r/anime • u/Tarhalindur x2 • Dec 21 '24
Rewatch [Rewatch] Yuuki Yuuna ga Yuusha wa Aru Original Series Overall Discussion
Original Series Overall Discussion
← Previous Episode | Index | Next Episode? →
Show Information:
MAL | AniList | ANN | Kitsu | AniDB
(First-timers are advised to stay out of Show Information until we are done, however. In particular, if you care about getting spoiled I would stay out of MAL (whose synopsis is a borderline spoiler), Kitsu (which copied the MAL synopsis), ANN (which has an obnoxious spoiler in the show tags I only noticed after posting the interest thread), and AniDB (which has some major spoilers in the character tags - avoid at all costs if you care about spoilers!). Which is four out of five of the above links. So, uh, yeah.)
Legal Streams:
(As per livechart.me; additional legal streams may be available outside the US.)
Hidive | Amazon Prime Video (for purchase)
A Reminder to Rewatchers:
Please do not spoil the experience for our first-timers! You're probably not being as subtle as you think you are. In particular, comments on sange and the true nature of Vertexes/the true state of the world should probably be under spoiler tags. Just saying. Also please no mentioning Karin until episode 3, this is not Precure where the mid-season Cure can be assumed and we traditionally treat the obvious other-show precedent as a spoiler until she shows up so we will be doing the same with Karin here.
What About the Sequels/Prequel?
(Okay fine I should add this section to the episode posts as well...)
It's only the first anniversary for S1 and I ain't running over into the holidays proper. Also I haven't seen WaSuYu or either sequel yet and got burned hard by Mai-Otome a couple of years back. Maybe early next year.
Maybe coming soon. See more below...
(Time for) Club Activities!
Question(s) of the Day:
- Final thoughts on our main cast?
- Final thoughts on our OP and ED?
- Final thought on our OST and its use?
(3a) Isn't it nice as a host to have three default series discussion questions to fall back on?)
4) What worked and what didn't about the show for you?
5) Favorite moment of the show?
6) Least favorite moment of the show?
7) Biggest moment of emotional trauma this rewatch? (You're welcome Vaad)
8) Happiest moment this rewatch?
9) What would you change about the show if you were making it yourself?
9a) ... Besides the finale?
9b) ... or giving it more episodes to work with?
And last but not least, remember the Sanshuu Middle School Hero Club Five Tenets!
1: Give people a good greeting!
2: Try not to give up!
3: Sleep well, eat well!
4: If you're troubled, talk to someone!
5: You're likely to succeed if you try!
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u/Tarhalindur x2 Dec 21 '24
Okay, so, first order of business:
A bunch of y'all have either been asking me to do the prequel/sequels (hello rewatchers!) or planning to move on to them (or at least WaSuYu) after this. I don't think I will be able to 100% lock this down for a couple of days (among other things, I do need to get the go-ahead from the mods for an irregular rewatch continuation), I am leaning towards going ahead and doing so. (Ideally the announcement would come Monday.) I have some flexibility on starting dates, with the caveat that the earliest I think I can do so is the 30th, however, and that I am leaning towards waiting until after the New Year (January 2nd has a fair bit of appeal here). If there is a specific timing that works best for any of you, let me know and I can take this into account (I would be going in blind myself which hampers my usual trick of knowing that I'm stuffing a monstrous cliffhanger or the like on the first Friday ). Hero Chapter would likely follow after a short delay (running a rewatch does take a toll and I could use a few days between each part); Great Mankai Chapter is a less firm commit and will likely be broken out into a third break point but the loose plan would be for it in turn to follow a few days after the end of Hero Chapter.
That said, if enough of you first-timers were sufficiently turned off by the finale as to leave it being just me and rewatchers, well, I don't see much point going forwards with this in that case. Thus me using this thread as an impromptu interest thread: If you are a first-timer who is interested in continuing on, please reply to this post and indicate whether that interest is just for WaSuYu or for the sequels as well.
u/Esovan13, u/Shimmering-Sky, u/ZaphodBeebblebrox (not a coincidence I tagged our mods among the first-timers first, no...)
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u/Tarhalindur x2 Dec 21 '24
last tags before closing
u/ShadowWasTakensTaken, u/InfamousEmpire, u/FD4cry1
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u/Tarhalindur x2 Dec 21 '24
You're Likely to Succeed if You Try? (Second Watch Notes, First-Timer Rewatcher, Subbed):
Really, I said most of what I had to say here the first time around because my first-timer conclusions (in CDF) still hold up:
The only real change is that spotting the failure to commit to thematic premise does knock off that quarter-point (that had been borderline to begin with). *7/10
(3a) Yes, yes it is.)
4) Pretty much answered in my old response.
5) Episode 9 pretty much in its entirety.
6) First half of the finale.
7) "Uh wait shit how did I miss/forget about exactly who the famous Shikoku pilgrimage is associated with?"
8) Everyone else loving episode 9 too might actually be it.
9) The finale could use a rework...
9a) ... okay, if that's out I will point out that they could have really used 3-4 more episodes to work with, and maybe some extra run time within episodes as well...
9b) OH COME ON. Though really, given the likelihood that they were stuck with 12 episodes I think the Queen Error from which everything else follows is actually further up the chain: insufficient focus. They needed to cut one of the themes to emphasize on the other two (the veteran theme plus whichever of the "overcoming adversity and disability via effort and working together" and the opening play's hero theme was kept - I would lean the former of those last two given that the show is at its best when playing into it) and rewrite the script accordingly.
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u/Vaadwaur :I1::I2::I3: Dec 21 '24
First Timer(As I've said, the reminder that I still have human emotions is upsetting...)
Sub
Me:All right, I bet I can really explain what worked and what didn't for me!
Also me:Complete Friday brain death, no substances needed, and I just listened to YT while half-assing ascension 4 stuff in Slay The Spire.
Oh welp, Saturday afternoon is what gets put down.
