Category: Yofukashi no Uta

Welcome everyone, to the big finale of Yofukashi no Uta! Well… I say big finale, it’s barely even a finale. For all that Yofukashi has built up to it, it feels like barely anything has happened and I’m just sitting here wonder… is that it. Why? Well lets dive in and talk about it!

In case it wasn’t obvious, my reaction to this finale was very lukewarm. In a word, it was anticlimactic. And the best reason I can give for that is it feels like, with this finale, that Yofukashi has only just started. It took 13 episodes of meandering about to figure out where the show wanted to go. And right when it figures that out… it ends. Right when Ko has finally resolved that yes, he wants this relationship, its done. That’s fine, it needed to happen with how long the show took to get here. But personally? I was really hoping for some kind of confrontation to go with it. Something that would set up the future of the story, to make me excited to either go read it or for another season. Maybe Anko and Nazuna could’ve met, since both are already aware of each other. Something like that.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 13 [Call of the Night]” →

Welcome everyone, to what might be one of the most important weeks of Yofukashi yet. Why is it important? Because this week places us at a crossroads. Yofukashi can go down either one and be decent. Or it can attempt both, and achieve neither. So without further ado, let’s dive into it.

So, why do I say that Yofukashi as at a crossroads right now? Why is this episode so important? Well if you’ll remember back, waaaay at the beginning, I said probably something along the lines of: “Yofukashi will have to choose whether it wants to be about relationships or vampires”. And for the past few weeks, it’s chosen relationships pretty consistently. It’s brought vampires into them sure, we have a whole cadre of vampire waifus. But they all existed to examine relationships in one way or another, some more successfully than others. Well that changes this week. Because this week introduces the first thing that could be called an “Antagonist” to a series that’s otherwise not really had one. That antagonist would be the Vampire Hunter, Anko Uguisu. Or at least as close to a vampire hunter as Yofukashi is willing to take it so far.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 11 [Do You Know What a Vampire Is?]” →

Welcome everyone to another (incredibly late) episode of Yofukashi no Uta! Apologies for the delay on this one, very busy Friday for me. Enough with that though, you’ve been waiting long enough for this episode so lets just jump right into it!

Starting off, lets talk about what Yofukashi is trying to be about this week. Like last episode, this one is trying to explore and humanize another of our new vampire side-ladies, Midori Kohakobe. And in doing so, it hopes to explore another facet human relationships and why we desire them so. This weeks topic? Attention. The desire to be desired, to be wanted, to have people look at you. This is a good topic, I think it’s something everyone feels at some point or another. That innate desire for recognition, to be seen. Whether it be for vanity or simple self expression, it exists in a lot of forms. On paper this sounds great. It’s right up Yofukashi’s alley and very similar to Seri’s episode. But in practice this week fell short for one very simple reason: Midori isn’t the main character of the episode.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 10 [Enlarge the Peeping-Tom Photos]” →

Welcome everyone, to another week of Yofukashi no Uta! This is another decent week for our vampire waifu’s if you ask me. Remember when I said the new girls were just cardboard cutouts and I was hoping they got some development? Well this week sort of gives us that, though only for Seri, who was already the most fleshed out of them all. I’ll take what I can get though! Now lets jump in to the episode.

Production wise this week was just fine. There were some nice closeups, some interesting angles at times and one amusing slow mo shot. But most of the rest were rather dull wide shots of our characters in one of the like… 3 locations of the episode. And the only time Yofukashi really branched out and tried to do something different, it ended up flooding the screen in singular splotches of neon. It reduced all the nice shading and lighting I enjoyed into blobs of color and was just really off putting. To be honest, it’s kind of disappointing how uninspired Yofukashi has been with its color palette. Always playing things safe, with the few times it does anything else just being flooding the screen in color without any kind of nuance. This could have been one of the best looking shows of the season! Instead it’s just kind of… there.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 9 [No Fair]” →

Welcome back to another, delayed, episode of Yofukashi no Uta! while last week was a bit of a disappointment with its new cast, this week more than made up for it. Relationships progress, Nazuna and Ko have meaningful conversations, and we even get our first new male character. A lot happens! So without further ado, lets dive into the episode.

