Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru

I did not know what to expect when I began watching Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero. The previews teased that it was going to be another slice-of-life series, but looks were deceptive. While it has some SOL elements, at its core it's a magical girl show, and a pretty serious one, too. Here’s my final review of the entire series, as of 12/26/2014. If you just want an overall recommendation without any other details, feel free to skip to the tl;dr section at the very bottom. The Plot In a Nutshell: Middle school girls in a "Hero Club" perform small everyday acts of heroism in the normalworld, but also become heroic magical girls protecting the planet from strange creatures called vertexes. Background/Influences: Yuuki Yuuna is an original series created by Takahiro (Akame ga Kill!), and it blends elements from three different anime genres. First are its magical girl ancestors, and this one comes from the lineage of adult magical girl shows like Lyrical Nanoha and Madoka Magica. Fans of those series will recognize the influences of both, although Yuuki Yuuna still tells its own story in its own way. Second is slice-of-life, and except for the dark clouds that are almost always lingering under the surface, some of the mellowest scenes wouldn’t feel out of place in a Kyoto Animation series. Third is character drama, and here the series actually shows some surprising Key Visual Arts influence (Kanon/Clannad), along with other influences from Angel Beats and the Persona series (Yuuki Yuuna’s director, Seiji Kishi, also directed both Angel Beats and Persona 4 The Animation, so this shouldn't be a surprise). All three genres are done well enough individually that it could have focused on any one of them and been a decent show, but the blend of all three really elevates it above the sum of its parts. Moe’s Scale of Female Cuteness: While this isn’t a true moe series, all the girls in the Hero Club can be awfully cute. Most of their club activities are ordinary community service work, like fostering kittens and performing puppet shows for kids. They also hang out together sometimes outside of school, eating udon, singing karaoke, and doing other fun things together. The catch is that none of this SOL stuff is there just to be cute and funny – while some of it may seem frivolous at first glance, the writers are deliberately giving you time get to know the girls and their personalities and motivations by showing you how they behave and act around each other. All the girls have their own personal demons they’re wrestling with, and most of them did not have happy childhoods. Tensions occasionally flare between them, and even in the most seemingly cheerful moments there are lingering undercurrents of anxiety and doubt about the job they have to do and the risk to their lives and well-being, which all makes these scenes even more effective. One of Yuuki Yuuna's greatest strengths is that there's a genuine chemistry between all the main girls in the cast - while they have their occasional disagreements, you never doubt for a second how much they all care about each other, especially the two sisters (Fuu and Itsuki) and the two best friends (Yuuna and Togo). Most of the slice-of-life stuff takes place in the first half of the show, and while some (especially non-SOL fans) may find these parts a bit slow, it’s still worth paying attention to it because a lot of it is setting the table for the second half of the series. Along with letting you get to know the characters better, there’s also quite a bit of foreshadowing too; I noticed a lot of hints the second time I watched the series that were easy to miss the first time. Round One…Fight!: As pleasant as the girls try to make everyone's daily lives, when the alarms sound on their phones, it’s time for them to become magical girls and protect the world from the vertex threat. There are several vertex battles throughout the series, varying in length and scope, but some of them can be pretty tense affairs, especially when multiple vertexes (vertices?) appear at once. The girls are skilled combatants with a variety of strong weapons, but they’re not immune to injury and the vertexes are tough opponents who are smart enough to coordinate their attacks and adjust their strategies during battle. It usually takes a total team effort for the Heroes to have any success against them, which leads to some entertaining and occasionally nailbiting fights. Art and Sound: The animation is a bit inconsistent - it can be great in some scenes and merely passable in others - but the overall quality is solidly good. The fight scenes take place in a surreal, colorful alternate world, and showcase most of Yuki Yuna’s best animation work. These scenes appear inspired by the artwork of Shigenori Soejima (Persona 3/Persona 4), as well as the twisty, hyper-organic landscapes of Roger Dean’s paintings, and I’m excited to see how they’ll look in Blu-Ray someday. They also use a fair bit of CG though, so be warned if that’s not your thing. The real world scenes, while still generally cheerful