Owari no Seraph

Wit Studio... what the fuck happened, my guy? Being that you're one of my favorite animation studios and are responsible for creating some of my favorite anime, as well as having heard high praise for this anime from friends, I had high expectations for Seraph of the End. A post-apocalyptic military action drama with vampires? Now that sounds like a good time, and it would've been, had it not tipped it's hand in the second episode, then proceed to drop it's cards on the floor, watch them spontaneously combust, and salt the earth where their ashes now lay. Yeah, it takes a turn for the ... worse, to say the least. So let's get started dissecting the remains of this clusterfuck. Spoilers ahead for anyone that cares.

As you recall me mentioning a few sentences ago, from my expectations, this anime was meant to be a post-apocalyptic military action drama with vampires, and to an extent, it was. That being said, the astute among you may notice, nowhere in that short list I made is the school genre. That's because I never mentioned that Seraph of the End was a school genre anime, and neither did Wit Studio, but for almost half the show, it's in this setting where are protagonist Yuuichirou spends his time not trying to make friends and failing at every turn, having the value of friendship crammed down his throat while building up a wacky cast of archetypes that he can call his new family. I feel like I dozed off between episodes and woke up several seasons later, where the world has been rebuilt and the anime has devolved into a romcom slice of life with supernatural elements. It's such a jarring change from the first episode to the animals detriment, and gives the whole anime this tonal whiplash that gives the impression that the anime doesn't know what it wants to do or be.

This tonal whiplash can also be attributed to the characters of Seraph of the End. See that? That's what we call a seemless transition right there! These characters are all given tragic backstories that give them a motive for joining the JIDA with the expectation for their character to reflect that backstory and motive, only to have them end up as these cliche character tropes who don't develop or have anything meaningful to say unless it relates to the MC, who's literally one of the most blatant cookie cutter self insert wish fulfillment characters I've ever seen. Being incredibly cringey and aloof and making braindead decisions, yet still having everyone around him fauning over him about how kind and brave he is, even though everyone should honestly be repulsed by just how embarrassing and incompetent he's been for the entire show.

Unfortunately, the side characters don't really exist as their own character with their own motive or ambitions, but rather as static archetypes that only exist to prop up the MC. It blew my mind just how many times a side characters would say something completely at odds with their character up to that point, just for the sake of making the MC seem smart or heroic. Shihou joining the Imperial Demon Army solely to make money to help his sick sister who is the only person he's shown to care about at this point, only to refuse to be there for his sister when she's hospitalized until the MC berates him about it (then they become friends). Mitsuba losing people she cared about by her being reckless, only to tell the MC he was in the right for doing the exact same thing because nobody ended up getting killed that time (then they become friends). I shouldn't have to say this, but making your side characters say and do things contrary to their established character just to make the poorly written MC seem superior only serves to drag every other character down into the same level of poor writing, as well as undercuts any decisions they make or development they get later down the road.

With all that said, you would think that with this anime being a 7.5 at the time of writing this, it must at least have something going for it. Maybe it's animation is it's saving grace? Well, it could've been. Both the characters and the background art look great. That being said, when you take vibrant drawn characters and place them over static painted environments, it unsurprisingly doesn't mesh well, and at times looks like someone put a sticker of a character on a wall painting and called it a day, which ends up being equal parts depressing and hilarious to see. Not only that, for a studio renound for great action animation, the animation in Seraph of the End is rather lacking, especially toward the end, where the big battle between the elite moon demon company and vampire nobles boiled down to a bunch of shaky single frames of everyone fighting, then a underwhelming fight between Guren and Mikaela, then everyone gets fucked up offscreen while Yuuichirou and Mikaela are arguing, then we get Yuuichirou's transformation, which looks cool but also ends up being underwhelming and pointless, then we get the arrival the Hiiragi clan to turn the tide, only to have the battle resolved offscreen and talked about in the final episode. That's it. That's the culmination of introducing and building up characters on both sides of the battle for almost the entire anime. To say I'm disappointed would be an understatement, especially with how much all of the JIDA and vampires were being hyped up at this point.

