Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen

Micro review:

The characters are shallow but the story is interesting.
Do not watch this anime if you don't like waiting for answers to plot points. Do not watch this if you only plan to watch a few at a time.
This anime requires a binge session to finish it as it can get tedious, but it is (kinda) worth it.

Story: 5
Art: 7
Sound: 7
Characters: 2
... Enjoyment: 5

I have now finished this anime and as such my review has changed, slightly.

I will leave my old review up as I still agree with it as i wrote it, 9 episodes in. Go to the bottom for full season review.

Up to episode 9:

[Such a waste of an intriguing plot idea and character (Mika)

The first season was not the best, I will admit. Yet I felt that the story had promise and Mika was way underdeveloped.

The second season is everything that is wrong with the first on steroids, all beefed up and loud. One dimensional characters that are just the tropes of typical animes. No character development or really plot progression.

All that happens could be summed up in a fraction of the time if there were not purely random and unexplained scenes mixed with boring drawn out flashbacks. The only thing that kept me watching was the story, and I found out that it is really not all that complex after reading a summery.

The characters are stuck in a time paradox. One where any actual character development is stuck and all that they can do is spout the same exact lines over and over.

Art and sound are good. Yet, as hard as you try to dress up a pile of trash to make it look fabulous, it's still garbage.

Only watch if you need anything to watch and have no better options to binge.

If the story is grabbing you then look it up online]


Full season:

On a whim I decided to finish this anime late one night, and I am glad I did. Kinda. It is still not the best anime by any shot but I can kinda see it going somewhere next season, so I hold out hope there.

The main issue with it is that it is trying to be the next big hit anime *cough (Attack On Titan) cough*, but FAILS hard. It has a great story, I knew this from the start; this was why I even continued to watch it and why I finished it. Too bad the characters and writers let the story down.

There are simply too many mysteries in the story and more keep coming the longer you watch. With no answers to solve the past questions you just end up lost in what is going on always. Characters motivations are there, but we have not got any idea what they are.

This is the shows biggest failing, the writers are writing in too many character traits without fleshing out the others added before. This leaves you with a confusing mess of a "family" of characters whose motivations are one dimensional and come off as just lame.

Read the manga if you have the itch for answers that I have after finishing. Maybe it is the better read, or at least it is more complete at this point.

* Hi there! This is my first review, so bear with me if it's badly written or judged. Constructive feedback is welcomed. *

Did you enjoy Seraph of the End (Owari no Seraph) Season 1? Then you'll probably enjoy this sequel. Personally, I don't like Seraph of the End as a whole, but the show has a few merits that keep it from being unbearable to watch.

NOTE: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS MINOR SPOILERS FROM THE FIRST SEASON.

From what we've seen so far, the animation is generally a lot more realistic and fluid than the first season's. In the first season, the animation was quite rigid and unrealistic, ... barely showing any kind of fluidity at all (e.g when Guren goes flying through the air in ep.10) and episodes would often use cheap "action lines" as a means to show multiple people fighting.

Honestly, the soundtrack isn't anything special, it works very well when it needs to but otherwise the sound is above average. The opening music is nice.

I think the art style of this show is beautifully done. Some might not like the hazy, painted and generally greyish background style (which really shows during scenes set outside) but I think it really captures the story's wasteland/apocalypse setting. These backgrounds always compliment what is being animated. The same can be said for the character and weapon designs, which also suit the story very well.

The story continues where we left off, and is based on the battle at Nagoya. The actual plot, so far, as boring, stale, and as shounen as the first season, so don't expect much development there. There are, however, more action scenes, which is what this show does a lot better than the first season. The second season, more so than the first, loves to shove themes of 'family' down your throat every single episode. I'd appreciate these themes if they were implemented with even a bit of subtlety, and would let the viewer make a personal connection rather than having it constantly spoon-fed to them, but instead these 'familial themes' get in the way of enjoyment. To its merit, the second season's premise is quite promising and interesting so far, and has a lot of potential to turn into something engaging.

What saved the show from being unwatchable for me were the moments based entirely on character interactions, episodes where the whole gang would just talk to each other and have a fun time. Yes, all of the characters are modelled off of common shounen stereotypes but that doesn't mean they aren't entertaining. The second season shows us how the characters have developed from the annoying and arrogant kids they were in the first season and are becoming slightly more mentally mature. If you don't like shounen main characters and common character types (e.g tsundere) which all receive below-standard development then you probably won't enjoy Seraph of the End's characters.

