Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign

Episode 21

As is tradition, last week ended with what seemed like Yu's death. Citing FAMILY, our hero refused to leave Guren behind as a vampire prisoner. Downing a bunch of demon pills, he rushed off to help. Or he would have, if the medication hadn't ruptured most of his organs. Oops.

The next thing Yu knows, he's conversing with Asuramaru in their dream world. The demon informs Yu that he's not dead, but should be. All that's keeping him alive is some “angelic” force – probably his status as a potential Seraph of the End. This power is visualized as a golden horn, which Yu lunges for instinctively, but Asuramaru stops him, claiming that it's worse than demonic possession. Instead, she reminds Yu that the pills give him two or three minutes of free superpowers. Yu wakes up, jumps out of the building, and heads out to rescue Guren.

Meanwhile, Crowley and company are torturing Guren (mostly by kicking him in the face). An enraged Yu lunges at them through the window, but it's still not enough to take out Crowley. Yu asks Asuramaru for more and more power until he ends up half-transformed into a demon. Fortunately, Kimizuki shows up in time to restrain Yu – his demon's power is capture-based, made to store a target in that floating coffin. They escape, leaving Guren behind again. Now all of the squads are struggling to flee before vampire reinforcements arrive. This means that it's Mika's last chance to get Yu, who's currently surrounded by a few dozen of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army's elite members. He fights through most of them but is eventually overpowered. It looks like things are over for Mika (who was perhaps tactically unsound with the full frontal approach) until Shinoa - of all people – steps in to save him. The rest of the Squad follows her example, turning against their comrades to protect Mika. You see, Yu is a part of their family, and they know that Mika is Yu's family. Family of family is family, so Mika is their family, and family protect family. Family.

Never mind that it doesn't make a whole lot of character sense for some squad members. It's especially weird in Kimizuki's case, since he's reliant on the Japanese Imperial Demon Army to provide his sister's healthcare. Seems like turning traitor would provide problems on that front, but whatever. FAMILY. Mitsuba's also acting out-of-line, but she's consistently been underexplored. So far, she seems like a milder version of Shinoa – another decent person rebelling from a cold military household. Either way, the Shinoa Squad knows that Yu cares about Mika, and they trust Yu, so they're willing to protect Mika. This is a fairly surprising and effective culmination to the season's family talk. Something needed to seriously challenge Mika's hatred for humanity. I'm curious what the consequences of this event will be.

In hindsight, the plot hasn't advanced all that much this season. We know that Kureto, Guren, Krul, and Ferid are all up to their own schemes, but we have very little information as to the exact nature of what they're doing. This big battle is actually a side arm of the real offensive that Kureto is planning offscreen. All that our main characters seem to have accomplished is rescuing some nameless hostages and yet, I'm somehow not bothered by all of this. It's Attack on Titan-style pacing, meaning that there's a lot of time spent on battles where little concrete progress is made until the very end. Instead, the narrative is all about the battle's beats – the pleasure of small victories, the upward struggles against much more powerful opponents, and a sense of constant perilous tension.

Seraph of the End succeeds at this type of storytelling, even if its overall narrative is much less unique or interesting than Attack on Titan's. In fact, I'd say the main reason why Titan overshadows Seraph is that Seraph lacks a sense of mystery. No matter how well it executes these ideas, vampires and demons have been done before. Titans, by contrast, are a new creature, genuinely shocking, and as-of-yet still unexplained. I don't mean this as a dig at Seraph either – watching this show progress over two seasons, I feel as though the Titan comparison has grown from a criticism to a compliment. Although it's still plainly derivative, Seraph of the End has proven that it also contains some of Attack on Titan's magic.

It helps that the production continues to be fantastic. It's not on the level of this season's astounding One Punch Man, but most installments of Seraph have contained some outstanding sakuga moments. This time they come courtesy of Mika and his assault on the Black Moon Company. In several 30-second uncut sequences, Mika fights off dozens of human troops. These sections feature a dynamic camera that revolves positions around him multiple times while he fights. These shots contributed to the pathos of Mika's ultimate reunion with Yu, reiterating the depths of his struggle and desperation. It also partnered well with the insert song, whose chorus hilariously echoes, “ARE WE STILL FAMILY?” in English. I think the answer is yes on that one.

At the end of the episode, vampires parachute down and start wrecking things. Two members of Narumi's squad (the redheaded Yayoi and bandana'd Kagiyama) are killed. Although outraged at Shinoa, the remaining human soldiers are forced to put off disciplining her in order to fight off the vampires. While this happens, Mika escapes with Yu. What will happen when the two friends reunite? And how will this season conclude?

Grade: B+

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign is currently streaming on Funimation.

Gabriella Ekens studies film and literature at a US university. Follow her on twitter.