Seraph of the End is back with volume 3 this month, and it is packed with action. If, like me, you are a fight manga junkie, then this is a series you'll want to sink your teeth into. 

One of the things I love most about Seraph of the End is its ability to bring the fight to readers at regular intervals and still tell a complete story. This could be because of the different creative process the team uses. Seraph has an artist, writer and storyboard planner acting as a committee. This most likely gives each member more time to work, and the overall quality of the manga reflects that. 

With the formation of the Mitsuba Squad, it doesn’t take long for the gang to collide with vampires, and Yuichiro quickly gets his chance to scrap with his fanged nemeses. What I like about the protagonist is his unapologetic nature. He envisions himself as the hero and goes into every confrontation confident in his abilities, despite the overwhelming differences between him and the enemy. He has a real do-or-die attitude!

Do or die is essentially the entire theme of volume 3. The training wheels are off, and Guren Ichinose makes it clear how important yielding results as a team is, not as an individual. This is something that our hero will have to adjust to if he wants to keep his life or avoid risking other peoples' lives.

For Mitsuba Sangu, who the squad is named after, doing everything by the book is mandatory. Breaking strategic formation as they attack or acting as an individual is what gets people killed in this world. She is quick to make a point of this to Yuichiro and proclaim that she doesn’t like his type of character. Lovely. This stems from something that happened in her past, and like most characters, that’s something they struggle to move on from—the loss of life. 

In volume 3, the past is also a significant theme for both Yuichiro and Mikaela. Both struggle to deal with what happened in the opening chapter and wish they had the strength to avoid anything similar happening again. For Yuichiro, killing bloodsuckers is all he thinks about. To him, ridding the world of those who destroyed his family is now his moral obligation, and something that may end up seeing him recklessly rushing into battle without proper preparation. Mikaela exists at the other end of the spectrum and is a slave to the very thing he hates. Answers about how he came to be a vampire arrive, but with that comes more questions. His situation is complicated.

With potential confrontations just on the horizon, how will Yuichiri and Mikaela will react when they finally collide? 

Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign 3 is available at VIZ.com! 

by Jaime Me