Seraph of the End's second season is quite enjoyable for fans of the series but to the people like me who didn't really find the show to be to their liking, skip this continuation. The only reason I'm not dropping the series is because of its (shounen, but) enjoyable characters, great art style, and okay animation.

Thanks for reading!

Ladies and Gentlemen this is a rare example of a perfectly mediocre anime. Flawlessly bland, exquisitely insipid, wholly vapid. Watching Owari No Seraph is like eating air, there is simply no taste, good or bad.

Owari No Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-hen is the uninspired continuation of an anime that should never have been made.

Story:
Lets recap. A mysterious virus wipes out most of humanity and vampires come out of the woodwork to wage war on the surviving humans. Yu, our cliche shounen, hotheaded/immature/cocky/must-protect-everyone protagonist, has joined humanity's army to fight the vampires. He really really hates vampires for killing his childhood friends. He really ... really wants to protect his friends too. The second half starts after he unleashes his mysterious superpowers on the vampires about to kill his comrades.

As with so many mediocre anime, the premise itself is neither novel nor self-evidently atrocious.
The product is simply a sand-flavored cake.


Slow pace/shitty action:
There are a few identifiable things that contribute to ONS' mediocrity. The pacing is mind-numbingly slow. Most of the fight scenes in the show are related to training/testing of some sort. Learning to unlock your sword's potential, fighting your own weapon's demonic spirit, getting tested by the higher ups, learning to fight as a team, etc. The actual action scenes, what few there are, are usually pointless or indecisive.

Convoluted storyline:
The agendas of the humans and vampires are not well developed. The leadership and structure of the two factions are left nebulous and simple questions like why the two factions are fighting? why the vampires are so sadistic? What is a demon in relation to a vampire? etc are not explained. At times ONS try to draw clumsy moral parallels between the humans and vampires but it's just too messy and blurry to have any impact.


Art: Mediocre
Sound: Mediocre
Characters:
The characters are poorly fleshed out and easily forgettable. They will make predictable decisions then inexplicably decide to trust their mortal enemy for no reason.
In the background of the almost completely absent character development is the homoerotic attraction between Mika and Yu. I'm still trying to wrap my head around how that fits in (no pun intended). I think the core problem is that both characters are just too underdeveloped for me to know where their bond is coming from. They are "family" but then Mika looks like he wants to bone Yu. Yu seems to act differently when he's around Mika. The male vampires are all pretty androgynous and the act of drinking blood is unsubtly sexualized. Then there's that strong pederasty vibe between Ferid and Mika... I dunno...whatever.

To say that the characters are flat would be an understatement. They aren't even cardboard-flat. They are 100%, eco-friendly, RECYCLED cardboard-flat.


Yu: Brash, hot headed, annoying as fuck. Where have we seen that before? Oh right, everywhere. He's a cookie-cutter shounen protagonist. He will charge into battle screaming at the drop of a hat without thinking. He has two objectives--kill vampires; protect friends. There's no growth throughout the series and he is exactly the same from beginning to end.

Mika: Now a vampire. Struggling with his various 'urges'' you might say. I don't think it's a stretch to call his bloodlust an allegory for homosexuality but again, whatever. As a character his thought process is largely absent. Why is he siding with the vampires when they murdered his friends? If he is siding with the vampires why is he so hesitant about drinking blood/killing humans. If he is hesitant about killing humans why does he enable his friends to murder children and distrust humans so much? If being changed into a vampire has altered his thinking why does he still have such a boner for Yu? Why is he so wishy washy about everything?

Everyone else:
Too many half baked characters to keep track of. For such an vacuous anime you would think there would be plenty of room to develop the side characters but not really.


Enjoyment: Meh

Overall: Overall disappointing. The last few seasons of anime have been pretty weak so I finished this out of boredom. Watch only if you are really, really bored.

Do you ever have that one anime where you feel many things were going on but still feel like there was no impact? Anime that are of the action genre often come into this dilemma. Ones with an overarching story that tries to make it grand and epic, only to squander it by not giving much to go on. It doesn’t help with a short 12-13 episode season. Considering that Owari no Seraph had a 2nd season in the same year to facilitate its story longer and still come off short is rubbing salt in the wound.

To go back on the first season for a ... bit, since I never reviewed it, my initial impression of the story was incredibly underwhelming. I thought the way it told a revenge plot involving a boy who wants to kill vampires who killed all of his friends was too simple and drab for me to take seriously. There are ways in which this could work, but with Owari no Seraph’s case, it comes across as predictable and hamfisted with the melodrama. Not only is the story itself nothing special, but the way it is presented is all over the place. Most notably, the pacing is what drags it down so low. There are places where the plot rushes to get to the next battle scene without any exposition to tell the audience what exactly is going on. This is very apparent in the last episode of this season, where the last ten minutes felt like there should’ve been two more episodes to fill in to make it feel more like a seamless transition from scene to scene.

