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Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign
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Realquick
Posts: 63 |
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All that fujoshi pandering. It will sell.
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Jajanken
 Posts: 680 |
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Lol realquick that could not be more true
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Kuroko the Best Stalker
 Posts: 39 Location: In your wet dreams, baby ❤ |
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Getting some Attack on Titan vibes from the first 2 episodes.
- People as livestock - Fighting for humanity - Done by the same team who did AoT |
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Parse Error
 Posts: 592 |
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They did manage to slip a little a little bit of lolipire service in there, but I suppose it could be considered subtle enough to not trouble desensitized seasoned fans. The first episode was boring for me because it was so predictable, but that's because I'm the sort who's not terribly fond of that particular template. Plenty of folks are though, and it delivers the goods for any who who want them. The second episode was definitely a lot more fun for me, but this is a rare case where even I found the choice a school setting to be annoying. It's not a dealbreaker in any case, and once the action starts it becomes nothing more than a background, but how well I'll cope with it depends on the balance between classroom antics versus combat. |
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shiranehito
 Posts: 793 |
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Since I've never read the manga and don't have any plan to, I'd like to hear your subjective opinion about this series. I watched the first episode, and I definitely don't think it's strong enough to make me want to watch the rest (especially after "Just like the prophecy said")
I think it's gonna be the series that girls would likely love because there's a good number of bishies, plus voiced by famous voice actors who will make women swoon by their whisper alone. The art and animation is nice, but if that's all this series can give me, I'll probably drop it very soon. |
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Stark700
 Posts: 11762 Location: Earth |
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I like the way the series is delivering so far tbh although the first episode didn't impress me as much as I had hoped for. Going by its adaptation standards, I definitely expect original content to be added. There's some SnK vibes here and there although the story's general storyline is different.
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Good to know that I wasn't the only one who is reminded of Mustang any time I see Ichinose.
I do hope they don't always nickname Yuichiro as Yu when it comes time for the English dub though (if it gets one, at least). |
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Calico
Posts: 383 |
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Honestly, the best thing about the series is definitely the backgrounds. They're very pretty, and I'm hoping that we'll see more of them further along. The fight with the vampire in episode 2 is also pretty cool. On the other hand, the dialogue is really bad and from what I remember of the manga the plot/world is kind of confusing. I'm hoping that the anime manages to do better with its promise of an anime-original story, at least.
As for the actual review, it feels weird to just comment on this, but you are right! It does feel like a JRPG! |
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Pipoko
Posts: 165 |
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So much for me thinking they would do a better job concealing the twist because it was even more so in the manga.
If the promo images at least kept maybe some mystery of what's going on, the opening didn't, but it'll happen soon. I really do like the opening and ending. This season doesn't particularly shine in that department, but they are catchy and fitting to the series. I'm caught up with the manga and yeah, this one goes to the dumb fun pile. The high school setting basically leaves after all the main characters are introduced, the conclusion and aftermath of the first big arc actually did kind of hook me and surprise me as flawed as the writing is, but it kind of devolves into boredom for a while after that. Back to action with some oomph in the recent few chapters, tho. The backstory stuff just becomes repetitive after a while. Since they are largely the same. |
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Pipoko
Posts: 165 |
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So much for me thinking they would do a better job concealing the twist because it was even more so obvious in the manga.
If the promo images at least kept maybe some mystery of what's going on, the opening didn't, but it'll happen soon. I really do like the opening and ending. This season doesn't particularly shine in that department, but they are catchy and fitting to the series. I'm caught up with the manga and yeah, this one goes to the dumb fun pile. The high school setting basically leaves after all the main characters are introduced, the conclusion and aftermath of the first big arc actually did kind of hook me and surprise me as flawed as the writing is, but it kind of devolves into boredom for a while after that. Back to action with some oomph in the recent few chapters, tho. The backstory stuff just becomes repetitive after a while. Since they are largely the same. |
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ikillchicken
 Posts: 7272 Location: Vancouver |
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Episode 2 confirmed what I suspected. So long as the budget holds up, this show is definitely well paced and visually appealing enough to get by on action alone regardless of whatever faults may crop up in the writing. Yeah the school scenario was dumb but it was basically so brief that it wasn't really a problem. I'll definitely stick with this one.