All of this isn't even to mention the more specific moments that made me realize the utter fucking ridiculousness of this anime. Awkwardly mixing a serious backstory moment for Mitsuba with a shower scene between two underage girls in episode 7. Yuuichirou being a psychopath telling a little girl she did the right thing betraying the people who saved her life because she was protecting her friends in episode 8. The battle at the beginning of episode 9 where archers were shooting down helicopters with ease, only to have a bomber show up and destroy the wall to the city because the same archers didn't even try firing at it. Mikaela showing compassion for humans even after being rejected by them, only to lose the plot and start hating humans because he thinks they're manipulating Yuuichirou (thanks for dumbing down what was the only character I liked in the entire show by the way).

The only decent thing about Seraph of the End ended up being its soundtrack. The OP and ED didn't wow me, but none of the music choices were bad either, except maybe the choice of smooth jazz during the wrap up of the final episode. It didn't sound bad, but it felt very out of place and tonally didn't fit with its accompanying scene.

I dropped Seraph of the End years ago after the initial bait and switch from the military action drama I was expecting into a boring school slice of life anime with everything else being an afterthought. I picked it back up with the hope that the show would improve after the point where I first dropped it. I was wrong in doing so. So very, very wrong. At least now I'll never have to think about Seraph of the End again... after I let my friend who recommended this to me know that he has dogshit taste in anime, of course.

Seraph of the End: Half Way Point Review

Watched until episode eleven then wanted to shoot myself.

From Wit Studio, the creative force behind Attack on Titan, comes a brand-new action series—Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign! After a mysterious virus wipes out ninety percent of humanity, vampires emerge from the recesses of the earth to enslave mankind, treating them like livestock. After growing tired of donating blood in exchange for protection, 12-year-old Yuichiro Hyakuya and his best friend Mikaela Hyakuya plot an escape along with the other orphans. After being the only successful runaway, Yuichiro joins the Moon Demon Company, an extermination unit of the Japanese ... Imperial Demon Army dedicated to killing off vampires.

The first episode didn't make much sense but did grab my attention enough to watch the next episode. I really liked the opening scenes of this anime with everyone dying, planes crashing, car accidents and so on. It was chaos as adults seemed to be dying from a terrible outbreak which occurred in a manner of seconds. We then see the Vampires emerging, from where? I don't know but they are obviously unaffected. We then see the children being harvested for blood and ushered to live in this underground city. Watching their harsh lives play out while living below was very interesting. The power dynamic was excellent and well shown. Everything was good....up until the main character escapes and the entire anime seems to take a massive nose dive into poo.

A military group called the Moon demon company somehow knew of the of main character's escape and simply shows up at the right place and time to fetch him. We then learn, from the leader of this company, that a prophecy is what lead him there. Sounds more like a cheap half assed excuse to rush the story along. So now as the story progresses we learn that 90% of the human population is gone, the world looks like crap, there are monsters roaming the streets, and Vampires lurking underground but I'm supposed to believe that in four years or so they got a full scale working Military with clean uniforms, plenty of food; including packaged food and working vending machines, oh yeah, and a large school in perfect condition...cause what would anime be like if it didn't have a school setting?

So now we have this Main character named Youchiro who is the typical shonen main character. Full of false bravado and is generally an annoying little asshat. He's now in school, surprise, surprise, and the purpose for him being in school is to make friends. Like that couldn't have been done anywhere else. But Youchiro is a little angsty bitch who doesn't want any friends due to losing the last group of friends he was an angsty little bitch to. But for some reason, everyone is a masochist so he ends up making friends anyway.

So now he gets to join the Moon Demon Company and get himself cursed demon weapons that can kill the vampires that came out of nowhere. So far I have no idea where the demons come from, how the military realized this power existed much less how to use it, but it looks cool...so I guess that's it.

So he gets his weapon, makes his new friends, and they all are on the same team. Their job is to go out...in formation....and kill Vampires. Problem, when were they ever taught this formation? This little annoying blonde haired girl keeps yelling about this formation they are supposed to keep, yet never really go over what the formation is. It just seems like all she wants is for them to stick together. Someone ought to inform her that's not a formation. So the main character acts like an equally annoying asshat and leaves the team to rescue a little girl, do whatever he wants blah blah, fight vampires blah blah and no matter how crappy their situation gets he's told in the end that he did the right thing.

