Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign

Episode 4

This episode introduces Yuichiro's true rival in stupidity, Shihou Kimizuki. The first time they meet, they get into a fistfight for bumping into each other in the hallway.

So far, Shihou's character amounts to “Yuichiro but dumber.” They're both competitive hotheads motivated by loyalty to their respective families. The main difference is that Yuichiro's family is already dead while Shihou's family is in the process of dying. He has a terminally ill sister whose Magic Disease can only be treated by technology available to the Moon Demon Squad, so he aims to get in at all costs. This means that he beats people up in order to “prove his strength” to his superiors. Like Yu, Shihou is a strong fighter whose nonexistent social skills make him a massive liability in actual combat. Unlike Yu, he hasn't proved himself via THE POWER OF HEART, so the Moon Demon Squad isn't willing to ignore this and accept him anyway. As such, it's up to Yuichiro to teach him about friendship and priorities. Overall, this is just a rehash of Yuichiro's previous conflict but with Yu as the savior. When Shihou's sister's condition becomes critical in the middle of their crucial teamwork evaluation (in which Dumb and Dumber are inevitably partnered), it's Yu who convinces Shihou to leave and be with his sister during her time of need.

Narratively, this is not a bad strategy; it illustrates that Yuichiro's learned enough about connecting with people to instruct a more immature version of himself. At the same time, I'd like to see more of how he gets along with some of the friends he's already made. Yoichi, for example. His acceptance into the Moon Demon Squad, when he'd previously been rejected from the army in general, amounts to pure narrative convenience. I like Shinoa though. They let her be a jerk, which is excellent because women are who are jerks in fiction are excellent.

We also get our first glimpse at vampire society. The vampires were not responsible for the disease that exterminated most of humanity a few years ago. They don't even have anything to do with the Horsemen of John. They combat them as much as humanity does, and even protect enclaves of humans, albeit as blood farms. This is a promising revelation. It suggests that this story won't just be about humans fighting evil vampires. Some sketchy stuff is clearly going down within the Japanese Imperial Demon Army, and I suspect that humans tampering with demonic weaponry has something to do with it.

So Mikaela's a vampire now. He seems to have accrued some status within vampire society, especially considering his previous position as chattel. He goes on missions and wields a cool sword – most likely due to his relation to the vampire queen Krul Tepes. How do vampires happen in this world? They can turn people, but their society seems too distinct from humanity for them to consist only of turned humans. Krul Tepes is a “founder” vampire, so maybe there are a small number of “original” vampires from which the rest are descended? Seraph of the End's vampirism seems like one of the fictional affliction's more benign forms. They're immortal, can go out in sunlight, and don't even have to kill people to feed. They seem to make do with the types of donations that people make every day to their local blood bank. That's nothing in comparison to Tokyo Ghoul's oppressed cannibal superhumans or the concurrently airing Blood Blockade Battlefront's eldritch blood angels. It seems like humans and vampires could work something out here, especially with the looming threat of John's pony squad.

So, people have been comparing this show unfavorably to Attack on Titan, Studio Wit's last hit, and yeah, I do see it. They have the same basic premise: on postapocalyptic earth, humanity is kept as livestock and constantly threatened by enormous monsters. They use some of the same rough character types too. Eren and Yuichiro are both bullheaded, revenge-driven protagonists, Armin and Mikaela (and now possibly Yoichi) are their calm foils/best friends, Levi and Guren are the smarmy commanding officers, etc. Other than that, however, I feel that these two shows are entirely different beasts. Attack on Titan got big because it was so unlike anything else that was out at the time. Genuinely harrowing and gritty, it's feudal in its stakes and tone. Seraph of the End, by contrast, is playing straight into the familiar genre of intense-to-the-point-of-homoeroticism shonen rivalry action shows – a label that also includes Naruto and Code Geass. Despite superficial similarities, Seraph of the End and Attack on Titan are difficult to compare because their goals and storytelling methods are so different. Seraph of the End is the generic version of what Attack on Titan revitalized, and while I'm less excited by Seraph, it's far from a bad show. I have nothing against competent genre entries, and Seraph has managed to be a lot of fun – intentionally and unintentionally.

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.