Writing is the key point to any story, and Owari no Seraph has probably the most boring dialogue of any shounen anime this year. It’s like the running joke in America where we think of Hollywood as just reusing cliched catchphrases we see in countless action blockbusters by putting their hand in a jar and picking whatever line is on a piece of paper. It feels like some of the lines lean on the “edgy” or “melodramatic” nature of Owari no Seraph. Even if you’re watching with the worst fansubs or know a little Japanese as I do, many of the lines reek of stale dialogue writing that even a high school student with a novice level of writing composition could do better. They can range from predictable to groan-inducing on many occasions.

Unfortunately, most of the characters here are of the same level as the story in terms of quality. They all fall under the category of forgettable and flat, except for one character, the one ray of sunshine of this entire anime. The character I am referring to is the lovely sarcastic lady, Shinoa Hiiragi. However, her character development is on par with the rest of the bland cast, her snarky demeanor and voiced wonderfully by Saori Hayami, who does her lines a cut above the rest. Without her, I don’t think I would’ve sat through all 24 episodes of seasons 1 and 2; in fact, I would say the only reason I bothered to continue this was to see more of Shinoa. Her presence in season 2 is just as good, albeit a little more serious than in the previous one, which disappointed me, but I’ll take whatever Shinoa I can get at this point.

Yuu proves himself to be the stereotypical edgy protagonist who shouts most of his lines, blurts out predictable vengeful lines, and promises to stick with his friends' lines. Admittedly, I think Mika, Yuu’s other friend who gets turned towards the vampire side, was probably the least bad out of the suck bunch in the cast. Only because he at least had a role that was kind of captivating to see where he has to battle out his friend’s other friends to reunite with him. All three of these characters are the only ones I even remember. As much as I rag on Yuu’s character, at least I can remember his name and the dumb lines he spouts out. You could quiz me on the rest of the characters, and I will guarantee that I would not make more than a 20% grade percentage. This is the problem of how so little development any of them have despite being in the same armed forces as Yuu and Shinoa or the vampire clan they are fighting against. The only thing we have to go on is that they are fighting an enemy that threatens their way of life; that’s about it. Whoopee.

It is weird to analyze the technical prowess of Owari no Seraph because I do love the artwork of the characters, and even some of the backgrounds look nice to look at. However, the animation is very hit or miss. Nowhere is this more evident than in the fighting scenes where there are some episodes where the animation takes a nosedive. The animators were cutting corners, possibly due to budgeting issues or whatnot. It is serviceable to the eyes and compliments the artwork when it isn't of such low quality. Besides the animation is a mixed bag, I genuinely love how colorful the characters look. If the characters didn’t have very distinct features to their hair or skin, I think my opinion of them being forgettable would be even lower than it is.

Vampires and humans battling each other can be fun on paper but rarely has there been any that succeed in reality. Had the writers taken their time to develop the characters and story slowly for me to get a sense of the world, I think this could’ve been pretty good. What I got out of Owari no Seraph after finishing its 2nd season was just the biggest meh that has ever meh this year of 2015. All I got out of it was more Shinoa fanart to gaze upon with my own eyes. At least great things can come from average places.

Grade: C-

Seraph of the End really did not get off on the right foot when it first arrived on the scene, did it? I mean when the premise of your show revolves around vampires ruling the world and massacring everyone you hold dear, the last thing you want to see in said world is a fucking high school. And yet somehow, that wasn't the worst problem to befall the series. Wit Studio has never been good at managing budget - which is fair considering they're still new and all - but even by their standards, Seraph of the End looked like complete ass. I'm not sure ... if it was fixed in the blu-ray, but the first cour was riddled with production problems that made the incredibly bland writing even blander, along with making Durarara!!x2 Shou look like it was animated by Madhouse on a good day. Awful character movement. Action scenes consisting of nothing but stills. Devoting entire episodes to generic "friendship is everything" bullshit. It'd be hilarious if it wasn't killing the show's pacing in the process.

So it was some trepidation that I watched Battle in Nagoya but apparently the studio had just been cured of a disease in-between cours because there's absolutely no production issues in the show whatsoever (or at least none that's really noticeable). The action scenes are consistently fluid for the most part and the pacing, whilst still taking a little too long to get places at times, actually gives off a feeling of stuff actually happening. Said feeling hit a speed bump when the show ends on yet another cliffhanger with little manga material to make a third season in the near future but hey, points for actually getting me somewhat into this series this time.