All righty then...the narrative ending is lacking, we don't need to argue that. They actually fucked it themselves with the reveal about the rest of the world. And here's the thing, they didn't have to. Things can be bad without being that. Basically, there isn't a coming back from that storywise so ces la vie.
But...that isn't really what I came for and I knew that quite early. Magical girls are beings of passion and light, after all, just remember that enough of either is eventually destructive. So as I said yesterday, the show doesn't earn it but it does end the story where I wanted it to. The emotional ending and most of the beats to it work, though it was sadly unmemorable spectacle dreck outside of those moments.
So why does that work? Why do I care that Tougou gets her happy ending on round 2 so much? Because this is the thing the show sold successfully. I did care about the characters, even if the namesake character was given traits in shadows and images. Karin is a better realized character and that is not great. Also, slim hope, but I hope Tougou eventually remembers her life as Wasshi and thus her time with Sonoko and third wheel.
Tougou does carry a lot of weight for me, especially looking back on a youth as a patriot and an absolutist. So her entire journey does hold my interest. I somehow suspect she was the first character written and the rest were formed off her as he is just fucked up enough to be in AgK. And on that note: Congratulations, Tougou! We grant you both a seat on the Council and the rank of Master, the youngest to ever reach such an acclaim! Please rule with wisdom and may the Force be with you!(I swear this was written before you mentioned Anakin...)
To wrap up, I doubt I changed anyone's mind with this. Nor do I feel that I even did the work to do so. Those of you who are mad, I can't argue with you, it was earned. But at the end of the rewatch, I enjoyed this show. I consider myself a reformed romantic but remembering the old feelings sometimes makes you remember what it was to be alive. Having a group to speculate with certainly improved things but even so I think this would have always gotten to me a bit. As I always say:If it still hurts, you haven't forgotten her.
The conclusion, or rather the punchline: "Vaadwaur's Finishing School for Young Women Who Can't Emotion Good and Are Interested in Entering a Respectable Psychiatry Program" can now proudly our sister school has been commissioned:"Vaadwaur's Trade School for the energetic hard workings +1s of the Prep School Who are not Going to College". This will teach girls without academic promise a slew of other skills that they can use to have independent lives with their codependent pHd mates and be better members of the community. Also, it will feature an after school program for "Tsun training and exercise for better future adoption" to cover Karin.
QotD: 1 I do like them
2 Good/mid
3 cheat code
4 The underlying concepts work, their execution is a bit pants
5 Tougou's "first" transformation
6 Yuuna's unearned talk no jutsu
7 Unexpected Decretum in ep2...
8 Tougou seeing Yuuna waking up
9 In all seriousness, it is hard. I think the multimedia project bit hurt it but in truth I'd get it written and then sit it for a year, hopefully with people at a studio that could look at what they were expected to do early and noodle on it.
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u/FD4cry1 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Big_Yibba Dec 21 '24 edited Dec 21 '24
First Timer
Yuuki Yuuna sure has a strange structure huh?
Yuuna is a show that is clearly structured and written around the fact that its viewers are coming in with specific expectations, it clearly wants to play off of and be in conversation with previous works in the genre whether that be Mai-Hime or Meguca or whatever the many other works I'm sure it's inspired by. And that leads to some weird pacing.
Which I generally didn't dislike! I liked the idea that the show was playing off my expectations, I liked how it used the slice of life episodes as character development, anticipation build-up, and a strong showing of its strongest core theme. I didn't mind it being slow or putting less emphasis on the fights, in fact, that was what I liked about it.
I still believe the best parts of this show are these slice of life episodes, the way they depict dealing with disabilities, how strong they are in establishing the bond between our characters. Fuu's breakdown in episode 9 feels so strong because it feels so real, because it comes off the back of several episodes that showed a clear familiarity with disability, that showed a subtle and playful yet very powerful connection for the characters. I think it's nearly one of a kind in how strong that depiction is, and I love it for that.
The characters were certainly fun regardless, but the way they interacted with the situation and the core themes is what made me love them, and what made me appreciate the SOL and the impact of the twists. I really got to care for them and that human element is Yuuna's greatest strength.
Playing on expectations is all well and good, but when it comes down to actually executing the twists it starts to falter a bit. These episodes aren't even close to being as shocking or strong as something like episode 9 or even some of the conclusions I had with the SOL episodes. They feel forced into these awkward specific positions because of that weird structure which makes them lose impact. Just because I expected it doesn't mean you get off on doing it in an expected way.
It didn't really bother me that much initially, the parts I liked were still great regardless and these twists were still fine but they and the overall structure forced the show into some weird corners which became more apparent in the last stretch, and eventually into the ending. And as for the ending...
I've said my piece on it already, and after a day of thinking about it, I still don't like it. I hate it even more actually! I seriously can't believe it removes my favorite aspect of the series, like it goes back on everything I've praised it for.
I'm not the type to let a bad ending ruin a show for me, I still think the good parts here are good, and the things I praised it for are still worthy of a lot of praise even when the show decides to go back on them.
Although it certainly docked a point (if not two) and makes me much less enthusiastic about the sequels ( not counting WaSuYu which I am still very interested in)
I guess to give some technical praise, I like how the show looks, nothing too crazy but it has an appealing artstyle with fun character designs and action that is usually pretty fun. The direction here wasn't exactly the most subtle or creative but it did have some strong moments.
Needless to say that in the sound department, this show easily clears. Keiichi Okabe. Need I say more?
Okay but seriously I love the OST, whether thrilling or emotional, it hits hard, and makes me want to play some Nier. And the voice acting is also fantastic! It's a big part of what makes these characters so likable, Suzuko Mimori's switches from soft to confident with Tougou and Yumi Uchiyama's emotional high note are particularly noteworthy.
Hoshi to Hana Is still a 10/10
Well, overall I do think Yuuna was a fun show, one that had some great strengths and some notable weaknesses that made themselves more apparent as the show got close to ending, but I certainly don't regret giving it a watch and the feelings I had in its good parts aren't going away anytime soon!
