#source: Yuki Yuna is a hero

[kylepleasestop]

*Group Therapy Meeting For Some Of My Comfort Characters*

Marcy: I trapped my friends in a different dimension because my parents were going to move me away and I ended up getting stabbed in the back figuratively and literally by someone I trusted and then possessed.

Ruby: My mother died or worse trying to win a war against an immortal being that I now lead the war against, and the color of my eyes makes it likely that being will try to turn me into a monster.

Akko: My idol stole my magic and ruined my dream of becoming a witch to make others smile and then became my mentor and never told me.

Homura: My first friend ever died fighting a giant monster and I sold my soul to go back in time to save her but every time I try and fail it makes it worse until she became a god and erased herself from existence.

Yuna: I was forced to fight monsters as a middle schooler and slowly lose all bodily functions as payment, and then my (girl)friend was erased from existence and I was forced to give up my life to save humanity.

Haruka: My mother had me and my twin sister from different fathers and our family stole us from them and abused me and forced my sister to be hateful to me or they’d kill me.

Nana: I trapped my friends in a time loop for 60+ years in fear they’d leave me only for that to be forcefully ripped from me.

Sora: My hero was turned into a monster and the only way to bring her back will likely kill her.

Ran:

Ran: I like food.

[sugar-rune-incorrect-quotes]

Vanilla leaves the house to find Chocola's grandfather's car parked outside, with him and Chocola in the car ready to leave. Chocola notices Vanilla.

Chocola: Hey, Vani!

Zooms out on Chocola.

Chocola: Let's enjoy! KAGAWA LIFE!

Cue Vanilla's confused expression.

[deann1120]

Magical Girls: Christmas Deluxe

Happy Chrimas Is Chrismin Merry Crisis Merry Chrysler

[recentanimenews]

Yuki Yuna Is a Hero Announces October 1 Premiere in New PV

  Magical girl series YUKI YUNA IS A HERO is returning for a new season this autumn! The brave heroines will be coming back for their third season, with a confirmed release date of October 1.

  The date was announced alongside the new trailer for YUKI YUNA IS A HERO -Chapter in Full Bloom-. The OP and ED themes for the season have also been announced: "ASHITA NO HANATACHI" ("Tomorrow's Flowers") for the opening, and "Chiheisen no Mukou e" ("Beyond the Horizon") for the ending. Both songs will be performed by the series's lead cast: Haruka Terui (as Yuki Yuna), Suzuko Mimori (as Sumi Washio), Yumi Uchiyama (as Fu Inubozaki), Tomoyo Kurosawa (as Itsuki Inubozaki), Juri Nagatsuma (as Karin Miyoshi), and Kana Hanazawa (Sonoko Nogi).

  Check out the new PV, including a sample of the season's new music:

    YUKI YUNA IS A HERO -Chapter in Full Bloom- premieres on TBS and MBS in Japan on October 1.

  Source: Comic Natalie

    Watch YUKI YUNA IS A HERO on Crunchyroll!

  By: Kara Dennison

[ao3feed-suneater]

Midoriya Izuku is a Hero

by LifeorDeath

When the Shinju-sama came into existence it had brought change to the whole world.

It had given ordinary people extraordinary powers and had brought a new life into the world with Heroes and Villains.

But what they didn't know is that, with this change, creatures called vertexes had sought to brought down the Shinju-sama.

With this a organization called the Taisha had been tasked to protect the world tree and had created a way to stope these creatures.

The Hero System

But... it isn't what it seems

(I'm not good with summaries sorry XD )

Words: 822, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia, 結城友奈は勇者である | Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de aru | Yuki Yuna is a Hero, 鷲尾須美は勇者である, lit. Washio Sumi is a Hero

Rating: Mature

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death, Underage

Categories: F/M, M/M, Multi

Characters: Toogata Mirio, Amajiki Tamaki, Hadou Nejire, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead, Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Shinsou Hitoshi, Bakugou Katsuki, Yagi Toshinori | All Might, Midoriya Inko, Original Female Character, Original Male Character, Class 1-A (My Hero Academia)

Relationships: Midoriya Izuku/Toogata Mirio, Aizawa Shouta | Eraserhead/Yamada Hizashi | Present Mic, Midoriya Izuku & Original Character(s), Midoriya Izuku & Original Male Character(s), Midoriya Izuku & Original Female Character(s)

