Servamp was written for me (and possibly by me?)

Production

I hadn’t realized that Servamp was made by Brain’s Base. They generally know how to put an anime together and it explains the quality here. Granted it does help that I particularly like this art style. In fact, I had been using gifs of Servamp for years on this blog without knowing where they came from, just cause I liked them. I have zero complaints about the production.

The art is consistent, the animation is good when action scenes come around, the sound design is discreet and the voice acting is fun. If anything, you could call this production overly safe. It doesn’t take many chances. The designs are a collection of pretty boys and at least one is sure to appeal to anyone who likes pretty anime boys. The animation is really bolstered when needed but without any tricks or experiments and the actors keep it light and fluffy.

It’s the type of production where you can’t really find any major flaws because it didn’t take any risks at all. And I’m just fine with that!

Story & Characters

The story is actually rather complicated. Servamps are created creatures. They were made by someone and they all refer to each other as brothers. Oh yeah, there are like no girls in this story. Just saying, the intended audience is sort of clear. Had I watched this sooner it would have made it into my top Shojo anime.

Anyway, like I was saying. There are 7 Servamp brothers all named after one of the deadly sins and they all do embody them to a certain degree. However, an 8th brother was created much later on, and after the death of their creator, this 8th brother is out seeking revenge on the rest. Then you have the hapless high school boy Mahiru that gets sucked into this whole mess.

Now Servamps have a distinct lore from what we know of traditional vampires and they follow different and strict sets of rules. The universe of this anime is actually fairly complex. And to its credit, all these rules are communicated clearly and easy to follow, without resorting to tons of exposition.

Like, while I was watching the show, I was thinking to myself that it was more like a collection of guilty pleasures rather than an actually good anime. And there is some truth there. The characters are archetypes meant to appeal to a young female audience and there are a lot of bumps in the development of said characters. But they are developed, more than in a few anime I could name.

The pacing is also not very good. It makes events seem very rushed and motivations get a little lost in the shuffle. Let’s just say that Servamp is very easy to dismiss as just pretty boy fluff. And I think a lot of viewers will end up with that impression.

But I didn’t watch it in one day just to get it over with. I really liked this anime. Even knowing objectively it has some pretty big issues in the writing, I still had a heck of a good time with it. It’s like all the stuff I wanted to see when I was a teenager, all rolled into one. If in an alternate universe, I had actually been born with some creative talent and had pursued fiction writing, I think Servamp is what I would have written. A silly, occasionally awkward and stilted little show brimming with corny jokes and ultimately, just joyful.

Is Servamp a good anime? It’s not great, I would call it o.k., but it’s certainly a very fun anime as far as I’m concerned!

You might like this anime if:

If you wanted Twilight to be a comedy without any girls in it or if you happen to be me!

I save all my screencaps on my Pinterest and you can find more there if you are interested. But I still like to show you a few in the post. If you’re like me, screencaps are something that really helps you decide to watch an anime or not.