Sirius

In the year 1930, vampires have infiltrated Tokyo to feast upon its unsuspecting citizens. As the number of victims continues to rise, the city's authorities decide to hire the Jaegers—a strange, diverse group of individuals tasked by the V Shipping Company to hunt down vampires around the world. Carrying musical instrument cases to disguise their identity, the Jaegers battle the vampires with the same mercilessness demonstrated by their foes.

Yuliy, the Jaeger's most skilled warrior, is the sole survivor of a vampire raid on his home village. Using the strength granted by his werewolf blood, he works with his team to assist Tokyo's law enforcement with the city's vampire problem. Though under the pretense of helping the police, the Jaegers are actually fighting the vampires over the mystical Ark of Sirius. With its power to change the fate of the world, Yuliy and his friends must locate the artifact before the vampires can use it to achieve their destructive goals.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Jirov, Yuliy Main

Uemura, Yuuto Japanese

Mikhail Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Phillip Supporting

Kobayashi, Yuusuke Japanese

Dorothea Supporting

Mori, Nanako Japanese

Naoe, Ryouko Supporting

Takahashi, Rie Japanese

Tamara Supporting

Senbongi, Sayaka Japanese

Iba, Hideomi Supporting

Majima, Junji Japanese

Bishop Supporting

Hamada, Kenji Japanese

Willard Supporting

Horiuchi, Kenyuu Japanese

Fallon Supporting

Takeuchi, Shunsuke Japanese

Oowada, Tomoyuki Producer

Kawase, Kouhei Producer

Nagatani, Takayuki Producer

Kaneko, Hirotaka Producer

Reviews

Sep 27, 2018

Stark700

Recommended

Once in a while, I tend to enjoy a vampire theme show that is packed with action heroes and drama. Unfortunately, I can’t remember any series of similar nature that intrigued me from these past few years. Many of them run with recycled concepts that includes Beauty and the Beast romance tales or the same survival themes over and over again. Then came along this show called Sirius the Jaeger.

It’s quite unusual for P.A. Works to jump into a show with a vampire genre. They’re mostly known for their slice of life shows and coming of age stories. Sometimes, they can pull out a surprise ... or two like Spring 2016’s Kuromukuro. However, this isn’t mecha so you’re not going to encounter giant robots. Instead, Sirius the Jaegar deals with a time of crisis when vampires are on the loose in the city. In the year of 1930, we are introduced to a group known as the Jaegers who act as specialized hunters with a goal to exterminate vampires. The plot focuses on a young man named Yuliy with a vengeance to kill vampires after his hometown was terrorized by them.

Sirius the Jaeger marks its spot very early in the show with its beautiful setting of the 1930s. The dark domain of Tokyo looks and feels like it’s a time era for revolution. In fact, the first minutes of the episode had my eyes glued just at the background setting. P.A. Works are well known for their well-polished cinematography and production quality. In this series, they didn’t disappoint with that in any way. The eerie alleyways, artistic architectures, and the old fashioned vehicles are just a few innovations to admire. Still, I think what people mostly are interested in here is the story. Vampire storytelling tends to be very niche these days that often involve in soap-opera like modern stories. For this show, it takes on a darker tale of revenge and self-discovery.

In wasting no time, we discover quickly that vampires are ravenous monsters with little care about mortality. In essence, they are beings with a desire to eat and kill humans for their own desire. Some vampires in the show are more sophisticated than others but most if not all possesses a insatiable appetite. They attack a party in the first episode while Yuliy and his gang of Jaegers hunts them down. It established them as a mercenary-like group who work like professional hunters. Yuliy tracks down a vampire named Agatha and the expression on his face says it all. It immediately gave me the impression that his hate of vampire runs much deeper than just what they are. Through flashbacks, we also learn about his past and how he became the person he is today. It’s a tragic story that changes a person forever and he still seeks vengeance for his loss. Meanwhile, the vampires themselves have their own goal in the story and that’s to find a mysterious object known as the Ark of Sirius.

At the heart of the show is still Yuliy. No matter how you look at it or accept him for who he is, it’s very plot driven about his character. Yuliy is bent on revenge although he also cares about his comrades and certain people in the show that he encounters. This includes a girl named Ryouko who gets involved in his affairs. While not being an official member of the Jaegers, she does learn much more about the nature of vampires and occasionally provides assistance. The series also made it obvious that she develops affections towards him although their relationship doesn’t really become a loving couple. This falls under a bit of the character cliché that I’ve seen over and over again in vampire theme shows. However, there are several other characters in the show that are worth looking into. First, there’s Williard, a man who acts as commander of the Jaegers. He genuinely cares about his comrades and the show makes it clear how far he is willing to go to make the world into a better place. Dorotha is introduced as the main female of the group. With her expertise using firearms, she provides invaluable assistance on their missions. Similar to Yuliy, we also meet Philip, who shares a hate for vampires. Fallon offers more of the muscle for the group as the Jaegars needs a balanced team to get their business done. As impressive as this cast is, don’t expect too much characterization on them. Yuliy is the one that gets the most spotlight and his character relationship with others is quite important.

