

Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero
はぐれ勇者の鬼畜美学〈エステティカ〉
Since the discovery of Samon Syndrome 30 years ago, thousands of young people have traveled to fantasy worlds, the few returnees managing to keep the special abilities they acquired in those parallel universes. Akatsuki Ousawa, known as the "Rogue Hero," discards his peaceful life in the fantasy world Alayzard to face new challenges upon returning to Earth. He comes back with Miu, the daughter of the Demon King he defeated, and is now forced to hide her true identity by having her pose as his little sister. The two soon join Babel, a special school designed for those who have acquired special abilities and magical powers through their journey to a fantasy world. Babel was seemingly founded to train young interdimensional travelers and "guide them to the right path for the sake of humanity and themselves," but its true purpose remains unclear to the pseudo-siblings. Will Akatsuki and Miu be able to overcome the hostile, powerful student council and uncover the forces at play behind the scenes? [Written by MAL Rewrite]
Since the discovery of Samon Syndrome 30 years ago, thousands of young people have traveled to fantasy worlds, the few returnees managing to keep the special abilities they acquired in those parallel universes. Akatsuki Ousawa, known as the "Rogue Hero," discards his peaceful life in the fantasy world Alayzard to face new challenges upon returning to Earth. He comes back with Miu, the daughter of the Demon King he defeated, and is now forced to hide her true identity by having her pose as his little sister. The two soon join Babel, a special school designed for those who have acquired special abilities and magical powers through their journey to a fantasy world. Babel was seemingly founded to train young interdimensional travelers and "guide them to the right path for the sake of humanity and themselves," but its true purpose remains unclear to the pseudo-siblings. Will Akatsuki and Miu be able to overcome the hostile, powerful student council and uncover the forces at play behind the scenes? [Written by MAL Rewrite]
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Selsica
October 2, 2012
How refreshing. After slapping the Demon King's shit around and stealing his daughter, our beloved hero Akatsuki returns from fantasy-land as an overpowered motherfucker. He rides lightning-charged motorcycles, gets bitches, makes em' piss, and crushes others using only his testosterone. A refreshing character and premise indeed, but does refreshing exempt the rest of the show from being mediocre? Story 'Tis a rare thing, my Pappy once said, to find a show with enough courage to stray from your average cut and paste framework. So the protagonist goes in and comes out with the belligerent demon armies dry humping the ground he walks on... then what? We seethat protagonist use his new found badassery to engage in shennanigans like putting assholes in their place, or stealing girls underwear? Sign me the fuck up. And while this is surely present in Hagure, behind the scenes there stirs a new disturbance just begging the hero to be brought back into the whole "We are the secret organization. You don't even meet our standards. Wahahaha." trope. "But Selsica!" You argue "It didn't reach that point in the anime, and we'll probably never get a second season!" Ahhh how right you are, but that brings up another point. Good stories have an ending, a conclusion that ties together the relationships, plot, and ultimately, the world of the series, leaving you with a feeling of bubbling warmth. Not the kind of bubbling warmth you find after eating a week old bean burrito either. In conclusion, interesting premise, bad execution. Art Good character designs make shows more enjoyable. Beautiful animation makes shows more enjoyable. This is a fact. Akatsuki looks buff, powerful, and ready to rip a dinosaur in half and piss on its face. But then, so do the girls (minus a loli). I loved the damn show, but it could have been much nicer to watch. Anime is a visual medium, so love should be put into making the visuals decent. Oh, and this show has ecchi up the ass. I can see the studio in their planning stage: "How much of this shit can we put in before it's considered a hentai?" "Well son, we'll cross that bridge when it comes." Sound Fitting, yet unmemorable. Characters First, the obvious reason to watch the show. Akatsuki. A good protagonist drives the plot, he is not swept along by it. And Akatsuki drives the plot through motherfucking 6-inch walls of steel. However, good protagonists are also developed, which is a tad hard to do when the development stage of the story is confined to past-tense conversations between the fantasy worlds denizens. That aside, Akatsuki has been one of the better protagonists this season. In fact he's SO powerful you can't help but feel the enemies aren't really much of a challenge, or in his friends case, much help. He overshadows the others by a large margin, adding some predictability to the show. TL;DR... Uhhh, I mean Overall Despite my criticisms, I enjoyed Hagure Yuusha immensely. You like a good ol' fashioned shonen? Pick this up. Your hand feelin' a little antsy after that break up? Pick this up. You tired of pussy MC's? Pick this show right the hell up, because alphas are a rare commodity nowadays. The show is decent for what it is, but it isn't going to go breaking any records any time soon.