I'm not going to bother recapping the plot since this is a second cour and you'd only care if you watched the first one, so let's just say that after Yu and Mika had their long-awaited gay reunion, ending with the former awakening to hilariously inaccurate monstrous powers that couldn't hit the broadside of a barn, the vampires and the anti-vampire military gear up for another war and Yu's squad leave their high school roots in order to train with the big boys. But as was hinted at the cliffhanger at the end of the first cour, said military isn't exactly the most pacifistic people on the planet, and unlike the military in Attack on Titan, they're not exactly open about it. As such, a lot of internal strife occurs whilst we wait for the two sides to clash, and it's not like the vampire side consists solely of BFFs either given how Mika still refuses to drink blood.

I have a sneaking feeling that Wit Studio randomly came across the manga one day, noticed how similar it was to Attack on Titan, and that was all they needed to pick it up for adaptation, because Battle in Nagoya borrows a lot of plot points from that show and the director does his damn best to capture Araki's theatrical bombast whenever he can, what with the dramatic shoutings in regards to squad members whining about how they're all a family and the fight scenes themselves going for epic brutality. Although Seraph of the End's homosexual coupling of Yu and Mika brings Sunrise more to my attention given how much BL material always seems to make it into their stuff, right down to having an anime named after it. And good god does the show double down on the BL when the two finally meet again. Remember in Tokyo Ghoul how there was this human girl who was willing to let some of her flesh get eaten if it meant her ghoul boyfriend can stay alive? Well guess what Yu's solution is to keep Mika alive when he realizes that he can't survive without blood?

Speaking of Mika, he was always a bit of a whiner in regards to his best friend, but whilst he never becomes the male version of Yuno Gasai, his feelings for Yu border on the obsession here. You guys know about the Bechdel Test? Well replace "women" with "Yu" and Mika would fail it within the first fucking syllable of whatever sentence he speaks. And that's not even getting into the fact that he makes it very clear that anyone who's not Yu can die in a ditch, which Yu obviously has problems with given that he's still an incredibly generic protagonist who fights for his friends and will trust them even when they stab him in the back.

Mika's growing problems and Yu's lack of growth aside, I actually found the characters more engaging in this iteration, particularly Shinoa - who was more a snarky comic relief character in the first season, but mostly has to rely on using that personality as a defense mechanism now that shit has gone serious and the importance of her family name is afflicting one of her squad members. Most of them are still simplistically written and all, mostly acting as Yu's cheerleaders with the only real story being given to Shiho at the very end when it's revealed what happens to his sister, but since they're not given any more focus than necessary this time around, it's not hard to tolerate them. I'm not sure what the common consensus is for Guren himself, but whilst his story does make him more interesting, it's also incredibly predictable and I found myself really unable to care for the chemistry that Yu seems to have with him. Did he really help the kid that much to the point that Yu would sacrifice his life for him as much as his friends and Mika? I can't seem to recall anything in particular.

Unfortunately, whilst the execution is better, the core of Seraph is still about as substantial as Mac in Cheese without any salt or pepper put into it. The structure is the same as the first cour in that the first half or so is dedicated to building our protagonists up and the second cour is when things come to a clash before ending on a cliffhanger. And no amount of people dying bloody deaths along with the overall theatrical presentation can make me overlook the fact that the show doesn't put enough spins on its genre cliches to make that structure stand out in any way, unless you count what ultimately becomes of Yu's squad when Mika throws a wrench into the whole "all vampires are evil" way of thinking as fresh. It certainly opens the way to something fresh, as (spoilers) I've never seen a shonen action anime cast our protagonists as fugitives, Deathly Hallows-style, before. But that's at the very end, and everything prior to that is just a bunch of flamboyancy taken seriously so that it's kind of funny at times, but ultimately it's not doing anything new that you haven't seen before in vampire fiction (current or old). It's like a less stupid but still nothing "must see" version of that Let Me In film.

So whilst I can recommend Battle in Nagoya with much less reservations than the first Seraph, I think you guys are better off waiting for the Attack on Titan sequel...whenever that shows up.

I enjoyed the first season of owari no seraph because I mostly only cared about the two main characters (mostly mika)'s storyline between the two of them. So I gave the second season a watch of course~

Story:
This season wasn't what I expected... But that's not necessarily a good thing. Slow when it shouldn't be, and too fast when it ought to be more deliberate! Barely any progression for one minute and changing courses the next!

Art:
The same as the first season, very pretty but nothing too striking

Sound:
The music is appropriate for the scenarios, and the sound effects are on point and well edited
...
Character:
Practically no development, and the only one who truly changes I don't think everyone particularly agreed with how they went about it...