and colorful, have occasional touches such as the unnaturally bent and ruined suspension bridge appearing in several background scenes that subtly remind us this world isn’t quite the carefree place it appears on the surface. The opening and closing songs (like most) will be hit-or-miss depending on your musical tastes. Personally I liked the opening immediately, but the ending needed time to grow on me. The OST itself, however, is outstanding. Most of the tracks fit their scenes perfectly, and the battle music especially stands out as some of the very best in the show, full of soaring choirs and pulse-pounding orchestration. Even the quieter tracks have a few gems, though, such as a very nice flamenco-styled classical guitar piece that appears a couple of times. There’s also not a lot of repetition either. Only a few tracks are used more than once or twice, and they’re all songs (like the main transformation theme) that you’ll enjoy hearing multiple times anyway. Rating: If I rated Yuuki Yuuna on nothing but my personal enjoyment, it would get a 10. I’ve already watched the whole series twice, I know I’ll watch it again in the future, and if Pony Canyon ever gives us a North American release, I'll buy it. To give it a fair review, though, I can’t entirely overlook the uneven pacing in the first half of the series, the occasional inconsistency in animation quality, and a few (not many) awkward transitions between scenes. That said, Yuuki Yuuna is still a gem, even if it’s one that’s not completely polished. The characters are easy to like and they all have wonderful chemistry with each other, the OST is outstanding, the themes of the story (which I wish I could actually talk about here without spoiling everything) are timely and appropriate, and despite a few rough patches, the story threads eventually come together in a very satisfying way. It’s a spirited show that’s a little rough around the edges, but like its characters it has a lot of heart and tries its best. And much of the time, its best is really, really good. First half: 8/10. Second half: 9.5/10. Overall: 9/10. Tl;dr! Should I Watch Yuuki Yuuna or Not?: Yes, if magical girl mixed with some drama and slice-of-life sounds appealing to you. The first half isn’t quite as good as the second half, but if you're able to stick with it, your patience will be rewarded. Just be warned that this isn’t a relaxing series at all. If you’re expecting Aria with a dash of Cardcaptor Sakura, you'll be disappointed. It’s more like Lyrical Nanoha with a dash of Angel Beats.

-Spoilers Ahead- The brilliant minds behind Angel Beats and Akame ga Kill joined forces in an attempt to capitalize on their respective "talents" and made what some people call "one of the most underrated masterpieces of the season" without an ounce of irony. This series is pretty much everything wrong with modern anime, and there are plenty of reasons as to why. It's just so up its own ass pretending to be not a grimdark show in a vain attempt to fake out the audience for so long that it ends up boring, and when it actually gets to the grimdark it was leading up to,it does in the most hilariously incompetent way possible. Many of its other problems include the asinine pacing, lack of character interaction and development, and complete lack of subtlety, which all seem to go under the radar because apparently everyone is too busy crying over ham-fisted drama. That being said, there are some positives about this show- Mainly the visuals. Despite some heavy usage of CG in some parts, it really doesn't look that bad at all in motion, and the colors do not make your eyes bleed like NGNL does. Character designs are pretty neat and I do appreciate how they don't look like something out of Precure. Not that Precure designs are necessarily bad, but the designs here make thematic sense and at least don't look generic by its genre standards- Instead they look like something out of Sword Art Online, not that it's a bad thing either. The music is pretty decent- There are two to three tracks that were actually memorable and were reminiscent of something out of Madoka and whatever Akiko Shikata makes, but the overuse of those tracks made them a bit stale. Speaking of Madoka, there's a lot of people who compare this show to Madoka and even call it a rip-off. But honestly, it's hard to blame them- Shady magical girl contract with a supernatural being? Check. Enemies that appear in a strange world that do not actually offer actual character interaction due to lack of any dialogue whatsoever? Check. Main title character being over optimistic and the most underdeveloped character out of the main cast? Check. Mentor-like character that later goes nuts after reading the fine lines in the said shady contract? Check. The questionable magical girl system existing to prevent the end of the world? Check. This show's really got everything. But because this show shares so many similarities with Madoka, it also shares the flaws- And those flaws become more evident with poor direction and pacing. Apparently when Takahiro was writing for this show, he thought he'd change it up from Akame ga