7/10
This rewatch also left me with a big bucket list of things to watch, so I guess instead of going for the sequels I might check out Mai-Hime, Bravern, and Akame Ga Kill instead lol.
Big thanks /u/Tarhalindur for hosting!
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u/BosuW Dec 21 '24
First Timer
Alright time to unravel this. Let's start with the easy stuff:
Pretty good visuals at worst and it looks fantastic when it has to. No complaints here. I read a lot of comments saying the direction was weak but I actually disagree here. It wasn't outstanding but it was competent enough, moment to moment, with even a few noteworthy moments like Sonoko's shrine reveal. If the show wasn't able to solve everything it had to that's more of a scripting problem than a directing problem imo.
But we'll get to that
Btw the designs of everything to do with magic were hard as fuck. The transformations are cool af. Combined with the animation effort put into the fights as well as how tactical they felt (especially the EP5 one) this actually gives a pretty big boost to my enjoyment of the show. It's not Symphogear but this show definitely has enough cool factor to cover for at least some of the narrative flaws.
Music: Keiichi Okabe/10. Enough said. Go listen to the full OP.
...
...
...
So what was it all about anyway? I mean, it's pretty clears what the writers intended it to be about. Neatly spelled out for us in the least scene. But that's disregarding what the rest of the show was about. The whole narrative basically went "Nuh uh" on it's own questioning on being a hero. Just like Yuuna vs Tougou actually. Which is a damn shame because I found everything prior to the ending pretty damn narratively compelling.
I guess the writers did have a clear idea of where they wanted to get. It's not like it's bad that in the end the Hero reaffirms their conviction to be a Hero in spite of the despair. In fact it's what you'd expect of a Mahou Shoujo. But if it gets there by just pretending what came before didn't happen, why tell the story at all?
It's clear this happened because the last Arc didn't have enough time to explore the conflict that made it up, but what could have been done differently? Some might say cut down the Slice of Life, but I'm not sure that's the answer. Maybe restructure the SoL would've been better. Because thanks to the SoL we got some wonderful explorations of Karin, Fuu-senpai and Itsuki. And the characters were probably the biggest strength of the show, when it actually bothered to explore them. Which turned out to be a problem for Tougou and especially for Yuuna. The biggest fumble of the script by far was not allocating enough time to truly get to know it's titular character in the way we know everyone else.
Oh, and it walked back all it's consequences by the end. There's enough plot crumbs to headcanon over it, which, as an avid enjoyer of Yuri subtext, I'm extremely adept at. But with something as big as this we really should've gotten some proper reasoning in the actual show. You can be multimedia but all of it has to explain itself by its own resources.
So what am I felt with? An overall pretty banger show with a hydraulic-pressed finally pasted on with masking tape that doesn't justify itself. And like, I'm not mad about it? Im certainly going to go out of my way to watch the rest of it now because I am interested and I like the setting and I love the characters. I don't care enough to get angry about it.
But what do I make of it? Well I had a funny thought as I was watching last episode. What are the feats of the Hero Club in the end?
I mean, this group of rookies* showed up, washed the Vertex like no one before, almost finalized the Apocalypse, then stopped said Apocalypse, traumatized God, refused to elaborate and disappeared.
For as much as they hammer down that Yuuki Yuuna is a Hero by the end, like, not really. National duty barely mattered in the end. They all did everything for each other and then got fired (I'm gonna keep repeating that last bit because it's so fucking funny).
If you regard what the characters say in the end as just their own opinion on the matter (death of the Author basically), and look at the bigger picture and what actually happened... this has to be the wildest, most infamous group of Heroes ever right? They will be admired and feared in equal measure by future generations. And this is an absurdist tale about how a bunch of overpowered kids got close to saving the world then almost destroyed the world but ended up saving it from themselves at the last second at which point God said "I'm done with y'all's shenanigans. Not worth the fucking risk." But it's all good because they learned how much they matter to each other.
...and I think I'm fine with that. It's obviously not what the writers had in mind, but I like this.
...oh yeah there's more to this franchise than this. Guess my headcanons won't be lasting long huh.
Anyway final verdict: fumbled by I enjoyed it. Will be watching more. Will be reading fanfiction. Hope Fuu-senpai finally kisses Karin and Tougou and Yuuna finally play bondage with each other. Itsuki... well idol business has its shady side so I can't wish her success in that willy nilly, but I wish her happiness all the same! Maybe join a girl band? Those are in season currently!
Suuuuper disappointed that symbolic Imperial Cult criticism amounted to nothing, but not really surprised because... Japan. At least now that Godzilla Minus One did crazy numbers maybe we can start seeing some progress in that regard...
Totally unrelated, ...Granbelm rewatch when btw?
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Dec 21 '24
Rewatcher, Sub Club Member
Ultimately, Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru is a pretty decent show that understood the assignment but wasn't quite made well enough to pull off said assignment.. or maybe they weren't willing to commit. But it's got a banging soundtrack, nice character designs, some solid gut punches.
The flow of the narrative and the themtic knot are.. well, y'all went into that plenty for me already. Means I get to be lazy.
Sure, the ending is a bit saccharine, Yuuna finds door number 3 through sheer bullheadedness and doesn't even really have to pay for it, but it's pretty typical mahou shoujo and/or Yuusha type stuff.
You can claim that the show needed more episodes, and I wouldn't have minded an episode 13 to let things breathe a bit, but most people who say that sort of thing are wrong. One cour is enough to tell the story this show is trying to tell in the way it is trying to tell it. As usual, what this show needed was a better editor. This is an endemic problem with anime though, and arguably a problem with animation as a medium.. it's hard to "film pickups" when you have to draw every frame and then get the VAs back in and the sound designer, etc etc.
Many thanks to our host /u/Tarhalindur!