Enjoyment:
OK so it's pretty above average right? Yeah..the fighting sequences are cool and all at times. But the pacing made it more difficult than ever

Overall:
This show is a soap opera, if you like the characters interactions it can be fun to watch, but that's about it. I had high hopes for this show... I won't be looking forward to the next season but I can't help but watch it to see what happens next o.o

Oh well, at least there's the manga (and countless doujinshis *wink)

Despite the art being like the storyline, pretty boring and generic, this season was after all better than the first one.

This season, I found myself disliking the protagonists of the show and did not care much at the end if they'd survive or not. I see nearly 0 character development and all the characters in the show seem very flat and uninteresting with the exception of Shinoa and Mitsuba, having somewhat of a background worth thinking about. They all kept speaking and acting in this very obvious (sometimes obnoxious) and specific way which kept the story very uninteresting and predictable.

Secondly, the plot does not ... make any sense from time to time. Some characters act very unrealistically. Like, there are multiple characters who frequently keeps disobeying the commands but are yet still allowed to participate in the battle (You can guess who). You are given no sense of time elapses and the plot overall was just confusing and a big mess with major plot holes.

Sadly, I did not notice any great musical performance. The music, very much like everything else, was very generic and basic. Not bad but nothing out of the ordinary.

The art though is very consistent but was in my opinion, very boring to look at. Very few shots with extraordinary art (If any?) and it all looked a bit childish at times so I found it hard to take some scenes seriously but that could've been that it was just me being not very fond of the art style. But as I said, no weird frames and everything looked like it was supposed to, I guess.

So was this season worth it? Yes, if you managed to get through the first one this one is way better but still not very top notch. After reading all this I do realise it sounds like I didn't enjoy the show at all but I really did. Overall, it was good and I'd watch another season if there would come one but this isn't an anime you'd discuss for months with others.

Owari no Seraph is a lot like Attack on Titan. Almost to the point that it feels like the show was trying to be Attack on Titan, and perhaps this was what the producers were going for (Though you can't blame the original author who started the series before Titan hit mass popularity). That is; Owari no Seraph a messy anime that's chaotic, a plot that zips around like a cat on meth, leaves a lot of questions unanswered, has too many characters trying to be developed that it leaves all the characters only half-developed, and too many shounen tropes being blown out of proportion. ... But it manages to be successful and has a decent fanbase (At least in Japan) by playing on over-the-top edgy themes of humanity survival against monsters, stylish looking characters butting heads with one another, and political machinations being put everywhere.

It's a huge convoluted mess. Humans fighting for survival against vampires who want to use them as livestock, people making pacts with demons to gain power, rampaging monsters called Horsemen of the Apocalypse who slaughter things for unexplained reasons, mass genetic experimentation, biblical terms being thrown everywhere, angels descending down to punish everyone, and throughout it all everyone betraying one another to pursue their own agenda. All of this in one huge ball of mess and even after 24 episodes nothing is really answered or explained. The closing episode in fact can be described as an incoherent stack of legos a kid decided to make and chuck across the room where all the characters and plot crashes in a heaping mess.

Despite this Owari no Seraph can be a decent show to watch if you don't take it seriously. If you're the type of person who needs things explained and you take anime seriously, you will hate this show. But for someone who wants to watch a Saturday cartoon on a boring weekend with "cool" and "stylish" characters shouting bombastic lines and trying to kill each other in a shounen mess, then Owari no Seraph is entertaining and even fun. It has decent animation and fights, there's quite a few clever jokes that can be funny, and a lot of the characters are likable even if they come off half-baked. You can't deny that the character designs are eye-catching, like the Demon Army in their imperial military uniform and pretty looking vampires in cape coats. It has orchestral music to go along with its edgy themes of apocalyptic world end.

Serpah of the End is Attack on Titan that didn't hit massive popularity in the west. If it had the budget that Attack on Titan held and had a stronger beginning rather a slow and dull one it probably could have become the next big hit. Objectively though, Owari no Seraph is average and has a lot of problems trying to stay organized. It's a show you watch if you're bored and if you like themes of world end, humanity's survival, and fantasy shounen.

Before you read this, there are spoilers, so um if you like those-YEAH, READ ON! (I'm trying my best not to spoil, but um yeah how can you not?)



This anime scares. The episodes leading up the ending genuinely scared me. Seriously.

