Hatenkou Yuugi

9/10 or 10/10

Too many beautiful words too little characters developments, that's the best and worst things for this anime.

The anime is amazing and it have a great and fun story,I enjoyed it a lot.
And what makes the anime more awesome is the characters, the characters personalities are outstanding and unique, they also have unique and humorous reaction to things, their reactions always surprise me in a good way.

The plot goes smoothly in the anime, not fast but not too slow. However, i did not notice any characters developments in the anime except for only one character and in the last two episodes only, ... that's why i didn't want to give the anime 10/10 rating. What i also did not like about this anime is that they did not show how the second guy who joined Rahzel journey met Rahzel, he just popped out of nowhere.

The last episode of the anime left a lot of unanswered questions. it's probably because the manga did not end. I'm guessing plus hoping there would be a second season to the anime.

I will now immediately go read the manga

Hatenkou Yuugi is NOT the anime you should be watching if you want a good, thorough plot, and a riveting experience. This is an anime that you go to if you want to waste three or so hours of your life and not feel too bad afterwards.

Harsh as that sounds, let me say upfront that I do want to recommend this anime. Maybe because of their budgeting or whatever, but this anime chooses its battles very wisely. In the first half (episodes 1-4) the anime introduces its characters haphazardly and its cliche plots even more haphazardly. As such, the anime comes off as satirical and ... self-depreciating without actually aiming to be a parody (like Gintama). That satire, paired with the characters' hurried introduction and banter, gives the anime humor where none should be.

The second half of the anime (episodes 5-10) has a drastically different format from the first: two episodes make up one convoluted story, while the following episode--sometimes painfully--is unrelated to it and given a lighter tone. We are granted more insight about the characters, but not much. In fact, I was mistaken about one of the characters' relationship in the beginning until more clarification is given in later episodes.

The reason why that's important is because Hatenkou Yuugi thrives in simplicity. The simpler the story, the wittier the story is allowed to be. For how rushed the characters were in the beginning, we're given a superficial view of their relationship and thus are at least able to follow along. For the more convoluted episodes later on, it becomes terribly obvious how crammed and ill-paced the story is, even going as far as to skip transitional scenes that could have made it emotionally impactful.

There's also the ending, which...I really shouldn't have expected a decent ending from an anime with only 10 episodes. Just like its opening, it ends as hurried as it starts, and even worse, it introduces characters and plot points that will never be expanded on. I feel strongly encouraged to read the manga, but from what I've seen from some JP fans on the newest and concluding volume, it might be better to stick with the anime, weaknesses and all.

Conclusion: With all that said, Hatenkou Yuugi was an extremely enjoyable watch. Its shining points is definitely the main characters, their (ambiguously polygamous-but-not-quite) relationship, and the anime's self-depreciation. Each character, while filling a certain "trope", has little specks here and there that might keep your interest. Overall, the anime snatches more than it gives back, but does its best to entertain you along the way.

If you're in the mood to settle for less, this is the anime for you!
Because this may very well be the most generic anime i've ever seen.

It doesn't feel like any emotion was put into the creation of this series, it feels like it was made to fill a time slot, by people who had to use every cliche in the book to make up 24 minutes of content.

I felt like I'd already seen the premise to every episode of this show done better in Fullmetal Alchemist. While I understand that it's hard to make an episodic series without taking ideas from different places, none ... of the characters were likable enough to take my mind off of how lackluster the writing seemed.
Pretty much every character has a really grating and stupid sense of humor, the kind of quirky shit that you only hear when you're watching something that thinks it's really funny but is NOT (ex:"ur stupid" "wat?!? i am not stupid my precious kawaii-chan!!!"). Not to mention the fact that they flip from thinking the others are stupid and annoying to TREASURING OUR PRECIOUS FRIENDSHIP whenever the plot calls for it, which is about once or twice every 2 episodes.
Take Cowboy Bebop for a better example. They did plenty of "homages" that were pretty much ripoffs of other stories, but they had style! and characters that you could think of as people, and not just anime characters.

The biggest issue I have with this show other than the annoying characters is the pseudo-philosophy that the girl spouts near the end of most episodes. The main girl speaks wisely about the emptiness of revenge and the importance of friendship, but it's all the same shit we've heard in every other shounen anime on the planet, so it only results in climaxes that are almost as lame as the fucking jokes.
The difference between this and something like Gintama is that Gintama, for one, is actually FUNNY, and manages to bring some life into these stereotypes by giving the characters that espouse them actual compelling reasons to, and bringing them out during developed story arcs, instead of just SAYING them because they might as well

In short, you'll only like Hatenkou Yuugi if it's one of your very first anime and you're 12 years old. Even then, you should probably just stick with Gintama or anything else I name dropped in this review.