Customer Reviews

Utawarerumono: The Complete Series Box Set S.A.V.E.

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

 

 

While strolling innocently through the forest one day, Eruruu finds an injured man with a mysterious mask. She takes him to her grandmother Tuskuru, the village healer, and the two of them nurse him back to health. When he wakes up they are surprised to find that he is unable to answer any of their questions - he just can't remember anything! He doesn't understand why he is wearing a mask or why he is unable to remove it. But despite his oddities, the man, now dubbed Hakuoro, is a natural leader and soon the villagers look to him to guidance.

When I heard the premise of this show I thought it sounded intriguing. And it was curious - who was Hakuoro and what was that mask for? The characters were not very deep, but they were entertaining. The world the series is set in is interesting. Why do all of the girls have animal ears and tails? Hakuoro proves to be an unexpectedly interesting character and his rise in power was particularly fun. But there were times in which the series moved slowly and they spent too much time on the cute little girls with tails. But it was still fun to watch. Except that you start to get frustrated with the main plot line. You start to wonder if you will ever lean the secret behind that darn mask and such. For about 24 episodes you are left in the dark, with only small flashes of memory from Hakuoro to give you hope for an answer. Then bam! the end hits and things are thrown all topsy-turvy. What you thought was a fantasy story turns out to have mecha. Historical setting? Ha! But worst of all, when the series ends, you have more questions then when it started! If it hadn't been for the stupid ending, this series would have been a solid 4 star anime.

If a confusing and pointless ending doesn't bother you, then by all means, go ahead and get this series. It isn't very expensive and for the most part it is entertaining. The Omake are hilarious and you should make sure to watch them. The English dub isn't bad, but I would recommend the Japanese dub 'cause it is better.

Do you like epic war scenes? Do you like harem shows with no comedy? Do you like funky ears? Do you like it when all the non-important characters look almost exactly the same and die off in droves? Do you like your villains to have sexy silver hair? Do you like strange and unexpected plot twists that don't make a lot of sense? Then this is the show for you!

When I bought this I had no idea what it was about other than what it said on the box, but hey, cheap anime. And it starts off pretty decent. There's this guy, and he doesn't know who he is, where he came from, what he's doing, or how he came to be passed out in the middle of a forest with severe injuries. The show starts there, with his recuperation with the aid of a couple cat (or dog?) girls and their wise old grandma. Through his gentle but authoritative persona he gains the trust of the village and eventually (about 3 episodes in) the leadership position of a rebellion against the repressive emperor of their country. So far so good. Then he wins! Hurray, good show! Wait, no, that's not even close to the end. The real meat of the show lies in following the mysterious Hakuoro as emperor of a country, fighting to keep it free while struggling to remember his own strange and mysterious past. And also the show is about the activities of his collection of fine ladies. Okay, there are three or four other guy characters who get a chunk of time, but that's mostly in the show's first ten episodes. They get pushed to the side pretty early in favor of the ladies.

The show basically has three plot arcs, and while the first two are entertaining, with epic wars and stuff, the last one is pretty disappointing with its slow moving start, surprise mecha, and frustratingly dumb conclusion. The mystery of his mask is solved, but it is a disappointment, mostly because of what it does to the setting of the story. It raises more questions than it answers, but these are the kind of questions that make you start picking apart the mechanics of the world and setting and shake your willingess to invest in the plot. Just for example: how does magic work if this is in fact a science fiction setting rather than the epic fantasy it had been for the first 24 episodes? A bad ending can ruin a show, and this one has a lot riding on the resolution of what's behind that mystery mask. And in this case, what's back there is, well, if you watch a lot of anime or play JRPGs, you can probably guess from the first teaser flashback in the very first episode to a degree what his secret turns out to be. Except more silly somehow.

At any rate, animation wise this is pretty solid for the most part. The characters generally stay on model, but there is quite a bit of conspicuous CG in the wide battle scenes, and that can get distracting if you dislike that sort of thing. The character designs are pretty cute overall, though you can always tell the bad guys by their pretty silver hair. Seriously. As far as voice performances go, the dub is decent and the music is all right. The ending song in particular is actually pretty pleasant. The dvds are incredibly basic: the main menu is just a list of episodes and a language menu. The clean opener and ender are part of that list on the third disk, though they don't play automatically like the episodes do. Trailers are on the fourth disk. Very, very basic stuff, but this is the cheap set, so you get what you pay for. The cover, by the way, is reversible so you don't have to have the S.A.V.E. binder sticking out if you don't want to.