So, I'm believing the plot was basically all leading up to this, all of the experimentation on humans. I never really did believe that the humans and vampires were doing human experimentation until the episode they actually showed one of the 'test subjects.' I thought it was all a lie for Mika to get Yuu to come with him. Little did ... I know he was telling the truth, which was honestly very surprising for me, which led me to getting scared. So, at the end of episode 12, it shows our new protagonists, Yuu; Mika; Shinoa; Kimizuki; Narumi; Yoichi; and Mitsuba. They are currently running from the humans and the vampires, doing their own thing, which is what Mika always wanted so yay for Mika!

Here's my actual review for the anime! :


Story : 6/10

At the beginning, I honestly very much liked this anime. It used to be one of my favorites. That was before I realized how very terrifying this actually was. It reminds of a lot of giant Western franchises, as well, which is why I ranked it just a tad bit lower, ONLY because it might've just been a coincidence that this reminds me of so many things.

The story actually wasn't that bad in the beginning (TT^TT), though it was meant to take this dark turn, which wasn't really that dark, considering some things.


Art : 8/10

If I had actually watched this in HD (no, I don't use illegal streaming sites, or free streaming sites), it would've been AMAZING. But to me it just looked like your average anime. The animation, however, is amazing and must've been very hard to pull off, with Yuu transforming into the Seraph of the End, and the way some of the weapons have very unique textures and forming sequences. Overall, pretty awesome.


Sound : 8/10

I always rate anime sounds high. :/
The music is amazing, reminds of when Sword Art Online was actually good. But it doesn't remind me that much of it, which is amazing. It also gives me a very nice vibe of uniqueness that is very hard to pull off. The voice acting was amazing as well, which is NOT expected from what I was guessing it to be.


Character : 6/10

There are three basic supernatural your character can be. Human, vampire, or demon. Pretty cliche unhumanly types, vampire and demon.

The character development is there, it's just that you can get so much into the anime that you can't notice it, or you DO notice it because Yuu keeps saying "I'm much stronger than before! ;)" Other than that, you can notice that there is a lot of character development, but it's not very interesting, just in my opinion.


Enjoyment : 4/10

My enjoyment for the first season was way different, due to the fact I kinda... watched it in a day. But for this season, I just watched because
1. cliffhanger
2. the community
3. the constant build-up of hype for the second season.


Overall, I would score this anime a 5, maybe a 5.5, still deciding whether or not I'll have nightmares.

If we compare this season to the previous one, battle of Nagoya takes our breath considerably better. There are a lot of shocking and badass moments as well as crazy cliff hangers that drive you crazy and leave you just wanting to see more. I grew surprisingly attached to this series as it continued on along the season, but a matter that i couldn´t help but worry about was the plot.

The premise of the series as a whole is very interesting and quite promising, which is why it is such a pity seeing all that potential being crushed by an open ending that leaves ... it filled with plot holes that were never covered. All that anticipation that this series succeded to build through those amazing cliff hangers and shocking moments was never satisfyed at the end, which is equivalent to the series bitch-slapping the viewers on the face.

Sadly, if this doesn´t get a third season (which is most likely), the series wont be able to stand on itself as consistent story and would be just a bunch of cool scenes put together without any sense whatsoever because we didn´t get a full clear explanation of it all.

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 just ... some 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.

This is my first review for an anime, so excuse me if I gloss over anything important. (No Spoilers Below)

To start, I will say that this anime is very "safe". If you enjoyed the first season of Owari no Seraph, then I would say that 9/10 of those people will enjoy season 2.

When I say Owari no Seraph plays it safe, I mean that it doesn't really try to do anything new, or adventurous. Honestly, it reads like the Shonen TV Tropes Entry.
Primarily a Fighting Series? - Check
Backseat Romance Plot? - Check
Teen Male Protagonist? - Check

Now, the reason I give this anime a ... 5 is not because it's bad. In fact, I enjoyed Owari. That doesn't change the fact that Owari is a middle of the pack anime. It doesn't do anything bad, but doesn't do anythng great either. You won't be debating plot lines with your friends, and proabably won't be purchasing any merchandise but at least you can say "Oh ya, I saw that show. It's alright."

If you're into action anime, I can recommend Owari. You could do a helluva lot worse. If you're into drama/plot driven anime, I strongly recommend you look elsewhere.

I give Owari No Seraph as a whole a total rating of 6/10

Owari no Seraph: Nagoya Kessen-Hen or better Owari no Seraph: "Battle of the Cliches" is an anime literally about vampire's vs humans in this post-apocalyptic world where all adults above the age of 13 have died. This anime could have been something really special but it has so many flaws that I wouldn't recommend this anime.

