Seraph of The End


Episodes: 24
Genres: Action, Military, Supernatural, Drama, Vampire, Shounen

Synopsis: With the appearance of a mysterious virus that kills everyone above the age of 13, mankind becomes enslaved by previously hidden, power-hungry vampires who emerge in order to subjugate society with the promise of protecting the survivors, in exchange for donations of their blood. Among these survivors are Yuuichirou and Mikaela Hyakuya, two young boys who are taken captive from an orphanage, along with other children whom they consider family. Discontent with being treated like livestock under the vampires' cruel reign, Mikaela hatches a rebellious escape plan that is ultimately doomed to fail. The only survivor to come out on the other side is Yuuichirou, who is found by the Moon Demon Company, a military unit dedicated to exterminating the vampires in Japan. Many years later, now a member of the Japanese Imperial Demon Army, Yuuichirou is determined to take revenge on the creatures that slaughtered his family, but at what cost? Owari no Seraph is a post-apocalyptic supernatural shounen anime that follows a young man's search for retribution, all the while battling for friendship and loyalty against seemingly impossible odds.

Honest Review: Owari no Seraph, or Seraph of the End, is the quintessential example of a "generic" anime title. It's a show you've undoubtedly seen many times before and one you'll continue to encounter way after its time in the limelight is up. It's a throw-away title that'll be replaced by the next factory-assembled one to take its place. It's the store brand cereal at anime's supermarket; bland, cheap, packaged in a box with little creative effort, always at the bottom shelf, and does very little to distinguish itself from its competitors. At worse, it's a forgettable hodge-podge of clichés and overused tropes, and at best, it's a cheap knock-off of a much superior product. It's an entry level show in every regard and depending on how accustomed you've grown to these formulaic setups will determine how much you like/tolerate it.

The story of Owari no Seraph is so standard-fare that if someone were to tweak it with a few name and setting changes, they will be able to use the same synopsis to describe any other show with a familiar setup. Use the template below and see how many bottom-of-the-barrel shows you an insert:

One day humanity is suddenly attacked by a group of [insert name of threat here] and was brought to the brink of annihilation. [insert amount of years] later, leftovers of this time in mankind's history attempts to scrape together what's left to form a new society out of the event that felt like an act of divine punishment. And with the discovery of [insert name of weapons or power here], they were able to fight back. We follow our protagonist [insert name here] as he and his comrades use [insert name of weapon or power] to fight the [insert name of threat here] and reclaim humanity in this post-apocalyptic world. And in the process of doing so, they slowly discover the mystery of their sudden appearance that might be closer to home than what was initially thought.


To say that there's little to talk about when discussing Owari's story would be an understatement. Everything I can say here can apply to any other cheaply patched-together narrative. Instead, I'll discuss if the execution of this setup was done right nor not. Despite harping on its overused premise, it can still be done well if executed and presented with some tact... and to the surprise of no one, Owari didn't even manage to do that.

The story is supposed to document the power struggle between humanity and vampires, with our protagonist and his friends being in the centerfold of all the events taking place. You'd think with such a setup that we'd at least get an action-filled romp to keep us entertained but sadly, all we got were less than 2-episodes worth of skirmishes. That's right, a show that boasts "action" as its primary genre couldn't even fulfill that simple quota. That's like ordering a Porterhouse steak and receiving a White Castle slider instead. To add insult to injury, the pacing for Owari was painfully slow, despite what the erratic time-skip-filled 1st episode would have you believe. Plot points that would normally be wrapped up in 10-15 minutes with proper pacing are now extended to 2-3 episodes. This made some events that barely held any plot relevance to adopt the type of pacing akin to long-running battle shounens.

And as if that wasn't enough to seal its fate, the story of Owari is also plagued with plot conveniences happening in rapid succession:

A virus wipes out humanity but "conveniently" doesn't kill anyone 13 and below. Enslaved kids attempt a big escape from their vampire capturers and our protagonist is "conveniently" the only one to get away, where he "conveniently" meets a resistance force that was "conveniently" waiting right outside the escapee's exit. Humanity has "conveniently" discovered a way to infuse demon's energy into weapons to fight against the vampires with the scriptwriters' explanation being "just because." And since shounen protagonists are always special snowflakes, he "conveniently" mastered this infusion where many others have been known to fail. And no, he never practiced, because God knows he's the special snowflake. And the rest of the story adheres to this painfully forced path from beginning to end. There isn't an episode that goes by where you're not thinking "well that sure was convenient." The screenplay is plagued with the artifice of fatalistic storytelling while pretending that aspect to its writing doesn't exist. "You can't have your cake and eat it too" perfectly encapsulates the issue on display.
Haven't done a lick of training but need a power boost? Well, how about this "conveniently" placed power-boost pill that was never foreshadowed or properly introduced beforehand. Stuck in a dire situation where all your friends are in trouble? Well, how about a "conveniently" timed supernatural powerup using the trite "dark side" shounen cliche.