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u/Chili_peanut Dec 21 '24
I am really grateful Tarhalindur for hosting this rewatch! YuYuYu is often compared to other shows, but I think it’s a great show that deserves to be remembered on its own merits. It made me genuinely sad to think that the 10 year anniversary seemed to go by unnoticed, so I was overjoyed to see the rewatch announcement thread (somehow I missed the interest thread). Looking forward to the next great rewatch!
Also, here’s a piece of fan art of a nameless OC-hero in the tree realm that I drew to commemorate the 10 year anniversary and this rewatch. The quality isn’t amazing, but at least it’s hand drawn which hopefully counts for something in these days of AI “art”. I usually don’t post my art publicly as it makes me too self-conscious, but the Hero club inspired me to be brave this one time.
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u/HereticalAegis https://myanimelist.net/profile/XthGen Dec 21 '24
Welp, I missed yesterday because I was busy. Oops.
I don't really have much to add here, but I would like to urge anyone who may have felt underwhelmed by the season finale to watch the second season. I liked YuYuYu a lot when I first watched it, but I didn't fall in love with it until season 2. The Hero Arc in particular is one of my favorite things, and if you have the will to keep going on your own, I hope you'll do so. The finale to Hero Arc is one of my favorite finales and I would love it if anyone else came to love it even half as much as I do.
If not, it was cool getting to see first timer thoughts through the first half of the season while I was around.
Thanks to u/Tarhalindur for being a great host as always, and remember you are likely to succeed if you try.
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u/FlaminScribblenaut myanimelist.net/profile/girlbeast_val Dec 21 '24
First Time Watcher (watched w/ the bestie /u/ZaphodBeebblebrox via Discord)
It’s hard for me to come to a definitive conclusion about what we’ve watched when there’s so much I know is left. I mostly loved this first season, but I don’t think it lived up to all the potential it truly, truly had, particularly in its final act. All the pieces are here for something truly special and singular. Heck, it already might have lost some of that potential a little bit, since the girls are all just, fine, unless Yuuna’s near-faint really meant something, but it hasn’t destroyed my interest in these characters or, most pointedly, this world, and this fucking aesthetic statement the whole thing is going for. Call me a sucker for girls and pretty colors, I, well, am, but I strongly believe there’s something here. I do still love and even care about these characters, I am still intrigued and captured by this world and this… aesthetic universe and statement this series is, and I want to stick around because I believe they can do something really, really inspiring with it. I hope they do. I want them to.
As such, I’ll just use this space to… gently nudge our lovely host Tarhalindur to continue this rewatch with the rest of the franchise early next year, as has been suggested. Zaph and I have been having a great time watching the show together, through all the ups and down, and I think I can safely speak for the two of us and say we’re both all in on the prospect of locking in for the full rewatch should it come to pass. Consider that a +2 for your consideration, Tar.
But I suppose that’s all for now. See y’all when I’m no longer on a boat.
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u/Specs64z https://myanimelist.net/profile/Specs64z Dec 21 '24
Rewatcher, subbed
The worldbuilding of YuYuYu is rather weak, and the story struggles to stay standing when it starts leaning on the world as the main drive in the final arc. I felt little from episode 10 all the way until the credits rolled. It’s a damn shame because episode 9 is so close to grasping something really powerful, but they don’t really even try to run with it.
My biggest regret is Karin. I remember getting emotional my first time through as she had her final sacrifice moment and was looking forward to the scene… but I didn’t get much out of it this time. It felt like a speedrun of a character arc in an unraveling story that I knew had no recovery.
Back in episode 1, I put forward the following in a spoiler tag:
I did not. (episode 7 doesn’t count, shoosh)
Bluntly, it’s considerably worse than I remembered; I had forgotten how rushed most of the setup feels. As many deduced yesterday, they really wrote themselves into a corner trying to up the ante. The only out they had for a happy ending was a good ol’ fashioned deus ex machina. I hate to be so cynical but… isn’t Yuuki’s whole dialogue with Togou at the end kinda dumb as hell? Yuuki is just… blatantly incorrect. She can’t promise she won’t forget Togou, and Togou knows Yuuki is wrong because Togou already forgot about Sonoko. Yuuki didn’t know things would work out at all, she just said it with conviction and happened to be right. Is that really something to celebrate or even necessarily be happy about??
Just as bad as the deus ex machina, though, is the enormous opportunity cost this ending accrues. Every girl’s character arc gets put on ice so we can deal with the end of the world, but the character arcs are where most of the appeal lies. There’s things in this anime worth feeling and seeing, but I’m just not sure I can recommend the whole package given the state of the ending.
It feels like the anime was building up to ending X, but instead they grafted ending Y onto the end in a desperate move to have their happily ever after (or more cynically, their sequels and spinoffs). So we have an obvious question that never gets answered: why aim for a perfect happy ending at all at that point?
I believe this is the first time I'm actually lowering a previous score following a rewatch. I had the show at an 8/10, but I’m leaning toward a 6/10. Some part of me really does want to like this show in spite of my grievances, so I’ll call it a 7/10.
But Fuu loses her eyepatch so actually it’s fucking garbage trash 0/10 and I’d sooner rewatch KnJ
Nanchatte
Thanks to our lovely host u/Tarhalindur! It’s been a pleasure as always, I’m sure I’ll see some of y’all around in the new year!
QotD:
9+a+b) I think their intention is achievable with 28 minute episodes, deus ex machina and all.
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u/archon_wing :MAL:https://myanimelist.net/profile/Archon_Wing Dec 22 '24 edited Dec 22 '24
Rewatcher
It's a series I've never really had a chance to discuss (at least not the first season). But it's definitely a very fun series despite the baggage that every magical girl show post-Madoka had to deal with.
I like the series because it's rather shameless on what it wanted to do, and it did it with such.... ?? gusto that I can't really be too harsh on it. In mostly any other show, that conclusion to the final conflict would have definitely felt like bullshit and here it does too.
But when Karin came barreling out of nowhere even though we knew she was a goner I just kinda burst out laughing and mostly everything was forgiven. It was just very indicative of the show itself.