Additional Tags: BAMF Midoriya Izuku, OP Midoriya Izuku, Sad Midoriya Izuku, Suicidal Midoriya Izuku, Suicide Attempt, i swear it gets better, Fluff, Angst, before fluff there must be angst, Yagi Toshinori | All Might Bashing, Yagi Toshinori | All Might Redemption, Bully Bakugou Katsuki, Bakugou Katsuki Swears A Lot, Bakugou Katsuki is Bad at Feelings, Bakugou Katsuki Redemption, We Stan Redemption in this House, Midoriya Izuku is a Ray of Sunshine, Midoriya Izuku is a Dork, Midoriya Izuku is a Good Friend, Original Characters are good friends, Protective Original Characters, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Izuku Does Not Have One for All Quirk, Toogata Mirio Has One for All Quirk, Speaking of..., you read the tag right, it is mirideku, I Will Go Down With This Ship, i love these two sunshine boys, Toogata Mirio is a Good Friend, Toogata Mirio is a Good Boyfriend, Possesive Toogata Mirio, not yandere levels though, he wants people to know mido is his, Eventual Romance, its gonna be a while though, just gonna put underage warning, just in case, even though the age difference is two years, there will be smut, but i am going to write it on another story separately from this one, it is not needed to read the story, Not Beta Read, The Author Regrets Nothing, well some things, I am also figuring things out on this site so bear with me, I will probably revise and edit the story chapters later

source https://archiveofourown.org/works/29339517

[yellowmagicalgirl]

"yellowmagicalgirl"? so you're mami tomoe kin is what you're saying,

No, Inco. I am not kin with any fictional character.

Yellow Magical Girl was the name I’d use to submit stuff to Miraculous Ladybug Headcanon and Magical Girl Confession blogs. I did this because my two favorite magical girls were Fu Inubouzaki from Yuki Yuna is a Hero and, yes, Mami Tomoe. Both of them were the yellow girls of the group.

I liked Fu because she had an awesome bigass sword.

Mami, on the other hand, is a character I’ve liked for other reasons. In early middle school, I was the only girl with a fully developed chest (precocious puberty is a bitch), and already I was uncomfortably aware of how large chests were viewed as sexy.

And then there was Mami. Out of the all the magical girls, she has the largest chest. And not once (at least in the original anime) do I remember this feature being sexualized. Mami was a source of comfort and inspiration to me, even after her head got bitten off. But that does not make me her kin.

[joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh]

Barely Reviews - Volume 2

Hey remember this format? 2 entries so far and the last was half a year ago? We’re bringing it back, baby! Kinda. I actually wrote basically all of this multiple months ago, but because I couldn’t for the life of me bring myself to watch Sword Art Offline II until today, I never posted it, because I had to watch that first. But I have now, so uh, yeah. Here’s a post.

Aoi Sekai no Chuusin de

A 3 episode OVA series based on the Sega vs Nintendo console wars of the 90s of all things. And it’s not great. None of the characters are exactly written or developed well, nor are any of the plot threads and worldbuilding it tries to introduce. Speaking of which, a lot of that stuff is like, framed as super serious and almost edgy at times, and it’s already hard to take this as something super serious because of how silly and fun the premise for this series is, but there’s also loads of more light-hearted humour, such as the dude based off of Tetris being an absolutely massive pervert. This show’s also basically hentai at times. Visuals are eh and the soundtrack is decent, but otherwise this series is pretty much just a funny sounding premise and a couple of references to Sega characters. Tails dies in the first minute!

Final rating:3/10

SAO Fatal Bullet: The Third Episode

Note that this’ll cover both The Third Episode and the Pilot-ban thing MAL has as well. Some weird short that exists to promote the Fatal Bullet game. Animation is kinda limited and I really don’t like the art style or character designs, and the overabundance of glitchy “cool” gamer effects on the screen at all times was kinda annoying. No subs so I didn’t quite know what was going on to be fair, so take this score (they both got the same score) with a grain of salt.

Final rating: 3/10

Sword Art Offline

This’ll cover every version of this except the Ordinal Scale one since I’ve already seen that in the past. Anyway, these are your typical cheap shitty shorts that are included in the Blu-Rays as some incentive to buy it. And there are 9 of them for season 1, 9 for season 2, and then 1 for Extra Edition and Ordinal Scale. Not only that, but they’re all 11 fucking minutes long! Which is way too long for the vapid, insufferable wastes of time that these are! The chibis aren’t cute and are way too underexpressive, almost 100% of the humour is characters being tsundere or in love with Kirito, and it’s never funny even once. And again, with how fucking long each episode is as well as how many there, it’s such a fucking chore to watch. Ultimately though they are just shitty Blu-Ray specials so I can’t be that mad at them, I guess, but I probably regret watching them. Last 3 SAO II episodes have Yuuki in them at least, though that doesn’t change their score at all.

Final rating: 2/10

Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan

Rohan’s always been a fun as hell character, and you can kinda tell just from seeing him in part 4 that he could totally carry a series on his own. The two episode OVA that is Thus Spoke Kishibe Rohan is proof of this. We’ve got all the good stuff about JoJo – fun and bizarre circumstances that force our protagonist to think outside of the box to find a way out, really nice visuals to accompany it, a sweet soundtrack, etc. This OVA is a little weird in that it adapts just two of the stories from an already nonchronological source material, however I think we’re given just enough context to not feel lost, and especially since it’s Rohan anyway shit like “I went bankrupt from buying 6 mountains” is easy to accept. I think the second episode was kinda boring, especially compared to the first one, but I’ll take more animated JoJo fun any day.

