Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign

Episode 3

It's really easy to pretend that Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign is a Shin Megami Tensei anime. Yeah, I can dig this.

The Japanese Imperial Demon Army combats vampires by having its soldiers make pacts with demons. These demons transform into weapons during combat. For example, Yuichiro's purple-haired supervisor Shinoa Hiragi keeps an enormous demon scythe in her pocket. Yuichiro hasn't been given one of these weapons yet because Shinoa thinks that he's “weak of heart,” i.e. too much of a revenge-obsessed dumbass to be able to handle one. She then starts haranguing him about his virginity for some reason. Humanity needs to start shooting out babies in order to repopulate the Earth and combat the vampire hordes. It's a strange digression that at least resulted in the line, “But Yu, virginity is “evil.”” That's like something out of Zardoz.

Then it turns out that the army keeps a demon locked up in the school basement. Or at least they should. The door isn't actually locked, just covered in mystic seals and presumably a polite KEEP OUT sign. Anybody could wander down there if they wanted to – and in fact they do. One of the school bullies goes in on a dare and is promptly possessed by a demonic axe. When Yuichiro hears about this, he decides “I need that axe for myself” and runs down to pry it from the bully's hands. When he does, he's treated to a vision of being reunited with his dead family, who plead for him to avenge them. He fights off the vision, so Shinoa declares him surprisingly “STRONG OF HEART” and approves him for the Moon Squad. Never mind that he just disobeyed orders to get his hands on a dangerous weapon for a vigilante revenge quest. Weren't they getting on him for not being a team player just last episode?

So Yuichiro is one of the stupidest anime protagonists in recent history. He's the actual version of what people misconstrue Attack on Titan's Eren Jaeger to be – someone who'd drive off a cliff if you told him that revenge is at the bottom. The narrative just rolls with it too. His superiors just remind him that he shouldn't disobey orders, all while remaining begrudgingly impressed and assigning him more duties. It's great. He's not "annoying" like a lot of bad anime protagonists, just charmingly bullheaded. Yuichiro isn't a good character by any stretch, but so far he's one that I don't mind following around.

Also, Mikaela's back and he's working for the vampires! Shocker. This reveal might have worked if it hadn't been telegraphed by the opening and most of the promotional materials. As for now, it looks like he has a demon sword of his own and isn't too happy to be working for Vampire Lord Flounceypants. I wonder what the conflict will be like between Yuichiro and Mikaela? Something has to be keeping the vampire's thrall from deserting. Has he been brainwashed or is it straight-up coercion?

Seraph of the End is a well-made bad show. While the story may be ripped beat-for-beat from the shonen action series playbook, it's an efficient execution of the genre. The production is still top-notch, with many inspired visual choices. I especially like how they realized demonic fire as a writhing mass of sketchmarks. There's also an unexpected amount of atmosphere imbued in environments like “school stairwell to the demon basement.” If you're into anime for impressive visuals alone, Seraph of the End is a must-watch for this season.

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.