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「心に棲むオニ」 (Kokoro ni sumu oni)
“Demon in the Mind”
Author’s Note: Samu is on hiatus for a few days – he’ll be returning with Owari no Seraph next week…
Sometimes, the three-episode rule just isn’t enough.
I’m still not sure where I stand with Owari no Seraph. On the downside, it does seem to be getting progressively more conventional with every episode. But there’s a creative spark behind the series that I find quite appealing – the art design and cinematography is really interesting. Also interesting is the vaguely shounen-ai vibe that’s reminiscent of shows like Pandora Hearts or 07 Ghost – something that was a lot more common among this sort of series 5-10 years ago than it is today.
As for the story, well – I’m still on the fence there too. At least we got an explanation for why the series has settled (for now) at a school – the whole thing is a human experiment being run by the Demon Extermination Army. I don’t think it’s an especially good explanation though, nor the setting an especially interesting one. I hope the series stops teasing us that the story is going to move on and actually moves it on, because there’s a bit of a treading water feel to what it’s doing now.
After opening with an explanation from Shinoa about why virginity is evil (I’d avoid repeating that in Akihabara) we quickly segue into a development that’s a pretext to get Yuu to the next stage. The bullies from last week are back, and one of their number has gotten himself trapped inside the “Forbidden Chamber” – actually a kind of training ground for the D.E.A. (that means something different in America) that containing a demon. The whole idea here is that the power in the “cursed gear” comes from a contract with a demon – and anyone who enters the chamber unprepared (as decided by the army) is taken over by said demon.
That’s a very standard way of going about a mythology like this one, but again the execution is pretty well-done. When Yuu – arrogant to the last, but seemingly able to back it up – defies Shinoa’s orders and tries to claim the axe from the possessed Yuji (I assume he’s a goner, but we’re never told), he’s transported to an illusory world inhabited by his deceased family. He’s strong enough to resist the lure of possession (which is apparently pretty rare), Mikaela’s urging to seek revenge being the tipoff that something was off.
So is now the time when Guren is going to finally acknowledge Yuu and let the plot get to the next stage? We’ll see, but at the very least Mikaela is back in the story for reals. As expected, there was no way Ferid or he were actually dead, and Mikaela is now a vampire – though whether that means he’s lost himself and become a willing ally of Ferid is hard to say. Again, I would say this angle is pretty reminiscent of sci-fi/fantasy anime from the mid-late 2000s – I’ll be interested to see where Owari no Seraph takes it, but I do hope it takes it wherever that is a little faster from this point forward.
Preview
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I was a bit disappointed that the anime is continuing along this typical school scenario.
I’m crossing my fingers that this show picks up because I know that I won’t be able to stop watching it even if I’m suffering while trudging through each episode (Curse you Log Horizon 2…).
Not to say that you’re doing it, but I’m against holding it against a series for using a “typical school scenario” or, really, being a shounen in general (which a lot of people seem to do, for better or worse). So long as it’s executed well and entertains, that should be all that matters.
Anyways…
Show Spoiler ▼
I guess I was just thinking that it really took a step back from it’s awesome landscape beforehand (Underground Vampire Steampunk Necropolis) to a relatively generic one.
Show Spoiler ▼
I disagree with this line of thought. Being stereotypical is very much something that can be held against a show. It’s why it’s hard for most mecha shows to rise above; they too rarely do anything outside the normal. This doesn’t mean a show can’t have a stereotypical premise and still be great and rise above that. I would argue that High School DxD and the Gundam Build fighters shows are examples of shows that are better than their premise would suggest (not saying they’re necessarily A+ material, just better than you’d guess).
My point is that a stereotypical premise is a negative that must be overcome, but at the same time, that just means that a good show CAN overcome it.
@KaleRylan: With all respect, it sounds like you’re trying to have your proverbial “stereotypical” cake and eat it too, and here’s why:
>] “I disagree with this line of thought. Being stereotypical is very much something that can be held against a show. It’s why it’s hard for most mecha shows to rise above; they too rarely do anything outside the normal. This doesn’t mean a show can’t have a stereotypical premise and still be great and rise above that.”
