Review: 'Yuki Yuna Is a Hero'

A new post at the The Sci Fi Catholic, my old blog, which I'm rebooting, reviews the post-Madoka magical girl anime series, Yuki Yuna Is a Hero.

Read it here.

Comments

[Al-1701]

I personally saw Madoka was a 4 hour long screamer with the main appeal being the jump scares that reliably showed up every three episodes. It was entertaining enough, and it made me want to kill Kubey just for the fun of it. However, like a screamer, it was about catching the audience with their own expectations, that really only works once.

I do have to say the ending of Yuki Yuna sounds like a letdown. If your characters are going to exploit a loophole in the world's rules, they need to find the loophole and figure out how to use the loophole before using it. It just happening makes it feel like we've invested in their struggles for nothing because they were destined to be okay.

[Shogoki]

Hey Deej! Nice to hear from you again, you've been missed.

I hope this also means that draft is coming along nicely.

I have a blog to read now and possibly an anime to watch.

[Themaskedferret]

I'd love to view it, but I'm getting redirected and blocked. Which I normally wouldn't mind except that it suggests I use an alternate browser such as Pale Moon, which I happen to be using.

Hope it's a good article.

[Honeycomb]

Dat Madoka doe. Sometimes a work of art sweeps through your soul, chases out the demon living there, and opens the shutters to let the misty morning air in.

Later, of course, the old demon comes back with seven others more wicked than itself. But it's really nice in the time between.

[Papa Dragon]

Great review.
Now I have about five or six anime added to my watch later list.
So much to watch, not enough time .

[kimba_1962]

I am happy to hear that you're revamping your blog!

[Themaskedferret]

2684727 My computer would have a seizure from the number of updates it would want. That and I'm always mildly annoyed when someone gives me a link with an embedded redirect without warning. Feels too much like popup ads.

[D G D Davidson]

2684624

I forgot I had that block on there. I might take that off in the near future; I doubt it's doing much good, and after some reflection I'm not sure I like the method anyway. And yes, I 've heard before that PaleMoon appears as Firefox, though I believe there is a way to change that.

2684743

I didn't emphasize it, but I found Madoka rather sleazy myself. The story sure is good though, but I could have done without some of the imagery.

2684479

I agree you can't do Madoka twice, because if you try to do that kind of misdirection a second time, people are already on to you. There is a movie sequel, which I've never seen, but from what I've read it's more of the same, lots of twists and screwing with your head, though this time, of course, people expect that. If they really wanted to screw with people in a Madoka sequel, they would have to do a straightforward kid-friendly magical girl show, which would probably also tick off the crowd that's expecting something very different.

Yuki Yuna is an attempt, in effect, to do Madoka twice, but since its influence was obvious from the beginning, I was sitting through it and saying, "Okay, so when are they going to upend this?" And they did more-or-less what I expected; the story has twists, but I saw them coming, not because the writing was too obvious but simply because I've been here before and I knew what they were up to.

And yes, I found the ending to be a letdown. I could see why they did it: they were trying to dodge the downer ending in order to "reconstruct" the happy slice-of-life/magical girl anime, but I honestly could not tell you what exactly was supposed to be happening during the climax, nor how the conclusion followed from it.

[D G D Davidson]

2684882

I don't necessarily recommend what I review. Both these cartoons are kind of slimy.

[Al-1701]

2686714 The ironic part is they wanted the happy ending, they needed to do what Madoka didn't have story cohesion. Because Madoka depending on keeping the audience off balance, it was constantly pulling contrivances out to shake things up. It didn't really matter in the end because it had a bittersweet ending. To have a happy ending behind Door #3, they needed to establish there was a door number three. They could have been subtle with it, but some would pick up on it and knew what was going on. The creators didn't want that, so they just said they all got better.

I personally like deconstruction through humor because humor is subjective. Everyone can put a humorist twist of the genre and be different. Futago Hime (the first season) is my favorite magical girl series because it hit the ground making fun of the genre. The lowest level of their power was called "Pitiful." Said power made random things happen the characters actually had to figure out with often hilarious results. The basic premise was, "We got a couple of princesses who dress up in fancy dresses to use world-bending powers, let's have some fun."

However, Madoka was an instant hit while Futago Hime never got out from under Precure's shadow, so those looking to quick fame are going to look to the former's model instead of the latter's.

[Honeycomb]

2686714

I didn't emphasize it, but I found Madoka rather sleazy myself. The story sure is good though, but I could have done without some of the imagery.

Really? Huh. Unless you're talking about the nekkid girls, I don't know what you mean. I thought the "nudity", besides being completely unerotic, symbolized vulnerability and authenticity.

[D G D Davidson]

2686949

Really? Huh. Unless you're talking about the nekkid girls, I don't know what you mean. I thought the "nudity", besides being completely unerotic, symbolized vulnerability and authenticity.

That is what I was talking about, but I won't argue the point because I like your interpretation better.

[D G D Davidson]

2686910

It's been a while since I saw Madoka, but I was quite impressed by how well the story held together, though It might be that I simply have low standards because I'm used to magical girl shows that are agonizingly padded out and have extemporaneous explanations tacked onto every Deux ex machina, from back in the day before anime series stopped at twelve episodes and more typically followed a monster-of-the-week format.

To my eyes, the story of Madoka progressed logically from the first episode to the twelfth, the revelations following upon each other at the right pace and with details that made sense in-universe. Perhaps it's because I already knew the show's reputation before I saw it, but the only deliberate misdirection I saw was in the bait-and-switch opening credits sequence. Some say episode 3 is what surprised them, but I thought the ominous undertones were plain from the beginning, and that the sudden death of a character was foreshadowed properly.

The influence of Madoka, because it was such a huge hit (deservedly, in my humble opinion), will be felt for some time, I think, but I predict people will grow tired of it. Exactly because it depended heavily on bait-and-switch, it cannot, as you say, be done twice. Yuki Yuna displays to what lengths a show has to go to achieve the same effect, and in spite of some deft maneuvers, it didn't quite succeed. It amused me in large part because I could see what it was doing: I saw all its punches coming exactly because I know all the tropes and could recognize how it was playing with them, and I'm sure I'm not alone in that.

My hope is that the Darker and Grittier phase of mahou shoujo will run its course and we can afterwards get a balance of good, solid storytelling that takes what tone is appropriate rather than what is popular. This is a genre that has a history of hitting a wide range of emotional notes, after all: shows like Sailor Moon or Jubei-chan or Revolutionary Girl Utena could succeed at slapstick comedy and angst and tragedy all in one show. Sooner or later, the people who make these things will remember that evoking emotion doesn't mean being dark and broody all the time.

[Al-1701]

2687207 Madoka makes logical sense (albeit twisted logic) when you can look back at the whole body of work or know what you're getting into. Once you understand the series is bent on being horror with an increasingly thin disguise of being a magical girl show, you basically say "Yeah that makes perfect sense" to whatever they do. Which is again why it can only be done once. And I only needed to see Madoka once. I never got invested in any of the characters or the world. It's, again, a screamer video, and once you know the screamers are coming there's really no point anymore.

Hopefully it will run its course and soon.