Seraph of the End: Battle in Nagoya

Flint879 Jan 1, 2016

5.5

THE STORY IS: Battle in Nagoya picks up right where the first part of Seraph of the End left off. This time around, the gang comes back together & gets orders to partake in a raid on Nagoya to try and kill any and all vampire nobles. The story overall for Seraph of the End holds a lot of promise to be a great story. With the pacing issues of the first season & the annoyance of the character's personalities, the first season fell flat. Battle in Nagoya is, honestly, no better. The pacing is better this time around, but the characters are still the same & the story didn't get anywhere until the last few episodes. Otherwise, the story for Battle in Nagoya was more erratic than fluid. It kept my attention throughout, but slowly over time began to lose interest when the anime started playing very heavily (and when I say very heavily, I mean very) on the "family" card. Everything in Battle in Nagoya was all about family this, family that, and it became more of a nuisance the more it came around because it took a lot of interest away from what was actually going on. "I have to save my family." "They're my family." "I can't leave my family." There are only so many times you can listen to these lines before you just slam the table in annoyance. The story was good for what it was. Definitely was one of those that seemed like it was going to be good, but failed to keep up. CHARACTERS: They are just as annoying in Battle in Nagoya as they were the first time around. Yuichiro (our story's protagonist) is still the over-confident teenager who wants to "leave nobody behind because they're family." After a while though, it becomes really annoying to watch the stupidity of a character just repeat itself. I undertsand they were trying to make him seem like a hero or someone who has nothing to lose by trying to save everyone, but it's very tiresome to watch something like that. Most of the other characters were the same. No real change from the first season. OVERALL: Battle in Nagoya was better than the first season, but it still lacked on some levels from acheiving the potential it had from the beginning. In terms of watchability, this second part was more entertaining than the first season was for action nuts. I overall liked the Seraph of the End series. Albeit, it isn't the greatest, but I have seen way worse than this anime. It holds up on it's own fairly well.

DreamertK Jan 29, 2016

8

Bottom line: If you want some eye-candy and a lot of fighting, this is your show. It does well enough and excells in some areas if you're an average anime viewer. If you want something that makes you think or has inspirational characters, this isn't your show. Lets just get this out of the way - the art is fantastic in this show. It uses beautiful possibly hand-painted backgrounds in almost all of the shots and somehow the characters blend in well during the animation. The characters are clear and well drawn, and only look derpy when the camera is zoomed out from them (which isn't that often). The character designs are great - I cant explain why I'm so drawn to how they look. Maybe it's how large and round their eyes are?? But damn it they're just so cute. This is probably one of the best looking anime's I've ever seen, though I still think Fate Stay Unlimited Bladeworks has the best CG/fight scenes, and Monogatari has the best use of visual storytelling and use of visual metaphors. This one really sells the post-apocalyptic feel. Art: 12/10 The story is nothing to write home about. It's a story about humans fighting vampires, what more do you expect on that front? In this sequel they are exposing an even more complicated story involving politics and betrayl/loyalty, although it isn't clear what lay ahead (and not all questions get answered either). I wasn't as invested in the first season as I was in the second season, but still nothing to write home about yet. By the end of it, it reminded me of Evangelion with children being put in impossible situations and having to fight monsters. Geeze Japan, what's your deal with angels and demons?? Story: "Meh"/10 The character personalities are garbage, yes you knew that from the first season. Reminds me of Blue Exorcist. Main character has only one goal and that's to save everyone no matter what it costs him, and of course this isn't interesting at all and makes a lot of viewers angry. Supporting love interest Mika does grow as a character in this one as he struggles to accept his current vampire self. None of the other characters really grow at all, though we do see some tender moments with Guren. Characters: "Ugh"/10

