Seraph of the End Vol 1 by Takaya Kagami

               

In the world of Seraph of the End, a deadly virus broke out and killed humans over the age of 13.  With chaos reigning, the vampires rose up from their underground world and stole many of the remaining children.  Underground, the children are "milked" for their blood and ferried out to the powerful.  Yūichirō dreams of escaping, and thanks to his clever friend Mikaela, he gets to, but not before seeing his "family" from the orphanage slaughtered, including Mikaela.  Flash forward four years, and Yūichirō is enrolled to train for the Imperial Demon army.  He is assigned a surveilance officer, Shinoa, who is there to make sure Yūichirō learns teamwork by either making friends or getting a girlfriend.  Shinoa has her own Cursed Gear, a sword imbued with a demon, and Yūichirō is obsessed with obaining his own Curse Gear so that he can destroy vampires and get reveng for his family.

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Yuichiro is the typical know-it-all and get lucky protagonist that is in many stories.  He’s cocky and doesn’t get along with anyone but seems to stumble on the right answer to move the plot along.  His task of making friends to prove he has learned teamwork seems like a cheap way to get the story into a high school setting when it didn't need to be.  I also didn’t care for the virgin comments.  Yūichirō is supposed to make friends or get laid because the commander looks down upon virgins.  Yes, I get it that the human race was basically wiped out and so now they’re all about coupling, but how does making a friend or a girlfriend help with his rebellious spirit? The twist at the end of volume one is almost enough to make me interested in reading more, but the cringey elements and convenient movement of plot has turned me away from the remainder of this series.  The artwork by Yamato Yamamoto is really beautiful, and it's too bad that the story didn't live up to art.

VIZ rates this as Teen Plus for violence and suggestive themes.  The violence is slightly gory, and there is a lot of conversation about Yūichirō in volume one, so this is bound to come up more in later volumes as well.

Sara's Rating: 4/10
​Suitability Level: Grades 10-12

Publisher: VIZ Media
Publication Date: June 3, 2014​
ISBN: 9781421571508 (Paperback)

Tags: Rating: 4/10, Suitability: High School, Manga, Demons, Horror, School Life,  VIZ Media