What happens when you take the writer, director, and voice actors from the beloved series Spice and Wolf and add executive meddling, fan pandering, and have it produced by Studio ARMS? You get...a massive disappointment.
Warning Spoilers!!!
Story: 5/10
The human and demon worlds have been at war for 15 years, but the humans have gained the upper hand and an elite squad is sent deep into the demon world to assassinate the Demon King and end the war. However, for poorly explained reasons our main character, who is just named Hero, goes on ahead of his squad to undertake the assassination himself. When he arrives at the Demon King's castle, he learns that the Demon "King" is actually a Queen...with G cup breasts. The busty queen doesn't fight back, but instead calmly explains that the war is actually a good thing and far more people would die during peace time from famine and plague as a result of the booming war economy coming to an end. This would be an interesting utilitarian argument similar to the Real Politik espoused by Otto Von Bismarck and Henry Kissinger...if it wasn't a piss poor oversimplification of the original argument that completely ignores reality.
Warning! the following paragraph contains history!!! If you don't like history, skip ahead!
In reality FAR, FAR more people die of hunger and plague during war time than peace time. The more backwards the setting (like the medieval setting of this series) the more true this is. During the Great African War fought between 7 African nations in the late 1990s, 6 million people died of hunger and disease in just a few years. Although this region has always had famine and plague, this death rate was far higher than ever before or since for that region. One of the worst peace time famines was the Soviet Famine of 1932 caused by forced collectivization and the wildly idiotic farming methods enforced by Joseph Stalin. 7 million people including 4 million Ukrainians, 2 million Kazakhs, and 1 million Russians died of hunger. However, even the brutality of Stalin wasn't as bad as the wartime Soviet famine of 1921. During that famine a shocking 10 million people died as a direct result of WW1 and the Russian Civil War. During a brutal war, all sides tend to use scorched Earth tactics and deliberately destroy farmland to starve the enemy. In addition, all armies involved stole HUGE amounts of crops from the farmers and peasants and gave them nothing in return. In an ass backward medieval setting like Maoyuu, the army would NOT be paying the farmers more money during war time. They would steal all the crops for themselves and give the farmers nothing. That is what always tends to happen when war comes to a non-industrialized country. Another HUGE cause of starvation and plague during war that makes it MUCH worse than peace time is blockade. Nearly the entire city of Athens died of plague and starvation after the Spartans blockaded the city during the Peloponnesian War. During World War 2, 500,000 Greeks, and no less than 5 million Soviets starved to death as a result of the blockade tactics employed by the Germans.
The entire argument on which this story stands is complete bullshit! When Maoyuu isn't making an idiotic attempt to explain the life saving nature of war, it is talking non-stop about crop production and agricultural theory. This comes across as a completely random tangent that doesn't really add anything to the story. If I wanted farming theory tangents out of nowhere, I would go re-read Anna Karenina thank you very much! (I hope you all heard that last sentence in the "Cinema Snob's" sexy voice!) At least the Demon King has foresight and wishes to ultimately end the war when the military industrial complex has been dealt with and peace will be meaningful. She actually has a strategy that is far less divorced from history and logic than some other idiotic anime series I have seen. Can you imagine how stupid it would be if the Demon King thought she could end the war by taking over the Demon and Human worlds and getting everyone to hate her, then having Hero kill her and just assume that a massive power vacuum following the death of a hated tyrant would somehow cause world peace?! Now THAT would be stupid! Fortunately even Maoyuu is a better anime than that!
Characters: 5/10
Although the Demon King herself is a fairly interesting character, the main male lead "Hero" is as boring and generic as hell! What made Spice and Wolf work is that both Holo and Lawrence were complex, interesting characters. You can't have a great, memorable romance if one of the characters is about as interesting as watching paint dry! The other characters besides the main 2 are basically worthless and add nothing to the series. So essentially the entire series is carried on the back of one character: The Demon King. Unfortunately, she is not THAT strong a character and her silly outbursts and fanservice moments often undermine her alleged strategic and inventive genius. She is the world's greatest scientist and military strategist, but she randomly acts like an airhead at random intervals. This doesn't come across as a character quirk like a mad genius, but instead lazy writing that changes the character whenever the situation calls for a comedy moment. I realize what they were going for I guess. Holo was old and wise, but could act childish at times and it was funny. However, Spice and Wolf was a longer series with MUCH better developed characters, so with Holo it felt far more natural and less forced than when the Demon King would have a random comedy moment.
Art: 5/10
One thing you NEVER want to see on your anime is "produced by Studio ARMS". It is the unholy stamp of death similar to the LJN rainbow on old NES games. The only decent anime ever produced by ARMS was Elfen Lied back in 2004, and the only reason the Elfen Lied staff chose ARMS for the project was out of desperation after a dozen superior animation studios refused to work on it. Unlike Elfen Lied, Maoyuu is not a super risque anime that nearly every studio would refuse. Maoyuu COULD have chosen a vastly superior studio, but actually went with Studio ARMS. I am not a puritanical twat that goes ballistic whenever an anime features nudity or fanservice. However, I do have a basic sense of artistic aesthetics, and I appreciate female characters NOT having tits larger than their heads. I don't want to watch an anime version of a fucking Rob Liefeld comic!!! The director of Maoyuu should have hit the animators with a rolled up newspaper like a dog when he saw the character designs. "NO!" NOO!" If Elfen Lied was made by ARMS and had realistic breast to body ratios, then we know it is possible if you hit the animators enough times.
Overall: 5/10
As much as I relentlessly ripped this series a new asshole, I actually don't think it is the worst series in the world. It is NOT a good series and it is a HORRIBLE spiritual successor to Spice and Wolf, but Maoyuu at least has some instances of decent dialogue and tries to tell an unconventional tale with unconventional morals and lessons. It was horribly executed, but I feel like this actually could have been good with less executive meddling and less fanservice bullshit! I see untapped potential here. The soundtrack is also decent and as much as I bagged on the art, it often isn't THAT bad. Overall, this series is very average and deserves an average to mediocre 5/10.
