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joshhhhhhhhhhhhhhh · 6 years

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I watched Washio Sumi and Hero Chapter, so letsago.

Washio Sumi

Washio Sumi wasn’t very good. Serving as a prequel to the series, I expected it to do more worldbuilding so I had greater context for the events of the anime, make me understand the Shinjyu and the current state of Japan and some other stuff because Yuki Yuna didn’t really answer those questions very well for me.

Instead, the series is mostly just a backstory for Washio Sumi herself, AKA Togo. And nothing we actually learn in this series, we didn’t already learn from the anime except for one entire character whom I’ll get to later.

Effectively though, this makes this entire prequel kinda superfluous. We see Togo’s backstory in greater depth and have a better understanding of Sonoko as well, but it’s nothing that really enhances our appreciation for the original anime.

The biggest addition is in the form of the new character – Gin. Gin’s pretty much a carbon copy of Yuna who was in and of herself a trope, though Gin has siblings and like sports and a place called Ine which is the only real distinction between her and Yuna. She’s just a good hero who wants to help people and pushes herself for her friends. From the moment she’s introduced it’s excruciatingly painful how obvious it is that she’ll die. And die she does, in one of the least emotional death scenes I’ve ever witnessed. Also her corpse is standing up for no reason? That was weird. The best thing about her is unquestionably that she’s voiced by Hanamori Yumiri, who voices Nadeshiko Kagamihara from Yuru Camp, woohoo!

One scene in episode 4 stands out to me, where our 3 girls are standing together and talking about how well they know one another. They joke about writing instruction manuals of one another, and basically flat out tell us “there’s so much I could say about you”. Now, I don’t know about you, but to me that sounds like the writers trying to pat themselves on the back and basically tell us that their characters are deep, developed, and have personalities. I find it all quite funny because no not really.

It’s got many of the same problems as the original anime does with weird mixes of slice of life and the action packed magical girl stuff, though I do think both aspects were actually done slightly better than in Yuki Yuna. Since there’s less slice of life the pacing isn’t nearly as bad, and while it’s still an uninteresting distraction, it’s generally more tolerable than those of Yuki Yuna.

The weird scene where they sing their patriotic song to the kids and dance as well is really odd though. The singer’s voice is good though so it’s not too bad (it’s almost as if the song is sung by Washio herself who is voiced by none other than Umi Sonoda’s seiyuu, Suzuko Mimori!)

That’s another weird thing about this show, and the problem is mostly because of the garbage worldbuilding. See, every single regular citizen of Japan is at least somewhat patriotic/religious and worships the Shinjyu and respects the Heroes for their work. Washio in particular has this trait of being extremely patriotic and passionate about her nation and its history. However, we as an audience know, and the characters know it too, that even with the Shinjyu’s attempts to make shit a little better, the Hero system is still kinda cruel and unfair and stuff. I don’t know what the narrative wants me to think of everyone’s patriotism and religion, because it seems to be sending me conflicting messages. (Perhaps this is a conclusion I’m supposed to decide for myself though which would actually be good storytelling so take this paragraph with a grain of salt)

By the way Washio’s extreme patriotism is put into question when she’s flustered about wearing a kimono. You’d think she’d love it based on everything else about her character but no.

Speaking of plotholes (that wasn’t really a plothole) it’s established in episode 1 of this series that photos can’t be taken in the weird tree world and if you try you’ll just get a photo of the equivalent real world location. However, within 2 minutes of episode 2, the teacher literally has a video recording of the girls fighting in the tree world? How the fuck do you explain that one @ Yuki Yuna loremasters?

One last nitpick – the episodes open up with Washio just saying some shit which is whatever, but certain words are blanked out and it’s more irritating and unnecessary than anything else.

Animation, art, soundtrack and voice quality are a little better than Yuki Yuna. Doesn’t look too different but you can tell that it’s higher budget. Props to them for one specific detail though – when Sonoko goes blind in one eye, the eye actually looks blind! They didn’t do that with Fu so this is a nice improvement.

All in all, Washio Sumi Chapter was kinda superfluous and watching it won’t really enhance your understanding and appreciation for the anime, but I suppose if you liked Yuki Yuna then you’ve got nothing to lose by watching this.

Hero Chapter

Man what the fuck do I even say about Hero Chapter

It was just one of the most confusing, convoluted and nonsensical stories I’ve seen in quite a long time. Virtually everything that happened just happened for the sake of happening.

The plot is, to my understanding: Togo decides to sacrifice herself as a punishment for being a dick so everyone forgets about her, but they all remember her and resolve the conflict in the first 2 episodes. However, Yuna then becomes the sacrifice and is cursed to die, and also she gives everyone terrible luck if she talks about the curse, and by terrible I mean getting-hit-by-a-car terrible. Nothing can be done about Yuna’s curse. Also, Shinjyu’s gonna die and then the world will end, but if Yuna marries Shinjyu then humanity will ascend and live with Shinjyu but Yuna will die and it doesn’t make any fucking sense. Yuna tries to go through with it but everyone disagrees and they save Yuna and kill Shinjyu and I think the Christian God? And then everyone’s okay but apparently we’ve got limited resources now. The end.

While I think that’s definitely a bad summary, it’s genuinely about as good as watching Hero Chapter for yourself, because I cannot stress just how much of a clusterfuck it is. My description there makes as much sense and tells you as much of the plot as the actual show does. In fact, it might even be less confusing. I really didn’t know what was going on at any point and by the time the credits started rolling I was just numb.

Animation’s better and it’s obvious that the guys working on the backgrounds got a massive increase in their budget because the backgrounds finally look pretty okay rather than pretty bad. Soundtrack’s fine. Et cetera.

I guess the one other positive is that Yuki Yuna herself feels a bit more developed and realised in Hero Chapter than before. She’s still probably not my favourite of the cast but Hero Chapter just helps to make her that bit less generic and uninteresting. So props to that.

Yuki Yuna is a Hero: Hero Chapter was a waste of my time and the plot doesn’t make sense and maybe my IQ just isn’t high enough to understand what was going on. I’d say more but just watching Hero Chapter has taken so much out of me that I can’t be bothered.

#yuki yuna #yuru camp #love live #25.7.18 #josh reviews

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