Let's start with the good points about this anime (so we can get them out of the way):
- The art in the anime wasn't really bad. I liked it as it gave us this classical but a modern ... vibe which I was really impressed from. I liked how the settings were shown as well as how the art showed the characters.
- The action scenes were good...well most of them. I really enjoyed when they had team fights and I was really impressed by the art that was done within these fights.

Now, the bad points about this anime:
- THE BIGGEST PROBLEM with this anime is character development. Literally, I feel like the makers of this anime hardly put any emotions or screen time from the secondary characters such as Kimizuki, Yoichi and Mitsu. Sure they got like an episode dedicated to them each, but after that we hardly EVER saw them, especially Mitsu. Now i'm not a die-hard Mitsu fan, but she hardly appeared when the characters had a dialogue to speak. All she was there for was the combat. I feel this should have been improved to get a better feeling of other characters, and to be much more immersive. Other loved characters such as Krul and Yu's demon hardly got screentime as well.

- Another problem about the character development and some people may get mad at me for this is they put in some romance and then poof, it disappeared? I love romance, and when Guren asked Shinoa if she had feelings for Yu, after she said she didn't know IT JUST DISSAPEARED. Where did the slight chance of romance go? I'm not going to lie but I was hoping for a couple to develop and it looks like it never did. They tried to put in "Romance" but it didn't work.

- Yu's and Mika's relationship was nothing more that fan service. It first started of as brotherly love and then turned into some gay "I want you with me always" relationship. I have nothing against gay people or gay animes but the way the creators produces these characters relationships was way over the top. Every "love" story has it's limits.

- The story was full of cliches. The story wasn't really original, its pretty much like every other action anime out there. Do this, do that, save the world blah blah blah nothing unique in this anime. I didn't hate the story myself, it just could have been developed into something better.

- The Crowly fights were always boring in my opinion. Everytime they gained "power" they always got stopped on, and it became really repetitive and got boring. The ending wasn't really good either as the epic fight lasted only a total of 20 seconds.

- The soundtrack wasn't really amazing either. It didn't really pump me up or made me feel sad. Neither was it immersive.

Overall I did like this anime but it needs ALOT of improving. Especially on the characters.

Rating:
Story - 7
Art - 7
Sound - 6
Character - 6
Enjoyment - 6
Overall - 6.4

TL;DR - Watch this anime if you're up for a story you probably have seen before with some differences.

Story:
From the storyline/plot, this anime is confusing much. It's easy to follow the story, but there are too many 'suddenly'. Suddenly he becomes that or suddenly that appears, suddenly this appears, suddenly this happen, suddenly this person was mentioned whom I never saw for the entire anime.

Everything is lack of explanation and motivations/reasons as to why all of those happens? Who are actually the good guys? Who is siding with whom? Why is this guys like this? What and why are the reasons? It's all confusing.

I detest reading and giving spoiler, however I'll mention this: probably you might have read a summary of this anime ... somewhere out there, mentioning that this anime has two groups: humans and vampires. One group are the antagonists and another is the protagonist. But, by the end of the day, you'll be wondering how many groups are actually there.

It was like there is an X and Y, but at the end it appears that X wanted to destroy Y, and Y wanted to destroy X, but then X got A who is making C, and there is B who is looking for E, and A wants to be friend with Y but destroy E (this is only an example, no relation whatsoever with the anime),
and everything happens without you knowing the reasons behind the action, not even until you finish the show.

But no worries, you can still follow the story somehow, idek, it's just since the past stories are vague, and so are the present.


Art:
It's okay, but when the characters are not in close-up, they are becoming weird somehow. Idk.


Sound:
Sawano Hiroyuki? I bet most people are interested with this anime because of him, but the soundtracks are a nope for me... other anime soundtracks on its season definitely better.


Character:
For the main and most of the supporting characters, you could see their character development, especially if you compare it from the previous season.

Although, there are several characters that are suddenly appear out of nowhere, or character who you can count how many times they appear suddenly have important roles out of the blue: without mentioning how and when and why.

Each and every characters past and motivations are also vague.


Enjoyment:
I'm a whole for man - man main characters with less girls on the screen, so this anime is good for me despite the whole mess and confusing characterisations and plot. This anime happen for pleasing all fujoshi out there I believe, including me.

So, I 'm honestly found an enjoyment watching this especially for cliffhanger on several last episodes.
If you don't have anymore anime to be watched or just deathly boring, you could try this anime..

My suggestion is just: don't think or you'll get totally confused, just enjoy the show and nods at everything they throw you.


Overall:
Honestly, the first season of this anime is not my cup of tea, and the second season is still not my cup of tea either. This anime isn't so bad that I have to put it in my black list.