I don’t disagree that being stereotypical can be held against a show, but then one could say that about most anything that they disagree with. That doesn’t say anything about the stereotype itself, only that we’re talking about something we’ve found disagreeable.
And then you go on to say:
>] “My point is that a stereotypical premise is a negative that must be overcome, but at the same time, that just means that a good show CAN overcome it.”
You say that little grammatical switcheroo you just did there? First you said that a stereotype is, essentially, something that could held against a show, and then you say that it is something that should be held against it.
To be fair of course, that may well not have been your intention, but things that can lead to confusion and potential misunderstandings on both our parts.
All that said, my argument here is that we ought not to judge a show simply because it uses stereotypes. Why? Because that tells us nothing about the stereotypes themselves nor how they’re executed. That’s putting the cart before the horse and it could end up leaving you missing out on an otherwise great show; something which, admittedly, you seem to understand when you say that a great show can overcome the so-called “negative” of a stereotype.
Although, by your argument, my impression is is that you would say it overcame a negative. I would argue right back that it wasn’t a negative that it overcame, but rather your predisposition to treating it as such.
First off, I disagree with your interpretation of my grammar, but that’s neither here nor there. The real issue is that when you attempt to use grammar to make a point, you ignore the actual point. The point is very simple and valid. Stereotypical premises can lead to good shows, that doesn’t mean that stereotypes themselves are value-neutral. Stereotypes are, generally speaking, bad. They do not generally make for good media. This is why the concept even exists. It’s not a positive or neutral value concept. It’s a negative concept.
Their decision to shove a weird high school thing into this show is bad. It doesn’t add anything to the show and is in fact something the show has to work to overcome. This is clear in its own dialogue. That doesn’t mean the show is ruined forever by having a school setting. But it’s a stereotypical premise that doesn’t add anything to the show and in fact takes away from several of the unique qualities that it seemed to possess in the premiere.
This is a worse show because it suddenly decided it needed to be in a high school. The question now is whether it will move past and rise above that. But even if it does, that doesn’t somehow make the decision to set in a high school not a dumb decision.
@KaleRylan:
>] “Their decision to shove a weird high school thing into this show is bad. It doesn’t add anything to the show and is in fact something the show has to work to overcome. This is clear in its own dialogue. That doesn’t mean the show is ruined forever by having a school setting. But it’s a stereotypical premise that doesn’t add anything to the show and in fact takes away from several of the unique qualities that it seemed to possess in the premiere.”
It doesn’t add anything to the show? What are you talking about? Of course it does. We just got through an episode explaining how it’s not a ‘school’ at all, but rather a military training facility existing for the sole purpose of weeding out potential military powers from otherwise ordinary useless humans.
To be fair though, some might argue that it would save a heckuva lot more time if Yuu and co. had just been sent to an actual training facility a la SNK instead of this roundabout method. I would call such a viewpoint shortsighted however.
By using the stereotypical setting of a school, not only does Seraph try to lure its viewers into a certain mindset of complacency, only to have that completely turned on its head quickly enough, but reinforcing the reality of just how far the military permeates every facet of human life above ground, going so far as to put otherwise innocent children in danger just to serve their own ends. It’s really quite merciless when you think about it, and the fact that a school – a place that would otherwise be a bastion of security and safety – is used only serves to reinforce that.
>] “This is a worse show because it suddenly decided it needed to be in a high school. The question now is whether it will move past and rise above that. But even if it does, that doesn’t somehow make the decision to set in a high school not a dumb decision.”
Needless to say, I wholeheartedly disagree with that. With all respect, and as I’ve said before, I think you’re letting your bias towards the school setting itself drag down your opinion simply by virtue of its existence rather than taking it for what it is and what larger purpose it serves in the story.
No it really doesn’t do all those mental hula-hoops that you suggest. Those are the sorts of things that can happen when you use something original or do a VERY GOOD JOB of subverting a stereotype. In general though, the very fact of it being a stereotype precludes that sort of thing. And the defenders of this keep highlighting the human experiment/military training facility aspect as some kind of defense. As though THAT’S never happened in anime before.
