Right off the bat, the world makes zero sense. In the first episode, a virus kills basically everyone except people 13 years of age. And why everyone 13 and under survives this super virus that wiped out most of the human in like a day? Here’s the biggest problem with Seraph when it comes to its narrative, it never answers why things happen. When it comes to any story, there are five important questions to ask: What happened? Who was there? Why did it happen? When did it happens? Where did it happen? Now if you were to why stuff happen to Seraph, you will soon realize how many things happen just because. Why is people thirteen year and younger unaffected by the virus? Why were the vampires in hiding all this time? Where are there demons? Why some of the adults survive the super virus that killed nearly everyone in an hour? None of these questions are answered and the only reasoning behind these events are to move the plot in the direction the writer wants it to go.
Even if you were to over the very flimsy plotting, there isn’t much to the show. The plot is a hogpog mess of ideas. There’s high schools, teenagers with giant weapons, a prophesy, vampires taking over the world, etcetera. Being unoriginal isn’t inherently a bad thing, but the show doesn’t do anything new or interesting with the ideas they had. Because of this, the show fails to have its own identity.
As for the characters, they are by far the worst part of this show. They all reek of “shonen” and are completely void of development. The main lead ( Yuuichirou Hyakuya ) is an obnoxious, hot headed git. All he ever talks about is how he wants to kill all them vampires or how he doesn’t need any friends. It is impossible to get behind him since he doesn’t have any relatable aspects except raw anger.
As for the other characters, they are pretty forgettable. Most of them consists of overused archetypes. To give an example, the MC team consists of a blond, twintails tsundere, a wimp, a male rival, and Mary Sue. The only character I liked was Shinoa. Even though she is a Mary Sue, her sarcastic attitude make her more bearable, especially in comparison to Eren Jager 2.0.
In the animation department, the show fails to impress. The character designs are quite generic and it doesn’t help that the 2D character designs poorly blend in with the water colored backgrounds. Also, the military uniforms that everyone wears look stupid. The uniforms for the Japanese Imperial Demon Army are black and lined with neon green as if they was Tron and the vampires wear black and white 18th century military uniforms. As for the action, it is quite underwhelming. All the action in this season consists of only small skirmishes that don’t have the impact or choreography to make them memorable.
Despite being composed by Hiroyuki Sawano, someone who has a rather good track, the soundtrack for Seraph is rather lacking. Most of the anime consists of silence. And when I listened to the soundtrack separately, I was all like “ where the hell all this music went to?” It is basically the opposite problem that Aldnoah Zero. In Aldnoah, the soundtrack was overused so that it became repetitive and to take away from any impact the series might of had. In Seraph’s case, the music was used too sparingly that it makes the show feel empty.
I can’t really recommend Seraph even as a stupid time waster. I won’t fulfill anyone in terms of writing or aesthetics. I would say give this show a pass since it’s not worth your time.
As for alternative shows, try out Attack on Titan or Blue Gender. Even though both shows eventually become train wrecks, they do the “ humanity is on the brink of extinction” far better that Seraph. If you want to see some cool vampire action, try out Hellsing (preferably Ultimate) or Blood the Last Vampire since they have better action and writing.
