Customer Reviews

Utawarerumono: Complete Box Set

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First of all, let me say that no aspect of this series is outstanding. Rather than being brilliant at one thing, it's more of a good all-round series. It's a solid series; one that fans of war stories set in the ancient past will get into from the get-go. And, despite the main character having his own harem, it's safe to say the series can be enjoyed even by those who dislike harem series.

The story starts with a man getting found injured in the forest near a small farming village. He has a mask, no memories and doesn't have a clue who he is or what he was doing in the forest. He quickly becomes friends with Eluluu, the young healer who found him, and her little sister, Aruruu. He gets given the name Hakuro by the village chief - the name of Eluluu and Aruruu's father.

At first all is well but the situation quickly turns ugly. Hakuro has to come up with a tactic to save the villagers from being eaten alive by the angry 'God' of the forest. He does so, and earns the respect of the entire village. Then the local feudal lord pays a visit to the town in order to collect taxes. One of the guards kills the village chief, resulting in Hakuro being named chief, and he helps the angered villagers lead a rebellion against the feudal lord. Hakuro kills him, which leads to the Emperor getting involved in an attempt to avenge his brother.

From there, the series takes a path fans of the Suikoden video game series will be familiar with: armies fight, new, super strong allies join and, bit by bit, Hakuro's army grows in power. Soon a mere rebellion transforms into a war between nations, with war after war following Hakuro as he rises to power, as if caused by him. As he continues to become more powerful, staining his hands with more and more blood, the questions of who he is and if what he's doing is right become increasingly troubling.

Where the story falls short, after an involving opening and enjoyable middle, is the ending. Prior to the last section of the story, it had been fast-paced bows and arrows warfare. Aside from a few winged magic users, there'd been nothing to suggest the ending would be quite so ridiculous. All of a sudden robots come into the picture, with one nation destroying all others with these machines, and Hakuro's true identity is revealed during the mecha action. In an attempt not to spoil the story, I'll just say that Gods, evolution, space stations, hi-tech science labs, blob monsters, reincarnation, a Godzilla style final battle and all of the usual anime ending stuff you can think of comes into play. I'm not quite sure how to describe it, actually... It's best just to say it ends in a horrible manner and leave it at that. It's a shame because if the series had ended like it started, without all of the seemingly random rubbish, it could've been a top anime.

The ending aside, my other story issue lies with the battle tactics. Hakuro's tactics usually come down to him telling people to go left or right and him letting his elite soldiers slaughter the enemy soldiers. With the main character playing the role of tactician and the story being about him quickly rising to power, I expected in-depth, jaw dropping battle strategies. Maybe I was expecting too much? I don't know, but it's fair to say the battles could've been more complex.

While on the subject of battles, if you've played any of the Dynasty Warrior games you'll have a good idea how the combat goes in Utaware. The generals are all powerful, killing the grunts with one blow, and the proper, more intense combat involves one on one battles between opposing generals. But the combat isn't very exciting, with some animation recycling occurring and the important fights just simply failing to get my blood pumping. It's a shame because some dodgy, out of place CG aside, Utaware is lovely to look at. The art is appealing, the colours vibrant and, as far as I'm aware, the backgrounds were all drawn by hand, giving them extra charm.

To end my story comments on a positive note, I'll end by saying that, if nothing else, the Utaware story is an entertaining one to sit through. The story is always on the move, with there rarely being episodes not focused on the on-going struggles of Hakuro, and it flows excellently from episode to episode. Another story positive is lack of perverted content. I may be little off when I say this but I think the game the anime was based on was an erotic one, involving Hakuro picking one of the female characters to be his girl. While there are elements of this in the plot, in the anime it comes across more like a straight-forward romance that develops in a logical way as the series progresses. The only scene that comes close to crossing the line is one where Karula - a warrior with a HUGE sword and big boobs - offers herself to Hakuro in exchange for his help and almost gets accepted. Overall, the series was highly enjoyable and surprisingly tasteful.

In terms of the huge cast of characters, Utaware is a little hit and miss. The cast are more likeable than well developed. The main cast members all stand-out, with most of their names and personalities sticking in my mind straight away, but not many get fleshed out. You learn their quirks and that's it for the most part. Hakuro gets the most time, as you'd expect with him being the main character, but you never see a lot of his past, and what's shown isn't very clear. Eluluu, the female lead, is cute and likeable enough and her interaction with Hakuro and her little sister, Aruruu, adds depth to her character but she very rarely came across like a real person. Aside from those two, only Oboro and Karula get decent development. Oboro fights whilst constantly worrying about his blind and bedridden little sister (some early episodes focus on this subplot) and Karula has her own little story relating to her past. In short, the cast have a lot of likability but fairly limited development, with a lot of the blame for this laying with the series length.

As for the music, Utaware has a solid soundtrack. There are some memorable tracks and lots of fitting music that, while unlikely to be listened to outside of the anime, improves the viewing experience. The opening and ending themes are very good, the opening in particular sticking in my mind.

All in all, Utaware surpassed my expectations but still ended up disappointing me because of how it ended. Until the final volume I was prepared to score it in the 9-10/10 tier, but it'll have to make do with a solid 8/10 instead. I respect the series for not being perverted despite it being based on an erotic game and having a large cast of attractive females. At worst, you could say it panders to the moe market a little, but there's nothing included that made me think the series was aimed more at perverts than people looking for a good story. I recommend anyone looking for some primitive, bows and arrows war look the series up.

Rating: 8/10

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There's one last, non-vital thing I'd like to touch upon: the DVD extras.

