Although vampires have always been quite popular in the western culture they have never been mainstream in the anime medium. There are only a few titles which have the 'let's kill the vampires' premise, like Owari no Seraph and Hellsing, and they all have their own folklore and way to depict vampires. Now, does Sirius bring anything new to the table? Let’s find out.
This review contains some spoilers.
STORY
Set in 1930, Sirius the Jaeger follows the story of Yuliy and the “Jaegers”, a vampire-hunter group which is chasing the Ark of Sirius, the plot device that gathers both sides of the conflict. As the Jaegers start
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their race to find the mysterious item, they find out they’re not the only ones interested in the Ark, since vampires are also chasing it. Although the premise sounds really cool on paper, its execution was rather poor not only because of the extremely linear plot and uninteresting characters, but also because of the weak way everything was presented: the dreadful main character, the unexplored setting, the forgettable villains, just to name a few things.
First of all, the author forgot a crucial thing about making a vampire story: that the audience actually cares about the vampires. In Sirius, they’re just boring creatures with not much detail and there’s just nothing that differentiates them from other shows that have vampires in them. The only things about the vampires that should have been explained in order to enrich the world building are unexplained so that the audience can figure them out. And even if they are given an objective –like being immortal- the vampires are presented in a very shallow way, so you won’t care when they are killed. If you want the audience to care about the enemies of your story don't just present them as one-dimensional monsters whose only trait is to kill humans.
However, the main problem with Tenrou: Sirius the Jaeger is that it doesn’t really do anything with its setting or characters. You have a cool group of guys that kill vampires and carry their weapons in musical instrument boxes and you don’t do anything with it? It could have worked perfectly as a rule-of-cool type of show or even as a drama, but somehow they managed to make it a typical action show with nothing new. At least the battles are great, right? Unfortunately, no. Despite being well animated, there are no tactics or strategies involved in any of the fights, it’s just a typical combat with no real way to know what each character will come up with or if they’re going to use an inventive way to take down their enemies. The only thing you know for sure is that Yuliy is somehow going to win.
-MAJOR SPOILERS-
Another thing I should mention is that the last episode seems completely disconnected from the rest, pulling things that were not foreshadowed or mentioned before –like the role of a Sirius saving the world and to let humanity live in peace with other races or the other sirius box that literally comes out of nowhere-. So I guess the sales are going well and P.A Works thought it would be a good idea to end the show hinting a second season.
-END OF SPOILERS-
Not everything is wrong with this anime, though, and it’s actually satisfying that it doesn’t try to be melodramatic or sad except for a few scenes and it always keeps its serious -no pun intended- tone, without adding unnecessary comedy. Plus, its pacing is actually bearable for the first part, since most of the chapters have a decent amount of action to keep things interesting and the plot doesn't seem as rushed as the second part, but that’s just it.
CHARACTERS
The main character is that one we’ve seen dozens of times ever since Attack on Titan came out: I want to kill all the titans-, I mean vampires! Yeah, he is also the only one the conveniently survives the massacre of his village and conveniently gets chased by only 1 werewolf and conveniently awakens his true powers, wow! How original was that? Even if he's given some development, it feels so rushed and disconnected from his original character that it makes it laughable. He changes at the very end of the story with nothing happening in between that would make him start thinking in another way.
All the secondary characters are just blank pieces of paper and serve no purpose in the story since they never have a big impact in the grand scheme of things and most of them are not even fleshed out. In a 12-episode series, you would generally expect to have at least 2 or 3 important characters on the spotlight for a couple of minutes but here no one is allowed to kill the enemies except for the main character. If the author at least bothered giving each of the Jaegers a backstory or some sort of development this wouldn't be so significant. The thing is, we don't know anything at all about them! The only member of the group which is given some screentime is Phillip and even that doesn't really tell us anything about him. The others -Dorothea and Fallon- are completely useless and are not given any sort of development.
Then there’s another particular character which for practical purposes I’ll be calling the ‘stalker girl’. She is basically the generic love interest that is constantly trying to get some attention from the main guy. The stalker girl also constantly follows the main character wherever he goes (imagine if it was the other way around) and for some reason she is at least given some focus throughout the story. The funny part is… She was completely useless! She didn’t have any purpose to be in the show and things would have been exactly the same if she wasn’t there.
Now about the villains… they’re just as bad as the rest of the cast. When the first episode came out and a dozen villains were introduced it was quite obvious that they would be the generic one-dimensional villains that the good guys defeat in a single episode and you wouldn’t remember their names afterwards. Also, as I mentioned before, there are a lot of things that were not explained about them. What’s the origin of vampires and why is the rest of humanity not aware of their presence if they’ve been around for so long? Not answered. What’s up with the vampires’ decease? How does it only affect some vampires and why did they think that the Ark of Sirius would save them? Not answered either.
Siriusly, considering you have a boring and cliched main character, an underdeveloped cast and forgettable villains how can you root for any side or character in this show?
ART AND SOUND
Visually speaking, it is decent enough. The art style reminds me of other Bones shows, and especially resembles a lot to Bungo Stray Dogs (they even share the main character's voice actor). Most of the fights are, although bland, really well choreographed, the animation is fluid most of the times and the backgrounds are nothing special.
The art director worked on many great titles like Gundam: The Origin and Cowboy Bebop and the one behind the sound direction was the legendary Jin Aketagawa, so you can expect quite a lot from the production values. The music in particular was actually really fitting, and the guy who composed it also produced Fate/Apocrypha and Iron-Blooded Orphans soundtrack, which are enjoyable at least. The voices are done by all well-known actors which play the same roles as they usually do (like Takehito Koyasu and Kenjirou Tsuda playing the villains) but nobody really stands out.
CONCLUSION
All in all, Sirius is a forgettable, shallow and generic show. It doesn’t do anything with its setting or characters and apart from the soundtrack or animation, there’s really nothing fresh or new that would make it stand out from any other vampire show. If you are looking for good vampire action go watch Hellsing Ultimate or Vampire Hunter D. The first one is more of a rule-of-cool with silly comedy while the second one holds a more dramatic tone. In any case, both shows deliver a more compelling story and at the same time have a much more interesting cast.
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Sep 27, 2018
Although vampires have always been quite popular in the western culture they have never been mainstream in the anime medium. There are only a few titles which have the 'let's kill the vampires' premise, like Owari no Seraph and Hellsing, and they all have their own folklore and way to depict vampires. Now, does Sirius bring anything new to the table? Let’s find out.
This review contains some spoilers. STORY Set in 1930, Sirius the Jaeger follows the story of Yuliy and the “Jaegers”, a vampire-hunter group which is chasing the Ark of Sirius, the plot device that gathers both sides of the conflict. As the Jaegers start ... |
