I have to admit, I’m a fan of magical girl shows. While I hadn’t watched Yuki Yuuna when it first came out, it eventually came on my radar. Besides not having much to watch this season, there is a port of the mobile game coming on the PlayStation 4 and Nintendo Switch. Since I heard some good things about this show. With that, I decided to check it out.
Synopsis
Yuki Yuna is an ordinary middle school student. She is in the Hero Club with her best friends, Togo Mimori, Inubozaki Fu and Itsuki. They help out people and do good deeds. However, someday, their smartphones show a “Forestize Warning” on their screen, and they are sent to a strange world in a forest not found on Earth. That is where they see a Vertex approaching the Shinju, a spiritual tree.
Granted by the Taisha, the organization that gives girls powers to transform into “heroes” and fend off the Vertexes. The girls eventually tap into their heroes’ powers to defeat the vertexes. They ultimately meet Miyoshi Karin, a stubborn and uptight tsundere personality girl who trained for most of her life for the moment to help the Taisha defeat the vertexes. She transferred to Yuna’s school to help them out.
However, the girls eventually face a horde of seven vertexes at once. The girls tap on their secret ability, the mankai, which boosts their power. With Yuna, Mimori, Fu, and Itsuki using the mankai, they can defeat all seven vertexes with Karin’s help. However, they have unexplainable disabilities while Karin is still healthy. The girls receive a lavish vacation and dinner, but Mimori, back in her mind, seems concerned about those disabilities. She doesn’t know if they are permanent or not.
Fu eventually finds out that they aren’t done defeating vortexes. When they finished defeating the “last” vertex, Yuna and Mimori were transported elsewhere. She meets a former hero, Nogi Sonoko, who is heavily bandaged and can’t use most of her body. She reveals that heroes become a sacrifice to the Shinju. While heroes live forever, using their mankai eventually results in a sange, which means a part of their body gets offered to the Shinju. As a result, Yuna and her friends cope as they can end up like Sonoko.
Thoughts
I must admit, Yuki Yuna wa Yuusha de Aru is an interesting magical girl warrior show. On the surface, it’s like a schoolgirl slice-of-life show with funny moments. Moments such as the mishap with the puppet show, thanks to Fu and Yuna getting too into it.
Also, Karin is being a tsundere. I find her character enjoyable as she boasts about her fighting abilities. She also chastises the members of the Hero Club while bragging about her fighting abilities, although Yuna acts friendly to her.
Sure, Karin’s vitamin regimen and overdosing on vitamins are funny and all, but what I like is her character development. After Yuna and her friends celebrate her birthday for the first time, she starts to warm up with the group. However, she starts to wonder what to do after all the vertexes are defeated. as she spends her life training to defeat vertexes for the Taisha.
Karin finally redeems herself in the 11th episode. That is when Yuna feels helpless in stopping her best friend, who is on a rampage and thinking she is a failure of a friend. However, Karin finally starts her redemption arc as Karin is willing to help Yuna stop Mimori’s rampage. With that, she fights for the Hero Club instead of the Taisha. She uses Mankai 4 times to defeat all the vertexes.
Eventually, after defeating all the vertexes, Yuna finds her, and Karin cannot see or hear. While that scene was very emotional, she is thankful that Yuna and her friends treated her well and made her realize that she is not just a tool. It shows that she redeemed herself after denouncing her allegiance to the Taisha.
Of course, Mimori is an interesting character. I feel that Mimori is a good representation of people who are disabled, as she can achieve a lot despite not having control of her legs. She is very knowledgeable about computers as she manages the Hero’s Club website and knows Japanese history. She is also good at making sweets.
While Mimori feels that she can’t fight as a hero since she has a disability from a car crash, it becomes apparent that she can. I think this empowers young girls who are disabled to still achieve things and live normal lives.
As expected, there is a lot of lore with Mimori. While she is very close to Yuna as she is the one that is friendly to and developed a deep relationship with. Yes, there is that moment when Yuna and Mimori hold hands as they head back to Earth after defeating a vertex in outer space. There are more moments, some pertaining to the plot.