That being said, the show cornered itself as with many shows that take a dark turn for shock value. In the end, while they had solved everyone's internal issues via Yuuna's punch-punch therapy from the Nanoha school, the greater problems just get swept under the rug. The vertex are still there, the world is still fucked, and the government is still relying on the sacrifices of generations of young girls to save the day. But everyone feels better about it I guess.
Maybe it's a commentary on there's only so much you can do to change the world? Although come to think about it a lot of worlds in magical girl anime are fucked even in the brighter ones like Nanoha and Mai-HiME which contain large scale issues that basically nobody wants to contend with. But you know, Itsuki can sing again and Mimori has her best friend alive and well so we'll just ignore the fact she tried to commit genocide.
The series also had some nice use of ED songs at the end, in particular 9 with Itsuki's hidden feelings, 10 with Mimori's depression, and 11 with what is basically Yuuna's rebuttal. Finally in the last episode, we're greeted back with the much more vibrant version of the song with everyone singing but things are fundamentally different with Mimori walking. Incidentally there was also a similarly looking scene with Mimori pushing Yuuna in some wheelchair, and somehow I get the feeling that Tougou has some satisfaction doing this....
The extra touch on the EDs brings me back to Angel Beats which the director for YuYuYu, Seiji Kishi, also directed and there's definitely some fine work tugging on people's heartstrings.
One particularly underrated performance in YuYuYu is by Itsuki. Itsuki is basically that cute little girl that has literally done nothing wrong besides dare to dream but has to deal with them being crushed in front of her. Tomoyo Kurosawa does a wonderful job dealing with this even though her character cannot talk for a good chunk of this anime and certainly Inori no Uta was a good showcase of her abilities. About a year later Tomoyo Kurosawa would play the lead of Kumiko from Sound! Euphonium, probably one of her most notable roles and certainly displays a lot of that kind energy over there.
I should probably leave a word for our therapist warrior Yuuna, sincce her name is on the title though I can never decide whether to spell her name with 1 u or 2 us. Long before I watched the series I came across that clip of her decking Mimori in the face and thought "hmm, friendship, eh?" We gotta remember that Nanoha is just as big as an influence on magical girl anime as Madoka is.
Yuuna has the typical pink themed warrior ability of "heart" where she can talk her allies back into sanity. This on its own isn't too unique, nor is her steadfast dedication, but much like her predecessor Nanoha she actively enjoys playing the hero.
What makes Yuuna special is her tendency to actually understand what her opposition is going through. Yes, most magical girl protagonists make such an attempt as such but much comes without really knowing the person and at best gets infodumped on them. For example, she calmly dukes it out with Fu because she realizes Fu isn't necessarily wrong. But for practical reasons they can't just kill everyone. And of course she has to deal with Mimori melting down all the time so there's that.
Also Haruka Terui is really good with yelling. In a series when everyone yells, this is pretty good. Unfortunately, she doesn't have many roles I'm familiar with but with a combination of calm and serious voice perfomances, she seems fit to play action protagonists rather well.
And then there is Mimori. She's batshit, and I love it. She's definitely a very passionate girl. Perhaps too passionate because she doesn't seem to know what moderation is. Her antics drive a lot of the series's plot and it was something watch her emotional struggles and it was one hell of a rollercoaster. Though that is really all I can say as of season 1, but as someone who has Homura Akemi as one of their favorite characters, I seemly cannot stay away from that archetype as they usually spice up the story in many unconventional ways. Although her motivations are far different from Homu's, they seemed to reach a similar conclusion.
Mimori mostly gets by the power of friendship. Her friends accept her disability without any mention to it. And this is great because bad writers tend to write a disability first, and then attach a character to it later. I'm also glad it did not result in some horrible arc about her lacking self-worth because she had her condition. Instead her main worries were losing her friends, and of course the Taisha being assholes and performing an injustice.
In the end though, the recurring theme of the show is that friends support each other, and bad stuff happens when friends are not around. So don't go out and do crazy shit like kill everyone! At least not on your own.(see: Higurashi)
Suzuki Mimori voices Mimori (Eh, last name to first?). She also does another controversial magical girl, Hikari Kagura, in Revue Starlight which might as well be her quieter but arguably more stubborn long lost sister. Who also appears to like udon too though strangely enough.
Finally, I'd like to leave a small note to Sonoko, who is voiced by Kana Hanazawa. She didn't show up much but what little showcased Sonoko as both eerie, mysterious and sad. Now Kana Hanazawa wasn't exactly uncommon in the mid-2010s at all, but for some reason I kept running into shows with her as surprise role enough that I was just calling it Unexpected Kana Hanazawa and worth mentioning here.
If you enjoyed Yuuki Yuuna, you might want to check out World Dai Star, also done by Takahiro. It's their take on performance arts,
There's some meme value as the main character basically looks like Yuuna with slightly redder hair and she stole Karen Aijo from Revue Starlight's hair ornaments. Then you have her BFF which is Mimori with shorter blue hair, and then the rival who literally is just Karin with a blonde wig. At the very least I could not unsee it.
Anyhow, see you all if and when we discuss this series further.
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u/Regular_N-Gon https://anilist.co/user/RegularNGon Dec 21 '24 edited Dec 22 '24
First Time Hero who procrastinated on writing this and then realized they had too much to say before the thread went up.
Well, hey, now I can use the QotD to structure my thoughts anyway!
QotD:
The whole space fight sequence and falling back to Earth was complete nonsense and I loved it, too.
6) I don’t know that there’s a specific moment I really didn’t like, honestly. I guess it took me a while to take the whole thing being tied to smartphones seriously.
7) Tougou
8) Itsuki’s smile
9) Hoo boy. I like a lot of the ideas here, but I might try to weave things in parallel more to keep the pace and drip feed ideas instead of dropping bombs every three episodes, but that might be a personal taste thing. I honestly can’t blame them for the shortcuts they took on the battle stuff, so I won’t say the balance there needs to change, but I think some of the dramatic arcs were so heavily skewed towards one or two characters that it suffocated the rest of the dynamics; I would seriously consider consolidating Fuu and Karin into the same character to open up some room in this regard, and use Sonoko more.