In fact, all of your defenses are in fact just other anime stereotypes. High school setting? Check. High school that is secretly the headquarters of some order? Check. Military/battle organization that inexplicably uses teenagers as its main combat force? Check. What this story seemed to have going for it was a relatively unique setting, and it has spent the last two episodes systematically DISMANTLING everything that made it even remotely different in the most generic way possible. And that hurts it. Nearly everyone else sees that.
@KaleRylan:
Just for the record, I’ve said over and over again that the school setting, is in fact, a stereotype. I’m not arguing that at all.
However, what you continue to repeat, over and over again, only serves to prove my point. You think that just because something’s a stereotype, that automatically translates to a net negative and it’s up to the show to make up for it.
This, IMHO, is one of the problems with some in the anime community. They think that a show that, in their eyes, doesn’t use things that are ‘original’ and instead resorts to some tried-and-true stereotypes; that that, in and of itself, is bad. In other words, they’re putting the cart before the horse, not even giving the show a chance to show how well executed aforementioned stereotypes are used. They’re terrible as a matter of course. Period, full stop.
And I can prove that this line of thought is hypocritical and flawed. For example:
Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann, well regarded as Studio Gainax’s last great work. You’ll find it in Top 10 lists across the net and still talked about today as just an all-around awesome anime. And yet it’s filled with stereotypes, packed to the brim, some might say:
Giant fighting mecha? Check. Kid hero with tragic past? Check. Tsundere heroine with skimpy clothing? Check and check. Deus ex machina plot twists to save the day? BIG check. And on and on it goes.
Do you ever hear the vast majority of fans complain about these things? No, because Gurren Lagann did a damn good job executing them all, which is exactly my point.
I’ll give you another, more prominent example. Fate/Stay Night:
Boy hero with tragic past? Check. Tsundere love interest (Tohsaka Rin, of course)? Check. School setting? Check. Tragic imouto character (whom he’s not related to by blood, of course)? Check. And again, on and on it goes.
Does any of that undermine Fate/Stay Night‘s extraordinary popularity, striking it from its, IMHO, rightful place as one of the Top 10 VNs to read in your life? Heck no.
Now, perhaps, some might argue that both of my above given examples rose above all of these stereotypes, which is why they turned out so successful, which might seem to support your argument. However, that assertion falls apart when you realize that all of those stereotypes cement themselves as several of the supporting pillars of both series, without which both shows would’ve never even gotten off the ground.
Why did they turn out so well regardless? Because, just like the stereotypical school setting in Seraph, it all came down to the execution. Stereotypes by themselves don’t tell you anything about a show’s potential, for better or worse; how they’re used does.
And while we’re on the matter, there is nothing truly ‘original’ anymore. You can look at any anime these days and, at the very least, classify a handful of things in them as stereotypes. If we started shaking our heads at any anime that did that, there would be no end to it and we’d never get any enjoyment out of them.
Again, listing examples of stereotypes that were overcome does not mean that stereotypes themselves are not bad things. It just means they can be overcome. You admit this and then just deny it based on their ‘importance.’ A quality that has nothing to do with whether it’s a dumb idea or not.
This is just such a weird argument. I read the season previews every season like most people here. If I see ‘boy with special powers has to attend school that had up until then been all girl’ or something of that sort I generally avoid it out of principle, because it’s a dumb stereotype that’s done to death right now. The previews themselves point this out. Go read Stilts’s previews of those shows in the last 2 or so seasons. No on is denying they CAN be good shows, just that seeing ‘high school harem anime’ or ‘high school battle anime’ does not impart confidence. It immediately makes you go ‘eh?’ It is something the show must overcome.
@KaleRylan:
With all respect, there’s nothing to argue anymore as, as far as I can see, you’re not even really trying to make an argument. You’re just asserting your position without really making a case for it, and there’s nothing to be gained from that.
I’ve laid out my position, followed up by several examples with which to back it up. You haven’t tried to disprove nor even argue against them, so what else is there to be done?
