The first season, or rather, the first cour, of Seraph of the End, is 12 episodes long and it is based upon a manga series. The opening scene is quite memorable, as people start succumbing to some unknown and all dying on the street. We then quickly learn that this virus only targets people 13 years and above. Despite this premise and explanation, there is a time skip and we then learn that the world is populated by vampires who require human blood in order to live. It does seem like that came out of the blue as there is seemingly no connection between the virus and vampires.
Anyway, the anime follows Yuichiro, who survived the initial virus infection by being too young. Now, a few years later, he is part of the organisation that fights back against the vampires, as well as the monsters that are now showing up. Despite the decimation of humanity, life actually looks fairly normal… considering Yuichiro still goes to high school, and there is still typical high school scenarios like bullies and friendship. Later on in the season, you’ll also notice despite the post-apocalyptic setting, certain technologies are still available, which kind of makes you wonder why both sides still highly prefer melee weapons.
Unfortunately, by the time the third and fourth episode comes, the anime starts to settle upon worn tropes and becomes extremely predictable with its plot developments. We see the return of an early character, we see how friendship is supposed to be an important aspect of being part of the team that fights against vampires, and Yuichiro is your typical hot-blooded young protagonist who charges ahead and despite his rashness, things will work out fine in the end. The only saving grace is Shinoa, the girl who watches over and effectively partners with Yuichiro, since she has plenty of charm, making her a likeable character.
The anime soon settles into its own rhythm and plays it safe. Yuichiro obtains power, and then partnering with his friends who end up becoming his comrades, he slowly gets over his past trauma. Unfortunately, Yuichiro’s rash nature and confident personality can be grating, but that is the reason why he learns valuable lessons on teamwork and consequences. So it’s not that it is bad but it can feel a tad too generic so that it doesn’t offer any surprises.
We slowly learn more about the monsters that show up, and of course, the vampires. Vampires are naturally more powerful and their only weakness seemingly requiring human blood to survive. Despite that, they can regenerate and are tough to kill. They actually require specialised equipment to fight and this is where it then brings in the concept of demons. At this point, it does sort of feel like anything goes and have a twinge of amateurish writing.
The first half of the season, with its setup can lead to episodes where nothing too much is happening. The second half is better as it gets more exciting since Yuichiro has gained enough power to start facing off properly against the vampires. Unfortunately, it also ramps up Yuchiro’s “coolness” factor, or at least attempts to. Naturally, the female characters will slowly fall head over heels for him, and it’s done so blatantly that you can’t help by sigh. For some reason, the momentum is lost by the final episode, as the climax was the penultimate episode. As a result, it feels like you’ve just hit a wall with little happening. It doesn’t help that the were so many questions raised due to the big reveal.
The animation is decent, although there are plenty of scenes where it slips up and the character models are weirdly proportioned or lacking detail. What is more prevalent is how the character models don’t mesh well with the backgrounds. The backgrounds have a very static and detailed feel to them, which contrasts too much with character models. The end result is that it always feels that there are currently two layers, the one with the character models which are layered obviously over the backgrounds.
Overall, the first season of Seraph of the End is average. It tends to lean too heavily on established plot points which makes it predictable and generic at times. Yuichiro as a main character is also really stereotypical, which severely drops his likeability and intrigue. There are some questionable decisions in what is still possible in a world where most of the population has died but it does lift itself a bit towards the end as we finally finish with the setup and get into the meat of the anime.
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