Supporting
Nateal
October 19, 2012
Story: Action with huge tits? 10/10 Animation & sound: Awesome boob physics and moans? 10/10 Characters: Hunk that grabs tits and steals underwear for no reason, huge busty chicks, and even a loli! What more can you ask for? 10/10 Enjoyment: had some good faps, saw some tits and lesbian scenes, OBVIOUSLY I ENJOYED!!10/10 Overall: Good appetizer before i go watch some real porn/hentai. 10/10 ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Well, I think it was quite obvious that everything I wrote above were just jokes, or is it? Hagure Yuusha no Estetica seemed like a very promising anime when I first saw it. Now that i’ve watched it though, i’ll have to say that judginga book by its cover is a very fitting saying as to what this anime is. I was utterly disappointed as to what is has become, as it had a great concept and could’ve been a good anime. But what exactly went wrong? Story: This is the biggest fault of the anime. I remember when I first read the description of this anime from a website. It says that “Hero defeats bad guy. Good triumphs over evil. The end. Or, at least that's how it usually goes. But what happens after the hero goes home? Our hero, Ohtorizawa Akatsuki, is about to find out that sometimes the greatest adventure starts once happily ever after ends.”. Now, with a description like that, I couldn’t help but be curious. At first, I thought that this could probably be the setting of a good comedy, or maybe he hasn’t really defeated the demon king and that this would become a good shounen anime. After I watched the first few episodes though, I realised that I was completely wrong. While I was watching the first episode, the first thing that hit me was “what in the world is this guy doing, stealing panties and stuff?”. Of course, I was ok with that, as i’ve seen a lot of anime with those kind of stuff. Then somewhere in the middle of that episode, some girl with huge, uncensored tits suddenly appears out of nowhere. Of course, I also wasn’t fazed by this, as I thought that “ok, i’ve seen this somewhere before. Ranma ½ did some titty flashes too but it turned out as a good anime.”. But as i got deeper into this anime, I realized one thing. THIS IS NEITHER A COMEDY NOR A SHOUNEN ANIME, IT’S A DAMN ECCHI ANIME! Ok, so it is an ecchi anime, i’ve watched some ecchi animes, but this one is just terrible. It has an absolutely terrible plot, or it doesn’t have an actual plot, for that matter. It seems that whoever made this anime just makes a couple of scenarios that will lead into either the main character grabbing and flashing some tits and stealing underwear. Action, which was supposed to be its main theme, was just used as an excuse to make the female characters wear skimpy outfits and FUCKING BIKINI ARMOR. In other words, instead of using its potential to become a great anime, it just resorted to fanservice and tits to hook its viewers. Although it does have an actual plot, which is that some secret organization is planning to do nasty stuff with the main character right in the middle of it, it just becomes second priority for the people who made this crap, as it seems that they try to add ecchi even in the most serious scenes. I mean seriously, so the lead main character got poisoned and is losing body heat. Sounds like a serious situation? Well, what does female lead character do? SHE STRIPS AND HUGS THE MAIN LEAD CHARACTERS, THAT’S WHAT! So yeah, in conclusion, I would give this anime a 3/10 for the story for reasons that I should have explained clearly above. Animation and sound: The only good thing about this anime. The animation was smooth and clean, the mouth syncs properly with the voice and the OP and the background music was good enough, although nothing special. This is the only criteria that I could give a 7/10, as it is neither fantastic nor mediocre. Characters: I don’t think that there is a need to even discuss this. The characters are just about as interesting as a potato, or a rock as not make it sound so degrading for the potatoes. They are just pathetic excuses for the makers of this anime to make ecchi scenes. I mean, every girl in this series have like F-cup boobs, with the exception of one Loli. Heck, they even made a background story for the main character, that he was trained in things like finding and fitting the right size of bras for concubines. Since there really isn’t much to discuss about this criteria