A classic shounen that feels full of so much potential, but all too often feels dramatically underdeveloped. It has plenty of great action scenes, ost is great, some really fun characters (love u, shinoa <3), great animation but the writing quality is very inconsistent. There are some truly fantastic scenes sprinkled throughout, but SO MUCH annoying plot armor or unfulfilling writing! Characters are constantly kept alive just for being main characters. And sometimes major plot points are introduced, and then just...completely ignored for the rest of the show. Pacing towards the end is a complete disaster that makes no sense. I think if it had ... been given a consistent level of detail and quality, and remove the plot armor crap, this really could've been an amazing show but as it is it's...ok, but not very satisfying.

Despite giving this anime decent scores across the board, I would recommend against watching it.

Why? Because simply put, it ends in a cliffhanger and it seems unlikely it will ever be resolved.

And even if it were, I don't see how any follow-up season can make up for the ridiculous lack of information in the first 2 seasons.

This anime has one major problem, it was present in season 1 and is even more notable in season 2. Namely - it doesn't explain shit. Like seriously, there is no explanations for half the stuff that happens. You're left wondering what's going on, as the show puts ... in zero effort to tell you why anything is happening. There aren't any hints either.

And it's not like it's some mystery the main characters discover as the story moves forward. No. It's clear that a lot of the characters in the show have a decent idea of what's going on at all times, they just have no intention of sharing it with the viewer.

The most absurd events happen without the characters as much as blinking an eye at them, like it's all common knowledge, even though no line of reasoning could possibly explain what's happening on screen.

Bloody demon gods and angels and world ending events start happening and the characters are like: "oh yeah, this makes sense, that makes sense".

This whole season feels like 50 episodes of story and exposition was crunched into 12 episodes that also needed to feature a ton of action.

Watch this show if you only care about mindless action scenes and some decent character interactions without understanding a damn thing about what's going on in the world.

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Spoiler examples:

The premise of the whole show is simple enough - vampires are real and after a big plague on humanity they took over a notable part of the world etc etc etc.

Already things are going off the rails because origin of vampires is never explained. Everyone just accepts their existence without question. Like "oh yeah, they always existed for sure, right?". Like seriously, at least give us 5 minutes of exposition saying they've been a myth that became real or something. Anything.

Then suddenly, without the show explaining anything, characters are suddenly aware that Demons also exist, and for some reason inhabit weapons that humans wield against the vampires.

No explanation is ever given as to why Demons are a thing and how humans figured them out.

Then there's some sort of magic also. Spells and curses. But again, zero explanation how it all came to be and why people are aware of them. Apparently shit just exists with half the characters treating it all like common knowledge you learn in kindergarten, while the other half has zero clue. Like which is it? Is magic and monsters and demons common knowledge or not?

Like seriously, this show is like Attack on Titan without any character in the show ever asking what Titans are or where they come from or anything like that. Imagine Attack on Titan where the entire show is as it is with literally every exposition scene cut out. Because that's what Seraph of the End is. If actually feels like characters have 10 hours deep talks about the nature and history of the world, but it's all cut out in the anime because the studio couldn't be bothered to make more episodes.

It's frustrating.

I wanna say this anime is pretty ok, nothing spectacular but nothing really bad either. I was wondering how this anime wasn’t so popular when it was airing and how it just slipped under the radar for most people’s watchlist. It’s one of those anime’s where it got hyped for a few months, but later on it became forgotten. The story being set up as a war between humans and vampires, the two main characters introduced in a way that’s very stereotypical, and a little plot twist at the end that I wasn’t the expecting. Overall, I only liked 3 characters in the show. Most ... of the characters in the show seem either one-dimensional, an asshole, or just straight up annoying. The main two mc’s were tbh, the only reason why I continued watching the show, I absolutely love their dynamic and how they really care for each other -like in the show, u are literally blind if u can’t see how gay they are for each other, and I’m all here for it. Fucking love those two so much- Although, I think the reason why this anime wasn’t so hyped and popular as the others is because it lacks identity. Identity as in there’s nothing to say how good or bad it is. I don’t see anything that’s super original compared to the mainstream anime’s that got popular with basically the same concept and plot. Seraph of the end is an interesting one to say the least, but I enjoyed it. I’ve heard from the community that the manga is 10 times better than the anime since it leaves out a lot of the important aspects of the plot, world, and characters. So I kinda regretted watching the anime lol. I’ll definitely check out the manga and be up to date with it when I get the chance. Hopefully the manga will make me fall in love with the characters and story more than the anime.