TL:DR summary
Plot: 2
Characters: 3
Animation: 3
Music: 3
Overall: 2 Endings make it or break it for me, and this one breaks it.

If you are one to enjoy a cool cast of characters running around doing awesome stuff, then this is an anime series for you. From the very beginning moments when Suara's song during the intro credits kick in, you know this is going to be a fun series. five stars may be a little generous, but i think it fits.

The story follows a protagonist who has lost his memories as he makes friends, dares great things and tries to lead a people to peace and prosperity. While doing so, by force of his character, he draws in a number of side-kicks who are intriguing and engaging.

My only two gripes with this series were: (1) things get a little nutty at the end and what was a simple fantasy story eventually brings in all kinds of weird from large monster battles to weird futuristic past flashbacks and religious complexities that take a lot of thinking to keep up with, and (2) while i understand the aesthetic of suffering and stoicism that are so tied up with Japanese mythic narratives, i still am a big fan of quasi happy endings. this one is mostly happy...but still.

In all, i found myself racing through this series, not being able to control my desire to see what would happen next. I loved it.

So after reading some of the other reviews, I decided to watch the anime as I had just received it from Amazon to see how different it was from the game (Which I have played and completed), the game is a visual novel/strategy game so theres alot of story in it, which is perfect to make an anime adaptation, I had seen some episodes before but never really watched the whole series until now, heres my review.

The setting is what appears to be Feudal Japan, the genre is a mix of fantasy with sci-fi and plenty of drama as there is constant war among countries so theres plenty of death to go around.

The story is about a man named Hakuoro who one day wakes un in the house of a family of healers, the man is suffering from amnesia and apparently is the only human in the village as all the other residents have tails or animal hears, but he is no normal human himself as he is wearing a mask that he cannot take off, life seems to carry on peacefully however that soon changes as their emperor seems to be out of touch with people, Hakuoro (named by the village chief) has to step in and lead is village into battle against their emperor and later on against other countries emperors. still the questions remain, what is this mask he can't take off? what is his past? and what is this world he is living in?

The first 2/3 of the series is quite easy to follow, the story concentrates on the war effort of his village/country and securing his people from attacks of other countries, however on the last 1/3 of the series the Sci-Fi kicks in, and this is where the anime suffers /get confusing, what was well explained in the visual novel was not so well explained in the anime, a few key elements to help understand viewers who some characters were, are omitted (Mitsumi) and the light from the sky, and thus leaves the viewer questioning who the heck is she and what is that light.

Now lets talk about the quality of the anime, as story goes I would give it a 8/10 I'd give it a 10 if it were explained like in the game which I loved, as music goes its pretty generic though It does have a few good tracks, I especially love the song played in the last episode, being a war anime there are plenty of fights, about half way into the anime the characters start getting some great fight animations, unfortunately during the span of 3-5 episodes these animations are repeated quite bit thus if have less impact each time you see then.

I'm pretty happy with this set, my only real gripe is that its missing the bonus episodes, I think they were 3, these are comedy episodes and don't affect the story, these were made from the comedy parts in the game itself and are pretty good actually, but alas they were not included here on this S.A.V.E set, I may sell it to get the other set which I assume has them (please do tell me if they do have them).

If you want to look for an action anime (not in the veins of Naruto or Dragon Ball) then I recommend this series, you may get a bit confused near the end, but if you patch it up with wikipedia you will find the story to be quite good.

Story 8/10 (anime) 10/10 (visual novel)
Music (6/10) (few memorable tracks though its all subjective to each person)
Animation (6/10) I dont usually care about this but since they did recycle a few animations in a few episodes I noticed it and while good, its also annoyinh.

For the price, definetely get it, even with its flaws its a very enjoyable anime, heck I definetely want to get the other box set just to have the extra bonus episodes.

If anyone want to know what was missing from the anime compared to the visual novel contact me, I'll gladly spoil you :)

this isnt a bad anime, mostly your run of the mill fantasy anime. not bad for the price, and if your bored and have nothing new to watch, why not? :P

I've downloaded this show years back before it had a dub and really liked it. Once I saw it was in this cheap set now as oppose to how it was originally released, I had to pick it up to watch again. This time around I watched the dub of it since I always saw the Japanese version and it was very good. A very good show and a very good price to go with it.