Juuou Mujin no Fafnir

This anime is pretty cliche, as a Harem/Romance/Action/Supernatural anime this is very typical its really lacks pop and most scenes are pretty predictable that you'll know what will happen next. So dont go expecting a whole lot out of it mostly a standard Harem/Romance its similar to Infinite Stratos if you have seen that before, but less ecchi.

Plot: 6/10
A fair plot, similar to Infinite Stratos, but Magic > Mecha. You have supernatural abilities only commonly available to girls. In Juuou Mujin no Fafnir the ability is known as Dragons "D" who attend a school far off on a distant island, but with our male protagonist ... Mononobe, Yuu is an acception together his classmates fight against dragons that come around periodically to rampage around the world. Humans and dragons are connected by marks that are located anywhere on their body that give them their powers. The schools students use their powers to fight against the monsters, rinse and repeat while incorporating a little bit of back story for some main characters.

Characters: 6/10
Nothing really stands out about this group of girls you its pretty much the standards of any harem such as (tsundere, sister, loli, etc...)

Art: 6/10
General art style nothing out standing no vivid colors, it really lacks the pop though the monsters look poor and dull, unless you like CGI monsters then I guess you'll enjoy it. The action scenes aren't particular amazing, but its descent.

Sound: 6/10
Voice acting is fine nothing out of the ordinary. The opening is catchy same with the ending. The BGM fits with the action scenes decently, but still doesn't make up for the action scenes.

Enjoyment 6/10
I enjoy watching harem genre and anyone else who likes harem, romance, and fantasy this anime is it. If you like this genre you might as well watch this. This is the pretty much the doppelganger of Infinite Stratos difference being 1 is mecha other is supernatural though I would have to say this is 6/10 while Infinite Stratos is a 7/10.

I would recommended this anime to anyone who enjoys harem, romance, and fantasy if you have already watched most previous harems and like them then just give this one a go nothing to spectacular yet, but still worth a go.

tl;dr: A pretty generic battle academy harem anime that shows some light hints of potential but is largely a miss in terms of execution.

Juuou Mujin no Fafnir is a pretty typical harem battle academy. The type where some mysterious threat suddenly attacks the world and the only thing that can stop them are a group of high school students with special powers gathered at a special boarding school who are all girls except for the protagonist who somehow also has powers despite being male. I’m perfectly fine with the archetype and trope set used and in general don’t mind generic anime, though in such cases ... it come down entirely to execution which I don’t think this particularly excelled at.

As is often the case with the anime adaptations for such light novel series, the first season is primarily focused on the essential world building required for the narrative while introducing the characters and showing the development of initial bonds between them with all this being centered around a series of major battles. As such, while the plot is important as a vehicle, what’s far more important is the world and characters showcased.

The world and it’s mechanics I think were mostly solid enough. The core enemy are monsters known as Dragons, though they mostly look nothing like traditional dragons, and the ones that fight them are called Ds. Each D has a Dragon that corresponds to them wherein eventually each Dragon will hunt their respective D, at which point a crest on the Ds body begins glowing. If after this the Dragon and D meet, the D also turns into a Dragon. Thus, there is some complexity to things, in that while it would obviously be for the best to defeat the Dragon before it encounters the D, killing the D before it can encounter the Dragon is also something that is considered in order to avoid the creation of more Dragons.

This results in some level of conflict between the organizations Midgard and NIFL, wherein both are under the umbrella of the international Dragon fighting organization Asgard, Midgard primarily has the goal of protecting Ds while NIFL has the goal of defeating Dragons, and thus NIFL is far more willing to kill Ds to avoid the creation of more Dragons as compared to Midgard. While there’s still a lot that needs to be fleshed out around this regarding the lore behind the dragons and where the story will ultimately go regarding that, I think that this is a pretty solid start to world building and builds a good foundation to tell a character focused story on.

The majority of character development is centered around the aforementioned issues. The protagonist, Yuu, was originally a part of NIFL, but after his powers as a D become apparent he is transferred into Midgard, but with his superior in NIFL, Loki, staying in contact and pushing him to get rid of Ds at times, which was something that was difficult for him to deal with at first. It’s also mentioned that him using his powers results in him losing memories, but that’s basically only been touched in passing without really explaining it and not really delved into and thus hasn’t really had much of an effect so far. Thus, the protagonist’s development has been pretty minimal so far.