As expected, this show is actually a magical girl deconstruction, which is surprising. Heroes are just another name for magical girls. With that, the drama starts kicking in in the second half, when Yuna and her friends, except Karin, had some type of disability after using the Mankai ability. A lovely beach episode left this in the background, but it hits hard when Sonoko reveals the truth.
While Yuki Yuna has some similarities with the concept of magical girls compared to Madoka Magica. Things like girls becoming immortal in exchange for powers and a duty to defeat the evil creatures that can threaten the world the motives of the organizations that grant the powers are different. In this case, the Taisha selects girls with a particular affinity to become heroes and defeat the vertexes. The girls’ ability to use the Mankai so that when the girls offered their whole body, they could go on to the next hero and so on. After all, the Taisha intended to select young girls to become heroes as offerings to the Shinju.
Of course, when Mimori and Yuna discover the disabilities are permanent after using Mankai, the drama settles in. This is especially the case with Fu, as she has to deal with a future that Itsuki might never get her voice back. That hurts more after Itsuki finally gained the courage to sing and had a lovely singing voice.
When Fu received a phone call from Itsuki that she had passed an idol audition, Fu couldn’t control her emotions as guilt settled in letting Itsuki join the club. She was about to take down the Taisha for taking Itsuki’s ability to use her voice. Thankfully, Yuna was able to calm her down along with Itsuki. I think the 9thepisode was the darkest and most emotional, besides Mimori’s failed suicide attempt as the fairies came and prevented her from committing suicide.
Still, this illustrates the difficulties of coping with becoming disabled. It can happen to anyone at any time. There have been strides to help disabled people have rights, such as laws prohibiting discrimination against disabled people while requiring reasonable accommodations to improve accessibility so they can do activities that ordinary people can. The girls eventually overcome this reality and finally rebel against the system the Taisha built.
The Taisha is a very questionable organization as Mimori finds more about them and the vertexes. After crossing the wall, she discovers the cold truth, hiding the Divine Tree’s illusion. Yes, vertexes reproduce themselves, which is what the Taisha wanted. That means Taisha can recruit more unsuspecting girls to become heroes and start the cycle again. The parents hide the truth so their daughters can get selected to fight this helpless battle.
This is what makes Mimori’s past interesting. Her true identity is Washio Sumi, but she forgot this identity after using her Mankai. This can explain why she is in a wheelchair. Since she lost 2 years of her memories, the Taisha covered it up by giving her a new name, and Mimori is paralyzed from the waist down as a result of being in a car crash.
Still, I sympathize with Mimori in wanting to destroy the Shinju. She doesn’t wish Yuna to suffer anymore from the possibility of having to use the Mankai ability and gain more disabilities. This seems extreme, but the girls eventually got to her and stopped the giant vertex she created. That was enough to change the Hero system so the girls wouldn’t become disabled after using the Mankai and having their parts sacrificed to the Shinju.
While it took a while for Yuna to recover, seeing the girls back before they started fighting the vertex was nice. That means, is this the end? Do the girls have a happy ending and never have to deal with vertexes again? Of course not, since there is another season besides the prequel movies.
Overall, the show has good music and the scenes where the girls as heroes fight against the vertexes look good. I think it’s worth checking out the first season, as many interesting things are going for it. However, be warned, the episodes get dark, and you might need a box of tissues. Still, it’s worth it for the Yuna and Mimori/Sumi and Karin and Fu pairing.
Best Moepocalypse ever. I could go on a long tangent as to why I love this series so much but I already made a review on it and Season 2. I need to remake the Season 3 Quickie because it’s accidentally deleted. Short version I loved it too.
YunaTogo 4 Life! Fu is a cool leader and I ship her with the deceptively sexy Karin. Itsuki is precious.
Agreed, and there are the games (a port of the mobile game) that are coming out as well and I have the Vita game, there is a lot more content in the franchise.
But yes, the pairings are nice, and can’t wait to see more when I get around to watching the second season, eventually.