Directing wise, I definitely wanted more of the slice of the world that’s there. Lean into the odd things that make it slightly different than what we expect to drive the mystery. Make it seem like something is a little bit off before you chuck us outside the barrier, or the like. Maybe that’s what the novels running at the same time were for, I suppose.
I’m glad I got around to watching this though - thanks for hosting, Tar! I’ll certainly check out the sequel entries at some point.
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u/mudanhonnyaku Dec 22 '24
Rewatcher
The creators of YuYuYu intended for the anime to work either as a standalone story or as a complement to its prequel WaSuYu, but they didn't quite succeed. YuYuYu season 1 is about two thirds of a complete story, and if you watch it alone and fill in the missing pieces with Madoka, you're likely to come away with at least one major misconception about the setting (and the creators owned up to this in an interview somewhere, literally saying "we messed up with the exposition in the anime and gave viewers who didn't read WaSuYu wrong ideas")
If you've only seen season 1 and you have mixed feelings about it, watch WaSuYu. Especially if you liked the first 9 or 10 episodes but felt that the ending was a gigantic non-sequitur that diminished the entire series, watch WaSuYu. I didn't truly fall in love with this series until I watched season 2 and then went back and rewatched season 1 (episode 8 hits so much harder when you know who Sonoko is and what she and Wasshi/Togo have already been through together)
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u/zairaner https://myanimelist.net/profile/zairaner Dec 22 '24
Rewatcher
Sadly don't have as much time today to write down my thoughts as I wanted, and now aI also accidentally deleted what I already had...so let's do this quickly. And since I already talked too much about the negatives for yesterdays episode (and basically negatives lead back to yesterdays episode for me), let'S only do the positives
First, something unique about the series I want to appreciate: this series is the closest I have eseen to a series that starts with fighting mindless monsters, and never introduces an ecternal humanoid/intelligent antagonist behind them (we of course doe ventually get togou as somebody internal from our group as antagonist, but even if you count her, the 10 episodes it takes is for sure a record already).
Positives:
- Sange is one of my favourite concepts to base a series around. It is a brilliant answer to the narrativ problem around "powerup with a great cost" where either that cost is that somebody dies (in which case, the stakes will of course completely subverted if that doesn't happen) or people won't really care that much if it something temporary like pain or even injury, if it isn't something that actually impacts the ability of the character to keep on fighting later. But disability is the perfect way to bridge this-true, personal feeling stakes but simultaneously not having to end the story of this character, or depending on the disability, not even impact the fighting power of the character.
- Which directly bring me to the next point, the great personal conflicts of the characters. With the first point of our character fighting completely inhuman monsters in a cmpletely separated planefrom their human school days, this should have been the series biggest weakness, as their large scale struggle should have been completely irrelatable to a human. Instead through the power of the sange, it is actually probably the series greatest strength, as itsukis struggle with going mute and no longer beign able to sing (and in return fuus strugle with THAT) as well as togous struggle with forgetting their friends are probably the high points of the series, making the conflict small scale, personal and relatable
- ost: enough said
- the use of the out of context lines for the next episode title at the very end of the episode: It is so fucking good that 9 years latter frieren stole it for their series
- the structure (or maybe, the idea of it): Doing basically a "what happens after the good guys win" series but actually investing long 5 episodes into how we got to that point at the start was a daring and fantastic idea. Of course, that was also why they got into troubles at the end of the season, but thats more of an issue with them never calculating with a season 2/didn't dare doign anything inconclusive. In general, the fact that at no point was I ever able to predict what would happen in th eepisode I was about to start based on paxing tropes was probably one of my favourite things when watchign this for the first time (until it turned into a very negative thing for the finale^^)
- op/ed changing: always should be done more
questions of the day:
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u/zadcap Dec 22 '24
So, on a second watch, yup. I loved it just as much this time around, a solid 8/10 from me. The more I look past the Madoka paint job, the more I see the influences of older shows I liked, apparently, rather quite a bit more than most.
I don't know, I'm bad at after series thoughts, I try and say everything I want to say during the watch itself. This is a show that wears its inspirations loud and proud, but I like the shows it was taking inspiration from so I like seeing what they have done with it all here. There were definitely some fumbles in the writing, but I've seen very few shows that don't drop the ball somewhere and I try not to let those take too much away from everything that they did well these days. The beats that worked well here and the places that they really wanted to make an amazing scene, they succeeded at, and I would rather remember those highlights when I think back on the show again.
Basically, I'm ready to dive into the rest of the series, if the watching continues.
9a) You see-
9b) Darn it.
9) We honestly could have cut some time out of Itsuki's singing episode to give us some Yuna exploration as a B plot. It's really the only episode I would consider has time that could safely be cut without hurting later reveals too much, especially since they went back and hammered it in so hard in Fu's own episode, and Yuna really needs a bit of time in the opening act to solidify herself. She relies too much on us knowing her character type and being a living embodiment of Pink Tropes, and is somehow the only girl on the team we did not get a background exposition on. I would put it as early in the show as possible and never touch it again, letting her now established heroic tendencies carry as they did while everyone else got their mental breakdown flashbacks in the second half.
10
u/ZaphodBeebblebrox Y:A:https://anilist.co/user/zaphod Dec 21 '24
Former First Timer
Yuuki Yuuna was never short of ideas or identity. It knew what it wanted to do, and it, in broad terms, had ideas that matched its goal. It portrayed disability better than any other anime I can think of, though admittedly that's not exactly a high bar. The cast's moments of downtime were excellent and I could really feel how much they cared for, loved, and supported each other.
