I want to protect that smile.
Impression
WE SHOULD CALL HIM ARMIN! ARM, IN! GEDDIT?
Don’t die, Blondie-kun! Who am I kidding, of course he’s not going to die. I seriously doubt Vampire-kun is dead as well. But I think I’m jumping the gun slightly – let’s backtrack a bit. This is Owari no Seraph, and it’s an adaptation this season that has received a considerable amount of hype. I have not read the manga, but I was nevertheless lured in by the promise of a Sawano Hiroyuki OST and a lot of extravagant deaths. In essence, I was very excited for this, like I’m sure many of you were. Do I think it lived up to the pre-airing hype it generated? Well… not really.
I mean, it was kind of edgy, wasn’t it? Not that I didn’t expect it to be, to some extent. After all, the premise is that vampires have overtaken the world, and that all humans have died save for those who were 13 or younger at the time of the epidemic – which naturally suggests that we will be getting many childish actions, like in this episode itself when Blondie decided that the very night he stole the map was the best time to escape. Truly, a foolproof plan. It’s just that it also paves the way for a lot of teenage angst, led by a guy named Yuuichirou who heavily reminds me of Eren. And I don’t like Eren. We’ll be getting lots of stupid, hot-headed decisions in the future when Eren sees a vampire and is blinded by rage instead of thinking things through calmly and intelligently. I was also kind of uncomfortable when Blondie-kun started talking about his nightly escapades with Vampire-kun. I mean, he then goes on to say that he’s offering his ‘blood’, but it suuuuuuure didn’t sound like that was all they were doing. Vampire-kun must be quite experienced with grooming little boys.
The premise itself wasn’t bad, it was just the execution really. It wasn’t unstable to the extent it was confusing, but it would have been nice had they not used two four-year time-skips so blatantly. Perhaps they could have just ended this first episode with Eren running out of the underground city. It was all just a bit too cliché, and a bit too predictable – I’m going to guess right now that Eren gets attacked at school or otherwise next week, and it ends with a fateful reunion cliffhanger with Blondie. Nevertheless, there’s a lot you can infer from what they’ve told us – for one, Hyakuya Orphanage is probably more than just an orphanage, what with all that talk about prophecies and laboratories. It’s also most likely some sort of misguided rumour that anyone who goes outside after the age of 13 suddenly dies on the spot – there are clearly many children who escaped the vampires from the school scene we saw in the preview, and I think the reality is just that anyone above the age of 13 at the time of the outbreak died, instead of it being a perpetual rule. I also caught on about halfway that the reason the orphans were all so cute and adorable was because they’d be violently killed by the end of the episode.
I suppose Owari no Seraph is okay. Much like Shokugeki no Soma, I don’t think they’ve shown us what this series really can do, so I’m willing to continue watching for a bit longer. I also really, really love the background art! If there’s anything that will continue tying me to this series, it’s the wonderful, hand-painted watercolours that they’ve used for the underground city. I admit I actually spent more time staring at the watercolours than listening to Blondie-kun and Eren when they were talking on screen. Eren’s bottomless anger is bound to get on my nerves before long, but at least he has a cool uniform.
Possibility of Watching: High
Possibility of Blogging: Moderate
Oki’s Impression
Wow uhm so from the beginning, the line ‘he wants to kill them all’ really struck me. I have to say it’s very rare I watch an anime with a predictable first episode and go, no this is going to be good. The last time I did it was Cross Ange and I cannot emphasize enough that that anime was probably one of my alltime favorites! Seraph did another one to me and I can just see exactly where it’s going and exactly what it’s doing.
The main focus on this episode was honestly the relationship between two boys who in their own way are trying to escape this vampire ruled society. I really loved both of them and by the end of the episode I can already tell you where this series is going: Mika is definitely turned into a vampire and this is going to be a very big thing. To be honest I kind of get a yaoi vibe from the show already? But my rule is as long as the show takes it seriously and romance happens then I can enjoy it the same way you would any other ship. Thank god they’re not 8 by the end of it.
It’s hard to really cover the show when Vantage said all the issues, but I’d say none of the issues particularly bothered me. I enjoyed it from start to finish, loved the morbid destruction, loved watching every scene, adored the sound track, adored the characters- so far this is probably my favorite episode 1 of the season. Now all that’s left is to watch him kill THEM ALL!! So on that note:
SHOTGUN
PS That vampire guy was hot loli killer or not.
Oki
Yes, when that captain mentioned a prophecy I thought either:
a) He was going full chunni there as a way of inspiring any escaping children
b) There are a lot of children who were modified to be able to survive outside in anticipation of the attack
Here’s to hoping some of the children are revived as vampires and Yuu saves them later on. As for the school portion in the preview, I wonder whatever happened to that vampire that Yuu will fight. Just before the initial outbreak/attack she’s leading a group of minions and wearing a fancy cloak, but now she’s wearing prison/restraint-esque clothing.
