Owari no Seraph or Seraph of the End, is the story of 2 little boys and their families, Yuichiro Hyakuya and Mikaela Hyakuya. The two met at the Hyakuya orphanage and alongside the kids who were already there.
They all became a small family with Yu and Mika as their older brother figures.
The series starts to develop following an apocalyptic event, the “Seraph of the End”. That decimated almost all living creatures except for kids 13 years old and younger.
Vampires who used to be hiding in human society used that chance to come out of the shadows and rule the world. They’ve established a new life system for the remaining humans, who were mostly kids. They would live in a ravaged underground supervised by the vampires in exchange for their blood.
The Hyakuya family had been part of that system for some time after the world ended. Mika was an open-minded, free-spirited kid who wanted to go outside and leave the underground. He met with a noble vampire, 13th progenitor Ferid Bathory one day.
The latter promised Mika to give him anything he wished in exchange for blood. Ferid must’ve loved Mika’s blood, as Mika would come back home with new items almost every day.
Yu, finding that rather suspicious, asked Mika where he was getting all that, and Mika told him. Mika also told Yu that he was secretly gathering materials to escape the underground as the items. He would ask for things such as a map of the underground.
The story gathers momentum and develops rather quickly at that point. So to avoid any spoilers, I will wrap up the Overview section with the main focus of the story without revealing too much.
A faction in the Japanese government called the Moon Demon Company is responsible for executing vampires and regaining control. The soldiers face the powerful vampires by bonding with a demon and using their power to exterminate them.
The soldiers have to be really careful and possess a really strong spirit as if they are not. However, they will get possessed by the demons in their weapons and die, although the vampires are the explicit bad guy.
Perversion exists within the Moon Demon Company, as they do not relent to try any means to get rid of the vampires. They have vicious ways to get to their objectives, sometimes having apocalyptic consequences and making the antagonists of the story rather unclear.
Highlights
The characters are so rich. In any setting of a post-world apocalypse, you are most likely going to find characters with a lot of depth, and I live. Attack on Titan is a recent example.
In Seraph of the End, Yu has been through so much, and he became determined to eliminate the vampires. But when the corruption of the Moon Company becomes blatant, it comes down to Yu and his friends against the world. Y
u shares very strong bonds with his friends, which he considers family, especially Mika. Their interactions as a family, perhaps a little more than that at times, can lighten the show’s mood in all the darkness of this anime. The anime isn’t that dark, but it has its moments.
Yu possesses a special, rare, and dangerous power that makes him lose control when he becomes emotionally distressed. It’s pretty dope, it has the vampires trembling, but some nobles can still tackle him. In other words, the fights in this anime are very worthwhile.
Vampires are certainly a highlight, and not just the regular no-name vamps, the noble ones. The progenitors are so powerful, and some of their names refer to real-life “vampires”, such as Krul Tepes and Ferid Bathory.
If you don’t know who these two real-life references are, quickly google “Elizabeth Bathory or Vlad III”.
Finally, most anime involving vampires have gorgeous character designs and a dark, bloody theme attached to them. Added to the fact that Seraph of the End is a dark fantasy, the theme fits very well.
Final Thoughts
Seraph of the End could be one of the best dark fantasies out there. The thing is, it only has 2 seasons, and those two only bring out so much.
Many developments await the series in so many aspects, but they’re cut short because there is no 3rd season. Despite that, however, Owari no Seraph is still an amazing anime.
The characters are great, and the storyline is pretty epic, especially since the seemingly good guys could also be bad. The bottom line is, go watch this anime.