Final rating: 7/10

Yuki Yuna is a Hero Club Member

I don’t think I said this at any point, but I think Yuki Yuna is a Hero could’ve been a better show if it were just a cute, funny slice of life where the gimmick was that the Hero club love to go around and help people, and it would be all nice and wholesome. Doesn’t even matter if magical girl stuff is or isn’t involved. These little, Blu-Ray shorts I think? They’re basically that. Despite being 100% chibi, this is a lot more animated than many chibi shorts I’ve seen, and the chibis are also super cute, and when they un-chibi for some moments, it also looks super cute. The soundtrack for the actual show is used, which is actually kinda funny cause obviously the soundtrack is super serious and dramatic but this spinoff is uh, not that -  which is much appreciated cause most cute girl anime that make their little fake dramatic music aren’t funny when they do that. They got mileage out of their soundtrack here is what I’m saying. All 3 episodes are separate MAL entries but I gave them all the same score anyway. I feel kinda bad giving them a higher score than I did the actual show, but these specials are cute and fun so it makes sense. I’ll probably rewatch the actual show one day – I wasn’t super fond of it but I won’t deny that it had some pretty interesting elements I’d like to look more into.

Final rating: 5/10

Anyway now that I’ve posted this I’ve decided that this format is officially dead. It’s not actually that fun at all, and uh, that’s all I’ve got really. Bye.

[justselfloathingthings-blog]

What do you think of Mahou Shoujo Tokushusen Asuka?

So this is tricky because I freely admit that I haven’t watched the show. It was one I was mildly curious about- if one done with the proper sort of blend between seriousness and traditional magical girl style-see something along the lines of Yuki Yuna, say- I thought that, at the very least, it could be a mildly interesting watch. That said, it certainly looked incredibly edgy and honestly I haven’t been motivated to start watching any of the new shows this season lately to begin with aside from Shield Hero on a lark, so I haven’t gotten to it. Typically I might stop here.

But I do know a little about it and it is one I wanted to maybe check out anyway, so I decided to dig a little deeper. 

I decided to check out the ANN episode 1-2 episodic review first; I often disagree rather strongly with ANN, especially on magical girl anime, but typically the reviews are thorough enough that at the very least I can get a decent sense of what the show is sort of like. Overall the review is pretty positive, but it both confirms some positives I had and some key expectations of distaste. 

For instance, some of the character dynamics come across as potentially interesting, Asuka, struggling with her PTSD, wants to try and make new friends and her re-transformation occurs when one of the people she is starting to make friends with is nearly killed. It’s a perfectly fine plot device and I think exploring Asuka’s relationship with these characters could make for a pretty interesting story.

On the other hand, the review also offhandly notes that there is gratuitous fanservice, and completely gratuitous violence that is often for shock value that comes across as trying to by edgy and “mature”, which I don’t think blends well at all with what a magical girl anime should ever be going for. Be mature on your own merits. And the lengths that they go to at times just become incredibly dumb and goofy such as, a direct quote from the article, “the giant evil teddy bear in episode two tossing a decapitated head up and down while chanting happily”. 

Now, maybe in the show this functions better, the reviewer certainly liked it. I’m missing some elements the show would be utilizing and not seeing it in action. But it certainly comes across as edgy tryhard nonsense that simply doesn’t belong. 

So my impression is that this is going to be much closer to my worst impression of the show “edgy tryhard nonsense” than anything closer to what I want a legitimate magical girl anime to me. And a post by an acquiatance I reasonably trust on a forum I frequent basically seems to confirm that. 

“While Magical Girl Asuka’s manga starts with unrelenting derpy edge as its major crime, it rapidly spirals downhill from there. I was pretty shocked at how the lack of budget for graphic gore and time constraints of episodes ended up really improving the first episode of the anime over the manga, but the content still to be adapted is so so much worse than the manga’s start.The first 15 chapters of the manga feature, among other things, multiple heavily fetishized scenes of teenage (and probably at least one preteen) being tortured. At least one instance of this is the protagonists doing it (there are other times where the protagonists torture adults.)At least one group of major antagonists gets zero explanation or motivation in these chapters besides “Koreans and Chinese people that just hate Japan and want to murder Japanese people” (with a name quite similar to that of the Chinese resistance during Japan’s invasion in the 30s).The unrelentingly derpy levels of gore and edge in the manga are some of the least awful things about this series.”

So we have racism and incredibly poor writing to add to the edginess pile.

I freely admit to not having seen the show myself, but from reading the opinion of someone that quite liked the first two episodes, and somebody that read the manga and heavily disliked it, I’ve learned that it’s not only trying to be garbage MG anime shouldn’t be, but racist and poorly written besides.