Kill's pointless gorefest and decided to turn it into a pointless borefest. This wise decision turned the first half of this show incredibly painful to sit through. The main problem is the lack of characters- The villains and even the fairies are absolutely silent. Therefore, there is no character interaction whatsoever with the opposing side aside from fighting and more fighting. This wasn't a problem in Madoka due to the existence of Kyubey, who delivered some form of drama whenever necessary for conflicting character interaction, but that role is severely lacking here. Taishas do little more than send out phone messages whenever they aren't busy catering to the crippled, and the supernatural being that gives magical power is a poorly drawn magical tree always obscured in fog. This narrows down all character interaction whatsoever to the five main characters, and everyone else might as well be a cardboard in the background. This effectively turns the series into a Slice-of-Life type of show, which is actually in the description for this series. But then the problem comes from attempting to mix this element with grimdark setting, which was basically the gimmick with Akame ga Kill. But even then, mixing the two isn't the problem- It's the execution. There needs to be some form of consistent flow in the tone, and this series handles it very poorly by going from one scene to the other with incredibly sudden transition. Having a tea party? Suddenly phone call and everyone's warped to fight the giant floating monster thing. Then lots of yelling and chanting in the background, and suddenly they're in space. And when they're not doing that, they're busy being very angsty about something else introduced later in the series. The first few episodes followed the aforementioned formula incredibly precisely, while occasionally increasing the number of enemies to mix it up a little although it didn't really hinder the protagonists in the slightest. After managing to kill twelve of these things, the protagonists conclude that their battles are over because the Taishas said so, which is an obvious fake-out halfway into the series. It's also odd that the protagonists didn't suspect anything strange about Taishas informing them that there were supposedly arbitrary number of these things, which would mean that the Taishas somehow did not manage to defeat any of them at all despite having a detailed sealing process to defeat one. That aside, this formulaic plot progression didn't really serve to develop any of the characters at all. Sure, there was some character interaction between the main cast, but character interaction doesn't necessarily lead to character development. These particular interactions were just wacky hijinx and comedy, so it did absolutely nothing. After halfway into the series, our good director Seiji decides that he needs to start including actual plot, and the grimdark elements start being introduced. Whenever the girls use their magical powers, they occasionally enter this super mode known as Mankai. The show never explains whether these girls enter the state willingly or whether it's done automatically- And even the official website claims that it's half and half. Basically, it's whenever the plot fucking wants it to happen. Why? Because this is the aforementioned grimdark plot element. Whenever the girls enter this state, they lose a certain bodily function and gain a fairy in the process. The series attempts to fake the audience out by claiming it's temporary, and then it spends several episodes that arrive at a not-so shocking conclusion that it's permanent. Yuna loses her taste, Mimori loses hearing on one ear, Fuu goes blind in one eye, and Itsuki loses her voice. What does this all lead to? Forced drama. Apparently Itsuki entered a singing audition, which everyone knew nothing about, and suddenly the whole thing gets dumped at the audience's face in the most convenient way possible when Fuu is trying to deal with the whole permanent body function sacrifice thing. If that wasn't enough, Itsuki goes on a long speech in the recording about how she loves her friends so Fuu can go on a full guilt trip for getting her to tag along on the Hero Club before actually singing for the audition because the judges were too busy looking for their non-existent script, as with every other character in the show. A proper, subtle way to handle this scene would've been to establish the singing audition thing before this happened, and then flash back to it briefly after the realization hit home, instead of just being embarrassingly blatant about it. But I guess subtlety is lost art. Meanwhile, Tougou decides to be dangerous and attempts to test her theory by playing sudoku with a blade, and comes to a horrifying realization that fairies are "forcibly" keeping them alive. Apparently it's supposed to be terrifying that these tiny things keep the girls alive while they're on a dangerous duty that they're not being forced to do. Obviously there are huge consequences for not doing magical girl things since it has been established in the first episode that Shinju-sama is protecting the world