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Blood of Zeus Season 1 Review

Blood of Zeus is an action animated series that premiered its first season on Netflix in 2020. It’s truly a tremendous show.

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“When his blood struck the sea,

the Giants were born“

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As a big fan of Greek Mythology, I was delighted to finally see a big, epic anime treatment that these famous characters and storylines received here. Following Heron, a demigod, as he tries to save Olympus and Earth from Hera and demons, the series cleverly uses this ancient mythology to utilize on the current superhero craze while also subverting the famous mythological tropes and actually changing the outcome for some characters in a truly daring, brilliant move by the writers.

This is the first true anime series to come from the US. They so heavily emulated the many anime tropes and character designs, which was wonderful to see for all anime lovers. The use of the flashback structure and extensive backstories was done for better and for worse. It’s clearly anime-inspired, but for only eight episodes to have over two episodes with just an origin story was too much for me. But other than that small gripe, this first season was incredibly entertaining and briskly paced.

Let’s talk about the characters. Heron is your standard demigod protagonist. He’s got an excellent arc for sure, but overall his personality is of the typical bland hero type. But the emphasis on anger and calmness during fighting was interesting and his relationship with Zeus is wonderful. Speaking of the all-powerful Zeus, the choice to kill him was the bravest thing this series has done so far, but the depiction of Zeus as a flawed human being who did make mistakes in his infidelity, but still remains good-natured and caring for all humans as well as Gods was stupendous.

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I loved everything that they did with Hera. She is a true villain on this show and a badass one at that. Her manipulations were incredibly well conceived and they explored so well her motifs, but eventually how Zeus is the better person of the two. Their relationship is fascinating and him sacrificing for her was beautiful.

Other Gods are less developed, but all are memorable in powers and look. Alexia to me is the weakest link as a very underdeveloped female character so far, but Seraphim is amazing. His presence is intimidating, he is menacing and all of his action scenes were among the coolest of the bunch. Him having to listen to Hera and eventually Hades in the end was continually funny in this rather humorless show otherwise. I am looking forward to Hades in the next season for sure.

Blood of Zeus is gorgeously animated. The character designs are inspired by the anime style and are the highlights while the polished, at times even artistic backgrounds were a joy to witness, especially the mythological imagery. The opening credits changing the color of the title was wonderful and the score here is something else.

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It’s the type of grandiose soundtrack that gives you chills while perfectly intensifying the action scenes that it accompanies. It’s ancient in sound and simply brilliant. The action scenes are mostly amazing. At first they were a bit clunky and the final war was not my cup of tea as I prefer one-on-one combat, but most of it was incredible and highly entertaining. The show is very adult and excessive in its gore, but that raised its stakes to very admirable levels, so I was ultimately fine with it.