And again, a formulaic setup isn't inherently a bad thing if done with finesse but this show just doesn't demonstrate any concern for decent storytelling whatsoever. It's a show that would rather abuse every literary device in the book if it'll get it the results it wants rather than achieving the same end-result through careful consideration. Owari is sloppy writing 101.

An area that demonstrated some effort, however, was the art and animation. By itself, the art and animation were fine but when brought together, they mixed as seamlessly as oil and water. The 2D character designs in contrast to the watercolor/oil-pastel inspired backgrounds felt very out of place. This was made apparent in open environments where the individual scenes showed no proper separation between its foreground and background. There's no dimension or depth in the background, which result in the characters moving awkwardly across the landscape. It's like watching them play things out on a green screen, which is made all the more amusing given that it's animated and not live-action.

While they didn't mesh well together, the creators still deserve credit for at least attempting to make it different, as the backgrounds did look quite nice at times, with a nice range of color choices and purposeful brush stroke-like textures. The character designs were all fine as well, being distinct enough to tell apart from other series. However, I am disappointed that they never had any well-choreographed fights, especially considering the limited amount of physical encounters they chose to have, to begin with. As a whole, the art and animation were passable, it wasn't the best but it did demonstrate some creative decisions in its visual output. At worst, a bit off model and at best, a serviceable piece of work.

If Owari had any saving graces it'll be the opening theme that came with it. It was a toe-tappingly infectious tune with well-timed visuals that I found myself playing on repeat. A catchy pop ballad that hit just the right notes and visual presentation that kept it in tempo. Surprisingly enough, the soundtrack had some restraint to it, which is uncommon for Hiroyuki Sawano, especially when taking into consideration his previous work on Attack on Giant Naked People and Kill La Wincest. While it still had his signature use of orchestric soundbites and digital glitch-pop buildup, it was often intertwined with shyer melodic tunes. It was refreshing if only unexpected for what Sawano is known for.
The voice acting was all fine, with the standout being Takahiro Sakurai's performance for the vampire antagonist, Ferid Bathory. He did a good job giving him a playful yet sinister tone, which really helps to sell how much of a baddie he was. But enough appraisal, time to address the biggest crux of Owari, and that were the characters.

Like the underbaked story, the characters suffered from an equal amount of problems. On top of being indistinguishable from your garden variety shounen lineup, they were also all grossly underdeveloped. Our protagonist, Yuu Hyakuya, is yet another hot-blooded teen who's on a quest for revenge. His one-track mindset is only topped by his regurgitated "I will defeat them all!", "I don't need friends!" mantras that he seems to want to yell out every 10-minutes. What's disheartening about the protagonist is that if given the proper time, he could have actually received decent characterization. There were several opportunities that could have allowed for this to occur but they were never taken advantage of. If you want the audience to get invested in a conflict, there needs to be proper time given to let the events unfold. If something life-altering happens to our protagonist that would cause a metamorphosis upon conquering that mental dilemma, it would benefit the story to let the audience see that play out. But instead of giving the proper time to allow this to happen, they simply time skipped pass this rough stage altogether. So not only was the story written with a sense of artificiality, but even the little decency it could have attained through demonstrating the character's growth was completely disregarded.

The rest of the cast were all forgettable nobodies you could find in other series. There was the pussy sidekick, the friendenemy rival, the tsundere, and Douchbag teacher-sama, and the list goes on and on. Possibly the only character that had a decent personality was Shinoa Hiiragi, one of our protagonist's comrades. Her snarky, playful attitude made her interaction with the others fun to watch, but like the others, she remained underdeveloped and lacked any proper characterization outside of the already playful nature that she possessed. Another key character brought up was Yuu's childhood friend, Mikaela, but his involvement comes with spoilers so I'll leave it at that. The vampire antagonists were all one-dimensional baddies and none of them really mattered in the end. The only one that really got focus was Ferid Bathory, due to his involvement with our protagonist's life-altering incident. He's cartoonishly sinister and takes lives in a carefree manner, and that's about the extent of him as a character.

And after running through everything that Owari no Seraph had to offer, the final verdict can't surmount to anything other than generic.

Enjoyment: 6/10

This title is a knock-off brand shounen in every way possible. While I wasn't really bothered watching it, I certainly wasn't impressed either. The setup was predictable and the cliched moments just came in by the truckload. It was a time-passer, but not a good one at that.

Overall: 5/10

If you're a newcomer to anime then Owari could, at best, serve as a gateway title to help you get a little insight into the medium's common practices. But if you've been a part of the anime community for a decent amount of time and have grown tired of these formulaic setups, then I suggest skipping this one as it does nothing but follow a set checklist like its life depended on it.

That's all Thanks for Reading. Sayonara

"A day without Anime is a day wasted" ~ Mi-san