One of the most prominent character relationship in the series is between Yuliy and a man named Mikhail. Rather, they are actually brothers but now stands on the opposite side of each other. While Yuliy plays the role of an action hero, Mikhail follows a darker path that resulted in him becoming a vampire. As such, he is now the very embodiment of what Yuliy despises in the world. Their complicated relationship is told through meaningful dialogues, flashbacks, and how much each have changed. It sort of gave me the impression of a show called Owari no Seraph so for those who are familiar with that, this anime may be a treat for you. On the other hand, the vampire side of this series is mostly clouded in mystery. We meet characters like Yevgraf and Kershner with mysterious motives. Others like the vampire girls in the series are mostly added to bring in more action. There’s even a mad scientist named Klarwein who allied himself with vampires for his experiments. I’m also quite disappointed that one of the vampires advertised for this show got killed off way too quickly. In retrospect, I think there’s a big gap between the antagonists of and heroes of this series in terms of presentation. And unfortunately, the vampires took the pitfall.

Original series made by P.A. Works can be a bit of a hit or miss. But as I mentioned before, it’s hard not to take eyes off of the exceptional visual quality of this series. From the very first episode to the end, everything looked fluid and in style of the 1930s. Vampires are designed with a menacing look and their action speaks for themselves. Expect graphic violence to happen often in the show including blood being spilled by being bitten brutally or limps being torn off. It sells its fan service to make the vampire society look as dangerous as they can be. The Jaegars themselves also have distinctive looks especially for Yuliy’s trademark blue eyes and hair style. Others such as Mikhail and Yevgraf are dressed in a more gentleman-like manner as a deception of their true nature. I should also mention that characters in the series all speak in their native tone regardless of their origins. Most of them deliver their personalities to the bone. Similarly, the theme songs in the show adds a feeling of dark melodrama with and unsettling mood.

I think in the end, Sirius the Jaegar is a show that took on the vampire theme and made it into an action thriller with a feeling of suspense. P.A. Works remains one of my favorite studios for not just their production quality but also being able to continuously reinvent itself. For this particular show, it managed to do that by taking on a darker side of storytelling. To me, that’s a thing of beauty.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Sep 27, 2018

Snapshot426

Mixed Feelings

You know what we have a lack of lately? Good vampire anime. Which is a shame because vampire anime can be diverse from the typical Horror anime to a more light hearted comedy anime. Normally, vampire anime land in the former with vampires either being the main villains or just being bad asses as the main character. Thankfully, P.A works has given us a vampire anime following a group of vampire hunters hoping to wipe them all out and stop any plans that they may have. But is the anime just style or does it have substance as well?

Sit back, relax and burn all ... copies of Twilight and then show the fans what a real f*****g vampire looks like as I present to you the anime review of Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger.....wait. When did they decide to change the name? Oh never mind. Lets begin shall we?



Story: 4.5/10

In this world, vampires have been manipulating humanity for a very long time, influencing events so that they can maintain a food source, like the entire Earth is just one entire farm for them. However, once people starts realising what's going on, they will retaliate. Enter the Jagers, group of vampire hunters vowed to hunt down every single vampire. One Jager, Yuliy, has a bigger reason than most since he is the last survivor of his village which was destroyed by vampires. That is until his brother, Mikhail, returns from the dead and says that the vampires are looking for their peoples' greatest treasure, The Arc of Sirius. So Yuliy and the Jagers must stop their plans and kill all vampires that stand in their way to obtain The Arc of Sirius.

Sounds like a pretty good base for a story right? Well, when you start watching it, yes. The show does start out good with some bad ass vampire slaying and an overarching major plot element that is building in the background. But it then starts to slow down and the momentum of this show starts to halt. Now I blame this on the fact that the story just doesn't have substance to it. There are side plots in this show that don't get developed enough to make them interesting and can make them forgettable. But these side plots could have helped make the story more dynamic and added some context to some of the characters motivations.

The focus is always placed on stopping the vampires from obtaining The Arc of Sirius, but it stumbles in that area too. It lacks detail and context behind some elements in the plot that can help make the plot more interesting and dynamic to help give intrigue of what the actions of the heroes and villains could cause to the main plot of the show. I've watched all episodes and I still have no idea what The Arc Of Sirius actually is. Instead, things just simply happen and we then move on to the next part of the story.


Characters: 3.5/10

The shows biggest weakness is without a doubt its characters. Outside of one character, the cast of characters are just either boring, bland or just one note. Yuliy exemplifies this because he has no unique qualities. He is single minded and filled with revenge against the vampires for destroying his village. He sees his life have no purpose outside of killing vampires and when he hears about The Arc of Sirius, he realises he has a purpose in life but he must do it alone because only he can do this task and must shut out everyone. Talk about being boring and generic. When I saw that Uemura Yutto was voicing Yuliy (who also voiced Hiro from Darling in the Franxx this year, who I also thought was generic and boring), I knew that we were getting a generic character. What Yuliy says and what he does doesn't surprise or intrigue me because his motives are nothing new or unique from what I've seen from other main characters so I get an idea what he will say and do next.