Included on the Utaware DVDs is a four part omake series. These short episodes focus on light-hearted fun - very different from the usually serious main story, and I rated the omake series 9/10; one point higher than the main series. Why the rating, you ask? Because the omakes are hilarious. I'm not the sort of guy who roles around laughing, but even I laughed during the third episode when, after Oboro had broke her doll, Touka went insane, beating the crap out of Oboro and making some of the most weird and amusing screams I've ever heard. I loved how Hakuro left the room after seeing Touka's bloody hand and crazy expression, leaving Oboro to his fate (once again!).

Do yourself a favour and watch the Utaware extras. You won't regret it.

This anime series is first rate. The animation is flawless and maintains a steady pace throughout. The storyline is top notch as well. The series concerns a man who has been found badly injuried and without any memory of his past or how he got to the village he is found near. He is taken in by a family who gives him a name and is considered a brother. There are several wars as he helps the people of the village and other villages obtain their freedom from a tyrannical emperor.

The music soundtrack is also first rate. Even though the opening and ending songs are sung in Japanese, the beat makes you want to tap your feet.

I have many different anime series in my collection and I plan to add this one to my growing list.

I would not recommend this series for children under age 14 due to the extreme violence of the battle action. But adults should enjoy the series due to the constant surprises in each and every part.

This story is enthralling! The characters grow and relationships blossom, pulling in viewers who love stories about believable characters(the writers make the character's quite lovable!).
It is easy to see how this story could have formed from a game, with the main character's having to survive one assault after another; the plot never stops moving. When the tale starts to swing too violent or to sappy for too long, it starts to move back the other way. So in spots that get too predictably sappy; then you know the plot's about to twist.
A viewer can enjoy this continual struggle for survival while watching the army battles and the personal duals! The story stays true to war and some of your favorite characters die, but the action rarely stops to even grieve.
But the story goes way beyond a simple battle with it's surprisingly beautiful and rich depth contained in the main characters. If you like action, or soft touching drama, this anime is it! Oh, and it's got fox tails, feathered wings and such are here too...

As my title states, the story in this anime kinda gets a little strange at the end but, overall, the anime is very entertaining and is not so bad. I enjoyed it, although it definitely could have been better.

This is a great anime and a must have. If your into great story lines and some comedy this is the perfect anime. It is one you can watch over and over.

Utawarerumono is an amazing series about a mystery man with amnesia (he is given the name Hakuro), who rises to power in the poor little village that took him in. The story starts out on a relatively small scale. This makes it just a tad boring to start, but around episode 4, I think anyone will be sucked in. And gradually it gets more and more epic, Eventually reaching rediculous perportions- and thats where I stop spilling the beans, so to speak... unlike ONE reviewer out there, who, in a flurry of not-even-forewarned major spoilers, spoke badly of the surprises peppered about the last 8 episodes or so. Well, on the contrary, I rather enjoyed them! I thought the surprises make excellent would-be unpredictability.

There are some good characters in Utawarerumono, and likewise is their development, as most of them have their strengths and faults. There is a character named Karura who just kind of feels too politically correct for her own good. She's scrawny, yet carries an enormus sword that not a single man can even pick up, and just to rub it in our faces she massacres tons of foes spouting lines like "Is that any way to talk to a lady!?" [oh pleeeease... (rolls eyes)].

Also, the ending is great. I cannot remember a single question that went unanswered. And wether or not you are a fan of the crazy twists tward the end (which a couple of them are mildly mind-blowing!), there is no doubt that the ending makes sense and ties everything together.

Utawarerumono dosen't exactly leave you BEGGING for more, but I can say that a week or so after I finnished the first time around, I had the itch to watch the whole thing all over again. And after that, replay value keeps you wanting to watch your random favorite episodes every now and then until you get tired of of it. At least, thats how it happened with me. This is not an "addicting" anime per se. For loss of a better analogy, Utawarerumono is more like having an occasional lollipop as opposed to snacking on Milk Duds. :D

this is a really good anime. very entertaining. i'm 6 episodes in and i have enjoyed the story and characters very much. there are alot of cliche things to be had in this series, but, atleast the cliche things were done very well. when it comes right down to it, just about every story you can conjer up is cliche in some form or another. especially, when the story is about war and good versus evil. i've pretty much figured out what the big surprise in the end will be. if you're intelligent as well, it will only take you 5 or 6 episodes to do the same yourself. that doesn't really matter though. when you have an anime this fine, you want to see it to the end just to see if your predictions are correct. i hope i have been as vague as possible in my review. it was my entire mission to do so. UTAWARERUMONO MAKE-A-ME-GO-GO-CRAZY-BABY!!!

This is one of my all time favorites (a must see).

Sincerely,
Dr. B

The Box Set of "Utawarerumono" is good, I loved this anime, but is a pity that comes without the mini-ovas (only en japanese DVD).

This is one of my favorite anime. The story description on the box really doesn't do it justice. I wasn't interested in seeing it at all until I put it on netflix for back ground noise while I did laundry. It starts off slow but picks up with some strategy, fighting, and humor. There is never a battle in every episode, there are breaks which help to get to better know the characters and add a more realism to the story. I will agree that the story line is good up to the point that the giant robots come in. Then the story goes from feudal fantasy to weird high tech. To be quite honest I usually only watch up to that point, but I have seen the end three times. I have a bit of understanding and a bit of 'what the hell?!?!' type of confusion. Reading online story comparison to the game actually helped me better understand what was going on... I still prefer the first 3/4 of the series. I really love the mini stories! The first one with Oboro and Hakuro is my favorite... but they are all too funny. I wish the anime (first part) was longer it was really good. I personally think that it is worth the every penny!