Anyhow, he is eventually reunited with Mika, his best friend and family who he thought died during the escape. If you wanna get mad over that spoiler, don't. The anime's opening credits pretty much spoils Mika's fate so his death isn't as heart wrenching as it should have been. Mika, is now a Vampire who wishes to save his friend from the people who are just using him. But instead of just freaking telling him this and explaining the situation he tries to whisk him away...ya know, for tension reasons. So combined with Youchiro watching his friends get 'playfully' bitten by the Vampires...who for some odd reason don't just kill them outright when they had the chance; and his friend being turned into a Vampire. He loses his shit and turns into a fugly half ghoul angel demon thing who of course wants to kill sinners....oh yeah I forgot that this has something to do with the Bible....I think.

And don't worry folks, he can be brought back to his human self through the power of hugs.
So far this story has Vampires, biblical apocalypse monsters, a prophecy, a random plague, a full underground vampire city, a human army with demon weapons, and some sort of possible scientific experimentation, and a main character half demon ghoul thing who can be cured by hugs. It's like the creators just decided to toss anything into this anime that sounded cool and/or moved the "plot" along.

I'm on episode eleven so far and I have no questions than answers.

When did this experimentation take place? How did the Moon Demon Company know the kid existed? Where he was? And when and where to search for him? What is this prophecy? Where did the Vampires come from, the demon weapons, the apocalypse monsters, a school, vending machines, and prepackaged foods.

I don't know if I want to continue to find out...

The year is 2014. You're wit studio, who has just finished lovingly crafting attack on titan season 1, which has taken the world by storm.

Unfortunately, you're running out of source material and Isayama has asked you to take a break so you don't catch up. Damn. What do you do now? How about, you dig through a bunch of trashy light novels, find one that vaguely resembles attack on titan's themes and world, except with none of the complexity or heart, and call it a day? Sounds good to me.

This is how Owari no Seraph was born. This is a series that has literally ... no unique or interesting ideas in its entire runtime. It's filled to the brim with stock characters in a stock world that get set to autopilot and run down the same plot you've seen in a hundred other anime. Oh shoot, I almost forgot to add a generic anime school. Wait, does that really make sense in a post apocalypse? Ah who cares, throw it in anyways. Otaku eat that stuff up.

Decent animation and sound do not a good anime make. Do yourself a favor and skip this uninspired, soulless snoozefest.

Owari no Seraph..........
Sigh.....



I mean, its like the most generic story and generic characters getting revenge against other people, who surprisingly, aren't human. Kinda like Kabaneri, which is also an ripoff, they all share the same characteristics of Shingeki no Kyojin, the evil other species does something bad, and the human try to fight back, also, another similarity is that the people are kids when this terrible thing happens, Eren being an adolescent when this titans break through the wall to eat human flesh, and Yuichiro being fucking 8 years old when he is kidnapped by vampires and treated like cattle so they can suck their ... blood, the characters are wea, the plot is weak and everything kinda falls apart, this show is so edgy it deserves to be on a tumblr page, and vampires! Wow, Yamato Yamamoto, you are sure showing me. The actual heart and soul and depth that is SUPPOSED to be in every anime, kinda isnt there, its not bad, but i definitely would not say that this is a must watch, or even a plan to watch. If you are bored, with nothing better to do on a sunday than sitting down on your couch on discord and look at memes, than look at memes, than if nothing else if happening, then, and only then, should you come and watch this show, its a good timewaster at best.

I saw this anime mentioned on Subtle Anime Memes (a Facebook group) so I thought I'd give it a go. It was an... interesting... watch, to say the least.

Firstly the positives: the artwork, especially the backgrounds in the apocalyptic Tokyo and unnamed vampire city were nicelydetailed and it looked like there was a fair amount of effort put into their creation. The music (where it was used) was also quite good, and conveyed the moods of the scenes well.

Now everything else. Most other things about the series were quite underwhelming. The pacing was a bit slow, with our protagonist Yuu yelling about murdering ... vampires for 7 episodes and then killing maybe 5 (?) on screen for a couple episodes after the 7th. In terms of the plot itself, the first episode is executed well, with a slightly expected sad back story that explains why our precious Yuu-chan is broken inside. Cool. Then episode 2 it cuts to 4 years later, and suddenly he's suddenly OP? No training montage, or training arc? What witchcraft is this?

This could have been a good way to segue to what audiences want to see: badass vampire killing, but instead the protag gets dumped into a school. This wouldn't have been bad, except the pacing of the plot takes a nose dive until at least episode 7.

Yuu, in typical shounen manner, is rather superficial. He's brash and annoyingly overconfident. Most shounen have certain redeeming qualities, however Yuu's seem forced and out of place, given how distanced he is from his comrades for a fair part of the anime.