Source for forum post here.  

Not planning to watching it in the reasonably future, or most likely ever. 

Also the ANN reviewer implied that the nonsense being talked about could ever have meant that this was being a “deconstruction” of MG anime because they have no idea what that would actually entail while being remotely respectful of the genre. So fuck ‘em. 

[gamersofdiversity]

Yuki Yuna Is a Hero: Great Mankai ChapterThird season of "Yuki Yuna Is a Hero"The magical girls of the Sanshu Middle School Hero Club have one goal: to make people smile whenever they can and to always help those in need. Through teamwork and the help of their magical powers, Yuna, Mimori, Fuu, Itsuki, Karin and Sonoko have vanquished deadly Vertexes, recovered a missing friend and balanced their lives as magical girls and regular middle school students. Now a new adventure begins, one that will test their skills and their bond as friends alike.[Source: Sentai Filmworks]

[kylepleasestop]

Sonoko, holding a cone of cotton candy twice her size: Everything in my life has led up to this moment.

[annychristine831]

Anime to Watch if You Love Shows with Unexpected Dark Turns

It is not strange for anime to suddenly take an unexpected turn. There are a number of shows that begin in a cute and non-threatening manner but become much darker later on as the story progresses. It is now becoming common to subvert the audience’s expectations to surprise the viewers with completely unanticipated twists and turns. Although there is no shortage of such anime, today we look at some of the shows that became notorious for their sudden dark turns and deceptive appearances. All of the shows listed below are great, but they are certainly not for the faint of heart.

Higurashi When They Cry

The protagonist of Higurashi When They Cry is a teenager named Maebara Keiichi, who lives an ordinary life in a rural village called Hinamizawa. Although most series on the list don’t give a prior warning before taking a dark turn, this series is unique since the viewers are warned in the first episode. The vicious baseball bat murder at the start of the episode points to the abnormalities of Keiichi’s life. For the rest of the episode, the protagonist, the protagonist is shown to be living a normal life as he adjusts to his new school and friends. But as the story progresses, Keiichi gets to know about the curse of Oyashiro-sama.

The curse of Oyashiro-sama is the reason for the murder of a person and another’s strange disappearance. The series finally takes a much darker turn when two girls try to kill Keiichi using a needle in his food. Strangely, someone else tries to run him down with a van on the same day. From this point, the series gets darker and darker as characters savagely murder each other as they lose their sanity.

School-Live!

The series School-live introduces viewers to the happy and preppy protagonist, Yuki Takeya, a school who lives an ordinary life. However, her ordinary and mundane life is an intelligent cover for the harrowing things that are about to happen. The protagonist lives in the school since she is part of the School Living Club. In the first episode, Yuki, along with her friend Miki, looks for her bag that she left behind in a classroom. The viewers are tricked into believing that they are just normal teenagers living an ordinary life. However, soon it is revealed that all is not well, and whatever impression the viewer might have had of Yuki’s life is wrong.

It is revealed that Yuki’s happy life is just her imagination as she has been deluded into believing that she lives in a normal world. But, in reality, her world is, in fact, a post-apocalyptic hellscape that is overrun by zombies. The School Living Club is just an invention of a group of girls worried about the effect that truth will have on Yuki’s fragile psyche. The show suddenly becomes a survival series as the girls struggle to survive in the hostile world of zombies while protecting Yuki from the truth.

The Promised Neverland

The series follows three orphans, Emma, Norman, and Ray, who live in Grace Field House. The orphanage seems like a great place to live for the children. They have a beautiful garden, delicious food and spend most of their time playing around the house. Isabella, the house mother, is an intelligent and caring human being who is always there for the children. In the first episode, the children get excited when they know that Conny is getting adopted. At the same time, they know that he won’t live with them anymore, but they are happy since he will have a family that loves him.

However, after Conny leaves, the children find out that he has forgotten to take his toys with him. When they run to give it to him, they find Conny’s dead body at the exit, and the dark truth about the orphanage is finally revealed. It turns out that most of the kids there are just being raised as meat for the monsters who will eventually devour them. Unfortunately, even Isabella is with these monsters, and the series then focuses on the children who try to escape after they get to know the dark truth of Grace Field House.

Yuki Yuna is a Hero

The Sanshu Middle School’s Hero Club is committed to helping the needy. The protagonist, Yuki, and his friends are part of this club as they contribute to the greater good of society. Their world is turned upside down when one day they receive a mysterious message before they get transported to a new magical world. They are then told that they have been selected by Shinju, who need their help to fight the evil monster named Vertex. They have to protect Shinju and thus the world from the dark forces. The powerless girls surprisingly get the ability to transform themselves into powerful heroes using their phones.

