Kyou kara Maou!

I have to say - it took me almost three months to watch the whole thing. I had the first season on DVD, and I had to watch most of the second season on youtube since I only acquired a fansub recently. It was worth the wait. What will I do now? No more Kyo Kara Maoh! for me? Let's start with the story. I think the first episode usually defines how a series will go. I was laughing my pants off the first episode alone, and it was like that for most of the series. I really liked the concept - it did remind meof Fushigi Yuugi a bit, another seemingly normal teenager shipped off into a new world, rather flushed into a new world. That was only an initial reaction though. I forgot about comparing it to Fushigi Yuugi after a few episodes. I also have to note that this anime is easy to understand. I really think that an anime should be easy to understand and still be able to entertain everyone. The only problem I have with the series is it's "fillers-galore". It made the series longer than it needed to be, and I have to say that the creators did poorly with the time management and pacing. At first the fillers were amusing, but it got to the point where there were too many of them. I was a bit worried concerning the premise of yaoi. It's not yaoi after all, but it came really close to shonen - ai (but then again, is it really shonen - ai?). I found me and my brother screaming at the sight of Wolfram wearing his pink night gown, sleeping in Yuri's bed. I had the same reaction when Wolfram offered to scrub Yuri's back in one episode. While those scenes were a bit uncomfortable, they are just foot notes after all, and are usually for comedic relief. Although for some reason, I would like to see Gisela end up with Wolfram. I don't know why exactly. There was also the problem with Yozak cross dressing. He is such a good looking and muscular guy. Why be like Dennis Rodman, Yozak? No doubt about it, I like the drawing style. Most of what I like are the well drawn bishies, of course.I love the bishonens. My favorites are Wolfram and Konrad, but towards the end I was like "Ken's handsome too". Gwendal's not that bad either, although the wrinkles bothered me a bit. everything else is also considerably well drawn. The backgrounds are nice, and I like the color palette. I didn't find colors that clash together, etc. I would like to take note that the women in this anime are also nice drawn. My favorite is Anissina. She's the one who looks the most consistent (Is Cheri really that old?), and Greta's also adorable. At first I didn't really like the music. It wasn't the kind of music I would listen to, so my initial reaction was a miss. However, after hearing it constantly and repetitively, I learned to like it. I am proud to say I have memorized all the lyrics to the opening and ending themes. The background music was also considerably well. I realized the music complemented the scenes very well, and they were discreet enough to put focus on the scenes and not overshadow them. Voice acting was so - so. I realized that the seiyus had a hard time pronouncing their characters' names - Wolfram became Wolfram-u, Konrad became Konrad-o, and so on. Similar problems occured when the characters spoke in english as well. The seiyus are Japanese after all, so A for effort. All in all, I think that this anime is really good. I can't say it's the best I've seen, but it's almost there. The only problem I had with it was the pacing - as I've mentioned the anime didn't need to be that long. It had way too many fillers, and that keeps me from saying it's good enough for everyone to watch and to like.