There was also the seemingly random introduction of an equally stuck-up character by the name of ... well I couldn't really have time to care because she was added to the cast at the later part of the anime towards the climax. She had rather quick character development, complete with tragic backstory about her existence, then her usefulness stopped there. Yuu's other comrades were also shallow and one-dimensional, ranging from "male tsundere", to "spineless the way Deku is with Bakugo but worse" and "ara ara", despite most being present from the early episodes.

Crappy characters aside, it's almost as if all the budget went to hand painting each background cell by cell, because when we *finally* get to vampire killing it's... still frames?! Seriously, you'd think at the climax of the anime there'd be a bit more animation to some of the fight scenes. It seems that only the fights from our baby, Yuu-chan, plus his comrades, were animated. Most of his superiors were not.

It's an interesting story, and seemed to have wanted to present a well-thought out philosophy of "is there a good and bad side? Or are we all shitty beings?" but it was barely touched on until, again, towards the later quater of the anime. Then, it's seemingly abandoned entirely on the 12th episode. I kept watching, thinking "it'll get better. Surely it'll get better". But it didn't.

This anime truly felt like it was written by a high schooler with a vampire x brother complex, the way this show is shockingly written. It seemed as though its aim was to set-up for major action in season 2, but it did an awful job at making me want to watch more.

I watched it out of boredom, and if you sincerely have nothing better to do in these trying times I can only plead you watch something else first, before coming to this train wreck of an anime.

This show, was sadly disappointing. Although having a interesting premise, although generic, I was really interested in it from the little I known. Sadly, it didn't deliver on my expectations.

The story and characters are one of the worst aspects of the show. Which in my mind, are the most important part. The premise is underdeveloped, and underused. It really had something that could be expanded upon, and delved into.

There was so much stuff that could've been developed, but it wasn't. It comes off as shotty fanfiction, which isn't a good look.

Many aspects of the plot, are underdeveloped. For examples, the Demons, how ... the Plague came to be, where the vampires came from, what the vampires are doing by experimenting on humans, why the plague only affects those who are over 13, why the plague hasn't infected adults in the real world, the weapons, the vampires themselves, the army, the monsters that roam the world, the rest of the world, and so on and so forth.

The second big problem is the main characters and other characters. But mainly the main character. Completely and utterly unlikeable. He's an arrogant, snot nosed brat, that only thinks about killing all the vampires, and how he needs no friends. Everything comes easy to him, and nothing seems to slow him down. He gets his cursed weapon easily, he gets into the special school easily, he beats the monsters easily, etc.

They didn't even show how he got so strong in the around 4 year time skip. They didn't show much of his life in the vampire city, which could've made me actually care about him and his lifelong buddy, or all of his siblings from the orphanage that all died soon into the episode.

He's underdeveloped, leaving him a shallow character, that's just unlikeable. I honestly would've liked if Yoichi had been the MC. The MC we got, was even rude to him. Yoichi, though a bit cliche and generic, would've been far less generic then the MC and would've been a much more likeably protag.

I'm gonna quickly compare the beginning of the this show to a show that it seems to take inspiration from. Attack on Titan.

Okay, in Attack on Titan. We quickly get the run done of what's happening, and what the siuation the characters are in. A quick explaining of the titans, and what humanity has been up to with the titans. But in Seraph of the End, we have no clue what's going on, and its only revealed later through direct character dialogue that's badly written.

We have Eren the main character and his relationships. We instantly know who he is. A bit of a wimp, who aspires to join the Survey Corps. He has an anger problem and gets into fights often. But deep down he cares, and is angered by how Humanity ignores the threat of the titans.

He loves his mother, and has a sisterly relationship with Mikasa, who protects him.

Then we have Hyakuya. We barely get to know who the hell he is and what drives him. It would've been great to see how severe seeing the people he loved and cared die impact him, but we get none of that. Just how he's so ANGRY and wants to kill all the vampires, something that's lazily ripped from Attack on Titan.

After he escapes, we get nothing to show his relationships, which he barely has, and then there's a 4 year time skip, one that followed the previous 4 year time skip. With Eren, you could relate to his hate and anger. He saw his mother get eaten in front of him, his life ruined, orphaned, and more. But with Hyakuya, he doesn't show why he's so angry aside from badly written dialogue.

