Maoyū Maō Yūsha
Well, I asked for an anime recommendation, and this is what I got. I wanted something to watch after having finished Valvrave. "Maoyuu" has a lot of interesting ideas and perspective, but the implementation is sort of... weak, in my opinion.
It shakes up the usual fantasy tropes with a "Demon King" who's female and waiting to meet the Hero (yep, names of major characters are their professions, essentially) in order to convince him to help her establish peace between humans and demons - opposed by those who would use a war between nations to profit. It's a neat idea, especially when her plan is all about macroeconomics and international strategy. While several of the main characters are extremely powerful (Hero can teleport vast distances and level mountains with some of his magic), most of the "action" is army engagements and trade agreements.
Unfortunately, that's where the issues start creeping in. Overall, it feels pretty slow. And just as much of the action is painted in broad, vague strokes, the art style often felt to me rather lifeless. The relationships between the characters, which have some potential with the Demon King - Hero - Knight love triangle and such, end up being played mostly for comedic value. And, ultimately, the promise of all this nation-restructuring simply isn't met. The anime runs 12 (13, counting a recap) episodes and "ends" woefully incomplete, probably because the manga appears to still be running and I'm not sure if the light novels that were the basis are even complete. So there's just no payoff to the story at this point.
It shakes up the usual fantasy tropes with a "Demon King" who's female and waiting to meet the Hero (yep, names of major characters are their professions, essentially) in order to convince him to help her establish peace between humans and demons - opposed by those who would use a war between nations to profit. It's a neat idea, especially when her plan is all about macroeconomics and international strategy. While several of the main characters are extremely powerful (Hero can teleport vast distances and level mountains with some of his magic), most of the "action" is army engagements and trade agreements.
Unfortunately, that's where the issues start creeping in. Overall, it feels pretty slow. And just as much of the action is painted in broad, vague strokes, the art style often felt to me rather lifeless. The relationships between the characters, which have some potential with the Demon King - Hero - Knight love triangle and such, end up being played mostly for comedic value. And, ultimately, the promise of all this nation-restructuring simply isn't met. The anime runs 12 (13, counting a recap) episodes and "ends" woefully incomplete, probably because the manga appears to still be running and I'm not sure if the light novels that were the basis are even complete. So there's just no payoff to the story at this point.
Depends what your tastes are, but "Last Exile" is always worth a shot (got a sequel series now, "Fam, the Silver Wing"). "Read Or Die" is good, the original 3-oart OAV sets up the story but then it turns darker with the TV series (and has the classic line "You British Library bastards!"). For insane (and occasionally slightly deep) fun there's "Ouran High School Host Club", for heartwarming there's "Aria" and "Kamichu!" and for pretty boys with swords there's "Cheavlier D'Eon". For totally over the top (with immortal Frenchmen in pink trench coats shooting themselves in the head to make a point) there's "Giant Robo". "Cease your relentless bombardment of atoms and fear God no more! I, Franken von Folger, demand it so!" (Giant Robo, the one anime where the Manga Video dub did not come close to exceeding the ham rating).
ReplyDeleteHuh... I feel like I watched Last Exile, and glancing at a summary, it sounds vaguely familiar, but I really have no recollection of it in detail at this point. Odd. I enjoyed the ROD OAVs, but got the feeling the TV series was totally different. May look into that further. Le Chevalier D'Eon was something I watched a few episodes of, but couldn't really get into for reasons I no longer fully remember. After looking around at recent series, I settled for starting to watch Log Horizon, though I've not rendered a final opinion on the series as yet.
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