As I’ve said since the beginning, I find your position to be one of putting the cart before the horse; one which, IMO, can only serve as a detriment towards enjoying an otherwise good anime. I would hope you to reconsider your evident bias towards stereotypes someday.
And with that, that’s all I can say. Have a good one.
The vampire reveal would have been much more dramatic had the OP song not spoiled it last episode. Then again, it wasn’t exactly unpredictable.
Well, if you saw the preview/press release poster, then you pretty much knew as well.
Please don’t turn into Blood-c,that’s pretty much my main concern for this show.
Also,why isn’t Samu blogging this show anymore?
Some plot points from the Seraph LN prequel directly relate to events happening here in the anime and manga. I’m not sure if the anime will cover the prequel, so would it be OK to give a basic summary of the LN here?
Inside spoiler tags, please.
Suddenly demons…wtf?
The first episode made it seem like the setting was in a normal modern world when a hidden sect of vampires rise up. However, now suddenly humans have demon spawning grounds and ability to contract with them? What the sudden leap in occult development?
welcome to shounen battle anime 101
This is explained better in Seraph’s LN prequel.
Show Spoiler ▼
Therefore, it is not surprising that demon contracting does exist.
That’s still an odd development. Because as the poster said, the show implied it was our world with the sudden appearance of vampires. That’s fine. Now, 3 episodes in, we’ve got vampires, demons, monsters, and magic. It doesn’t wreck the show or anything, but it’s much further down the rabbit hole than it appeared to be.
@KaleRylan
You forgot about the mysterious virus that wiped most of humanity older than 13 years old, now all we need are zombies and aliens and the collection of anime assorted enemies will be complete, that’s seriously all over the place XD
They could have learned a thing or two from Attack on Titan and Sidona which focus on a singular threat with humanity using technology to fight it (or reverse engineering the threat to use it aganist their enemies), but here we have vampires, then some virus, then demons, then giant monsters… It’s just a mess.
Except that the world we got a glimpse of before the virus and vampires appeared didn’t look anything like a world where magic existed, you can’t just add stuff to a world very similar to ours and expect things to turn out the same until you decide it doesn’t.
That’s lazy writing and feels more like an asspull “oh, by the way there are demons too besides vampires in this modern world, oh and did i mention there is magic, giant monsters, viruses and..er.. Schools!”… It just feels tacked on and incoherent… Hope they do something to untangle this mess or I’ll probably drop the show.
Interesting. Until I heard of that, I always thought that the Japanese developed magic AFTER the virus, not before, to fight the vampires. After all, once you have to admit that vampires do exist, experimenting with the occult seems reasonable enough if you are in desperate need of a super-weapon able to defeat vampires.
Given that the show itself hasn’t explained the presence of demons just yet, maybe we should hold off on judging whether or not it’s a strange development. The point is that the world fell apart, and all sorts of strange stuff has been let loose. Right now we don’t know much about it, but I’ll bet it will make more sense when we find out what happened.
I feel bad being the guy that keeps coming down on this, because I honestly don’t hate the show that much (it’s just perfunctory so far). But I just get annoyed by this sort of defense. People that like something that they nonetheless know is not necessarily the most amazing thing ever have a tendency to keep moving the goal post back. If you say you don’t like something based on a trailer you’re told ‘wait until it’s out.’ Then it starts, you don’t like the first episode and they say ‘give it a few more episodes/follow the 3 episode rule.’ You get to the 3rd/4th episode and it keeps being fairly mediocre and you’re told ‘it’s only been a few episodes, you have to give it time.’
At what point are you simply allowed to have a negative opinion of something that you feel is mediocre? When you watched an entire show/season/movie that you didn’t much like in the first place?
Hm. I can see where you’re coming from, but the problem is that I don’t see the show as mediocre. So for me it’s not really moving back the goalpost, it’s just enjoying the ride.
This probably comes down to a difference in how we approach stories. I’m willing to engage on a different level with this story because I’m expecting that the author has a plan, which I can see hints of. I fully expect that to pay off well when the answers do come out, and in the meantime everything that’s being done is building the story in a way that I find satisfactory.