Then we get to the main antagonists in AOT. The titans are clearly explained from the beginning. Strange, large, uncanny, man eating monsters that resemble humans that popped up hundreds of years ago. They drive Humanity to live in 3 tall walls that close them off from the word. They're tough to beat, scary as hell, can only be killed by slicing the nape of their neck, and eat humans. Plain and simple, spelled out easily for the audience to understand and get invested quickly.

For the vampires. We have no idea how they came to be, where they're from, how to kill them, what they're doing, why they hate humans and care so much for earth, even though they steal blood from humans, why do certain people's blood taste better for the vampires, etc. etc. Then there's also the fact, that somehow demons are thrown in, which are also underdeveloped and underexplained.

They just are in random weapons, which reminds me of Bleach a bit too much.

The Art and Animation, is good and pretty high quality, but the story ruins it for me.

Even though the apocalypse, vampires, and tortured children are not exactly new themes in anime, I decided to give this show the benefit of the doubt until I finished watching it. Having seen people mention it in everything from MAL lists and rankings to cosplay, artwork and videos displayed on all kinds of social networks, I thought this show would be worth watching given its popularity. However, I had also never heard anyone call Owari no Seraph a masterpiece or the best anime they had ever seen, and I soon found out why.

The story is practically nonexistent. It started out well, with some kind of ... premise (albeit a generic one) and characters that had potential for development. Sadly, this was all soon abandoned for the sake of... idunno. Throwing in more random themes and characters I guess?

It is perhaps for this reason that the story never really comes together and just jumps from one "dramatic" incident to another. Dozens of aspects are never explained or explored in detail, and you're left guessing about everything for pretty much the entirety of the series.

As if that wasn't disappointing enough, the characters are also pretty dull and come with little backstory (most of which is repeated over and over again) and even lesser character development. The most interesting character is probably Ichinose Guren (though maybe because Nakamura Yuuichi does a great job at making him come to life), who's not even one of the protagonists.

Additional talented seiyuus (Hayami Saori, Irino Miyu, Daisuke Ono, etc.) also come into the picture, but that hardly makes this show get out of the dead end it's in.

While looking around for other redeeming features, it's always good to consider art and music, but even this kind of fails here. The OST is completely unremarkable and even the English opening does little to spice things up. The art, of course, is nice, but one should expect nothing less from a show that aired in 2015. Additionally, the color palette seemed to be a bit lacking in variety for my taste, and there's only so many scenes of post-apocalyptic Tokyo I can take before getting bored.

Overall, "Seraph of the End" turned out to be "Seraph of Disappointment", because I simply couldn't wait for this show to end. Even if it finally got remotely interesting at the end of episode 10, it quickly turned plain weird and had little time left to redeem itself for the total flatness it made me endure for almost six hours.

If you're like me and your love and curiosity for anime is greater than everything else (hence making you endure even the most humdrum of series simply to see what they're about and why people talk about them so much), then go ahead and get into this mess... but be warned that, when it's over, you'll probably feel just as bored (if not more so) as you were before watching it.

Story and characters : 5/20

This is my first review and English isn't my main language so apology in advance if it's not worded properly.

If I single out the story alone, it's not too bad. It's generic AF but had potential. Unfortunately, the way it's told makes this anime absolutely terrible.

Without giving away any spoiler, I believe that with better characters, the story could've been 100% better. Unfortunately, something that really strikes a nerve is how terrible the characters are written. Nothing is properly developed in their personality and their decision-making is so bad it makes you want to punch them every 2 seconds. ...

It gets to the point where I'm at the end of the anime and I can't even take it seriously anymore. Yuu, the main character has the worst hot-blooded immature personality I've ever seen in a shonen. It's one thing to be young, dumb, and immature, but it's another to literally NEVER learn from it. As someone else said, the kid goes down to have zero redeemable quality at this point. He's simply annoying.

Maybe it's me, maybe I'm becoming too old for these types of behavioral shenanigans (I'm 26 y/o). But I really don't understand how anybody can watch this anime and feel like Yuu is worth rooting for. At the end, I found myself hoping for his death so it can put a stop to the misery of the whole show. It's THAT bad ;;



Art : 7/10
Graphics are pretty decent honestly. The fight scenes were well animated. Nothing much to say.

Sound : 8/10
Opening and ending themes were pretty good honestly!

Enjoyment : 5/10
I loved to hate it. Watch it to the end cause I wanted to see if the final episodes would change my mind.
Verdict : They didn't!

