Friday, March 03, 2017

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign (First cour) – review

Director: Daisuke Tokudo

First aired: 2015

Contains spoilers


This is the first twelve episodes of Seraph of the End, an anime that has a second part that runs for a further twelve episodes. The disc I got was a Malaysian release but for some reason I can’t find a release (on its own) of the second part from the same source and the western releases are expensive (to say the least).

This is a shame as I was very much taken by the animation – but rest assured I will get the second cour at some point.

terrified kids
So the first episode, as it opens, shows us the fall of humanity. A mysterious virus strikes making people drop dead. Cars crash, aircraft fall from the sky. We discover this virus only kills those aged thirteen or more and vampires come out of the shadows, rounding up orphans and taking them as livestock. Cut forward four years and we meet Yūichirō Hyakuya (Miyu Irino), known as Yu, and his friend Mikaela Hyakuya (Kenshô Ono), known as Mika. They are twelve year old kids held in the vampire city and live with a group of younger orphans.

Yu and Mika
Yu is quite the rebel and wants to be able to kill vampires – who are faster and stronger than humans. He is unhappy with Mika as he is offering his blood freely to a noble vampire called Ferid Bathory (Takahiro Sakurai). It turns out that it has been a ruse and Mika returns home with a map of the city and a gun. They decide to run away. They get close to the city entrance when Ferid appears. He plays this game often it seems, giving a sense of hope (in the form of escape) and stealing it away.

Ferid feeds
Ferid butchers the orphans and grabs Mika. Yu is able to shoot Ferid in the head (disabling but not killing him). Mika is dying and tells Yu to run, content that his friend, at least, has escaped. Outside it is winter and Yu falls through the snow where he is picked up by members of the Japanese Demon Army – the protectors of the last vestiges of humanity. The squad leader, Lt Col Guren Ichinose (Yûichi Nakamura) recognises Yu as the focus of a prophecy and offers him the chance to kill vampires.

killing a vampire
Cutting forward four years and a sixteen-year-old Yu disobeys orders and kills a Four Horseman of John (a demonic type of creature that appeared as the apocalypse happened). As punishment he is sent to school and must remain there until he makes a friend – having distanced himself from friends after the events of the escape. He does quickly, and accidentally, make a friend and ends up training to be able to claim a demon possessed weapon – as only cursed weapons can convincingly kill a vampire.

Seraph form
The rest of the first cour shows the squad of misfits he ends up in pulling together as a team and the beginning of a vampiric offensive against the humans. We discover that Mika is still alive, having been turned before he died by the vampire Queen Krul Tepes (Aoi Yuki). We also discover that there were a few children (we discover Yu for definite and Mika probably) who were not entirely human, having ten percent Seraph genes. At the end of this cour we see those genes temporarily usurp Yu’s body, making him wildly powerful. We don’t discover much vampire lore, though we do find out that not drinking blood will change the vampire into a mindless demon.

reunion
The series was good fun. A nice balance of characters and an interesting story that needs fleshing out but I am sure will be in the second cour. The score, as stands, is for the first cour only and I think 7 out of 10 is fair. I think fleshing the story out will add to the score. The imdb page is here.

12 comments:

Kuudere-Kun said...

I just watched this. I take it your weird Import didn't have the Dub on it, fortunately the Dub can now be watched for Free on Sony Crackle. Krul Tepes is voiced by the magnificent Monica Rial.

I quite like it, it's perhaps the most Yaoi Anime I've watched so far.

Taliesin_ttlg said...

Hi Jared, good to hear from you.

The Malaysian import DVD had the original Japanese and subs... however the whole series (I need to watch 13 onwards) is now on UK Netflix both sub and dub

Kuudere-Kun said...

That's cool, Sony Crackle can be watched without needing a membership, so that's an option I want to get people informed of.

I'm still in the process of season 2 myself, I look forward to your review of the finished project.

I don't comment here as much as I sued to because I'm not as into Vampire stuff in general as I used to be, I've lately been only into the Anime versions. Did you ever check out any version of Tsukihime? There is also a Vamprie focused episode of Fate/Zero.

Taliesin_ttlg said...

Cheers for the info re Crackle - its unavailable in the UK but a bit of VPN magic unblocked it :)

Kuudere-Kun said...

You're Welcome

Kuudere-Kun said...

Unfortunately Crackle didn't last long, most of it's Anime is gone now. It's on Funimation I don't know if it cna be watched for free.

On YouTube however you can watch the Sailor Moon Last Dracul Musicals, they are the most Bizzare Vampire lore I've ever encountered and I love it. Whether you like them or hate them I guarantee they will blow your mind.

Taliesin_ttlg said...

Hi Jared, I'll search them out

Kuudere-Kun said...

There's a certain trend I seem to have noticed only Vampire Anime doing. When depicting a Vampire making a Human drink Blood to turn them it's usually via a cut on the chest or maybe wrist/hand. But in this and some Anime I've watched they actually do it by Kissing basically after biting their tong or lip or something.

I wonder why only Anime has ever thought to do it that way?

Taliesin_ttlg said...

It does seem to be primarily an anime thing but not exclusively so (though examples ar few and far between).

Springing to mind are the Smallville episode Thirst, where initiation into the undead is by passing blood through a kiss. The undead in Sometimes in the Dark are sometimes infected through a kiss and, though Japanese, Vampire Girl vs Frankenstein Girl does the whole bite lip to kiss and turn the protagonist thing and is live action.

There are a few films, The Kiss springing to mind, where the vampiric element is a parasite taking a human host and transfers through a kiss.

Not common though

Kuudere-Kun said...

Hmmm, I'd forgotten that detail of Thirst even though I was that episode's biggest apologist on IMDB back in the day.

Taliesin_ttlg said...

I've just had a re-watch of Vampire in Venice and there is a lot of kiss turn into bite in that.

Kuudere-Kun said...

Interesting.

I've doing a lot of A Certain Magical Index franchise rewatching lately. I'm pretty sure I'd mentioned to you Deep Blood before being episodes 7-9 of the first season but I don't recall in which comment section. But it has occurred to me to mention that Deep is set up by a scene at the end of episode 6 actually.