Particularly because this story shows traces of similarity with other shows that I have really enjoyed. Shows that at first did things somewhat annoying but that when viewed as a whole made the story better for it. So that now, when I watch shows like this, I look for what could make something that would seem commonplace or strange serve a purpose in the greater story. Kind of changes how I look at things.
So in a way, you’re right. Lots of people do say just to give it more time. However, that’s not to say I don’t enjoy the show now. I think our perspectives are just a bit different.
1st episode was great but 2nd and 3rd set it back a lot
I get that feeling, too. My irritation with this episode is the part where they were walking from the school main area to the forbidden zone. It was so long winded and boring, I’ve never felt bored before just watching characters walking from one place to another.
On the plus side, I do praise Yuu for being strong minded.
IMO, it’s the high school setting. In particular, it’s how far the plot itself is having to go to JUSTIFY the high school setting. The characters themselves don’t believe it. Having your lead repeatedly ask why the heck he’s in high school with your heroine giving him a bunch of different answers each time is a bad sign. It shows that your setting isn’t believable.
That can work if you’re actually trying to tell some sort of surreal story, but that’s not the case here. It’s clear the author just shoehorned in a standard high school setting because anime and is desperately attempting to justify it.
Yeah. I was expecting less shounen-ish atmosphere, and more seinen when I saw that post-apocalyptic situation when every adults started dying. Oh well, Shinoa kinda makes up for it I guess.
Seraph’s author, Kagami Takaya, is a die-hard fan of incorporating the occult into his stories. All his works – Legend of the Legendary Heroes, Itsuka Tenma no Kuro Usagi, Apocalypse Alice and Seraph of the End – have at least some combination of otherworldly elements; including, but not limited to: magic, demons, gods, angels, vampires, etc, etc.
Naturally, how he uses them and what personal twists he chooses to incorporate can vary widely from story to story.
For any fan of his though, what we’ve seen is par for the course, and it’s only getting started.
Basic summary of Seraph’s LN prequel, may contain hints on manga plot:
Show Spoiler ▼
They in fact do say that his schoolmate is fine, Shinoa tells Yuu that he -Yuu-survived the demon and saved his schoolmate Yuji as well.
My current qualms with the show are the demons which feel kinda tacked on (i prefer it when humanity picks enemy power and reverse engineer it to fight back like in Attack on Titan or Sidonia), also the lack of even a slight explanation for what links the vampires, the giant monsters and the so called virus that wiped humanity, and lastly the school ssetting which is even lampshaded by Shinoa when she told Yuu “Did you think a peaceful school could exist in a messed up place like this”, good point…and yeah… Lampshading it won’t automatically make it better, it still feels kinda tacked on.
Still going to watch the show for a couple of more episodes before deciding to continue or drop it.
Completely agree, and I made a similar point above. You’ve got an issue with your setting when you have to go to this much trouble to justify it. Episode 2 he was being disciplined and already, by episode 3, that excuse is out the window and we’ve got THREE more excuses for why he’s in school. He’s simply being made to wait and kind of/sort of continue his socialization discipline, the school is secretly a training program, AND the school is secretly a large-scale human experiment.
Very obviously, the writer just wanted a freaking school, and is pulling crap out of their butt to justify having a school. And it’s not even an interesting school like the one in Ao no Exorcist. It’s just a normal school, which is apparently supposed to be a plot point. The problem is that when she asks ‘do you think such a peaceful school could exist?’ my answer was ‘maybe?’ They haven’t shown enough of the world to make even realize the school was too peaceful. I just assumed that within the walls, the demon army had successfully protected normal society.
As someone mentioned above, magic and spells DO exist in Seraph’s world.(in LN prequel + Guren also said about “proper spell” in episode 2)
And about relationship between vampires, demon weapons, virus, etc.- I can only say that you need to be patient. This is JUST episode 3, guys.
Not to be rude, but that’s not how media works. It’s not our job to wait on media. It’s media’s job to prove to us that we should wait. That’s why there’s stuff like the ‘3 episode rule.’ It’s making a point that media has a responsibility to BE GOOD fairly quickly if it wants people to stick with it. It can’t just be random and questionable in quality and we have some responsibility to ‘be patient.’