Overall : 3/10
If you have ABSOLUTELY nothing to watch and/or someone is forcing you to watch it or you'll die: Watch it.
Other than that, it's not really worth it :/

This is so generic. Idk why people are freaking out about it. this anime did nothing special.

Story 2
boring and bland, very generic. the world feels very artificial. there are functioning coffee shop while the city is in utter shit
Art 4
again, nothing special. just the generic anime style with pale colors and no personality whatsoever.
sound 7
idk why they put the sound category lol. maybe just to give shitty anime redeeming qualities.
character1
the worst part of the show. every character is an anime stereotype. nothing is believable, even the MC. some of the characters are basically eva clones.
...
Overall 2
I don't recommend this. just watch anything else.

HOW CAN A ANIME BE TERRIBLE IN EVERYTHING IT PROPOSED TO BE GOOD. this is just more one shonnen that have afraid to shows what it want to talk, Like: its a basic shonnen of two boys, but in the same way, it had a sexual appeal between TWO BROTHERS, and the author want to hide the absolutly gay vibes of the anime, because dont want to lose the watchers, but in the same want to attract the fujoshis. it can be bad in the begin, when it supposed to be a basic story about a hero in the school, it can be bad in ... the relationships of the charcters, it can be bad in the world building, this shit its so bad that the only good thing in the story is the brothers of the protagonist that dies in the first episodes, and im not talking about mika.

Owari no Seraph


Well, this anime definitely got my attention and I'm still interested in reading the manga should it finally end one year. But gaining my interest isn't hard, what is hard though is convincing me with its quality. And this anime has been relatively poor in that regard.

We have the sad background of the protagonist and his desire for revenge against the "vampires", yes the show is about vampires. And they fight them with "demonic weapons", however literally demonic, since we also have real angels here who also want to bring about the apocalypse. Have I forgotten anything else? No.



[Story 3]
...

Well, since we get several different factions thrown together here, with quite a few approaches, doubt naturally arises. What can the author create with this? Unfortunately, I don't know the answer to the question, since we only have the average extent of the two seasons. In this sense, the anime is anything but revolutionary nor particularly individual. We have all the different shounen settings here with superpowers and all sorts of clichés and the stereo types that go with them.However, I wouldn't say that the anime is actually disastrous, just average. This is also only due to the lack of creativity and the way the plot is delivered.

It follows one fight after another without any real tension or development. Then it quickly develops into a final battle, the group is meanwhile welded together more and more and then comes the end of the season. The protagonist has his Shounen usual outburst (rage mode what ever you call it) and and everything done, happy end.

Only the background with the virus was relatively interesting, but apart from that there is nothing to mention.

[Characters 3] Uhhhh, UHHH. The best characters of the second season barely get a word in edgewise and remain mostly irrelevant.

The protagonist is the low budget version of Eren Jaeger without the actual content he could have. He has no real character traits.

The female protagonist is a funny loli hybrid between the "Ara-Ara" and "Tsundere-Type" which surprised me positively, but in the end turned out to be just a running gag character.

Otherwise we have the serious and emotionally unstable thug guy, the cool teacher, the innocent guy who shoots 2 arrows per season and some mediocre smug antagonists. I like Ferid, but so far you haven't really seen much of him. And Crowley seems relatively monotonous.



[Animation 6] Mainly dynamically designed, with reasonably fluid and colorful fights. The focus on the backgrounds of the post-apocalyptic world is particularly positive.

[Music 6]

The intro and outro are actually very similar here and are relatively quiet, both ending with a reasonably satisfying climax. But neither of them is particularly recognizable. The strong positive impression is mainly due to the osts.


Conclusion

Owari no Seraph isn't bad, but it's only hardcore average. I like the basic idea despite all skepticism, just a pity that the concept was very wrongly conceived. Nevertheless, it entertained me well enough.

[Enjoyment 5]

When I first read the description of this series and watched the first episode, I thought the concept was unique and interesting.

I was hoping it was about kids or people battling alone to survive in a wasteland while trying to defeat vampires. 'Desert Punk' mixed with the film 'priest' or something but no.
As soon as the next episode started with him sat in school I knew my dreams of a unique story where dead.

Typical characters (angry kid, scared kid, mean tough girl, a protagonist with a single motive which he declares all the time, power determined by how hard you believe or whatever. If ... you want to watch something the same but better go to watch 'World trigger' or Hajime no Ippo.