and these aliens who are for some reason named after zodiac signs are trying to destroy it, but the job itself is still technically optional. They're not being forced to do it at gunpoint or whatever, so the supposed horror factor they were going for is completely invalid. Furthermore, Tougou apparently attempted to play sudoku multiple times because once wasn't enough and goes on about all these different methods she tried to kill herself for almost no reason other than sounding edgy. But then I realized this was Takahiro's specialty- Hammering the exact same point and over and over to arouse some form of emotion. These two brilliant men's talents really do shine in this series. Afterwards, Tougou gets warped into the cripple gold medalist's room, who was their predecessor and now has over twenty disabilities and the equal amount of fairies. Then the audience is informed during their second meeting about the shocking truth that everything outside Shinju's territory is red vomit with white aliens swarming about. It's been known that Shinju was protecting humanity from getting fucked up by something since the first episode, so what's the shock here? Why does it matter that the villains are aliens or gods who decided humanity sucked? Whatever it was, it drives Tougou insane and makes her come to an ingenious conclusion. Apparently the best way to protect her friends and stop their sacrifices altogether was to blow a hole in the barrier, get the tree killed, and then get everyone sacrificed as a result of her decision. Maybe her ability to form proper reason was taken during one of her Mankai sessions. Would've been better if she actually consulted with her friends first-hand, but clearly that sounded too uninteresting and sensible for the writers. Most of the conflicts in this series also seem self-made, so it's also incredibly difficult to actually relate to any of these characters especially when they make stupid decisions such as Fuu attempting to kill the Taishas after the aforementioned forced drama sequence. When the evil tofus attack, suddenly Yuuna is incapable of transforming because of her distressed emotional state despite Fuu being completely capable of doing so during her rage. Then Karin suddenly wakes up from being unconscious and activates Mankai multiple times in a span of few seconds coupled with too much yelling in an attempt to win the "most crippled" award in the show. After that, Yuuna manages to punch some sense into Tougou, destroys the Final Boss Vertex, then decides to become Jesus by taking everyone's disabilities onto herself by becoming a vegetable. Then suddenly the audience is supposed to accept that the enemies just stopped attacking because either they are really gone for good or they just got bored trying to kill a tree. It later turns out that every fairy represented a physical function the girls lost, so when the fairies disappear, they regain everything they lost and stop being heroes. This may be because Shinju figured that keeping emotionally unstable girls who almost got it killed as its guardians was a terrible idea. Yuuna stays a vegetable for a while because Takahiro figured he could cram in some more sad scenes near the end, but then she gets better through the power of friendship. As stupid as that sounded, the ending isn't the issue- Even if the ending resulted in everyone becoming a vegetable, this would've been still a very poorly written series. The happy ending can at least be explained with how since all threatening Vertices are supposedly gone, assuming the sun-shaped Vertex was the last of its kind for a while, Shinju doesn't need to exert as much energy to keep the barrier up since there's nothing much left to keep out, so it just gave everything it took back. It would explain how nobody is giving a shit about that part of the barrier Tougou blew up earlier. The point is, if there is no actual threat left and the Taishas aren't being lying dicks about it this time and Mr. Tree is actually a benevolent god that everyone claims it is, then there really should be no point for it to keep what it took unless it's a dick too, which is probably what most people were guessing. And it's not like it was ever established that it couldn't give back what it took, so all the more reason for it to do what it did. And to the show's credit, it did briefly mention through one SoL segment that it was "alright to eat the offerings if they were there for a while" so maybe either it was foreshadowing or maybe I'm giving the show way too much credit. I'm actually surprised Takahiro managed to learn how to make use of mundane segments instead of cramming them in for the sake of just having them as a contrast to his edgy grimdark parts. There's a lot of hate for the ending of the show, but most of that hate seems to be misdirected since it mostly involves "It had a happy ending, so it sucked." While it's not that having some plot elements that lead to a depressing ending is inherently bad- It's that when it does happen, it needs to be well-paced and give the audience enough time to feel actually attached to the characters in question. But with the