But the series takes a dark turn when the girls realize that they are facing several medical issues such as loss of hearing and sight. The Hero System’s dark reality is finally revealed when they meet a girl in the hospital who tells them their transformation into powerful heroines, which eventually leads to a decline in bodily function. So, the girls are just a sacrifice for Shinju. The girls then struggle with the truth as they learn to come to terms with their life.

Source: Anime to Watch if You Love Shows with Unexpected Dark Turns

[recentanimenews]

BANANA FISH, Zero The Enforcer Win Fans' Votes for Tokyo Anime Award Festival

Tokyo Anime Award Festival has announced the top 100 anime titles (90 TV series and ten feature films) chosen by fans' online votes from a total of 524 titles aired/released in Japan between October 15, 2017, and October 13, 2018. A total number of votes cast between November 17 and December 24 was 397,145, which was the highest record in the award's 16-year history.

  From this 100 titles, the Grand Prix winners of "Anime of The Year" will be chosen by industry experts (producers, creators, broadcasters, critics, staff members of animation shops, etc.), while the winner of "Anime Fan Award" will be decided by another online votes by fans, which is scheduled to begin on January 14, 2019. Check out Japanese fans' choices below. 

    Top 90 TV anime titles:

  1. "BANANA FISH"

©Akimi Yoshida, Shogakukan/Project BANANA FISH

    2. "A Place Further than the Universe"

3. "Cells at Work!"

4. "Laid-Back Camp"

5. "Zombie Land Saga"

6. "IDOLiSH7"

7. "SSSS.GRIDMAN"

8. "Land of the Lustrous"

9. "POP Team Epic"

10. "Violet Evergarden"

  11. "Bloom Into You"

12. "JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Golden Wind"

13. "Overlord II & III"

14. "Asobi Asobase"

15. "Umamusume: Pretty Derby"

16. "Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai"

17. "Goblin Slayer"

18. "Girls' Last Tour"

19. "Steins;Gate 0"

20. "Attack on Titan Season 3"

  21. "Dream Festival! R"

22. "Shoujo Kageki Revue Starlight"

23. "That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime"

24. "HINAMATSURI"

25. "Mr. Osomatsu Second Season"

26. "The Idolm@ster SideM"

27. "My Hero Academia Third Season"

28. "Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card"

29. "Golden Kamuy First & Second Season"

30. "Sword Art Online Alicization"

  31. "Lupin The Third Part 5"

32. "Zoku Touken Ranbu -Hanamaru-"

33. "Free!−Dive to the Future−"

34. "Kino's Journey -the Beautiful World- the Animated Series"

35. "Karakai Jozu no Takagi-san"

36. "Blood Blockade Battlefront & Beyond"

37. "Yowamushi Pedal GLORY LINE"

38. "Run with the Wind"

39. "Wotakoi: Love is Hard for Otaku"

40. "The Ancient Magus' Bride"

  41. "Detective Conan"

42. "DAKAICHI -I'm being harassed by the sexiest man of the year-"

43. "Fate/Apocrypha"

44. "Hozuki's Coolheadedness 2"

45. "Planet With"

46. "Hi Score Girl"

47. "Gintama. Shirogane no Tamashii-hen"

48. "Sword Art Online Alternative Gun Gale Online"

49. "Hugtto! PreCure"

50. "DARLING in the FRANXX"

  51. "Yuki Yuna is a Hero: Washio Sumi Chapter/hero Chapter"

52. "Skull-face Bookseller Honda-san"

53. "Love Live! Sunshine!! Second Season"

54. "Working Buddies!"

55. "Hakumei and Mikochi"

56. "The Disastrous Life of Saiki K. Second Season"

57. "Encouragement of Climb Third Season"

58. "Magical Circle Guru Guru"

59. "A Certain Magical Index III"

60. "The Ryuo's Work is Never Done!"

  61. "Mitsuboshi Colors"

62. "Katana Maidens ~ Toji No Miko"

63. "Comic Girls"

64. "March comes in like a lion. Second Season"

65. "Iroduku: The World in Colors"

66. "Idol Time Pripara"

67. "Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinlkalion The Animation"

68. "Ms. Vampire who lives in my neighborhood."

69. "The Idolm@ster Cinderella Girls Theater Second & Third Season"

70. "UzaMaid!"

  71. "Mr. Tonegawa: Middle Management Blues"

72. "Angel of Death"

73. "Welcome to the Ballroom"

74. "DYNAMIC CHORD"

75. "The Idolm@ster SideM SideM Wakeatte Mini!"

76. "Tada Never Falls in Love"

77. "School Babysitters"

78. "GRAND BLUE"

79. "Happy Sugar Life"

80. "Slow Start"

  81. "PERSONA5 the Animation"

82. "Magical Girl Ore"

83. "Legend of the Galactic Heroes Die Neue These 'Kaikou'"

84. "How Not to Summon a Demon Lord"

85. "Konohana Kitan"

86. "citrus"

87. "Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens"

88. "Gintama. Porori-hen"

89. "Gundam Build Divers"

90. "Aikatsu Friends!"