PurplePeopleEater Jan 20, 2016

8.5

I don't know why there is only one review for this so far but I'll add my two cents. Lame vampires (still better than Twilight though). This includes my review for season 1 & 2 I wasn’t sure about this anime and waited until it was dubbed before trying it. Then I watched the first episode and just had to start writing the review right after. You want my attention, you got it. The first episode pulls you in immediately from the very beginning. I didn’t need any character or background information to understand what was going on which is what makes a good opening along with starting the story right away instead of introducing everything before actually starting. I quickly understood the characters, felt for them, and understood the situation. I enjoyed the different various personalities of the main group of characters. For some reason Gurren reminds me of Fullmetal Alchemist, don't ask me why. Each character has their own story and it's not like all of them are fighting for revenge. The stories behind each character tend to play a role throughout the main story and while it is very obvios the connection between their past and their current personality, it doesn't make them one dimensional. Even though it's largely about revenge for the main character, there is more too him than just revenge. I do feel the the two female teammates don't have as strong of characters though.  I was drawn in and held captive through the whole first episode (although a little disappointed at the end when they skipped ahead four years). To make things even better, this is the more serious and heavy type of story where people bleed and die and there isn’t any ridiculousness, at least at the beginning. They mood kind of reminds me of Attack On Titan but with a more powerful opening and a bit less powerful follow up. Overall I enjoyed the first season. I felt it was waaaay to short still but I liked it and at least there is a second season. The story wasn’t quite as strong after the first episode but I still like it. One thing I don’t like is sitting at the edge of my seat wondering if they will rush the story. They released the first and second season so close together they could have just made it a 24 episode first season. That is how many episodes SHOULD be in a season, not that anyone over in Japan is actually listening to me.  I forgot to mention one little thing. The vampires are crappy vampires. They may not be as bad as Twilight at least I didn't see any sparkles, but in my opinion the only differences between these vampires and the humans is never aging and drinking blood. That is it. The nobles are a bit more different, but if you don't like shows with vampires, don't worry, this is hardly vampires. If they hadn't kept calling them vampires and they didn't turn to ash when dead I would have forgotten they were vampires! I can't give this show any higher of a score than 8.5 since the vampires are hardly vampires.  The second season doesn’t have the strong start of the first season and at some points feels a bit weaker than the first season. I’m not saying it bit the dust or exploded. It was still and enjoyable watch that had me at the edge of my seat (or more like gripping my blanket in my fist and getting all tense). I was disappointed that the characters didn’t develop as much in the second season except Gurren and some others I don’t really care about. The action on the other hand increased and the fights were enjoyable. The story did answer some questions but I still felt like there were too many things I didn’t understand. Hopefully these things will be further explained in season 3. I’m not entirely positive I know exactly who the seraph of the end is or what that means or what the point of the human experimentation was but maybe I’m just stupid or oblivious. Maybe I was distracted by my noisy neighbors during the explanation. I sure would like to throw a fish at them right now or better yet, release this seraph of the end thing on them! Lovely lovely thoughts. I love when anime gives me good ideas and hate when I realize I don’t live in an anime and those ideas aren’t possible. I don't fully unsterstand everything that happened but I did enjoy the fights. There was a big focus on friendship and family in the second season, more than the first season, but I thought they did a decent job of not making it cheesy. It felt more mature partially because the situations were a bit more mature than some stories and the tone was more serious. I actually liked that aspect. I felt sad for Yu and Mika and the others. Yu and Mika had already been scarred by being torn from their family, Yu from two families. After Yu was kinda pulled in to relationships and caring for others again his fear of losing another family could make him completely irrational at times and was his reason for doing some pretty stupid things, but I kind of liked that. It was very human and down to earth to me. Anyway, back on track, the biggest problem with season two is that it exists and the season three doesn’t. They practically started a new season in the last few minutes of the last episode and there is no confirmed date for season 3 yet. There better be a season 3. Or I will just have to send a seraph of the end to the studio to force them into making season three. I want to see the development of the new situation with Mika and Yu. I want to know who that girl is. I want answers. Yes I’m greedy. Overall the story pulls you in from the beginning and while it may not always be strong, it moves at a decent pace and keeps the interest. The main characters develop mostly in the first season and the others mostly develop in the second. The second continues from the first and leaves you wanting more.