anymore than what is mentioned above, I would just give it a 2/10 and get it over with. Enjoyment: Unlike my joke review, no, I didn’t enjoy this anime. There is no story to enjoy, characters are very boring, and it is an utter waste of time. I give it a 1/10. Overall: Very rarely do I give a score below 6 to any anime, but this anime doesn’t deserve anything higher than a 3, so I would give it a 2/10 for being a complete waste of my time. If you have read the entire review and are not mentally retarded, then please don’t watch this anime as it is a complete waste of time unless you have some other plans. :ifyouknowwhatimean: DAMMIT, I WANT 240 MINUTES OF MY LIFE BACK! Thank you very, very much for reading this review. If it has helped you in any way, please leave a comment on my page. Now, if you are one of those people who think that this anime is great, then do post a comment on my page so I can save you from your own stupidity. Anyway, thanks for bearing with me and reading my entire review :))
Tzu
September 23, 2012
I never had much of an affinity for big breasts. I find myself to be more of an ass man. Hagure Yuusha no Estetica had both however. I can't say I had high expectations for Hagure Yuusha no Estetica, it really falls flat on its face plot wise like most other series' in the ecchi genre. It was plagued by an abundance of fast selling nudity fan service. I have to admit the exposition got off to a fast start. The concept of people crossing different dimensions and learning skills from other worlds isn't a new one. The cast centers around a school specifically made forthem to flex their abilities from the other worlds, essentially they are further trained to be soldiers for different governments. The school has a caste system based solely on their different abilities and they are placed accordingly, A-class being the highest. The plot was pretty much what you would expect from a school setting: character interaction, a beach episode and a little this and that. Rushing an opening like throwing a couple of kids into this type of school probably wasn't the best move. Opening the audience up to additional information about their alternate dimensions would have been insightful. However, I feel with no real conflict resolution this opened up for more seasons. I found the plot itself to be boring after the first couple episodes. It wasn't that it was bad it was just predictable. A majority of the characters had a fast introduction and the plot got off with a fast start. Miu and Akatsuki are immediately placed into B-class, with a promise of advancement to A-class. But bone heads will be bone heads and Akatsuki tried to pick fights with everyone in sight. He manages to offend almost every person he comes in contact with. He sets his sights on beating the student council and everything builds up around this concept. In the other world they plot on killing Miu to suppress her people and that takes up the last few episodes. In the end good guy wins and bad guy losses. Like I said before, it was just too typical and it ended up being boring. More focus could have been given on a Akatsuki and student council relationship rather than miix in cross world plots. To me a majority of the characters were duds, most of the episodes were centered around Akatsuki the macho main who isn't afraid of copping a feel. I didn't find myself liking any of the characters, the only notable one would most likely be Akatsuki. I would categorize this under harems and like most harems the female leads have an array of different personalities. Its a simple character formula so it doesn't stand out. You have a macho lead surrounded by bishoujo or pretty girls and he slowly wins over their hearts one by one. Aside from his unique talents and over the top mental and physical prowess he is a standard lead, so its fair but not exciting. Simply put, too much attention was given to him. I felt the studio tried to animate the battles but they seemed to focus more on the fan-service and this derailed the series for the most part. The sound effects for some of the spells being cast and battles didn't feel like they fit either. You probably found yourself drooling over Miu or some other chunky breasted girl. The studio did a fair job at character animations and scene settings. I don't really have much to say about much of either the scores or animation. This killed some time but ultimately it just wasn't good enough.