    Top 10 anime films:

  1. "Detective Conan Zero the Enforcer"

(C)2018 GOSHO AOYAMA/DETECTIVE CONAN COMMITTEE All Rights Reserved 

2. "Girls und Panzer das Finale: Episode 1" 

3. "Natsume's Book of Friends the Movie: Tied to the Temporal World"

4. "Liz and the Blue Bird"

5. "Is the Order a Rabbit?? ~Dear My Sister~"

6. "My Hero Academia: Two Heroes"

7. "Non Non Biyori Vacation"

8. "Bungo Stray Dog Dead Apple"

9. "Waka Okami wa Shogakusei!"

10. "Pokémon the Movie: The Power of Us"

  Source: Tokyo Anime Award Festival 

  By: news+feed@crunchyroll.com

[vanilla-blessing]

Anime Mobile Game Reviews - Yuki Yuna is a Hero: Flower Braid's Sparkle

For some of the 12 Days of Anime Christmas feature on Vanilla♡Blessing, I’ve taken it upon myself to review the magical girl mobile games I wasted actual real hours of my human life playing using a GameFAQs scoring system. - qb

Yuki Yuna wa Yusha de Aru: Han Yui no Kirameki (Yuki Yuna is a Hero: Flower Braid's Sparkle) is a Japanese mobile game released on iOS and Android to promote the new season of Yuki Yuna, a magical girl anime where the girls have severe disabilities and cry a lot. The eponymous heroes fight monsters called the Vertex to protect the great God Tree and Togo is the one with a worryingly nationalist streak and Yuna is the pink one that punches and they’re girlfriends maybe. It’s basically Glitter Force (PreCure) with more crying and depression.

[Yuki Yuna Muscle Wizard art from the mobile game]

“The mobile game takes place inside the godtree, where the Yuushas are tasked with suppressing the rebelling heavenly gods that are inside the godtree (trapped, I guess?) so they don't break out because if they do the godtree will collapse from lack of divine power and take what's left of the human reality with it. Since they're inside the godtree's world, time is meaningless hence why there's yuushas from all eras.” (source)

This is apparently the backstory but I didn't get any of this while playing it because I can't read Japanese. I think they went to the beach once. The story scenes were mandatory and very long and used the Live-2D arm-wavy and mouth flapping tech that actually looks surprisingly fine for how non-intensive it is. It’s pretty much Yuki Yuna Allstars with multiple copies of characters, although it’s slightly confusing that some of the girls are able to walk in cutscenes when their sprites need mechanical assistance. There’s an absolutely massive amount of motion comic story there, with more on the way, but it seems to be mostly pointless fanservice. It also seems to take place after the events of the unaired second season, which further cements its intended audience as the very hardcore fans.

Lore - 6/10

The gameplay can be described as a line-based defense, where you order teams of auto-attacking magical girls to block waves of enemies that flood in from the left side of the screen, and prevent them from reaching the right side of the screen, sometimes ending on a larger enemy as a boss. Through defeating enemies, you can build up meter to spend on special AOE attacks that you slide to activate, typically clearing many enemies at once. Each stage has three missions that can be cleared for additional rewards, and usually require finishing under a strict time limit instead of the normal one, or finishing a stage without having any magical girls knocked out. Like most of these games, Yuki Yuna has a support system where you can hire another player’s magical girl to round out your team.

[Eventually, most of your teams will end up looking like this.]

Unfortunately, due to a combination of design quirks, the higher difficulty stages have time limits that are stricter than the spawn rate of the enemies, making them literally impossible without abuse of the Critical system. In Yuki Yuna, Criticals happen randomly based on your heroes’ CRIT attribute, and in addition to bonus damage, they add two seconds to your decreasing timer for each hit. This means that many of the game’s systems for rock-paper-scissors elemental affinity, or ranged vs melee, or even higher rarity heroes, take a backseat to cramming as many critical hits into your team as humanly possible in order to survive the time limit, rather than the monsters, who you actually want to stay alive for longer. Since only one magical girl in the entire game has a fast attack speed, ranged projectiles, and a good CRIT stat, your team eventually ends up being 3 copies of her. I don’t even know what her name is. Regardless, the gameplay is honestly pretty fun, and can get to blisteringly fast speeds which cuts down significantly on grinding time.

Mechanics - 8/10

Yuki Yuna was very generous with energy, stocking me up with endless energy refreshing items that I never came close to running out of since level up bonuses stacked, resulting in full refills that went well over the maximum amount, even into later levels. I probably could never get through all of the free energy the game throws at you unless I was playing 24 hours a day. The difficulty system of the game was interesting, but was ultimately made difficult by strange design quirks more than higher monster stats, and was sometimes frustrating to play around. Daily Quests were a choke point, with limited time windows in which to complete them on top of separate, limited resources for entry. These extremely limited quests were also the only consistent source of upgrade materials. Leveling materials (always bags of udon) were plentiful, but the upper limit on the highest rarity heroes seemed to go on forever and require infinite amounts of udon. I only saw a couple players that were willing to attempt to grind the tedious and impractical process of maxing out the levels, and I never saw anyone actually get to max level in my entire time with the game. However, the early stages were quick and I never felt like I had to wait to do anything.

