Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign

Episode 7

Having just succeeded at their trial-by-demon weapons, our heroes are immediately sent off on their first mission. Led by Shinoa, their task is to clear out some vampires who have been raising an encampment of humans. Apparently, this group of rank amateurs is expected to take out multiple vampires right off the bat. Demon weapons or no, these must be some of the weakest vampires in fiction. There's an issue, however – the Moon Demon Company operates in teams of five, but Yuichiro, Shinoa, Yoichi, and Kimizuki only make four. Guren is too cool to hang out with a bunch of teenagers, so that means it's new character time!

Enter Mitsuba Sangu, an experienced (but still high-school-aged) vampire hunter. She wields a giant demon axe and is a stickler about regulations. She's also as rude as everyone else, which continues to be excellent. One of the first things she does is try to kick Yuichiro in the face in order to test his reflexes. (He passes, and Shinoa is pleased to learn that the blow hurt.) It's not long until they encounter a Four Horsemen of John (that continues to be a terrible name) chasing a little girl. Yuichiro rushes in to save her, but Mitsubu stops him, explaining that this is a well-known vampire trap. Not that this discourages Yuichiro.

Of course, Mitsuba has a tragic backstory. When she was younger, she was a reckless idiot in combat and got her previous squadron killed. Now she's firmly anti-reckless-idiot, which means she's anti-Yuichiro. Unfortunately for Mitsuba, Yuichiro is the protagonist, and the narrative conveniences him. Following Yuichiro, Shinoa's squad manages to fight off the Horseman of John alongside three vampires and rescue the girl.

For a series that's so bad at dialogue, this episode managed to establish an entertaining rapport between its characters. They're all casually insulting to each other without being cruel. It's charming, and it reminds me of conversations that actual young teens would have with each other. It saves the show from being completely generic, and for by-the-book shonen, that's enough. There are also some neat character moments – Shinoa displays sensitivity and kindness for the first time as the group's leader. Her casual cruelty shuts down as she shelters the little girl. Yuichiro also displays surprising prudence in his decision to avoid taking down a few vampires in the short term to instead kill a lot in the long term. The baby is learning! None of them are deep characters by any stretch, but I am endeared to all of them.

The show also has its first fanservice scene. Shinoa and Mitsubu have a conversation while showering side by side. It was fine, both benign and no more stupid than anything else that happens in this show. It's remarkable that it this long for anything close to sexually exploitative to even happen in this series. I'm so acclimated to something skeevy happening in every anime. Seraph of the End has so far earned the high praise of being inoffensive.

It's another solid but unexceptional episode from Seraph of the End. It looks like Studio Wit has found their follow-up hit to Attack on Titan, and at least it brought us Shinoa.

Grade: B

Broadcast Dub Thoughts

This is a difficult dub to judge on the first episode. Most of the main characters don't appear in it, and the ones that do are children. Despite this impediment, Micah Solusod and Justin Briner are both solid as Yuichiro and Mikaela respectively. They convincingly sound like impassioned children, and I'm optimistic about how they'll play the characters' older selves. I like how they let Yuichiro be guttural during his escape from the vampire compound, as well as the adaptive choice of referring to vampires as “fangs.” The show's Achilles heel is still the dialogue. Adaptive scripting just can't fix lines like: “You know why I'm here? Because my dad went crazy and tried to kill me. And my mom, she was so convinced that I was a demon child that she committed suicide.” Otherwise, Eric Vale's Ferid is a cliché fey vampire, but that's what the role calls for, and he succeeds at making the character both entertaining and threatening. It sounds fine so far, and I look forward to hearing more.

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.