Review of Seraph of the End: Battle in Nagoya

Better than the first season, but still lacking. At least this time around they're actually doing something. This might be a relatively short review, but here goes: Overall, I gave it a 6/10: Fair. There were a few factors that worked really well in the series but it was held back by the two most important ones: Story and Characters. We might as well talk about those first. Characters: 5/10 Oh man are they all over the place. LtCol Guren does redeem himself a bit in this season. He comes off a bit more as a competent commander of a special unit, whereas there were justsome actions in the first season that made him look like a joke. That's something I just cannot get over. One moment he's serious, and the next he's extremely immature. It seems like the writers could not grasp a hold of the actual character. Furthermore, they could have really done more to explain his relationship with his demon weapon. You'll have to see it to know what I mean, but they barely covered it, leaving no effect on the audience whatsoever.

Yoichi: Classic goodie-two-shoes. God I hate these worthless people. Yoichi, during the series is portrayed as a competent squad member with high talent. Okay, he does do a few things in combat that makes him not completely suck, but he's such a bland character that lacks strength and doesn't really have an emphasized level of intelligence either. His only redeeming quality is that he is a supportive, good person. Bleh.

Shinoa: I did like her since the first season. She's witty and antagonizing towards the main characters. She's usually a decent Squad Leader, yet this season, and bits of the first one, she had a few lapses. I guess they're still kids afterall. Perhaps it's good writing to have the viewer both like and dislike the character in some ways, or maybe its that they can't decide on one personality for them.

The other squad members: Barely existed this season. Definitely true for Mitsuba, and I can't really think of much to write about Kimizuki. Enough said.

Mika: Not too much to judge wrong with this character, though later on in the series, you run into a very BL interaction moment. As we recall, Mika hates humans and hates vampires. He hates everybody and is very conflicted. You don't really get an idea of what he wants, other than the obvious, saving Yu. And even then, you don't really get an idea of how.

Krul: Alright, I must admit, I'm tired of the common vampires, zombies, werewolves, etc that are just flooding the fiction/fantasy world. Krul is probably among 2 vampires that I actually like/pay any attention to. (The other, of course is everyone's favorite little donut eating blonde). There is definitely something intriguing about Krul's body language, her tone of voice and her special treatment of Mika. Plus, she's pretty hot, and not just because she's 2D. She's confident, (obviously because she's the vampire queen), and you don't want to piss her off. Ah, finally, another decent vampire character.

Hiiragi Shinya: He was also a pretty decent character. Skilled, cocky with a chip in his shoulder, at first you think he's extremely shady, but redeems himself immensely as the story goes on. Not a bad dude.

Also, there's quite a few minor characters that were present for an episode or two here and there. Some I liked, some I didn't, and others I thought were used the wrong way in the story.

But, one of the ones I hated most of all:
Yuuichirou.
MAIN CHARACTER SYNDROME. His wiki entry should read, "blah blah generic adolescent main character with typical main character haircut who is hot headed and wants revenge. Between the first season and this one, he has rediscovered his idea of family, the people he wants to protect? Is that really the only development he has? Really, that's it? ARGH! that's so overdone! Also, he's a complete idiot. You see him do things that completely endanger himself, the squad and the rest of the unit. He just doesn't drop it. Yuuichirou sucks.

Story: 5/10

So while the first season pretty much was just an establishment, in this season the humans and vampires actually go into organized combat... For one battle anyway. Yes, the entire season pretty much focuses on the events of ONE battle. Alright, that might not always be terrible, as there were some pretty good war movies out there about singular engagements. But at least you get to finish those in one 2-hour sitting. Not that I don't like battle scenes, but in an entire season, they could have honestly inserted more content.

Otherwise, the story was completely disjointed. Alright, so what developments occurred to influence the actions of Krul Tepes and Guren Ichinose? Where did "Owari no Seraph" come from? Why did it turn out to be (spoilers)? Since when were the Hiiragi brass planning to enact their master plan? None of this was covered in any detail or explained properly.

Also, not enough death occurred.

Now onto the two factors that worked in favor of a good rating for Owari no Seraph: Art & Sound.

Art: 7/10
It's 2016. Good art in this day and age shouldn't be an astounding accomplishment. Flashy effects, decent drawing and animation, plus one detailed scene of Shinoa that made me bite my lip. Otherwise, they didn't try anything really new or groundbreaking.

Sound: Again, 7/10
They did actually put together a good soundtrack. In particular, the ED and some of the OSTs. You have to pay attention during a lot of the combat scenes to realize how well the OSTs are used.

Finally, enjoyment and overall score:

Despite the most crucial elements of the series falling very short (scattered story and mediocre characters), there's something that kept me watching. Maybe it was the industry standard placement of a cliffhanger at the end of every.single.episode, or the constant action. Yeah, they didn't do too bad there. I mean, if the show were not at least decent, or even good, I would not have been able to binge it over the course of one night and the following morning.

I give enjoyment and the series an overall score of 6/10. The first season was much worse, trust me. If you've seen that, I suppose you might as well watch this season to make up for it.