lack of actual villains to provide any form of conflicting character interaction, there's next to no character development, and everything just ends up being a snooze-fest because these characters are just hard to care for outside of them looking cute. Unfortunately, this particular writing style has become quite popular with modern anime (Attack on Titans, AgK, or even Kotoura-san, etc), and for some reason, everyone seems to eat it up. Here's a possibility: People are just so used to badly written happy endings that they'd rather have badly written sad endings, while deluding themselves that sad endings are apparently inherently better than happy endings because they think they are more mature. Something about teaching a moral lesson about heroes not always winning or some shit, I don't know. In that case, the preference is determined not by the actual quality of the writing, but just by the inherent difference of definition. It's like preferring black shit over brown shit. "They're both shit, but at least it's not brown." While this is no longer applicable for this show since it had a happy ending, it doesn't change the fact that it was the direction the series was leading people towards, and it's obviously the main reason behind people eating it up. All in all, this show is just yet another attempt at the ever-popular modern formula which involves characters going through depression in one way or the other, whether or not the characters were likeable or the depression relatable and the plot behind it well-written. It was practically tailored to the type of people who ate up the likes of AgK and Attack on Titans, and it did just that right before the end. I guess at least their reactions were entertaining.

Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru is part of a multimedia project of LN, VN, videogame, manga and anime. And despite of it, the anime is completely able to stand on its own. The story is one of the strongest points, but for you to understand this you need to watch the series from the right point of view. As a Slice of Life the story is about the characters, sure world building is important, but ultimately the story focuses on the 5 main protagonists, it makes you care about them, their lives and it gives a proper conclusion to them. The art is pretty good fora studio with low budget like this one, at the start the CGI is noticeable, but after a while you learn to appreciate the backgrounds, the town and all the locations, you can see they put a lot of job on this. The OST is a solid 10/10, with the composer of NieR is to be expected. From the Slice of Life to the action music every scene has a perfect ambience that lets you get immersed in the story. I doubt it's possible to find flaws about it. The characters are the main motivation to watch the series and also get into the franchise if you're interested in the side material. You learn to appreciate them and you get really attached to them because everything is portrayed and developed around them, the support between the sisters, the romance between Yuuna and Tougou and the character development of the originally lonely tsundere girl is explained at the right pace and given the proper screen time. The fact that this anime (and the whole project) had 2 years of planning is noticeable. The anime is really enjoyable by itself, but as someone who started watching it since the first week, I can say it's extremely recommendable to get into all the other material that is also part of this multimedia project, it contains multiple interesting information that makes you see the characters in a whole different light, and as I said the characters are the more important part of this franchise. The best way to do this is: Watch the first 3 episodes of the anime, read the manga, watch episode 4, read the VN, watch episodes 5, 6, 7 then read the first 7 chapters of the LN, watch episode 8, read chapter 8 of the LN, watch episode 9, 10, 11, read chapter 9 of the LN and then watch the final episode. The videogame is unrelated to the rest and it comes out until February anyway. Overall the series delivers everything you want, good characters, writing, romance, action, interactions and it teaches you exactly what the title says: Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero. It teaches what is a Hero and how to be Hero, to you and the characters. As a side note, even though I said the characters are the most important part it doesn't mean that the world is not interesting, on the contrary, the issue is that the anime doesn't give a lot of focus to it, only the necessary, that's why the speculation is also one of the best parts of this franchise, and this can be proved because it has been less than 2 days since the anime ended and there's already a lot of theories regarding the ending, and all of them are equally likely since this series is famous for leaving foreshadowing and references in all its media. I recommend you to watch it and join those theorists until those points are properly explained, and I know they will be properly explained because this series hasn't ended yet, it's only the beginning.

