Utawarerumono is a fantasy war anime. It basically follows one man, who claims the throne of one country and uses his forces to defend his people, combined with your occasional cute characters and slice of life when the battles have stopped for a bit.
First of all, this show is based on a hentai game, so yes, it’s got a lot of cute girls: a couple of busty angels, some sexy warrior females and a couple of cute girls who don’t belong in a battlefield. Furthermore, most characters, with one or two exceptions, look like they’re either in their tens or twenties. The anime seems to have never heard of the concept of “war veterans”. Oh, and yes. The main character is your typical harem lead, apart from the fact that he wears a mask and seems to be an actual adult, instead of a 14-year-old brat.
Like expected, things just go too easy for our main character in the beginning. We do get to see some war tactics, but this anime does not attempt to move away from the basics. Also, especially near the beginning, characters join the main character’s army for no apparent reason. To simulate battles, the creators also decided to use CGI for animating the different soldiers fighting. Let’s just say that that doesn’t work.
Still, that doesn’t mean that this anime doesn’t have good point. Starting from episode 11, the battles actually get very exciting. The creators actually decide to try out a few more things, with very interesting results. The plot actually gets a bit of substance, and this anime really goes into the right direction. Aside from a few humps and bumps, these scenes were pretty interesting to watch.
But then suddenly, inside the pure fantasy world, this anime starts to introduce mechas and zombies. Something that so doesn’t fit in the atmosphere, and it’s indeed not surprising that this atmosphere gets ruined because of this. The anime then finishes with some interesting final episodes, but it never really managed to fix the damage done by the sudden introduction of science-fiction elements. That’s a real pity, as this anime really was heading in the right direction of a good fantasy anime.
Oh, and one final remark. The main focus of this anime is the good guys. Don’t expect the bad guys to have any substance at all. They’re either evil because they’re manipulated, or their reasons for being evil is simply never explained. The good guys, however, do get healthy doses of character development at times. I also liked the way that at a few times, this anime takes a break in the middle of one storyline in order to focus on yet another, totally different storyline. When that story is finished, the first story reappears, and also gets its conclusion. It’s a nice way to keep people interested.
Overall, if there ever was a series with its ups and downs, it’s Utawarerumono. It’s got so many good point, but for every good point, it seems to have a bad point.
Utawarerumono became one of my all-time favorites, and ,IMO, deserves much more praise than some ultra-hyped mediocrity like Suzumiya Haruhi.
While I may not share your love for this series, I do agree with you that this series is a much better watch than Haruhi.
I’m not sure what series Haruhi is but all I know is that as much as this has always been my favorite series i admit it did completely ruin its touch on the mechas and zombies, but i’d still say for the most part, it’s a great series
I don’t really like Haruhi Suzumiya at all, so, though I haven’t watched this, I agree with you.