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Hameyadea
 Posts: 3679 |
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Episodes #1-2:
After the collapse of human society due to a disease that targeted and killed anyone older than 13-years-old worldwide, simultaneously, the protagonist Hyakuya Yūichirō and his "family", the other, younger-than-13 Hyakuya Orphanage kids, are taken by vampires into their grand, underground city (which, apparently, wasn't discovered by humans at all, despite its The Matrix' Zion-like scale) where the survivors are being used by the vampires as a regular food dispensers, hooking them into large machine with tubes, pricking them in the neck and letting the blood mix & intermingle (not the wisest thing to do, and even more so considering that these are vampires, who supposedly - by definition - should know better than to destroy their own food, but oh well...), and in return get their basic necessities fulfilled - like food, housing, privacy, clothes and more. When Yū's friend from the Orphanage, Hyakuya Mikaela, starts coming later and later each night, bringing more & more material than he normal be allowed to (more rice for the curry, for example), Yū suspects that something is amiss. After it was revealed that Mikaela is being as a personal slurpee by the high-ranking vampire Ferid Bathory, Yū's dissatisfaction and resentment for the vampires grows. So when Mikaela brings back one night a gun and a map of the city, the two decides to make a run for it with the rest of the Hyakuya Orphanage survivors. When good-ol' Ferid merrily paces in front of the exit-way, taunts the kids and then kills them one-by-one (in a choreographically-impressive way, and relatively bloodless), Yū has been left alone in the world. If I had to summarize the story a bit more, I would use "it follows Kagami Takaya's narrative hallmarks about tragic, alone-in-the-world and persecuted characters, like Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi and Densetsu no Yūsha no Densetsu before it". The lead had a rough time from his birth into a crazed family ("my mother called me the devil and killed herself, my father beat me") until his escape from Vampville. But trying to condense that history into a single 25-minute episode comes off both as rushed and overplayed at times (the theme of Episode #1 might as well be "how melancholic can Yū get within this timeframe?"). The other parts of the story, unfortunately, are quite generic as well. With Episode #2 taking place 4 years after Yū's escape into the outside world, he is, of all places, in a regular, shōnen, High School Life show, with a pinch of rom-com elements added from the maybe-I'm-tsundere-maybe-I'm-stoic Hīragi Shinoa (who is also an active army member, for the added 'argh  ' effect), and the incompetent-but-trustworthy Saotome Yoichi playing the role of the Fool in this trio - and I see him being positioned as the moral-compass to the inevitable Yū-is-out-of-control moment, because if we go with a shōnen, High School Life, rom-com, battle series with a melancholic lead, might as well aim for that Naruto-in-Four-Tailed-Mode.
Other than the mediocrity of the story, the animation itself is nice to look at. Coming from Wit Studio, one can feel the aesthetics of Rolling☆Girls hiding within this show's art, specially the backgrounds and some of the character designs. The humans generally share a more rounded features, notably the face, and the vampires displaying sharper angles and pointed looks (mostly chins and ears, but some shoulders as well). The color themes are also interesting, with the vampires' white motif despite inhabating the undergrounds against the humans' green & black despite living on the surface helps not only quickly distinguish between characters in a fast-moving fight, but as a nice visualization of their supposed ideals (the vampires claim to be Humanity's saviors, its White Knight, and the humans have formed the Moon Demon Company). Since only two episodes were aired so far, I won't make a comment about the show's OST. I'll do comment, however, on the OP; it is carrying the distinctive Sawano Hiroyuki sound - last hear in Aldnoah.Zero's OPs - of upbeatness and rise from a calm intro to a pumping chorus, with the on-screen animation matching. At the end of the day, Owari no Seraph hasn't wowed me, nor captivated me, in a meaningful way. I'll continue watching this show, because even in its mediocrity, it plays the tropes well enough that it doesn't feel like the show "has set its hurdles too high", but more like "I was aiming there and I got there", which, at this point, might be one of its few saving graces. Last edited by Hameyadea on Tue Apr 14, 2015 8:20 am; edited 4 times in total |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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I'm disappointed that no mention was made of how the recap at the start of the second episode had a huge difference to the events at the end of the first episode. In episode one the vampire is killed by Yu, Mika begs Yu to keep going to safety, and once Yu has gone Mika then passes out. In the episode two recap, the vampire is alive and sucks on Mika's blood whilst Yu watches, then Yu runs away. The events are fundamentally different, since the vampire being alive or not makes a huge difference to Mika's fate.
And really, this is but one example of just how flimsy the writing is. Being stoically generic is one thing, being incompetently-written and riddled with plot holes galore is quite another. I can see this becoming the next Big Thing, which is another way of saying it's a populist piece of crap. I would rather do just about anything else than watch another twenty-two episodes of this tripe. Hmm, the garden needs to be weeded before winter sets in . . . 
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KutovoiAnton
 Posts: 958 Location: Vladimir, Russia |
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That wasn't a recap, though. It was a nightmare. |
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Fourteenthangel
 Posts: 66 |
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I'll be honest, the only real reason why I am watching this is because Sawano's name is attached and for that reason I am not disappoint. Otherwise, it just another hyped shounen with some good production values. Its not bad but it's all by the books. So okay its average.
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