Episodes: 12
Genres: Drama, Fantasy, Mahou Shoujo, Slice-of-Life
Aired: Oct 2014 to Dec 2014
Also known as: 結城友奈は勇者である, Yuki Yuuna is a Hero, YuYuYu
Synopsis: What does it mean to be a hero? Yuki Yuuna thinks she knows. As part of the Hero Club in her middle school, Yuki always does her best, wants to help others, and strives to bring smiles to people’s faces, no matter who they are.
But Yuki is about to become a much bigger hero. Mysterious and powerful forces are approaching and threatening to destroy the world Yuki knows and loves, and it’s up to Yuki and the Hero Club to stop them. Together with her companions, Yuki uses a special phone app to transform into a magical girl and battle against strange beings called vertices.
In between studying and putting on shows for kids, Yuuki has to fight for the very existence of her world. Can five middle school girls really stop the vertices from entering their home world and destroying it?
Review: If viewers can get past the fact that Miyoshi Karin is tryhard bragging loner (she gets much better) and Tougou Mimori is an idiot (because she really, really screwed things up), I think viewers can enjoy this show. The amount of passionate yelling that occurs within this show helped me realize that I really appreciate VAs who are willing to yell in order to get the emotions of their character across.
It’s a show with a mahou shoujo premesis, but I don’t think I’ll be spoiling anything by saying the whole magical girl thing has certain drawbacks that were not specified in the magical girl contract. Actually, did the girls in the Hero Club even get one of those? There was no scummy mascot in this series at all (thankfully). Well, it’s a show that came out after Puella Magia Madoka Magica, so the show is just following the trend.
The animation is great; the OP and ED aren’t bad. As for the yuri ships, viewers have a lot of material to work with (excluding Inubouzaki Itsuki). Plenty of drama to be had, but I kind of felt it took the girls too long to realize that they were being fooled.
Unfortunately, the show progressively left out more and more details as it went on, culminating in a finale that is open-ended and vague. Fans who are willing to really invest in the world of YuYuYu can read the sequel and prequel light novels to shed a bit more light on some things that were glossed over (there’s also a small visual novel that I’ll be playing and reviewing in the future), however.
Give this a show a watch if you’re not bored of these five-girls shows. The fact that it’s another “dark” magical girl show could help or hinder your enjoyment. Honestly, I feel like the main attraction to mahou shoujo series is seeing the magical girls develop as characters. That’s something Yuki Yuuna has in spades – if we’re talking about Miyoshi Karin, Inubouzaki Fuu, and Inubouzaki Itsuki. Yuki Yuuna basically remains mysterious, interesting, and static, which is odd given that she’s the main character but sure. As for Tougou Minori – she’s an eyesore that is still necessary to the show, unfortunately.
The Lily Garden 
One thing to notice about this anime is that this is a part of the multimedia project. So watching anime doesn’t give you the full picture at all, especially when the info about Shinju, the divine tree is so little in the anime. How it works, how the tree communicates with humans, how it provided humans with everything (metals, foods or just everything necessary for living, effectively saying humans are eating the tree slowly) since 300 years ago. How the tree is running low in energy now. etc
I think the main problem with anime is the final episode, they make it vague, open ended and too much of ‘show don’t tell’ things. (Take a closer look at Shinju in the final fight) Despite looking like seemly happy ending, there are quite a number of consequences and problems, thankfully some of which are addressed in the epilogue chapter Sonoko after.
Also I think Yuuna remained vague and Mysterious intentionally, there were a lot of strange things about her in the series. She was explored a bit more in the VN and other side materials. For example, Yuuna don’t think very highly of herself (a bit more extreme than that) and has a bad habit of always telling white lies to make people happy. She also intentionally dumbs herself down despite being quite perceptive. Now her mystery had gotten stranger with the addition of Takashima Yuuna, a girl who speak, fight, act and look like yuuna in Nogi Wakaba wa Yuusha de aru (NoWaYu, a spin off LN set in 300 year ago).
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You really bring up some good points. I think the show is good enough to stand on its own, but some parts were left unexplained (such as the Shinju, as you said). You’re definitely right about Yuuna remaining kind of mysterious throughout the show, which could either attract or repel viewers. Maybe we can get more information from NoWaYu – I have heard about the mysterious stranger that is essentially identical to Yuuna.
I’m probably going to refrain from reviewing yuri visual novels, but I should mention that fans get a bit more information about YuYuYu should they decide to read the light novel prequels and sequels. Thank your insight and for dropping by.
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Here’s another anime I plan to watch – not that that’s saying much seeing how there’s roughly a million anime I ‘plan’ to watch. But this does seem promising, especially if there’s good character development.
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I think it’s worth your time, then. The other girls make up for Tougo (and, to a lesser extent, Yuuna) when it comes to character development.
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This post has motivated me to both watch the anime and passionately yell at things. Phoenix Wright mode, on!
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Why not do both at the same time? This makes both activities more fun!
Thanks for dropping by!
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