Progression - 7/10

[I think these quests were asking me to complete unreleased content, I never figured it out]

Earning new heroes is done through a gacha system that was very generous at the start of the game’s life, with multiple concurrent login bonuses and plenty of one-time premium currency rewards. I was also able, as a free player, to get all the highest rarity cards I wanted with almost no effort. Considering how terrible the game’s paid rates were, it never felt like I was even expected to spend real money. As the game went on, the persistent quests become increasingly impossible and inscrutable, and a majority of the possible progress I could make towards pulling new magical girls ended up coming down to the login bonus rather than anything I could earn through gameplay. However, I never felt any pressure whatsoever to go beyond free-to-play.

Microtransactions - 9/10

By the law of GameFAQs’ perfect review system, Yuki Yuna wa Yusha de Aru: Han Yui no Kirameki (Yuki Yuna is a Hero: Flower Braid's Sparkle) gets a 40/50. It was an odd, fast-paced action game that had some good aspects, but eventually got bogged down in weird design mechanics and I fell off it after it became nearly impossible to progress. Overall though, I had fun, and it was completely free. The other mobile games i’m planning to review were not nearly as nice. 

- qb magical girl correspondent

[ninapedia]

@thisgirllovesherfandoms thisgirllovesherfandoms reblogged your post:honestly one of my favourite under utilized things...

#HOLY SHIT WHAT ANIME IS THAT LAST ONE#WHAT ANIME IS THIS#SICK AS FUCK

Your professional magical girl enthusiast reminding you to check the source blog.

It’s called Yuki Yuna is a Hero and it’s free to stream on Crunchyroll and on Netflix.

Enjoy!

[dlamp-dictator]

Allen’s Rambling XXVII: When the Movie was Better than the Book (Magical Girl Raising Project)

I’m shocked that I marathoned Magical Girl Raising Project in just three days. When I made my Anime Update saying I’d re-watch the series I thought it’d at least take a week or longer. Rewatching Vivid Strike took me two weeks I believe, so the fact that I rewatched this series this quickly just… shocks me. But hey, that’s a testament to how much I liked it ,I suppose.

But I digress…

Anyway… Magical Girl Raising Project, or MagiPro as I’m going to be calling it from this point on because Christ, these light novels and their overly long titles. I watched the anime when it was airing in the fall, and later bought and read the first volume of light novel of this series. The anime just had me that curious about the world of MagiPro after I finished it, curious enough to buy the source material, something that no light novel-based anime has done for me. Hell, few manga-based anime get me to do this, but these series hits a lot of my personal interests, being a darker take on the Magical Girl genre and all.

Believe it or not, I’m actually a huge fan of Magical Girl anime. Magical Girls was what got me into anime in the first place in fact. I got up early every morning to watch Sailor Moon before school when I was a little kid, I first got into Crunchyroll thanks to Shugo Chara, and one of the first anime I watched from start to finish was the Japanese version of Magical Doremi back when I didn’t understand the whole fansubs issue, three seasons of it (what can I say, those theme songs were catchy). I don’t know… maybe it was because I was mostly around women and had a rather shy and feminine personally when I was a kid, but I loved a lot of shows that screamed “girl power”. Much like La Pucelle, I’m quite the fan of these anime and manga despite being a boy (and 23-year-old one at that). However, as of recent years I’ve found myself watching more and more dark takes on the Magical Girl genre throughout the years. Madoka Magica was the start for me, really dissecting the genre and ripping it a new one, and since then I’ve just been captivated by similar shows. Yuki Yuna is a Hero, Day Break Illusion, I even bought a DVD of Revolutionary Girl Utena since I heard this is a sort of darker magical show by 90s standards.

Ah, but I’m getting off topic. Like I said, I just finished watching then anime, and I’ve read original light novel. After experiencing both versions I have to say I think the anime of MagiPro surpasses the book in terms of entertainment. How so exactly? Well, the short version is the show took advantage of being animation and made a lot of interaction more interesting to watch rather than read, but there are a few more reasons.

But before I get to that…

Making Amends

Much like when I talked about Persona 5, I realize I made some harsh judgements about MagiPro a little too quickly when I first finished it. Upon second viewing and reading the light novel I’d like to take a few things I said about this show back.