Like I said, as a follow up to last week I actually really liked this one. The introduction of a timer feels like it has kickstarted Nazuna and Ko a bit. They are finally starting to be proactive about this relationship rather than just languishing together and let it happen. I think that’s really important for a romance! If the leads are just standing around doing nothing, reacting to situations and letting that inform their feelings, then as a viewer it feels like no progress is being made. At least if they are actively trying to do stuff, even if they fail, it feels like things are moving. It’s effectively the difference between the characters being reactive vs proactive. And in a story like this, I feel that proactive is almost always better. So long as one of them is that way at least.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 8 [All of Us]” →

Welcome everyone, to another episode of Yofulashi no Uta! I’m a bit late on this one, Path of Exile just released a new league and I wasted a day on that. Don’t worry though, the novelty will wear off soon and I’ll be right back on schedule. So without further ado, lets dive into the episode!

Starting off, Yofukashi actually moved this week! And it looked good doing it! I know that comes off as a joke, but seriously. Yofukashi isn’t what I would call “animated”. It exists primarily as a set of stills with pretty backgrounds, snappy dialogue and bright color palettes. So to see it move like this was a treat. It had to sacrifice some detail in places to do it obviously, forgoing some of it’s signature style. But I think that’s totally fine for a one-off treat like this. And I do assume it will be one off unless Yofukashi uses this as an excuse to start bringing more action into the series. I wouldn’t be against that necessarily, but it would have to be well considered before being thrown in. What do I mean by that? Well lets talk spoilers after the break.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 7 [Reproduce]” →

Welcome everyone, to the halfway point of Yofukashi no Uta! I’m a bit late for this one, sorry about that. Busy week plus I have that Welcome to the NHK review to write. Enough excuses though, lets dive into the episode!

Starting off, this week was a mixed bag visually. Yofukashi had some really, really high highs, don’t get me wrong. Ko’s face reflecting in the lake, or his complete change in art style and heavy linework while dealing with Shirakawa were fantastic. I love those kind of striking scenes and hope we get more of it. But there’s also such as thing as “to much” and that’s what happened with the neon this week. The entire pool scene in the 2nd half was just that. To much blue, to pink, etc. It drowned out any other color and shading work done on the scene and made it a pain to look at any of the finer details. It matches Yofukashi’s aesthetic sure, but at the detriment of everything else. Hopefully this is a one off and they stick to more restrained amounts of color in the future.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 6 [Might as Well Have Fun]” →

Hello everyone, and welcome to another week of Yofukashi no Uta! This week sees a much needed shift in focus from our male lead, Ko, over to Nazuna. We get a peek into what her daily life is like, and how Ko’s introduction to her life is affecting her. Is it good? Is it interesting? Well let’s dive in and talk about it!

Starting off, this week Yofukashi introduced me to an idea that I can’t believe I hadn’t considered. Do you remember when I said that Ko was being forced to choose between day and night? Akira and Nazuna? And how Ko has seemingly chosen the night, but there’s a chance he could bring Akira over as well? Well the opening of this episode made me wonder, is Nazuna being given the same choice. We see just how alone and unfulfilling her days are. How late she sleeps in, how inconvenient it is, and how little the sun actually appears to bother her if she can wake up in it. So is there chance that instead of Ko being dragged into the night, into becoming a vampire, that Nazuna gets dragged into the day with him and Akira? It’s still to early to tell but I like that the option exists.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 5 [Well, That’s a Problem]” →

Hello everyone, and welcome to another episode of Yofukashi no Uta! Just like with Isekai Ojisan, I would like to apologize for this being a bit late. Otakon is taking up a lot of my time this weekend so I’m getting these done when I can. As far as the episode goes, there’s a good amount to talk about so lets jump right into it!

Off the bat, the big thing I’m happy about with Yofukashi this week is Akira. Namely that she’s still around. I had a small fear that after her introduction, Akira would become relegated to the background. A reoccurring but ultimately unimportant character that only shows up for a chance of scenery. Instead, what Yofukashi gave me was hope. It spent this entire episode focused not on our MC, Kou, or our love interest, Nazuna, but on Akira and her relationship with the two. On her own issues, history and arc. And I couldn’t be happier! Because if you ask me? It seems like a really good arc. Lets talk details below break.

Continue reading “Yofukashi no Uta – 4 [Isn’t This a Tight Squeeze?]” →