Seraph of the End - Reviews

I actually wanted to write my first review, but the only thing I can say is... Attack on titan 2.0?

Yep!

this plot in the anime basicly are not making any sence and the conversation betweenthe characters seems super dumb as well. over all, the story feels a littel far-fetched.

tried it on a whim. Turned out to be quite fun as a pass time. But i can't really stand the mc.

STORY:  Put simply, Seraph of the End is a cross between Attack on Titan and Blue Exorcist featuring vampires instead of titans with just about EVERYONE wielding demon weapons.  The concept has some potential, but the attempts at drawing the viewer into the story or fleshing out the world or characters are half-hearted at best and annoyingly predictable and forced at worst.  I would like to think that the writers would have benefitted greatly from being allowed more episodes to better develop the world and characters.

ANIMATION:  This is definately the one place that I feel this anime really stood out.  The animators incorporated a lot of very well designed visual effects into SotE that complimented the already enjoyable artistic style of the anime's look beautifully.  I can't say enough about how much I would love to find more anime with this kind of diverse and well integrated visuals.

SOUND:  The music and sound effects are alright, but there isn't anything in either that stands out as really adding to the scenes in any impactful way.  The musical compositions and sound effects are just simply generic, safe selections which fail at providing SotE with any auditory identity or personality to call it's own.

CHARACTERS:  The characters in SotE are decently enjoyable, somewhat relatable, and pretty diverse without getting hung-up on stereotype.  Sadly, though, they were often a little too overacted for an anime that attempts to present itself with such a no-nonsense tone.  I feel like there was a lot of potential here, but the writers hurriedly introduced characters and rarely put any effort into the kind of onscreen developement that allows a viewer to become attatched to them.

SIGHTLY SPOILER-ISH CONCLUSION:  While I love both Attack on Titan and Blue Exorcist, SotE never follows through with the heart-wrenching drama of AoT or the lively and endearing "bonding misfits" dynamic of BE.  No, SotE just hangs between the two, wanting to be taken more seriously than BE, but never willing to commit to the low-blows of AoT's painful tradgedies.  I would almost call it an uninspired AoT Lite.  I can see the tagline for it now--

"Seraph of the End, the Attack on Titan Lite.  Most of the tone, with none of the kicks to the gut."  It's just that bland...

Owari no Seraph

Owari no Seraph was one of the more popular representatives of the shounen genre, which had been adorned with ... almost everything. Humans, super powers, demons, vampires, angels, gods, practically the full program of supernaturals.

In the past, works with such a topic would have been somewhat less common, but nowadays post-apocalyptic works are represented more often.

Owari no Seraph is a world that appears to have been abandoned by gods. The vampires released a virus that killed the majority of people (over the age of 13) and to enslave the rest. These finally crawled out of their holes and also tried to overpower the surface. As expected, there is also resistance to this and the other supernatural life forms, which the protagonist joins. So much for the description.

It doesn't sound particularly impressive in itself, but it is always a noteworthy concept. But what is the implementation like?

I can't deny it, Owari no Seraph had enormous potential among the Shounen and still partially does. However, the first season was very weak in the end, in my words.

The first season was dedicated to the introduction to the action, the introduction and introduction of all characters. And the rest was unfortunately adorned with very sluggish dialogues and conflicts. Not to mention a lot of clichés. The protagonist at least did his part in keeping the level in the basement by not tending to think logically and never choosing to control his emotions.

Story:

There is almost nothing to be said about history. This stafferl served almost only as an introduction.

At the beginning of the work, spectators were given an insight into the events that can be found in the description and the following results.

The rest of the season was about introducing all of the other characters, their powers, developing their powers, and building their relationship. Towards the end it got a bit stormy with some conflicts. The season ended with a slight cliffhanger to the second.

Given that, there was almost no real story in season one. All events related to the story were straightforward and typical of Shounen, so they didn't surprise anyone.

Of course, the plot left a lot of questions, since most of the events of the first season could not really be interpreted, but the explanations in season 2 are not on the daily agenda and are therefore probably reserved for season 3.

The following season had increased enormously in terms of this, unfortunately the first season could not leave much of an impression.

Animation / pictures:

The animations were again very jumpy. The animation was usually very smooth. Most of the scenes and fights were animated smoothly and therefore had a dynamic effect. Other fights, on the other hand, were carried out by freeze frame animations and made quite weak. What really bothered me about the animations was the small details. Every now and then the faces of some characters looked pretty degenerate. While amusing to look at, it is characterized by a lack of detail.

I especially have to praise the background. The city, the sky and how the whole area was designed was VERY impressive. In terms of optics, Owari no Seraph was clearly one of the works with the best backgrounds. Especially in the area of ​​the Post Apocalyptic World, this is very good.

Overall, it was satisfactory here.

Characters:

Ah yes .. the characters here were a nice salad. There were some likeable characters here and some really daunting characters.

The protagonist Yuichiro was literally a disaster.
A terrible personality, anything but smart, a brake, constantly reacts, is easy to provoke, has almost no control over his emotions, is very hot-headed and can hardly bring about a proper dialogue. There is also almost no development in the course of the first season. The exception is the thing with the
Spoiler!
Character relationships that he could finally address
.

Mikaela is very similar to Yu at the beginning, at least when it comes to emotions. On the other hand, he is very smart, usually stays calm and is not a hothead. In the course of the season you can learn almost everything about him, but his development in character does not take place yet.

Shinoa, she was more of a pleasant change from the typical female protagonists, who are usually useless. She was smart, skillful, calm, no hothead, very provocative and more of a troll. Her personality was therefore something refreshing. She has also made some progress in character development, unfortunately she has lost many of her earlier traits, as well as her preference for provocations.

Yoichi ... probably the next best catastrophe after Yu. The typical shy and calm boy who was an automat for cliché dialogues, without inserting a coin. He has hardly any character development, let alone significant character traits. He was also anything but fit for fighting. Spoiler-> You might think he actually fired only one arrow per episode and got extra screen time so that he could fire one arrow per fight. There has never been so much balance between characters.

Like Yu, Shihou was a real hothead. This was clearly lighter in the pear, but could always be taken along and was more violent than clever, even though he was wearing glasses. He had character development only in the area of ​​relationships and remained rather flat and a secondary character among the main characters.

The same applies to Mitsuba. Blonde, braids, tsundere, the overall picture would be almost perfect if it weren't for the bust size. Her personality almost matched that of a typical Tsundere, absolutely nothing worth mentioning. However, their character development made most of these traits slip off, making them harder to recognize.

Guren, on the other hand, was really personable, his personality was similar to that of Shinoa and he was the opposite of Yu, he had no character development so far, but has an interesting and mysterious personality.

There were also some notable opponents, especially Crowley and Ferid. Ferid is clearly the more likable of the two.

The characters were somehow saved with a few exceptions, otherwise the main cast would almost have left you stuck.

Music:

The intro was not worth mentioning from the picture, the usual content of an intro. The music was pretty weak too.

The outro was optically better than the intro, but musically almost the same.

I was impressed by the beautiful east. You get to hear them a lot more often in season 2, where they really come into their own. But also in season 1 the Osts did a good job.

The first season of Owari no Seraph was rather weak. From a visual point of view, it was quite impressive and only aroused my curiosity, but it failed enormously due to the implementation.

Since I have already seen the second season, I cannot describe it as a worthy predecessor because the successor is superior to him in all possible ways.

For in between, the series is quite entertaining.