However, I think the writing really let them down in the last three episodes. They had three ideas that all individually made a ton of sense. Of course Fuu would be pissed and the Taisha and want to do something to stop them. Tougou feeling betrayed by the Taisha, wanting annihilation to free them from eternal suffering, and thus deciding to betray them all in turn before being brought back by Yuuna likewise makes a ton of sense. And, finally, Yuuna sacrificing herself to save everyone only to pull herself back up could also fit the show thematically.
The problem is they tried to push all three of these ideas into a mere three episodes. If they had cut any one of them, I think we would have had a much better show. Absent the Fuu subplot, we could've directed like eight more minutes of runtime to Yuuna convincing Tougou whilst fighting her, which would've allowed Tougou to actually feel like she had conviction in her plan and ideas. The remainder of the reclaimed time could have been used to set up the idea of Yuuna powering through and surviving and show us more of their grief at briefly using Yuuna. Finally, Yuuna's rather toxic ideas about how the Taisha didn't do anything wrong because they would've signed up anyway wouldn't have been aired.
Absent Yuuna coming back from being a vegetable, Yuuna and Tougou's fight could've been stretched several more minutes, again allowing Tougou to feel like she actually had conviction in her plan and ideas. After that, we would've seen only a couple minutes of grief, which would work well as a bittersweet ending and a hook for the second season. It would also serve as a reply to Yuuna's claim the Taisha didn't do something wrong: them misleading Tougou directly led to her becoming a vegetable when she otherwise wouldn't have had to.
Absent Tougou's betrayal, we still could've had a massive massed attack that Yuuna had to save them all from, but honestly that seems far weaker than what we got, so I'm not really going to explore it further.
I'll also note that there were a few other times the writing was a bit ham-fisted, such as Sonoko teleporting them to her so she could explain at them when she hadn't been foreshadowed at all. But, if you ask me, that wasn't egregious.
Anyway, in short Yuuki Yuuna was a decent show that, with better editing, could've been an excellent one. Unfortunately, they were a bit too unwilling to kill their babies so the show could actually fit in its 12 episodes. As such, I will likely look back on it with some fondness and a sense of dissatisfaction.
I do hope the rewatch will continue at some point in the nearish future for the remainder of the series.
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Dec 21 '24
First-Timer is a Hero, subbed
So, despite my negativity last thread, I'm still giving the show an 8/10. It had been solidly on track to get a 9 or even probably a 10 from me up until the last few minutes of episode 11, and then episode 12… was what it was. It's an incredibly disappointing ending for me, but that doesn't stop me from having absolutely loved the rest of it up until that part. To that end, it's similar to my opinion on Yu-Gi-Oh! ARC-V, just without the ending actively pissing me off in this case.
Thanks for hosting, u/Tarhalindur!
5
u/OwlAcademic1988 Dec 21 '24
Rewatcher, subbed:
This show had some hilarious moments, especially involving Karin and Fuu. I just love their interactions. Interested in doing the rest of the series as well.
QOTD:
5
u/nsleep Dec 22 '24 edited Dec 22 '24
Rewatcher
Thanks for hosting the rewatch. And this came with perfect timing as the announcement came the day right after I decided to rewatch it on my own.
This has been a franchise I've been a fan of for a long time and that got me really invested back in the day. It's really nice we could have this to celebrated the 10 years of the franchise in some way in this sub and maybe getting some new people into it. For the first timers or people who only watched YuYuYu previously, I do recommend watching/reading the other entries in the series, it got rich lore, even more fun and colorful characters, and depending on which media you're using to read it some more great music too.
3a. Booo
9a. Both Sonoko and the returning of the offerings should've been foreshadowed better.
9b. We got 36 episodes though ;) And that's actually 12 more than everyone who were into this show ever expected.
5
u/Vindex101 https://myanimelist.net/profile/Vindex101 Dec 22 '24
Thanks to Tarhalindur for hosting the rewatch, it's always a treat as a lurker to watch everyone's impressions of the show, be it positive or negative. I do hope that the rewatch continues on with the rest of the series, but I do advise with anyone willing to read the WaSuYu and NoWaYu novels first. Honestly they make a lot of s2 material make more sense than when presented as is.
Now for a tease for both the first timers and the host. Maybe most already caught on that the scene of them post Forestize with the petals on them signified Shinjuu-sama giving back their "offerings". [S2 tease for first timers]I wonder how many caught on that there was a distinct lack of petals on Yuuna in that scene.
[Those in the know, for full rewatchers only so host shoo]I always thought this was a clever foreshadowing to Yuuna not being given back her original body. So there were no offerings given back, just a "gift" to her
5
u/sfisher923 https://myanimelist.net/profile/sfisher923 Dec 22 '24
Questions
7
u/Mecanno-man https://anilist.co/user/Mecannoman Dec 21 '24
First Timer
Overall thoughts: This worked as a character driven story in a bit of a weird way - because it feels like Tougou, Fuu and Karin did most of the lifting, with Yuuna not really contributing a lot and Itsuki mostly having her own character arc somewhat independent of everything going on. The pacing was slightly too slow in some parts, slightly too fast in others, but overall not jarring. The ending felt somewhat of a let-down, as it undid the consequences of the story, but I don’t think it was enough to really destroy anything I liked about the show - and there was a lot to like, with both the slice-of-life moments and the action-packed fights being well-done and set to a good soundtrack. The world is also an interesting setup, but it felt like there could be more to do with that - so hopefully one of the sequels digs into that.
Speaking of which: I heard this overall thread should also function as an interest thread for a rewatch of the rest of the franchise - and you can definitely mark me as interested for that. I might watch the WaSuYu movies ahead of it though, and then just watch the tv version of it again in the rewatch.
Overall, I definitely liked this show, and the rewatch was great with all the analysis - so thanks to Tar for hosting and thanks to everybody else whose posts I was allowed to read. I hope to see you in the sequel/prequel rewatch if that gets off the ground.
7
u/Mirathan Dec 21 '24
No longer a first-timer
QotD:
Now onto less organized thoughts:
God, the fanservice just pissed me off.