themegamancave
February 22, 2017
"Anime was a mistake" -Hayao Miyazaki Have you ever wanted to know exactly what happens after the hero slays the enemy and saves the day? Well, Studio Arms (Elfen Lied) attempted to tackle this very question with their 2012 adaptation of the light novel, Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero. With a rather unique premise as a backbone, I was very curious to see what this series was about. Unfortunately, what followed was a lewd, generic insult to anime fans everywhere, with more breast development than character development. Join me as I chart the fanservice waters and explore one of the worst anime I’ve seen to date. The storysounds promising from the start. It begins with our conceited, overpowered protagonist Akatsuki leaving a foreign land to which he was summoned to defeat an evil Dark Lord. Instead of taking home a trinket as a souvenir for his efforts, he decides to go a few steps further and kidnap the vanquished Lord’s daughter as his own personal “consolation prize” (first indicator that this dude’s probably an arrogant prick). Once they return to Earth, he and Miu are “forced” to join BABEL, a school focused on extracting and enhancing the skills Akatsuki and others learned during their time in the foreign land of Alayzard. Now I’ve never really delved into the ecchi genre, so I figured Aesthetica would be a decent place to start, given the cocky nature of the main character. The main problem is that the writers spend an unnecessary amount of time justifying Akatsuki’s lecherous actions, that it amplifies the perverted nature of the show. If he grabs a girl’s breasts, he’s just trying to show her how to make use of cleavage. If he steals a girl’s panties, he’s just trying to prove a point. These moments are so prolific early on that you end up not taking the show seriously. The amount of ecchi moments are plentiful too, with a unique mix of lesbians, random crotch-grabbing and heinous nudity to go around. And some of the scenes I was downright ashamed to watch, including an excerpt involving Akatsuki using his divine powers to cause three girls to pee themselves to prevent one from being embarrassed. I can’t even make this stuff up. I can see why the light novel is so popular around Japan… Most of the show’s 12 episodes are eaten up exploring the generic cast, and by the time the real story comes into play near the end, Aesthetica has already lost its steam. Any inkling of hope I had for the serious elements to play out were eradicated by the copious amounts of fanservice plaguing the anime’s beginning. The overpowering nature of Akatsuki also eliminates any feeling of drama throughout the series. Much like Sora and Shiro from No Game No Life, the battles are over before they begin, leaving much less opportunity for suspense from a viewer’s perspective. Most efforts at backstories are waived off to promote more ecchi scenes or are truncated due to the series’ short run. Considering it’s been five years since Aesthetica’s release, I don’t see a sequel in the works either, so the five of you out there that actually enjoyed the show can wait with bated breath. When I first saw Akatsuki, I was delighted. Finally we get a protagonist who isn’t shy around women and doesn’t get caught up in melodramatic inner monologues! But, it only took an episode for him to show his true colors, and before long I despised his presumptuous personality. Egotistical doesn’t even begin to describe him, and you could even go as far as to call him sexually sadistic. Akatsuki is so much better than everyone else in the show that they seem almost irrelevant. Generic iterations of various tropes are scattered throughout Aesthetica, leading the viewers to feel cheapened by the lazy writing. Miu has her fair share of, um well, “development” (aka, tits) but again this is overshadowed by the extraneous amount of time spent on Akatsuki’s perverted acts. The whole show is like some kind of messed up harem where instead of having girls fawning over him, they’re forced onto him against their will. But instead of hating him for what he does, he always finds a loophole excuse or convenience to make it okay. It’s almost as though the writers are saying to their viewers, “It’s okay to grope women as long as you make up a good reason!” Truly disgusting. The animation is a constant reminder of what Studio ARMS is not known for. It’s one of the same reasons I didn’t care for Elfen Lied. Everyone that’s not a main character is a pain to look at, as the models are a generic wreck. Even the protagonists leave a lot to be desired in the art department. The action scene’s animation was