I originally said that Snow White was an underused character that was trying to be an innocent Madoka-esque victim despite never even attempting to solve the issue of being in a killing game, but I think I only thought that because I was watching the show at a weekly rate. Upon a second watch, I can say for certain that Snow White definitely earns her main character spot. The point of her character is to show that being nonviolent and wanting to do the right thing without shedding blood is how a magical girl is supposed to behave. Where everyone else is forming alliances, and trying to ensure their own safety, Snow White is trying to save and help everyone around without care for what benefit she gets from it. She’s the paragon of this story, like Superman and Batman, except a cute girl instead a young man (an improvement already in my opinion). Huh… actually, she basically goes from being a Superman-style Paragon of Magical Girls to Batman-style Vigilante by the time you start reading the books… interesting.

Another thing I said was that I felt Ripple took a lot of screen time away from Snow White. Again, while marathoning this series I feel the opposite. We see a bit more Snow White than Ripple, it’s just that Ripple was more in the action that Snow White was with her match with Calamity Mary and Swim Swim. Actually, the book give her more screen time than the anime if anything.

And lastly, I take back what I said about the ending being shallow. It wasn’t shallow, but I feel they didn’t need to introduce the idea of the Land of Magic being an omnipotent presence felt a little bit like sequel-baiting by adding that bit last minute, but… I’ll say no more on that.

Okay, amends made, now then, the real reason you’re all reading this.

What the Anime Did Better

Backstories

The book didn’t really give every character a solid backstory, not to my memory anyway. You knew a bit about Snow White, Ripple, Ruler, and Cranberry’s background, but little else. The anime decided to give every character a decent solid backstory that explained their motivations and how they became magical girls, something I appreciate even if seeing said backstory it was a death flag. I understand the book couldn’t really break everyone down since it was focusing one just a handful of characters, but I’m glad the anime took advantage of this by giving everyone at least a few minutes of flashback to explain themselves.

Fight Scenes

I’m so glad these fight scenes looked as good as they did in anime. Hand-to-hand combat can only be done justice in animated or comic form, because trying to have that same energy in books is… difficult to say the least. Just something about seeing the action makes it more engaging. Ripple vs. Swim Swim and Alice vs. Calamity Mary were my favorites, and Ripple throwing Calamity Mary with a hurricanrana was just… yes. Speaking of fight scenes, I’m glad Cranberry vs. La Pucelle got animated as well. It’d really suck if we didn’t get context for the aftermath of that fight. The book cutting out that fact felt a little… cheap to me, and I’m glad the anime gave La Pucelle a bit more development.

The Overall Look

I talked about this in the Update before, but the character designs of the magical girls just look a lot better in the anime compared to the book. It’s just easier to keep track of everyone given how big the cast is. Most of the descriptions given in the book really didn’t do the designs justice as compared to the anime in my opinion as well. To the point where an artist did redesigns based on how the characters were described in the book (very good redesigns in my opinion, but my point stands). Also, I love how some of the details were worked in, like Nemurin’s clouds emoting, or seeing Top Speed’s broom transform into a motorbike-broom hybrid, stuff like that.

A Few Other Things

The entire Musica Magica album. It was just cool to listen to. Betrayal and Destruction are my favorites. It’s not an anime-specific thing, but it was a product of the anime, so…

Again, Ripple doing a hurricanrana was just… perfection.

Cranberry was a more believable villain in anime, as opposed to a mysterious and powerful figure in the background since we saw more of her and her actions and her actively trying to kill other magical girls.

Alice was a much creepier character in her intro in the anime compared to the book. The animation team really played with her zombie-esque appearance.

How the anime weaved in scenes in Episodes was just perfect. It really helped set up a lot of things, especially Swim Swim’s betrayal. You’d have a completely difficult opinion of Swim Swim if you didn’t understand what made her want to betray Ruler in the first place.

What the Book Did Better

This one’s going to be a bit shorter since I really have a hard time thinking of where the book was better outside of continuing. That’s not to say the book is bad, and the series gets exponentially be in later volumes, but… y’know.

The book was a bit better at establishing Ripple as a main/central character, and helped us understand how the world of MagiPro worked with her intro.

World-building was done a bit better, or at least I didn’t have many questions by the time I finished the epilogue as compared to the anime.

The book series is still ongoing, where the anime isn’t likely to get a season 2.

Powers and items are explained a little better in the book, especially characters like Calamity Mary and Snow White, who’s powers a bit vague.

I think that’s about it in terms of nitpicks and my overall feelings. Like I said, I still like the book, and I’ll be reading it more as the series continues, but if a season 2 happens and we get to see Restart animated I will watch that in a heartbeat. A Gundam fights a giant Kaiju in Restart, what’s not to love? Anyway, that’ll be it for me. I’m going back to story writing now.

[gam3rpunk]

Yuki Yuna is a Hero Franchise Launches New Spinoff Novel

Yuki Yuna is a Hero Franchise Launches New Spinoff Novel

“Kusanoki Mebuki is a Hero” novels star new team of heroes …read more

Source:: Yuki Yuna is a Hero Franchise Launches New Spinoff Novel