Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign

Episode 23

After last week's intense emotional reconciliation, this penultimate Seraph dedicates itself to plot, plot, plot. Plans are set in motion, co-conspirators are revealed, and our heroes begin to look beyond the established humans-versus-vampires battle line.

Narumi and his remaining squad are pissed at Shinoa. They equate the deaths of their two squadmates, Yayoi and Kagimiya, with Shinoa's defense of Mika just moments earlier. (Really, it was pure coincidence that the vampires launched their trap then, although the distraction of Shinoa's apparent betrayal may have helped the FANGS in their sneak attack. Still, I'd say blaming Shinoa at this moment is an irrational reaction caused by grief.) Narumi's about to execute her in retaliation, but Shinya stops him, reminding the sergeant that he's acting out of turn. Shinya also manages to deflect Narumi's rage towards Kureto, revealing that he ordered them on a suicide mission. Narumi then turns mutinous. As a response, Shinya changes objectives – they're no longer going to support Kureto's ambitions, but intercept him instead to rescue Guren.

Meanwhile in the vampire-zone, Guren's still alive but getting beaten on pretty badly by a noble. Ferid arrives and starts explaining a whole lot of plot junk to Crowley. It turns out that Guren is (sort of) his co-conspirator. Remember when Mahiru Hiiragi's spirit appeared and embraced Guren during an earlier episode, giving off the implication that she was the demon inside of his sword, Mahiru-no-yo? Well, it turns out that he's not doing too well on the demon possession front. In fact, Guren's almost totally succumbed to her influence. He's so far out on the brink that she possesses him around half of his conscious hours now. Ferid has been in communication with Mahiru inside of Guren's body. As it turns out, Mahiru was also Krul's co-conspirator from back when she was alive. Krul had no idea that Mahiru had “died,” is currently watching the action from within Guren, and that her plans are thus intertwined with Ferid's. So far, Mahiru is the story's ultimate puppet master. Her goals are unclear as of yet, but we know that they somehow involve the Seraph of the End, and we also know that Krul has betrayed the rest of her kind for it. Ferid has done the same – selling out several of his fellow nobles to the Japanese Imperial Demon Army – but for potentially different reasons. At the end of Seraph's second season, we finally have a sense of the major players in the political drama and how they relate to one another. The mysteries are now the whys and hows of what they seek to accomplish.

At least Kureto's mission is clear. He wants to unite the world under his own military dictatorship. To do this, he's conducted experiments to artificially provoke the Seraph of the End gene in children and use them as his own personal WMDs. Mirai is his latest victim. He's about to launch her in his final strike against vampire-kind. When he arrives at the airport, a distraught Shinya questions him about his intentions regarding the suicide mission, but Kureto refuses to answer. When Narumi threatens him with violence, Kureto deploys "something" from inside the box of children. They sprout a bunch of knives on chains and start attacking people, killing Narumi's remaining subordinates, Rika and Iwasaki. However, just as he's about to die, the Shinoa Squad jumps in to defend Narumi, likely regaining his trust. Then when Shinoa nearly dies, Yu finally appears to deflect the blow. This conga line of salvation culminates in Guren appearing to aid Yu. However, it's a possessed Guren, who seems prepared to attack Yu! The episode ends before we can see exactly what Nega!Guren is up to, but I doubt it's anything good.

So that was an eventful episode! Seraph of the End is going to end its second season with a bang. Interestingly, there's only one more chapter that hasn't been adapted yet, and it came out around December 7th. This show continues to maintain a ridiculously close release schedule to the manga, especially considering its high production values. I hope this doesn't negatively affect the ending. Seraph of the End has grown on me immensely throughout these writeups, and it'd sting to see it slip back into mediocrity. With the manga releasing chapters on a monthly basis, it'll probably take more than a year for the next season - if they decide to make more.

Grade: A

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.