Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign - Season One Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.0
Overall		3.0

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign - Season One Blu-ray Movie Review

A action-horror genre hybrid.

Reviewed by Neil Lumbard November 23, 2021

Seraph of the End: Season One is an action-packed anime fantasy. The series is produced by George Wada (Kimi ni Todoke – From Me to You), Keita Kodama (One Punch Man), Kentaro Hattori (A Certain Scientific Accelerator), Mika Sugimoto (Brothers Conflict), and Reiko Oyama (Food Wars! The Third Plate). Seraph of the End features animation produced by Wit Studio (Attack on Titan, The Ancient Magus' Bride).

Human beings are being overtaken in a world run by vampires. Yuichiro Hyakuya (Miyu Irino) is part of a group known as the Moon Demon Company. Arming himself with Cursed Gear in order to fight, Yuichiro now battles the demonic vampires and decides to exterminate all of them after his family was killed my a group of vampires as a young child. Can Yuichiro stop the vampires from making humankind extinct?

The animation is one of the strong points of the series. Under the art direction of Seiko Yoshioka (Fist of the Blue Sky Regenesis), the series has decent animation. The team of animators brought the horror genre to the action realm with this genre hybrid. The animation has a somewhat dark under-tone to fit the horror genre. The character designs by Satoshi Kadowaki (Tonari no 801-chan R) are reasonably good and help the anime series establish its style.

Duke it out.

Action fans will want to check out Seraph of the End for the horror-genre element. Seraph of the End has vampire elements and genre enthusiasts will appreciate that about the action-infused style. The series features the special cursed gear designed to combat vampires. This is an element infused to Seraph of the End and its fight scenes.

The cinematography by Yasuhiro Akamatsu (Gurren Lagann, Medaka Box) provides the series a balance of light and dark. The horror genre infused anime has intriguing cinematography. The production benefits from the effort.

The music by Asami Tachibana (Between the Sky and Sea), Hiroyuki Sawano (Blue Exorcist), Megumi Shiraishi (Seraph of the End: Battle in Nagoya), and Takafumi Wada (Rideback) offers a decent music backdrop. While not a great score, it sounds okay. Sometimes that is enough.

The series is written by Hiroshi Seko (Attack on Titan) and directed by Daisuke Tokudo (another Attack on Titan vet). Seraph of the End is an action-infused anime series for horror genre fans. Vampires and demon-slaying awaits.

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Arriving on Blu-ray from Funimation Entertainment, Seraph of the End: Season One is presented in 1080p MPEG-4 AVC encoded high definition in the television aspect ratio of 1.78:1 widescreen. A reasonably strong presentation, Seraph of the End has good color reproduction. The animation is reproduced well. The encoding is strong enough to satisfy.

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The release includes two lossless audio options: Dolby TrueHD English 5.1 surround sound and Dolby TrueHD Japanese 2.0 stereo (with English subtitles). Dialogue is clear and easy to understand. The music score is well integrated in to the sound mix.

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Disc 1:

Episode 1 Audio Commentary

Episode 8 Audio Commentary

Disc 2:

Episode 11 Video Commentary (HD, 23:42)

Textless Opening Song X.U. (HD, 1:31)

Textless Closing Song "scaPEGoat" (HD, 1:31)

U.S. Trailer (HD, 1:59)

Promo Videos (HD, 3:43)

BD/DVD Promos (HD, 1:32)

Trailers: Tokyo Ghoul A (HD, 1:18), Rage of Bahamut: Genesis (HD, 1:29), PSYCHO-PASS (HD, 1:40), Yona of the Dawn (HD, 1:03), Black Butler: Book of Murder (HD, 1:08), The Boy and the Beast (HD, 1:39), and Assassination Classroom (HD, 1:31).

Seraph of the Endless:

Parts 1-4 (HD, 5:02)

Part 5 (HD, 5:14)

Parts 6-7 (HD, 3:16)

Parts 8-9 (HD, 5:15)

Disc 3:

Episode 16 Audio Commentary

Disc 4:

Episode 21 Video Commentary (HD, 23:41)

Episode 24 Audio Commentary

Textless Opening Song "Two Souls – Towards the Truth" (HD, 1:32)

Textless Closing Song "Orarion" (HD, 1:32)

Promo Video (HD, 1:37)

BD/DVD Promos (HD, 1:42)

U.S. Trailer (HD, 1:09)

Trailers (HD, 9:47)

Seraph of the Endless:

Part 10 (HD, 3:26)

Part 11 (HD, 6:15)

Part 12 (HD, 3:15)

Part 13 (HD, 5:30)

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign - Season One Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Seraph of the End is worth checking out. The anime offers an action-packed genre mix that is interesting. Yuichiro Hyakuya (Miyu Irino) is the central protagonist of the series. Human beings combat impending extinction when vampires start to take over the world. Yuichiro uses cursed gear in order to combat the villainous vampires.

Under art direction by Seiko Yoshioka (Fist of the Blue Sky Regenesis), Seraph of the End combines genre elements for horror fans. The series is penned by Hiroshi Seko (Attack on Titan) and directed by Daisuke Tokudo (Attack on Titan).

The Blu-ray comes with a number of supplemental features. The presentation has strong video-audio. Funimation assembled a decent package.