Yuuki Yuuna is a Horribly Boring Character. She's relatively one-dimensional, oblivious, airheaded, naive and childish in her ideals, which isn't inherently boring, but the world she lives in RESPECTS that allowing her simple and repetitive nature to prevail against any and all problems to the point where you begin to wonder if there's any point in growing up at all. I, like many others, stumbled upon the show "Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero" after hearing it compared to the illustrious Madoka Magica and were drawn to it by people saying that it was "better than Madoka". As a massive fan of Madoka Magica, I wasinitially very excited: someone made a better version of one of my favorite shows of all time? I had even heard people saying that Madoka had been their favorite show until they watched Yuuki Yuuna, and since I realized that was pretty much where I was at I could not have been more thrilled to first learn of this show's existence. I pulled it up immediately, and went into it with high hopes and an open mind. I didn't expect the sort of poignant universal message that Madoka had given, but what I did expect was a damn good deconstruction of the magical girl genre. Compelling characters, enthralling twists, gut-wrenching moments of tragedy, and a genuinely enthralling story. What I found, however, was nothing. Nothing, Christopher? But that doesn't make sense. You watched 12 episodes of SOMETHING, right? There can't possibly have been NOTHING in those twelve episodes, right? Technically, you're right. I did sit in front of a screen for a regrettable four and half hours of my life, and there were words and drawings on that screen, but if I had to really summarize Yuuki Yuuka I would redirect you once more to that word above: nothing. You see, Yuuki Yuuna is kind of like a Frankenstein's monster that failed to come to life. It's stitched together from bits and pieces of other things but there's nothing about it that's really its own. There's no voice, no soul. It doesn't use those pieces to create something new, or stand on its own two feet, or say something for itself: essentially, Yuuki Yuuna just IS those pieces, tossed into a bucket together and just sort of sitting there touching each other. And since Yuuki Yuuna is essentially just pieces of other things that are loosely connected, I have no qualms in using the MAL rating system to talk about those pieces. THE CHARACTERS One could make the argument that the characters in Yuuki Yuuna aren't "bad characters". In a sense, you'd be right: they aren't horribly-written people and for the most part they have some semblance of continuity and we can understand where their actions are coming from (though this is not always the case, *ahem* Touga). The problem is, that's essentially ALL that they are: "not-bad characters". There's nothing in them. They're just archetypes grabbed from other places that are given mediocre scripts intended to invoke empathy in the audience. That's really all that's expected from them: they're not created to even BE human, their SOLE PURPOSE is to be "not bad" enough to the point where the audience cares about them. Not because they have any original ideas in them, not because they carry a piece of the creator, but because they're there, they're cute, and they're not "badly" written. There's the older blonde sister who's spunky and cares deeply about her friends, especially her younger sister. There's the younger blonde sister who's shy and cares deeply about her friends, especially her older sister. There's the tsundere girl. There's Yuuki Yuuna herself, who is pretty much the blockheaded hero-of-justice character in a world where the hero of justice never has to actually face the repercussions or naivety of her ideals. There's her best friend Touga who's really just a mess of a character and is used more as a poorly-motivated plot device than a person, but we won't focus on her. The problem with all these characters, however, is that while they are adequately-written versions of the roles they are meant to fulfill there is an emptiness to them that cannot really be put into the words. No one who wrote these characters cares about them at all. They aren't trying to express anything with them. They're masks, and they're treated as if they were people, and that hollow shallowness prevented me from giving a single shit about what happened to them. When you create characters with the express purpose of making the audience sympathize with them so that you can give them "feelz" later on by making them suffer, you haven't really created characters at all. You've just grabbed pieces of people and stuck them together so that they look like a person. It may be