Seraph of the End is ending. The December issue of Shueisha’s Jump SQ. confirmed that the next issue, out on 4 December, will carry chapter 161, the last one. That closes a run that began in September 2012. Takaya Kagami writes it, Yamato Yamamoto draws it and Daisuke Furuya does the storyboards. It’s been a monthly fixture for so long that some of its first readers now have children of their own, which in this story’s world would be a dangerous thing to admit.
For anyone who missed it, the setup is one of shonen manga’s bleaker openers. A virus wipes out everyone over thirteen, and vampires climb out from underground to farm the surviving children. Yuichiro Hyakuya escapes and joins a demon-powered army to wipe out the bloodsuckers, while his childhood friend Mikaela is turned into one of them. It’s the most extreme version of the Jump readership’s dream there has ever been: no grown-ups at all, just a lot of swords and some very bad landlords.
The ending has been coming for a while. When volume 36 came out in Japan in May, Kagami’s afterword said the next volume would be the last, and he admitted the effort of wrapping up so many characters was wearing him out. “Whether I cry or laugh, the next volume is the last,” he wrote. Chapter 160, out now, finally shows readers what the titular Seraph looks like and has Yu striking one last bargain. Fans online have spent the week discussing his new look, and in particular the fact that he has dodged the traditional bad timeskip haircut.
The manga had passed 15 million copies in circulation by 2022. Viz Media publishes it in English, with volume 35 due on 10 November and new chapters on its digital Shonen Jump service. Volume 37 will collect the finale.
Then there’s the anime. Wit Studio adapted the manga in 2015 as two twelve-episode runs, the second subtitled Battle in Nagoya, and that was it. The studio has had other things to be getting on with, mostly involving titans. Anime fans have now waited eleven years for a second season, longer than some vampires take to choose a coffin. With the manga finished and a complete story on the table, there’s no shortage of material. It just needs somebody to fancy another trip into the ruins.
Here at SFcrowsnest we have a soft spot for any series that commits to its apocalypse and then actually finishes the job. Fourteen years, 161 chapters and one final Seraph: not a bad innings for a story that started by killing off every adult on the planet.
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