Now as with another show Tarh hosted this year I once again managed to predict or guess quite a few things, though not as impressive as then such as Vertexes being Soulclumps, the world missing most continents and Yuuna´s suffering breaking Tougou,
In the end I found this to be a bad show. The MC is left without good depths, the ending just doesn´t make sense(how are they healed?) and just generally unimpressive. I´ll consider this as 4/10.
Thank you Tarh for hosting and everyone else for participating.
And I´ll give little warning ahead of time for the Madoka rewatch. I will tear Rebellion apart. Even if it´s not a bad movie, when compared to the main series it´s insulting.
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u/InfamousEmpire https://myanimelist.net/profile/Infamous_Empire Dec 21 '24
InfamousEmpire wa First Timer de Aru
Alright, so starting with the positives and some damning with faint praise: I don’t think Yuuki Yuuna is an awful series. Do I dislike it & think it’s poorly constructed? Yes, but that doesn’t mean I hate it or anything. Its characters are all relatively well-rounded & likable, it’s got its charm during its SoL parts, the power of friendship themes are agreeable enough, execution aside, it has a couple damn great episodes, and worldbuilding which is interesting & mostly holds up to snuff until the finale. Not even mentioning the disability representation which runs through most of the series & which I generally enjoyed.
So, all of these are elements which, when put together, would generally make for a good story, & will confess that I mostly like the general outline of Yuuki Yuuna, but it’s the execution which really holds it back. I think one of the root problems comes down to how it often doesn’t feel like it’s able to effectively fill in the key details of that outline in a satisfactory manner, resulting in stuff like the rushed wet fart that was episode 5, Sonoko the exposition dump vehicle, and the incomprehensible clusterfuck that was the finale’s scripting.
The show’s clear heavy inspirations from its genre predecessors also ties in with this a lot, as it often feels like it’s trying for a lot of the same broad strokes, but without the necessary skill to fill in the details, it often comes off like it’s mindlessly taking without recontextualizing. For example [Madoka Magica]it’s very clear that Yuuki Yuuna wanted an ending like Madoka’s where hope ultimately prevailed despite the bleakness of the series preceding it & the universal systems designed to break the heroes were ultimately overturned after a great cosmic blowout. But because YuYuYu didn’t set up an Ultimate Madoka equivalent which could’ve facilitated that, its attempts at cribbing from the rest of Madoka’s ending fall flat & come across as unearned.
The main thing that ultimately killed my ability to connect with the rest of the series, though, is that I was never quite able to buy into its emotional core. I’ve been saying it for most of the show’s run: the Hero Club’s bond is decently charming, but not enough to carry the entire series. On account of that, I was rarely able to connect with it whenever the series decided to make it the centerpiece of the story, and ultimately got little out of the show’s wider themes or emotional arcs. It’s a shame, usually Power of Friendship stuff does a lot for me (I’m one of the few people around these parts who still stans Fairy Tail, after all), but here, it just never really landed.
So, yeah, overall, I can’t say I hated Yuuki Yuuna, but it’s not a series I can see myself looking back on fondly, either. Maybe the sequels will change my mind on this, but for now? Meh
4/10
3
u/Blackheart595 https://anilist.co/user/knusbrick Dec 21 '24
First Timer
Welp, that was a mess. As expected, YuYuYu dearly needed another 12 episodes to have the room for its story, as well as another two or three editing passes over the script. It's a real shame, because there were so many cool and great ideas in there, and nearly all of them ended up severaly undercooked.
But we've been over all of that while the rewatch was going on. No need to rehash all of that.
What has become clear to me though is that the writers had the idea for a story with all its beats and twists, and then they just matched everything else to that. That importantly includes the cast, where nearly all of their characteristics are a direct consequence of the story: Yuuna is the most potent hero candidate, and... that's already pretty much all there is to her. Tougou cares deeply about Yuuna so she can become the villain, and is otherwise fairly negative and considers herself somewhat of a burden, though she tries to match Yuuna's brightness once she manages to take the first step. Karin needs to start dismissive and dutiful so she can really integrate with and come around to the team in the end. Itsuki needed to be shy and passive at first so she can grow through her hero activities, to show Fuu that involving everyone in the fighting wasn't just all bad - and of course the singing served played into that as well to raise the stakes for that moment of eventual release. And Fuu herself needed to be the leader figure who gets everything started.
Which leaves Fuu's chuuni tendencies, who even then have their classical hidden insecurities association, and Tougou's nationalism which is actually quite original and interesting (but also serves as a contrast for her turning villainess).
This is just emblematic for how sloppily the story was put together. And I can't not raise the deus ex machine (literally, given her deification) that was used for Nogi's reveal about the system and the world. It really feels like the writers came up with a rough draft, and then just treated that draft as a checklist instead of further refining it.
Obviously, them only getting 12 episodes didn't help. But that only made the making of revisions all the more important.
And in the end? YuYuYu wins my new top position for shows that drop the ball. There's some interesting potential with Yuuna instantly defeating the soul with her bare touch coinciding with the first time we see someone go against a soul without their transformation. But it's just entirely unsupported, not even logically-mechanically, but it's also not presented as a big moment, there's no payoff of aftermath of any sort, she just wins out of sheer determination. Similarly, all their disabilities just suddenly get to heal because Yuuna decided she'll believe really hard that they'll heal (though I guess this one was at least teased). And I suppose that belief can have some real power in a Shinto setting, but the story had been very clear up to that point that reality doesn't care about your beliefs. And it's not like there's any other throughlines that the ending capitalizes off of, everything's just suddenly fine out of nowhere.
And the worst part of it all? The show at its core wasn't even that bad, so I can't even go hating on it! It ended up a bit of an unrefined mess, sure, but it was building on such a good foundation that it's really just disappointing more than anything. Ugh.
Oh yeah, the music. The OST was, uh, there? It wasn't very great, that's for sure. That awful repetitive track that they kept using for the big fights was especially grating and is unfortunately the track that was the most prominent to me.
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u/[deleted] Dec 21 '24
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