lackluster at best, and had some framing issues. Honestly, the most accurate part of the entire anime is the nudity. Depravity at its finest. The animation in the OP reminded me a bit of the old Dead or Alive Extreme Volleyball games with all of the breast bouncing. I should’ve known then to run for the hills. The music in Aesthetica is reminiscent of something I’d hear in a cheesy DDR ripoff. It’s BAD. It’s almost as though the creators went down a sorted list of cheapest to most expensive when it came to purchasing the musical rights of the tracks here. At least the ecchi-ness helps drown some of it out. The ED is better, but still misses the mark for me. All of these begin to blur together after awhile. On a positive note, the English dub is actually pretty good. It incorporates some better known actors and is casted well. Some of the translations were altered to make them a bit more Westernized, but nothing really detracted from the scenes. To make a long story short, Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero is NOT a good show. It’s inexcusably perverted, lacks any character development and has a story that fizzles out faster than a middle school relationship. I guess if you were really bored or just looking for a terrible series to put things into perspective, then this could be a potential option for you. Just make sure you come in without any other expectations than tits. Lots and lots of tits. As always, thanks for reading! Story-3 Art-3 Sound-2 Characters-2 Enjoyment-2 Overall-2.3
LuckyKrystal
May 31, 2013
When entering the ecchi genre, you generally know just what you’re going to get: a heavy reliance on fanservice and a ton of slapstick and sexual humor. Obviously, it doesn’t usually make for a compelling and intelligent show. But that’s not to say that all ecchi anime are bad. In fact, some ecchi anime can end up being pretty funny and charming; with at least a few characters that don’t make you want to shove knives in your ears every time they open their mouths. And then there’s the other kind of ecchi anime. It’s the kind that is self-aware if its suckiness and triesto compensate with over the top, sometimes fetishy, fanservice that straddles the line between ecchi and hentai. In the end, you won’t remember its story, characters, or humor. Instead, you’ll only remember its shockingly inappropriate fanservice that practically screams “trying too hard!” Can you guess which type Hagure Yuusha no Aestetica is? Hagure Yuusha is a tale of silliness, fanservice, and magic. Its conception was handled by studio Arms, perhaps most (in)famous nowadays for their other sexually charged series Ikkitousen and Queen’s Blade. Hagure Yuusha shares many similarities with both of these series. The story begins where the typical fantasy tale usually ends: at the end of an intense battle with the demon king. After our hero Akatsuki Ousawa’s triumphant victory, he takes the demon king’s daughter, Miu, and heads back home to his own dimension. Now fully equipped with magical powers, he and Miu are sent to a special high school for magic users named Babel. Dramatic duels with mysterious opponents out for Ousawa’s blood, magical mayhem, and high school hilarity ensue. To be honest, Hagure Yuusha had an excellent setup. Its story had a vast amount of potential with a world whose lore and politics are completely pushed to the side in favor of panty shots and tits. The creators had a lot of room to work with the world but they refused to. For example, we don’t learn much about the differences between the dimensions. Apparently Babel is a special school where kids returning from another dimension are stuffed so they can be monitored. Therefore, we can assume that Akatsuki’s world is one where magic users are the exception, not the rule. Yet we never hear about the other dimensions that the other characters come from, or how their worlds influence their personalities or mannerisms. And what of Akatsuki’s relationship with Queen Risty? None of this is ever expanded upon. Even if the creators had half-assed some backstories and explanations on the lore and world, it still would have been a much better show than what it is now. But instead we get tits. It’s one thing to give bare bones explanations when it’s an ecchi comedy, because then you expect mostly humor and not much else. But Hagure Yuusha sporadically jumps between wanting to make us laugh, wanting to turn us on, and wanting us to take it seriously. But the plot resembles something from a really bad JRPG, so when it wants to be taken seriously, its pretty hard for the viewer to do that. The characters don’t fare much better either. They are all