cute, but it has no soul. THE STORY Here's the part where it was obvious that whoever was writing this was trying really hard to not be accused of plagiarism. While the literal elements of the story may be put together in a new, the structure by which it is built around is nothing that hasn't been seen a thousand times before, and the pieces themselves are unoriginal. Once again, the story feels mostly like pieces stacked together. Rather than have something constant and tight, it pretty much relies on the audience expecting twists and then delivering them often enough to maintain a level of interest. No section of the story can stand on its own as engaging: it RELIES on constant change, because the story possesses no substance of its own to fall back on. In a standstill the audience's eyes begin to adjust to the dull nature of the story, so the story has to be constantly adding new levels. It doesn't really feel like these levels stack cohesively though; it's more like we're just jumping from one platform to the next, and since the platforms are getting crazier the story must be advancing. None of these platforms are compelling in and of themselves though: they're mostly interesting because of the anticipation for the NEXT platform, which creates a bit of a cycle. All these platforms are as hollow as the rest of the show, being in and of themselves bland rehashes of been-done ideas, and the lack of any sort of central voice of the story means that the show fails to connect them in any meaningful way, so what we're left with is almost a pyramid scheme that eventually burns out because it can't create a bigger platform. Temporarily engaging perhaps, but inevitably all the more disappointing. ART & SOUND Q: "this looks like every other show coming out nowadays, what should we do?" A: "we'll make the magic realm look like a unicorn shat on it, and people will think it's stylistic and original." Q: "But didn't No Game No Life, Madoka, Shinsekai Yori and Penguindrum already do something like that...? Except with far more creativity, heart, and personal flair?" A: "Shhhh!! These are anime fans, they have the memory of a goldfish. Don't worry about it." The sound is pretty standard, I don't really have any complaints but once again it doesn't do anything to set the show apart from anything else. It kinda sounds like Fate/Zero's OST with more sugary J-pop crap mixed in. All in all, not much to say. ENJOYMENT I had to literally drag myself through the last three episodes of this show. My expectations adjusted pretty consistently throughout. By the episode 5 I wasn't expecting too much, by episode 7 the show became a chore, and by episode 10 I wanted to drop it despite being so close to done, with the only reason I managed to finish it being that I enjoyed taking screenshots of moments that were either downright horrible or were pretty much excerpts from other shows, and because at that point I was actually HOPING it would end with a bullshit "FIST OF BRAVERY!!" moment because at least that would be hilariously awful. I wont say whether or not I got my wish though, cuz spoilers I guess. This wasn't funny-bad, it was bland, empty and soul-sucking. OVERALL If you're looking for a magical girl deconstruction, see Madoka or Princess Tutu. If you're looking for compelling cute girls doing cute things, see K-On. If you're looking for members of a high-school club having to take on serious issues like death and existentialism, see Angel Beats (it at least has ideas of its own and some passion from the creator). If you're looking for a hero of justice show watch Fate/Staynight, and if you're just looking for a show to watch for the love of god watch pretty much anything else. There is nothing here you can't find in other shows done better. Yuuki Yuuna is nothing: its emotionally-vacant (despite how emotional its characters get) its dry, it's hollow, and its inevitably meaningless. There's no heart from the creators in this piece, there's no passion for storytelling or love for the characters behind it. Yuuki Yuuna is a shameless reaction piece attempting to stitch together the successful elements of other shows in order to appeal to an audience, and as someone with a legitimate passion for writing and storytelling I find this show to be a little angering. Many shows are burdened with flaws, but poor pacing and plot contrivances and annoying characters don't bother me nearly as much as something that refuses to even try to be its own thing. I'll say it one more time then. Yuuki Yuuna is nothing. Unless you want to watch four and a half hours of nothing, I advise you leave this shiny ambition-less rag buried in obscurity.

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