That said, I agree with Enzo that in the case of this show, the 3 episode rule isn’t quite enough, cause it’s very carefully skirting the line between good and bad at this point. Not bad enough to drop, not good enough to be all in.
I agree that “patient” is not our responsibility. It’s the media job to prove to us that their shows are worth continue watching.
However, I doubt about “be good fairly quickly” part. I think that both “good” & “fairly quickly” have different definitions for each people. Moreover, plots and mysteries also have different priority of their own ,and people’s curiosity in these things differ(some need to be told at the beginning, some can wait until later). So it is quite an unscallable issue.
Another point is that I neither believe nor trust in that “3 episodes rule” since the beginning. A LOT of animes have betrayed/surpassed/neglected 3 episodes expectation, I assure you.
with that said, and as one of the novel & manga readers, I think that Seraph is the “slow to warm-up” type, which means 3-ep cannot apply here. It is up to watchers’ patient and taste whether they drop here or continue watching.
I’m just digging on Shinoa’s scythe wielding. I thought she was splendid, as if she was dancing while fighting the serious Yuu.
Pretty much the only thing I loved in this episode, and Shinoa herself, too, of course.
i have to say it’s actually the lead character that’s seriously making me consider dropping this show, this whole immature emo brat attitude is so damn pungent it makes me cringe. the school setting definitely isn’t helping, it almost like the author was like “hey lets make this stupid ass kid more annoying by putting him in school and force him to magically adjust”. i really hope i’m wrong about this mc, i sure hope he grows out of it, because crappy male leads have been ruining a lot of shows for me recently, its almost like the male mc has somehow become the achilles heel of anime.
you need give up watching anime right now. It’s not for you. This is almost anime perfection. They are all pretty much have leads like this.
That’s what you get in a shounen battle anime.
For best male MC go watch Oregairu right now
I’m sorry but I have to defend this show.
Ok. So you’re calling him an emo brat, but he’s pretty lively. The conversation he has with his teacher proves that. He’s also pretty considerate to Yoichi. When Yoichi was talking about his past, he listened intently.
Also, he wants to be recognized by Guren and let into the imperial demon army as fast as possible. He knows he has the skills, and he never acts without reason.
!Oh look there’s a vampire in the school.
“I can handle it. If I do, Guren will have to recognize me.” And he does an amazing job, by himself until the end. His actions saved lives.
“Your heart is weak, the demon will kill you.” He has confidence in himself and goes for it and succeeds. Shinoa’s surprise shows that she doesn’t really know that much about him.
His whole character has been that he surpasses people’s expectations since the beginning of the show. If you think he’s socially incompetent he’ll prove you wrong. Is he a strong fighter? Yes. Can he apologize? You’ll find out later.
Shinoa is best girl of the season (at least for me).
People should let the character’s path play out and then make an assessment based on the whole picture instead of whining over every single little detail when things have hardly started. Though, there are certainly anime that don’t bother to try and set their characters up for development, so I do think this deserves slight praise in that sense. Would you rather have a Gary Stu (Which people would complain to hell and back) or an arrogant brat that is very clearly being exposed to the path to growth?
While the main guy is very stereotypical, very few of the complaints seem directed at him specifically. He’s normal for anime, but then ‘he’s normal for anime.’ Not much to complain about there. Most of the complaints have been about the fact that the show’s just not very good. It has good animation and it has very real potential, but those are basically what it has going for it right now.
How do you see Yuu as stereotypical… Like at all. I quite literally can’t think of anyone else like him.
Naruto? No…
Goku? No…
Okumura Rin? Close… except Yuu’s less sour and changes waaaaaay more faster.
Yusuke? Nah…
Anyone from HXH? Not really…
Anyone from One Piece? No.
