#And; amazingly; the Goriness Level in Owari no Seraph isn't even as bad as in Tokyo Ghoul

[crystalkleure]

sooo, you're into this thing called Owari No Seraph... never heard of it, do you think you could tell me?

Sure! Though, I went into it almost totally blind because I really needed a good distraction from some shit the other day, so it was either “start a new show that isn’t too long” or “keep clicking on 45-minute long YT videos on how to make soap” lmao, rewatching Beyblade just wasn’t cutting it that particular day. So I’ve only finished the first season of OnS so far and have no idea what’s gonna happen in the rest of the series, or even how many seasons there ARE...I thought it was short because s1 only had 12 episodes, but now I know there’s at least one more season that ALSO has 12 more episodes in it. But the base premise, animation, pacing, and the characters are all really good so far so I’m definitely going to keep watching it. This show was VERY popular and Absolutely Everywhere back when it was still new, around 2015, and I can definitely see why.

The Core Plot is that an extraordinarily lethal, apocalyptic plague has spread across the world like wildfire, wiping out most of the human population -- with the exception of the kids. Children 13 years old and younger were not affected by it for some reason [which seems a little odd to me because kids have LESS developed immune systems than adults, but also, like, this is a show about vampires and demons and magic, so normal logic probably isn’t relevant]. The vampires then basically just rose up and took over the world, because of course a human virus won’t kill them, and since they actually kind of NEED the humans to not die out completely because they eat those, they rounded up the kids to “protect” them by essentially keeping them as livestock.

However, it turns out the Ambiguous Apocalyptic MegaPlague didn’t kill EVERYONE the vampires didn’t capture, so over a period of time the surviving humans regrouped and started forming a military to Take The World Back From The Monsters. [Speaking of monsters, there are also huge chimera-type monsters running amok all over the place too, called “Four Horsemen of John”s, even though there are DEFINITELY waaay more than 4 of them so idk where that name came from. They only attack/eat humans and not vampires, so that’s another thing the vampires are “protecting” their humans from. Thus far, at the end of s1, no one seems to know what these monsters are or where they came from or why they behave the way they do, they’re just kind of There And A Threat.]

Anyway, one of the two main characters was a kid who was taken in by the vampires as livestock, who then escaped and joined the other humans in their Kill All The Monsters And Fix The Planet military. War happens. And is still happening, as of the end of s1. To avoid too many spoilers if you wanna watch it yourself, I won’t say exactly what’s going on with the OTHER of the two main characters, just that he...did not successfully escape from the vampires when his buddy did.

There are a few spoilers I will mention under the cut, as well as some disturbing content to be aware of -- it’s a pretty gritty show at times:

For the content warnings, er, at least one of the Big Important Vampires just radiates some MASSIVE pedo vibes. In episode one, one of the main human characters offers his blood to the guy in exchange for some better treatment, and this fucking vampire is just...so touchy-grabby with the kid, who is 12 years old at the time. He’s almost gropey about it. He takes the kid back to his mansion with him at night. The vampire is obviously evil and you’re supposed to hate him, and they sure do a damn good job of making you Want To See Him Killed And Maimed.

And then a little later, in episode 4 iirc, there’s another vampire who is...Confusing And Concerning in multiple ways? For one, I can’t tell if she’s supposed to be an adult woman who’s just really short and petite and flat-chested, or if she was turned into a vampire as a child and thus stuck that way forever. Either way, the Massive Pedo from ep 1 fawns over her and explicitly declares his love for her, which is icky if she’s supposed to be a kid, and THEN...this: Alright, there’s a dying kid in the room, and she doesn’t want the kid to die because she needs him for something. So she turns him into a vampire. The first thing to note is that he is 12. The second thing to note is that the WAY she turns him is by biting her own tongue to draw blood, and then...mounting him and kissing him?? Like, she fucking straddles him and just frenches the shit out of him. He is 12. This is disturbing even if her own body is permanently frozen in child-form, because she’s an old-ass vampire now, and it’s even worse if she’s supposed to just be a tiny adult. Again, she’s evil and you’re supposed to Want Her Maimed And Dead, and that desire is definitely effectively achieved. It was very yucky to watch [but it was supposed to be].

And as for the slight spoilers...it seems to me that the plague that nearly eradicated the human species was implicitly manmade, and they just lost control of it. Because the vampires said that “due to foolish humans, a deadly plague has spread” in episode 1, and then in one of the later episodes it is revealed that the humans have been performing Human Experimentation, when one of their experiments went fucking berserk and nearly destroyed everything, and at that, another vampire scolded the humans for “being greedy” and “always losing control” of the shit they try to do. The humans don’t seem to necessarily be the “good guys” here. Especially considering they’re deliberately letting children be possessed by demons, and also nearly killing them with Superpowered Steroid Drugs, in order to make them more powerful soldiers. Both sides in the war seem to be bad, but both have some good players in them. It’s quite a good war narrative, actually -- it’s not all black-and-white at all. I think this may even be symbolically referenced in their uniforms, actually! The vampires, whom one would naturally assume to be the Bad Guys, are wearing clothes that are almost entirely pure white [which really stood out to me because that’s a dumb colour for them to be wearing in this situation, it’d stain way too easily and you’d never get it clean..so then, it’d make sense that they’re wearing white for a reason other than practicality...], and the humans, who you’d think are the Good Guys here, are dressed in black.

It’s very intriguing. Everything moves really fast, and yet there are a lot of fine details to notice. There’s a pretty constant stream of action, but not at the cost of detailed storytelling and worldbuilding. I’m enjoying it a lot.