Yuki Yuna is a Hero! (Review)

32 series premiered this fall on Crunchyroll, joining the ranks of 17 continuing series, including powerhousesNaruto: Shippuden, Sailor Moon Crystal and Sword Art Online II. Yuki Yuna is a Hero boldly went up against the original magical girl, Sailor Moon, with a 12-episode run that is both fresh and beautiful, while hitting all of the magical girl benchmarks. With a few plot flaws, the series still manages to pull off an impressive run that spawned two video games, a prequel light novel/manga and two other manga adaptations.

+The Story
+The High Points
+The Low Points
+In Brief
+Rating
+How To Get It

The Story

At Sanshu Middle School, the Hero Club helps anyone in need — other clubs, preschoolers and the community at large! Yuki Yuna, Togo Mimori and sisters Inubozaki Yu and Itsuki round out the organization and get udon after school. At first glance, it looks like the show is a simple Slice of Life series about a group of girls who are everyday heroes, but there is a sudden shift and the girls are called on to be real super heroes! By borrowing power from the elusive Shinju-sama (a God that everyone in the community praises — even in school), the girls are able to fight creatures called “Vertex” and protect the world around them. After their first battle, the girls find out that this new status as real heroes wasn’t a surprise for club president Yu-senpai who, it turns out, was sent to Sanshu by an agency called the Taisha, who manage the Shinju-sama. Sound a little vague and complicated? Yes, yes it is. Yu-senpai informs the heros that they must defeat 12 vertexes (one for each zodiac sign) in all and once they finish, they can go back to living their normal lives. By episode six, all 12 have been defeated and they have a new comrade called Karin, who has been training her entire life to be a hero. After the battle, everyone but Karin comes out with a slight injury: Yuna has lost her taste, Togo has lost hearing in one ear, Fu has lost sight in one eye and Itsuki cannot speak. The girls are assured that their injuries will heal soon. To no one’s surprise (because we’re only six episodes in), they are called to fight again and now everything the Taisha has told the girls is called into question.

I won’t say anything else about the story, because going any further would spoil it (more than I already have). The pace for this show is a little quick to begin with, but it really picks up after the first half. Still, I’ll give you some more reasons to watch (or not) below.

The High Points

Non-traditional characters

Togo Mimori’s presence is quite interesting. It is very rare that we see a character confined to a wheelchair from the very beginning (due in part, I’m sure, to the fact that it can be difficult to draw). Togo’s presence as a very strong character and fighter is uplifting and awesome and makes Togo a real bad ass. She could have easily been the main character. The writers took note of this and Togo is an even more major part of the manga prequel – I will warn you that looking too deeply into what the prequel is about will spoil much of Togo’s story line in the anime.

Every character is a bad ass

Unlike most action series, they don’t try to make the main character the greatest of them all by leaps and bounds. Instead, the relationship between the characters and their abilities is more of a Gon/Killua relationship — they’re all strong, but in very different ways and sometimes that gets them hurt and other times, it works to their advantage. Each girl has a different tactical strength in battle and a different role to play in their club. On the same token, every girl has her moment of weakness in both battle and real life and their strong friendship earnestly pulls them out of their funks.

And that’s because the series has excellent character development

Though we never see the main character, Yuna, at home, we do get to see the Inubaki sisters, Karin and a little bit of Togo at home. Each character shows a somber side, a silly side, a determined side, etc. In 12 short episodes, we see them interact in different sub groups, we see them laugh, cry and fight. You get a very good sense of who each character is and what they like. It makes it all feel more even because even though the series is her namesake, Yuki Yuna is not all this story is about.

The character design is stunning and they don’t use it in a cheesy way

Like all magical girl fans, I love a good transformation and the heros have it! The theme for their costume design is flowers and I thank the Shinju-sama that they did not think that a good enough reason to call them Flower Fighters or some other lame title. Instead, when they were in battle, each of the heros were simply called by their names and while they each had their own colors, weapons, transformations and symbols, there were no cheesy names and titles and very few names for special moves. There was some terminology like mankai and shoge, but those are important plot devices that are both symbolic and cleverly-named.

It hit many magical girl benchmarks, but had a fresh take on them

Faeries/Familiars

It’s not uncommon for a magical girl to be accompanied by some sort of adorable animal that possesses some magical powers. The girls of Madoka have Kyubey, the Sailor Senshi have Luna and Artemis, the girls of Magica Wars have their individual companions, even the wizards in Wizard Barristers have animal friends. The spin that Yuki Yuna gives us, is that the animals are called faeries, they don’t talk and they are kept in a terminal (iPhone). The purpose of faeries, in this case, is not the usual wise sensei and is a mystery for quite some time. (I won’t say why due to spoilers — man this is hard!)