Anyone from Twin Star Exorcists? No
I just listed stuff off the top of my head. I can’t see it. I can’t see him as some stereotypical insert-here protagonist. Didn’t he get confessed to in like episode 2 and handled it maturely. He rose his hands to shinoa when she said he had a monkey’s brain. His behavior isn’t “Normal”
I’m starting to get the feeling that this anime is just going through the “MC constantly ignores any and all rules/warnings/etc. so that the plot can move forward but he magically survives because of his extra thick plot armor” phase. That’s actually……kind of annoying. I mean why aren’t there any guards or watch outs for that “SUPER SECRET!” door? These people just say “eh fudge it” if someone has their soul consumed before help arrives? Hell what if NOBODY is there at the time? (which was the case here) What kind of military force does that? o_O. Oops sorry guys I just accidentally shot this guy who wandered into our secret training grounds. Oh well these kids don’t have parents anyways. Who’s going to complain? Illogical world is illogical.
“Did you really think a peaceful school existed in such a messed-up world like this?”
I’m pretty sure this line is directed at the people saying “This high school setting in a post apocalyptic world makes no sense!”. Sadly the explanation is still pretty dumb. To be honest they should have just left that plot point alone. The school was a dumb feature but I was willing to overlook it. But when they tried to explain it as if it has a valid and logical purpose in the setting that’s just stretching my patience. But whatever. School is actually a test for everyone to work with demons (aka knock off Valverape explanation). Cool.
If it wasn’t for Shinoa I don’t know what I’d do with myself 🙁
made complete an utter sense to me. School is where teenagers spent most of their time. having a school setup in such a world, that’s actually a killing machine that destroys most of it’s pupils is classic japanese anime.
They need some way to find people that can fight the vampires.
It’s perfect.
It kind of serves multiple purposes. The virus that killed off people over the age of 13 means that most of the survivors will be fairly uneducated. They need them educated to a minimum standard before they’ll really be useful for civilian or military purposes. Uneducated peasants aren’t all that useful for more than sustenance farming, and when you’re trying to reclaim/rebuild civilization and it’s infrastructure, you need to do better than that. It’s also a great chance to indoctrinate the young, impressionable survivors into your new world order, and stamp out any pesky ideas like civilian government or democracy.
Then of course there’s the reason the episode gave, of sorting out who would be useful for military service, from those who won’t be useful for military service. As an added bonus, anyone who wanders into the training room and gets taken over by a demon was probably either too stupid, too rebellious, or too weak willed to really want to keep them around.
It’s not like this would be resource intensive to set up either. All it really requires is cleaning up an abandoned school building within their territory. Any sort of education program they set up would probably call for classrooms. It’s just a question of how you choose to structure your training/education programs at that point.
That’s… such a sour way to look at it.
Look. MC is a gung-ho type character but on the inside he’s a realist. He was about to join Mika in giving blood to the vampires because he knew how outclassed he was, and he told Yoichi that going out to save his sister was a bad idea.
Basically, Yuu is a character that defies expectations. He knows what he wants, goes for it and has faith in himself.
“Why no guards”
School is a giant experiment. Human population has declined. There’s like a million reasons
“Did you really think a school…”
How’s that a dumb explanation? “We keep demons underground and recruit the people they don’t have a strong affect on into the military.” The school has two purposes. It makes perfect sense, and is pretty important for the next part.
i almost dropped it already, but maybe the pink vampire girl from opening can still save us of the yaoi crap
This is perfect anime in every way. I don’t grasp how you can drop such an entertaining anime. I love it.
Hard as I know it must be for you to swallow that two men can have an affectionate, loving relationship without being lovers, I’d strongly advise you to go used to it.
At least with respect to this series, it’s here to stay, like it or not.
It may be turning into the kind of generic, school themed, students with special weapons, pseudo harem type crap that inundated the previous season… but at least it’s not quite shoving it down our throats I guess?
It did take this long for the fact to sink in that that’s where the show may be heading whereas with those others you could tell within the first 5 seconds. I mean it took two episodes before they revealed the school setting, the third to bring out the inexplicable magic weapons… I haven’t looked at the character lists but I’m going to assume that within the next few episodes they introduce at least one or two female character so there’s even a small harem.
man, I’m really super enjoying this. It’s super stuff, definitely in my top 5 this season.