This also applies to the Yagers as they are just as uninteresting as Yuily. Willard is the level headed leader of the group. Fallon is the happy and strong "bro" character. Dorothea is the smart but sexy female character. And Phillip is the back talking, sarcastic t**t character. The fact that I dismissed these characters with one sentence just shows how uninteresting they are. Willard is the only one that has some intrigue due to his backstory but not enough to get me interested. There is even a love interest, Ryouko, that goes nowhere. Like seriously, she has no relevance to the plot whatsoever and normally ends up being at the wrong place at the wrong time.

The only interesting character is Mikhail, Yuliy's brother. Since he became a Vampire after their village was destroyed, he essentially becomes a point of conflict with Yuliy's desire to kill all vampires. But even though he his essentially the enemy, there are hints that he might be indirectly helping Yuliy stop the vampires from obtaining The Arc of Sirius. He becomes a more intriguing character than Yuliy because you don't know where his true loyalties lie until near the end of the series. Does he want to help Yuliy or does he merely manipulate Yuliy to trust him only to betray him later on?


Animation: 10/10

This show's animation is fantastic. Whether it is from the art direction or the fight scenes, everything in Sirius the Yager looks superb. The 1930s setting is greatly captured here with the character and environment designs being very distinct from one another. Now, in terms of the animation in the fight scenes, it is important that the fight scenes are fluid through the animation itself or though its use of clever cinematography to capture each scene. Thankfully, P.A works capture this very well and the fights are just an enjoyment to watch every single time due to the fluidity to it all. It helps distract the viewer of the poor story and characters because it is fun just seeing them slaughter vampires and show them who's boss.


Sound: 7.5/10

The OST is something that also captures the scenes but not enough to make it stand out. But unlike other shows, I know that it is there and is does help set an atmosphere and I appreciate that. Rather the sound effects were more noticeable to make it sound more realistic and add to the scenes. This especially true in the fight scenes where the clashing of weapons helps us feel the impact of each swing and clash.

The opening "Sirius" by Kishida Kyoudan & The Akeboshi Rockets is a very solid opening. Its use of silhouettes in its imagery help set a rather dark and broody atmosphere with the song being catchy enough to make the opening enjoyable to watch and listen to. The ending is again, very solid. It helps emphasise the fact that Yuliy and Mikhail were very close as brothers and had a lot of fun together before being torn apart when the vampires attacked their village. Kind of sad when you think about it.


Conclusion

The main problem that I have with this show above everything else is that the overall show is just....boring outside of its animation quality. It's difficult to review something that does not do anything good but not anything bad, but instead is just bland. I said earlier that does this show just have style or does it have substance? No. It is all but style and little substance. The high quality animation can only carry this show so far before its story and characters have to help carry this show but it then stumbles when this happens. It doesn't develop its plot well enough and its overall characters are just too one note and boring to make me care. I like to prioritise story and characters to look for good anime since animation and sound only enhance the anime. This show is the opposite of this and it is a shame because I wanted to enjoy this show. It looks and sounds good but unfortunately, that is all there is to it.


My Personal Enjoyment: 5/10

Overall score: 6.1/10 Recommendation: Don't Bother

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Oct 23, 2018

kid1998871110

Not Recommended

Animation are sometimes really good and sometimes really bad.

Character and sound are fair. Each one of them has their own personality, but does not really effect the story line, and never deeply develop.

The really main problem is the story: boring, old, predictable, and stupid characters.
You are able to know exactly what is going to happen by watching just a few episodes.

Spoiler for Stupid scene:
It is just simply a hero movie where stupid bad guy trying to take some power, and how the main character save the world (but the bad guy have no idea about what power it is, and DID NOT GET ... ANY POWER AFTER GETTING THE POWER, BUT HE LOST HIS MIND BECAUSE THE POWER IS TOO STRONG. Seriously?)

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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	Poll: Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger Episode 5 Discussion ( 1 2 ) Stark700 - Aug 9, 2018	56 replies	by wildhood »» Jul 25, 8:32 AM
	Poll: Sirius Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 ) Stark700 - Sep 27, 2018	108 replies	by Lxjagd »» May 24, 2:01 PM
	Poll: Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger Episode 4 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 8, 2018	26 replies	by Mishiia »» Mar 3, 1:21 PM
	Poll: Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger Episode 11 Discussion Stark700 - Sep 20, 2018	38 replies	by Adnash »» Oct 10, 2023 10:20 PM
	Poll: Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger Episode 8 Discussion Stark700 - Aug 30, 2018	46 replies	by Adnash »» Oct 9, 2023 5:06 PM