Purpose and Payment

Most magical girls tend to be born into their powers or contract for their powers and work to battle witches/demons/dark enemy. While Yuki Yuna is basically the same, the difference is, not only is the power not theirs to keep, it’s not theirs to choose. It is made quite clear that the girls  powers are from the Shinju and the Taisha facilitate that possibility. Without the Taisha’s help/permission, the girls cannot fight the Vertex. They are also not able to decline, because if they do, they’ll effectively be killing people by doing nothing. Another form of payment comes into play (and if you are really reading this review, you may have figured it out already), that some say mimicks Madoka Magica’s dark twist on the magical girl genre, but (to me) most closely resembles the dark system of payment used in xxxHolic and similar series that deal with demons and gods. It’s also interesting because there is no way that the general public can or will ever know what the heroes are doing because the fighting occurs in a closed zone, which means no shoddy disguises.

The sad moments were relatable

I love Usagi, but when she cries all of the time in Sailor Moon, I’m ready to scream! She’s often a crybaby for no real reason and when she does, it’s often fairly dainty with a bit of screaming thrown in. This series included some tears that were in no way dainty and had been building up. Dare I say it? I cried! I never cry! I did not cry when Pikachu died, I did not cry when Netero did his final move, I did not cry when all of the Sailor Senshi had dead eyes on the ground. But when Yu-senpai found out that Itsuki wanted to be a singer, I resisted and then I let it all out with my girl! If you haven’t caught on by now, the second half of the series gets pretty dark. Unlike so many other series, I find the build up and the situation to be more touching than other dark magical girl plot twists. This can be credited to the pacing and the tiny arcs within the series.

Costume Design/Theme

Thank you again, Shinju-sama, for not putting them in sailor uniforms! They’re in middle school, so it would work, but I’m so happy they are not in Lolita/Dolly dresses or sailor uniforms for battle. Again, thank you for not calling them Wilted Warriors or something else tired. I’m sooo soo happy that there were no name changes or ridiculous names for moves or anything like that. In short: no cheese.

Lastly, the animation was awesome

I didn’t see a lot of moments (but there certainly were a few) where they were trying to save money by panning over a still image. The sequences are smooth and beautiful. The art style is gentle, relying on pastels with everything lit in a sunny glow. The aesthetic is a bit softer in the settings, more crisp on the characters and has a lot of variety in the way that the characters are styled. The animation is beautiful and sweeping and juxtaposes violence with serene settings.

It’s easy to tell that the animators weren’t scared to change some things up: people wore different clothes and hairstyles throughout, the closing animation changed quite a few times and the battle sequences are buttery and epic. There is even a mashup of hero costumes/mankai designs that blended very well. There was no obvious use of CGI unlike one of my Spring 2015 favorites KanColle.

The Low Points

We could have done with a few more episodes

While I liked the pace for the most part, this is a series that would have done well to have at least two more episodes. I’m not talking about more at the end though, I’m talking about more in the  middle. All of the events that are not completely essential to the storyline helped to build a bond with the characters and most of it was done in two episodes. I would never say that they should remove those two in lieu of better explaining the major plot points because I think they are necessary, but it would have been nice to have both.

There were a few plot points that seemed to come out of nowhere and weren’t explained, especially in the second half. There are a few conclusions that Togo comes to/places she goes that don’t even make sense and are never addressed. Not to mention that I am not fully sure what the Taisha even is because they breezed over the explanation. Even the explanation about the Shinju-sama was a bit spotty. I’m not sure if it was lost in translation or what, but I have no idea how the sun plays into all of this. Someone tell me if you get it. I have my own theory but I’ll post that elsewhere. (All of this was a bit vague for the sake on not including spoilers…again.)

The only guess I can make that would redeem this is that it’s explained better in the manga/light novel series since it is a prequel that takes place closer to the Taisha.

On that note, the ending was unsatisfying

I’ll admit that I basically got what I wanted from the ending, but the poor explanation of the situation made the ending completely incomprehensible. I don’t understand what they did or how they called that a win or what that did to change the entire system. And it’s not like they didn’t have the runtime to do it. They just chose not to! Again, I’m thinking it’ll make more sense when I read the prequel but I don’t think I should have to do that to understand it.

The Verdict

High Points:

• Pace
• Character Design
• Character Development
• Originality

Low Points

• Sloppy explanations
• Needs to be longer

Rating★★★★☆

I’ll admit that I badly want to give this series five stars, but I don’t do half stars and I can’t excuse the holes. With that being said, I’m a real fan of the series and I would really like to see more, even though the story doesn’t leave much room. Still, a lot could be done with prequels for all of the characters since three of the five had previous ties with the Taisha. I could even see a remake of the original down the rode like the awesome 2011 Hunter x Hunter remake.

How To Get It

You can watch the entire series on Crunchyroll for free with ads. There are two video games in the Yuki Yuna franchise, but only one has been released as of the publishing of this article and both are only available in Japan. The first is a visual novel for PC, but the real gameplay is coming this February to PS Vita called Yuki Yuna wa Yusha de Aru: Memory of the Forest.

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