"I'm surprised that a novel with so many plot holes was made into an anime" - series editor GEG It's just your typical isekai where MC gets flushed down a toilet and ends up in an isekai resembling medieval Europe and turns out that he's overpowered and everyone he meets just falls in love with him. The plot with the boxes had potential but the BL aspects that focus on and romanticize a toxic relationship between Yuuri and Wolfram ruins it all. Art and Animation: Even considering that the anime is made in 2004 both art and animation are abysmal. Looks like they wasted their entire budgeton drawing Wolfram's pretty face. The characters look terrible when the camera doesn't focus on their faces, art style keeps on changing from episode to episode, sometimes they have these huge eyes other times there's just too much shading, sometimes they look like sticks other times they might have some volume. Similarly animation doesn't have any consistency and keeps on changing throughout. The action scenes are very poorly animated, background looks like it was animated in power point. Setting and Story: The setting in itself is quite absurd, why would any sane person want to put a 15 year old who knows absolutely nothing about the kingdom or politics on the throne!? The first episode mentions that Yuuri's soul had to be sent to Earth since there was impending danger to his life in their world but then nothing of that sort ever happens, looks like they entirely forgot about it. At first it's shown that the demons are equally responsible for the conflicts occurring in their world and that is the reason Yuuri agreed to become the king but later it turns out that it's only the humans that are evil and you have the king of the main opposing kingdom who is a one-dimensional character that is evil simply for the sake of being evil. More than half of the series is just filler episodes and the pacing is quite bad. You'll most likely be questioning if this even has a story or is just episodic since the main underlying story doesn't start until the end of each season. Most of the episodes follow the same formula where the cast gets into trouble and in the end Yuuri unleashes his powers and solves the issue. Junji Nishimura did try to put in a lot of anime original explanations to fill in the plot holes from the LN but it still wasn't enough. For example the scene where Wolfram catches Yuuri from falling, it was physically and logically impossible for him to reach Yuuri given his only clue for searching Yuuri was the name of a continent and it happened in the middle of an earthquake. Characters and Relationships: Healthy relationships are built on respect, communication, and consent, this is something this series simply doesn't seem to understand. The author did mention that she's very bad at writing relationships and it clearly shows. The MC Shibuya Yuuri is your run-of-the-mill goody-two-shoes, he's cringy and practically useless as the king and leaves all the political stuff up to Gwendal and Gunter while preaching about the superiority of peaceful Japan. Then we have Wolfram who is the most insufferable character in the series, he has too much pride, starts off as being racist and is overly obnoxious. Wolfram gets engaged to Yuuri due to a mishap, he hated Yuuri at first but then magically fell in love with him for no reason what-so-ever. He's overly controlling, extremely jealous and both physically and verbally abusive towards Yuuri and Yuuri being a spineless wimp just tolerates all of Wolfram's abuses and doesn't put an end to the mistaken engagement simply because he doesn't want to hurt the feelings of his abuser despite claiming to be straight throughout the series. Conrad is honestly one of the best characters and the sole reason I don't drop the series, he's kind, caring and very loyal to Yuuri to the point he'd sacrifice himself for Yuuri's sake, his sad and dark past simply adds to his character. He's one of the most fleshed out characters if I say so myself. Then we have Gwendal and Anissina which is yet another toxic relationship with Anissina being an obnoxious feminist who constantly complains about all men being useless even though she herself isn't any useful. Gwendal is one of those characters that I actually like, he's tough on the outside but soft on the inside and likes everything cute. Unfortunately, just like Yuuri Gwendal doesn't have the guts to tell Anissina off. Speaking of bad relationships how can we forget Hube and Nicola, Hube is a middle aged dude who impregnated 15 year old Nicola and then abandoned her, thanks to Yuuri's intervention they do get together in the end but I can't see their relationship as flowery as the series make it out to be. All the female side characters are just fujoshis, including the Wolfram and Yuuri's mothers who try to constantly get these two together. And speaking of Wolfram's mother, Celi, she was the queen before Yuuri but only ever cared about sleeping around with multiple men instead of ruling the country which lead to a tragedy. She never even intervened when her third son was treating her second son like an untouchable for years together. The series falls pretty low and even uses a 10 year old to try and get Yuuri and Wolfram together because who can say no to a 10 year old cute girl, right? Conclusion: This series has too many fillers, lots of pacing issues, inconsistent and bad art and animation, flat characters. It truly deserves to be flushed down the toilet!

Great. Excellent. Fresh. I could think of another million good words to describe this anime. I mean, the plot is fresh and goes smoothly, the art is excellent, the seiyuus are just right for the characters, there's a balance of seriousness and comedy, and there's shonen-ai. What more can you ask for? If you're looking for something enjoyable and funny and light, you must certainly pick this one. Although the story is ridiculously long (OMG I haven't finished yet), it's quite worth it in the end. Even the character developments are good; it's quite rare to find an anime where the characters actually change for the better (orfor worse) overtime. Taking Wolfram as an example, he was grumpy and too suspicious of Yuuri at first (and of course he's still all "cheater" on Yuuri but myeh ^.~) but as the series progresses he learns to be more accepting of his surroundings (especially of humans) and learns to show more care for other people other than himself, Yuuri, or Gwendal. And it covers everything: Love, betrayal, family, etc. And the plot is extremely fresh: Name other anime who has a kid flushed down a toilet and suddenly finds himself in another world. Sure, the idea of "another world" has been used numerous times, but the fact this isn't all "Owh I opened the wrong door and next thing I know I'm in another world" or "Owh I was walking and then a mysterious thingamabob appeared out of nowhere and dragged me to another world" makes it entirely different from other anime of the same kind. Besides, it covers all aspects of fan service: sexy ladies, shounen-ai, bishounen mania. And not to mention reverse Harem. But by reverse harem I MEAN REVERSE harem. If you know what I mean ^.~ Even the art is excellent. Sure there are times when Wolfram's eyes are a little too big for his head or Gunter's hair is too poofy, but aside from that, the art is relatively great. And seriously, this anime is the epitome of all freshness. I mean, weird customs, humans vs. demons (different version, not the "hyaaa demons be gone!" type of thing), kid flushed down a toilet, housekis, and what-nots, tons of revolutionary materials and plots and thingamabobs all rolled into one. How can you not like Kyou Kara Maou? Overall, this anime is a MUST watch for everyone, even guys. Sure, it features gay-engagement, but the other aspects, such as battle scenes, humor, etc. make it worthwhile to be watched even by straight boys. Besides, the balance of seriousness and humor and light-hearted scenes and heart-wrenching scenes keep you on the edge of your seat. Some episodes are considerably slow taking and the sort of "dammit just end already so I can watch the next one", but this is balanced with the too fast-moving scenes. All aspects of life (and other worlds) are covered in this anime, and certainly not something you'd want to miss.

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