, so far, it is just a very pretty action-packed mess. Because of the confusion and the feeling that stuff remains unfinished, and they did not reveal much of the narrative or provide explanations, I have to lower my impression of this show to better than average. 6/10. (10/17/2015)