I was hoping for a more gritty, survival, realistic-ish with a deep complex plot like 'ergo proxy', 'Ghost in a Shell' or even Planetarian: Chiisana Hoshi no Yume.

But nope it's just the usual high school kid, overpowered little snarky girls, big monsters, strong-willed hero, overstated weapons, people talking when they should concentrate.

To be fair I didn't watch the who series, my expectations were too high.

But here my recommendation list for animes with a bit more substance:
Cowboy Bebop (Space cowboys, Classic)
Desert Punk (post-Apoc, comedy)
Pycho pass (Sci-fi - interesting plot)
Goblin Slayers ( Fantasy, slightly unique)
Hajime no Ippo (Boxing, Classic)
Mushi-shi (spirits, slow pace but relaxing)
Kino’s Journey (person with a talking motorbike)
Food Wars! (Food)

I really wanted to enjoy this anime, as a lot of my friends had recommended it to me, but I honestly didn't get very much out of it. Though I didn't enjoy this show very much, I can't say that I hated it. I thought that the concept was very interesting and I absolutely loved the art style.
The main problem I had with this show was that I did not like the characters very much. I found Yuu and Shinoa to be a bit annoying at times, which was really a shame, as they were the main characters, and were there nearly all the ... time. I did enjoy a few of the more minor characters though, and I did occasionally find the interactions between Yuu and Guren to be entertaining.

With that being said, I don't think I would recommend this anime unless you would be willing to watch it just for the plot.

Spoilers for the plot and first episode.
The first episode talks about vampires vs humans and how there is this unfair war and humans were kept as a livestock and were being enslaved and murdered. Now predict the next episode. What could possibly happen when a revenge-seeking kid escapes from the vampires into the post apocalyptic city? Fucking high school for some fucking reason. Like, I'm done with thks shit. The first episode excitement is always 10/10 then it declines to below zero and in the last episode or 2,they give it a boost to 5/10 maximum. I don't comprehend how this pos got a high ... review score on here.
Anyways if you're interested in highschool life and will watch it, animation is kinda good. Sound is medium. Character and character development makes no sense at all. Bitches be stepping out of their character to create a teaching moment. Excitement is 0 past episode 1. If you are interested to see what the hype os about, whatch ep1 and complete the story from ur imagination.

As you may have seen in other reviews, this anime is thoroughly generic. If you've watched anime before, almost nothing will stand out as unique, and what might, won't be for any good reasons.

The painted backgrounds are probably what stand out the most, and they look really great in some shots, but the clash very poorly with the characters in many others.
Fights are very stiff and clunky, most of it is just stills and talking, with the occasional gentle touching of blades and grunting.

The absolute worst part of the anime is the world-building and narrative. A lot of it is lazy and unimaginative, happening only ... because it's convenient to the story; the reason for it being considered unimportant. Look at the synopsis for instance, a virus almost wipes out humanity - Why? How? Where? Hope you're not asking those kinds of questions, because you'll end up with a lot of them and no answers.
The narrative is so all over the place that sometimes it feels like a fever dream, the things happening don't make sense, there's a lack of continuity, and you're not actually sure what just happened, or if anything happened at all.

Somehow I watched all of this season despite its shortcomings, though I can't really pin-point what exactly I enjoyed. As you can see however, it's pretty obvious what I didn't enjoy.

Story: 2
Art: 5
Sound: 7
Character: 4
Enjoyment: 5

TL;DR: Don't ask questions, you won't get answers. If poor world-building is a deal-breaker for you, skip this one. If some more thought was put into the world and story, I think it could've been really great with its premise, even with the lackluster animation. That wasn't the case though.

i watched it because i was trying to get back into anime after a huge "i hate weeaboos" break and i like vampires & mxm ships and i have to say, it was absolute ass. the art style is ugly and generic, the animation is 75% stills and the voice acting sucks. as for the story, the characters are badly written, the story is all just predictable power of friendship tropey bullshit. mika and shinoa were the only characters i didnt hate as much and they were just used as yuu's love interests. a total waste of time. i kept watching because i thought it ... would get better, i dropped it at battle of nagoya ep1 becsuse it just didnt get better. if you want something mind numbing to zone out to, i still wouldnt reccommend it. if youre a fangirl looking for shipping opportunities, i wouldnt reccommend it. boring as batshit. totally anticlimatic, badly written and just utter garbage.