Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign

Episode 5

So far I'd characterize Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign as “not bad.” There's not much unique going for it, but it also doesn't fall into most anime's usual pratfalls. It's decent to its female characters, well-produced, and most importantly, never boring. All of its flaws happen to entertain me, and every week I'm more excited for my next twenty minutes of faux Shin Megami Tensei action.

Studio Wit has been getting some talent to put this thing together. This episode features some astounding work from Yoshinari Kou, who did key animation on Evangelion: 1.0 You Are [Not] Alone and Fullmetal Alchemist: The Sacred Star of Milos. His distinct style is full of sudden, jarring motions. It's very expressive – if used purposefully, his style can convey a lot of character information through small gestures, and it works well here. Lacking an inspired script, much of this episode's character information is conveyed through how the characters move relative to each other. Yuichiro and Shihou both take up a lot of space with their default stance, Yoichi is compact and still, and Shinoa hangs back before swooping in to harangue Yuichiro.

The show has also started mocking how dumb Yuichiro is. He enters this episode by trying (and failing) to land a high jump kick onto Guren's head. If you didn't grasp the depth of this stupidity: Yuichiro assaulted his superior officer at military HQ for not yet trusting him with a dangerous weapon. Fortunately for him, his violent lughead charms work on people other than me, and he's ready to be assigned a weapon by episode's end. He also gets 0% on all of his exams, to Shinoa's delight. That level of academic incompetence is an accomplishment, and it impresses all of his classmates. It also doesn't impede his progress into the military, despite the fact that he's in classes geared towards training future soldiers.

Instead of that protocol BS, Guren douses the entire class with a blast of Demon Magic from his Demon Weapon, knocking most of them unconscious. Everyone still standing afterwards is immediately promoted. This means that Yuichirou, Shihou, and Yoichi (who has insane magic resistance – this is a video game, after all) are shuffled off to the Demon Basement to get outfitted. Their unconscious classmates will presumably take care of themselves when they wake up. The episode cuts off just as the trainee trio gets their hands (literally) on the demon weapons, so next episode will be about how they face them and come out alive. Looks like we'll get more information on Yoichi, who's otherwise been overwhelmed by Yuichiro, Shinoa, and Shihou's strong personalities. He apparently has some trauma involving vampires who murdered his sister.

So the Japanese Imperial Dragon Army is run by a clan, the Hisagis. Shinoa is a member of the main branch (which explains why she's so haughty) while Guren is her distant relative, a member of a side branch. Hisagi higher-ups hold Guren in disdain for his low-birth, and he rebels by refusing to respect them. That explains why he hits it off so well (in multiple senses of the phrase) with Yuichiro – they both have issues with authority. I wonder how the Hisagi family came into being? I mean, the Vampire Apocalypse only started eight years ago. They must have been planning ahead to have a dynasty with branches. Maybe they're the people who had all of the demon weapons before this? If so, were they responsible for the plague? It seems like a bad idea to have a single lineage in charge of the remnants of humanity. Our bad guys aren't as bad as we thought they were – what does that say about our good guys?

Otherwise, the best moment of this episode was when Mikaela tried to go back to his roots by interacting with some imprisoned children. He was one of them three years ago, but he's just another monster after their blood to them now. It's a simple moment, but it's well-executed, getting to the core of how isolated Mikaela must feel in vampire society. By contrast, Yuichiro is finding a new family in the Moon Demon Company. I wonder what their dynamic will be like when they meet up again? Mikaela used to stabilize Yuichiro, but now he's the one in serious need of support. Ferid Bathory also keeps trying to cozy up to Mikaela, to his discomfort. I wonder what'll ultimately drive Mikaela toward working with the villainous Lord?

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.