extremely bland and boring, making it very hard to care about them or this show for that matter. Akatsuki Ousawa is indeed the one who steals the show here, though that’s not really hard when you have such a pathetic cast. He is lauded as a “badass” and “refreshing” simply because he’s not some wimpy male lead and can actually back up all the smack he talks. True, he isn’t your typical “super skinny or super fat loser who plays video games well, then has girls throwing their panties at him” archetype. But that doesn’t mean he’s a good character. He is one dimensional, obnoxious, and showcases throughout the anime that he may even be intellectually inept. Take the second episode for example. He and the other female protagonists get locked in a gym closet. Kuzuha has to pee quite badly. They say out loud that she could use earth magic to make a toilet. Instead, Ousawa uses his magic mumbo jumbo to make the other two girls feel what Kuzuha is feeling and really have to pee too, because…because. After biting Kuzuha’s ear, all three girls pee themselves. They then proceed to beat him up. Honestly, this is probably one of the most memorable scenes in the anime, but for all the wrong reasons. Why the hell couldn’t they just make a toilet like they said literally a few seconds ago? Oh right, omorashi fanservice. Then the justification used for his actions (“he made himself the bad guy so I could make friends!”) is almost insulting to the viewer’s intelligence. Remember kids, if you want to make friends, pee yourselves in unison! Face it; he’s only a small step above your usual wish fulfillment protagonists. The only thing that puts him slightly above the typical wish fulfillment protagonist is, once again, that he’s not some frail looking little flower that is overpowered for some inexplicable reason that defies logic. The female characters aren’t much better. Miu is a girl who is very shy about her body, but somehow always ends up groped or exposed. It would have been interesting to learn about her backstory. Something worth noting is that she’s a demon but looks human. Could her mother have been a human? Clearly the creators thought, “Who cares about that! Let’s get her naked!” Kuzuha is the loli class chairman and Chikage Izumi is the raging tomboy lesbian. Her actual introduction in the show is her molesting another female student in a gym closet. We learn little to nothing about these characters. The rest of the supporting cast are unimportant and hardly worth mentioning. Their only real purpose is to be curbstomped by Akatsuki and nothing more. In addition to being one dimensional and boring, the character’s motivations and actions aren’t really given reason. Nor do they make any sense. One example: Akatsuki kills Miu’s father. Why in the world does she not hate him? Why does she end up falling in love with him? It’s also hard to pinpoint a character’s motivation when we get little to no backstory on them or when they have such boring and flat personalities. The characters don’t seem like much more than dolls. With all this disappointment, we should at least be able to turn to the action and violence for comfort right? Wrong. The animation is pretty bad, looking quite dated for its time. The character’s heads look far too small for their bodies. And they all look like pallet swaps of each other with different hairstyles and varying breast sizes. The coloring looks incredibly flat and unreasonably bright. The fight scenes are lazily animated and unexciting. Couple that with the fact that Akatsuki dominates every opponent fairly quickly and you’ve got yourself some boring fight scenes. The music is also nothing spectacular, ranging from mediocre to bad. Overall, this show is pretty terrible on all counts. It had so much potential to be something excellent. Or at least decent, if they had just tried a little. Or it could have been one of those ecchi shows that you know isn’t all that good, but it ends up being humorous and charming nonetheless. Unfortunately, Hagure Yuusha isn’t funny, it isn’t endearing, and it’s just not enjoyable. It’s like a bad JRPG in anime form that tries to pull off a laughable plot with a straight face. Or a bad hentai without the sex. The only thing you’ll remember when you’re done are the inappropriate fanservice scenes, because those definitely push the envelope. There are better ecchi anime out there. There are far better action anime out there. There is also porn, which has sex, which Hagure Yuusha acts likes it’s going to show you but never does. Go find those splendid titles and leave tripe like this where it belongs.
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