It’s getting even better if you ask me, it looks like his friend has being turned into a vampire he must kill.
So he’s killing the very thing that made him kill. Not that my friends is pretty. All the school stuff, demon stuff, when I love anime you’ve got to expect these things.
I think the school being a experiment is cool. that’s where kids spend a lot of time so make sense. Ep3 was mind-blowing, especially when stoned. I watched ep1 and 2 TWICE ! Now thats a good sign.
This anime is going to be good, that’s what i actually though when watching the first and the second episode. But then it turn to sour on the third episode, i agree with some of the complain mentioned above. The third episode is just lacking whatsoever. I hope they didn’t make the fourth episode more boring than this one. It’s a pity really when i starting to fall in love with this anime.
As someone who is currently reading the manga, I can say it gets a lot better as the story progresses.
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After this episode I read all the chapters in the manga (there were 32 if I’m not mistaken).Show Spoiler ▼
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A stereotypical beginning means very little. I mean think about it. Aside from it’s stellar production values, F/SN looks like a magical school battle harem if you look only at the first two or even three episodes. (well, 00, 01, and 02 for UBW).
For another thing, this is a shounen, and we’re only through 3 or 4 manga chapters. What shounen worth its salt shows its hand that early in the game?
Nah. Yuyu Hakushou, Dragon Ball and Hunter X Hunter didn’t show their good hands for a while (Nen wasn’t a thing for over 20 episodes). Only small exception would be Blue Exorcist and maybe D.Gray Man, but even those two didn’t really show their hands for a while.
As someone who read the manga, its interesting to see how differently people are experiencing their first impression via anime.
I don’t want to spoil too much, but basically, in the manga you have the benefit of the narrator.
I will be as vague as possible, but just in case, I put spoiler tags.
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I guess for non-manga readers, I would say, if you think something is strange and inconsistent, you should assume that it was intentially strange rather than accidentally strange.
🙂
Two recent examples would be:
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If I had to list a couple things I like a lot about this series,
1. its that the plot moves very very quickly
2. it surprises me
3. I get attached to the characters in a FMA way.
4. the action sequences are well done. Shinoa just playing around with her sword here was really well animated, so I’m looking forward to the rest.
Sorry just also forgot to mention:
we still haven’t really met Guren yet, who is a Levi/Roy Mustang type of influence on Yuu.
I come into this post, and lots of people make some good points but… I don’t understand the highschool or demon complaints.
They’re not acting like highschoolers. They’re just… in a mass education environment… It doesn’t feel like your stereotypical highschool shenanigans. Plus Yuu said it this episode didn’t he? “Finally, I’ll learn how to kill Vampires.” Any mass education institution at their age is going to look like a highschool. You have to look past that and see how they’re executing it, and to be perfectly honest, it’s done great. The focus isn’t on school life or dorm life or anything. You never forget that demons and vampires are a thing.
Oh also, I don’t think it’s fair to say “SUDDENLY DEMONS WTF?” or about anything in the anime at this point. They’re still introducing the universe, so if they say, “Demon’s are a thing” then I think it’s fair to just accept that demons are a thing. That’s like complaining about Nen in HXH. The world before the virus wasn’t “our” world, and it’s clear because Vampires were a faction that existed even before humanity practically wiped itself out.
pretty generic show so far. Great first episode with an immersive atmosphere followed by episodes of badly integrated high school setting and bland supporting characters. It’s like this show is trying to be Ao no Exorcist, SnK, and insert-another-shounen-here.
Not only that but it seems, the show can’t decide what lore to focus on. First episode had pandemic virus followed by an angry army of underground vampires. Then author suddenly switches to high school where everything looks normal unless characters tell you otherwise. Oh and let’s not forget to add in demon contracts with our weapons and blah blah blah.
I’m giving this one more episode just because of the fight scenes which looks pretty good.
Kagami Takaya’s stories, like Seraph of the End take a while to get off the ground. It’s nothing that you’re going to be able to immerse yourself in in just a few episodes. If you haven’t the patience for that, this probably isn’t your type of anime.
I’m not blind, right?! Mika and Yu are more then just friends, right?!