I think the implication was that all the children from Hyakuya Orphanage had something done to them. Unfortunately, apart from Eren and Mika they are now all dead, and I doubt Blondie will still be his friend the next time they meet.
Oh, I’m counting on any revived members of his family being enemies upon the initial reunion. It’d be the perfect chance for Yuu to sink his own two fangs into the Vampires. First by reclaiming some of his former family and second by basically cause discenssion and stealing some vampires onto the Human side!
I doubt any of the little ones could/would be saved, but perhaps Mikaela and Akane might make it. If Ferid did survive then turning Mikaela into a vampire would be a form of revenge. The same is true of Akane to a lesser extent, but for her part it’s more so that she would at least be easier to revive given her less severe damage.
By the way, I forgot to do this earlier, but thanks for starting up the coverage Vantage.
I know humans can be turned into vampires, but I don’t know if the process can be reversed. Mika is still alive as far as we know, and that’s probably required for him to become a vampire in the first place – I think the rest of the children, including Akane, are dead and so that’s it for them.
No problem! Pleasure as always.
Like you said, Yuuichirou reminds me a lot of Eren–unreasonably hot-headed, revenge-driven, and very immature. And like you, I HATE Eren. I still liked this episode a lot, but I’m worried that this will be a lot like SnK. It may be too early to judge. I was enamored by the art in this first episode–the scenery and especially the character designs are really well drawn. I’m also willing to bet that Yuuichirou will get picked on at school, probably because other students hate his angst as much as we the viewers do lol.
Then again, maybe I just enjoyed this episode because of Ferid. I used to hate all villains unconditionally, even the hot ones, until I met Makishima Shogo.
Oh, I feel stupid. Ferid’s voice actor also voiced Makishima. What a coincidence!
Glad to hear from another fan of the background scenery! I’m waiting for the battle scenes. We never saw any of that, so I may reassess my opinion of this once its substantive plot gets going, like I hope a lot of people do with Shokugeki. We’ll get more characters too, so I might even end up taking this seriously at some point. Until then, I’ll just keep believing that Eren will do fine, because he’s the Chosen One(TM).
So Ferid is his name! If I can remember that for next week, I won’t have to keep calling him Vampire-kun. To me, he murdered the lolis, which is unforgiveable.
I agree so much with this. There was a huge disparity between the scenery/soundtrack and everything else. I don’t know much about this show and I only decided to give it a try because there was so much hype for it, but I feel completely letdown after watching it.
Even though there are so many similarities to SnK, I feel like like it’s off to a much worse start than SnK. Honestly, I felt disconnected from everything that was happening and I basically felt nothing when all the children died. At least when Eren’s mom died, I felt sympathy for him and it helped to emphasize the extremity of the situation. Here, vampires may have taken over the world, but I barely felt the gravity of the matter.
I don’t want to base my opinion of this show on comparisons with SnK, but seeing the way that it has started, I can’t help but do so.
OH and I really cannot stand Yuuichirou’s voice.
I think the comparison to SnK is inevitable. Even if Wit Studio and Sawano Hiroyuki weren’t attached to the project, the plot and Yuuichirou being a carbon copy of Eren would have had a lot of people make the connection. I too feel let down, but here’s to hoping the next few episodes can change that. If nothing else, there will be awesome music. And cool uniforms.
At least Yuuichirou isn’t voiced by Kaji Yuki, who does a lot of frustrated, angry characters like Eren, Shuu (Guilty Crown) or Yukine (Noragami). That said, he’s done a lot of awesome male leads too!
Being compared to SnK is inevitable, but then I’m surprised that no one compare it to Black Bullets because they are more similar in term of plot. I guess mostly because it’s from WIT and Sawano then. In reality, Owari and SnK are entirely different, but people would see that later in the show. It starts really slow so hopefully it will still be in your expectation later on. Anyway, Yuu would be more likable than Eren in LOTS of ways, he isn’t that stupid, so don’t worry. I don’t like Eren too LOL.
Episode 1 does better than I expected, it changes a lot from the manga, and in positive way. It makes the atmosphere more darker, though yes, it’s kind of edgy. The background is beautiful ~ Now I’m just waiting for the Op and Ed…
Too predictable how the escape would end, even without knowing anything beforehand, and not watching the opening. So I was prepared when they died, and that made it lame.
I don’t know why you guys don’t like “Eren” like charackters? 😀 At least for me, it was a new protagonist charakter type. His actions for me never felt inlogical, I always thought they were true to his situation. Were there any animes before that I didn’t watch, that overused the charakter type, or do you just not like him?^^