Going back to the theme surrounding Ds turning into Dragons, the fact that a D can turn into a dragon also presents issues in regards to Ds having to struggle with whether they should just let themselves die as humans rather than risk turning into Dragons that go onto kill their fellow Ds, as well as presents an issue for Ds who have to struggle with the guilt of killing a Dragon that was a former comrade, which lies at the center of the heroines Iris and Mitsuki’s character development. This as a concept is also really solid, but the writing surrounding this wasn’t all that great, and for the most part it felt like things were being glossed over to the point that the related narrative doesn’t really hit any particularly good emotional beats.

Unfortunately, this is still better than the development any of the other characters got. There’s some sort of character arc surrounding another heroine named Tear that is centered around whether she wants to be a human or Dragon, but it felt pretty weak in that it essentially just involved her overcoming being brainwashed than any sort of actual development. Also in Tears arc, there’s another character showcased, Kili, an antagonist that will likely become a heroine eventually, who wants Tear to choose to become a Dragon, and seems to be quite a bit more complex and interesting than any of the other heroines, though the season ends before really doing much with her. The rest of the cast so far is pretty much entirely flat. As a result of the weak character arcs so far, relationship development is also pretty weak, and in the end the cast just isn’t that interesting and is hard to get invested in.

On top of that, there are bunch of strange choices in how the anime was made that further contribute to the previously mentioned and issues and the anime in general often being not that enjoyable. The pacing is overtly fast, and thus character’s and their bonds don’t get fleshed out properly before reaching events that require said fleshing out. This actually isn’t that rare with light novel adaptations, but was especially bad here. For example, it’s brought up multiple times by other characters how Yuu seems to care for Iris so much, but literally all the viewer had seen of them together so far at that point was them making some small talk, so it definitely felt that some key parts were skipped over or improperly adapted.

I suppose the abruptness to things did help in terms of comedy though, in that it definitely added to the comedic timing of certain scenes. Still, the comedy overall felt less prominent than it usually is in the genre, and thus not all that strong overall. Also, this is a harem anime, but it doesn’t have all that much fanservice or romantic fluff, which are pretty much staples for the genre, though it has enough to put off people that are put off by such content so I have no idea what they were trying to do. I think this is part of why it’s hard to get as invested in the characters and their relationships, but it also results in the pacing in general feeling slow because there’s a lot less content of substance essentially.

The combat wasn’t that great, but wasn’t that bad either. There’s very little explanation given to characters powers, but most characters powers are incredibly simple so this isn’t that much of an issue, with the exception being the protagonist Yuu who seems to have a much more complicated power set, which it seems strange that no one really seems to want to question or explore in depth. The powers are also mostly just used for simple plans, but a lot of the fights being about executing plans made in advance made things somewhat interesting. There’s often some scientific explanation accompanying this, but it’s either completely wrong, or the explanation isn’t conveyed properly, though I don’t think anyone expects accurate science from such media so that’s not much of a demerit. And if it wasn’t already obvious, a lot of Nordic mythology related terms and named are used throughout, and I thought that was decently well implemented though whether it’ll go more in depth or just use them superficially remains to be seen.

In terms of art, the art style and designs I thought were pretty solid, but the art and animation quality was a mixed bag. The art used for backgrounds and such was pretty good throughout, but the art and animation used on the characters felt lacking pretty often. There were also some really weird repeated sequences, like shots that were kind of like character transformations where they change into new outfits, but they didn’t actually change clothes and it’s not like they were good as fanservice either so they felt completely pointless. The main enemies, the Dragons, are essentially entirely CG, but felt like they fit in decently enough to not be an issue. The OP has a pretty good song and decent visuals and the ED is decent enough in terms of both audio and visuals. The soundtrack had a lot of noticeably great tracks surprisingly enough, both of the epic and softer type.

I have video review for this, but here is the written the review.

Story - 6/10

Unlimited Fafnir is sort of a harem, it does involve the main one male protagonist around a group of girls, but it doesn’t technically mean all the girls want in on him. The story is based in world where dragons, gigantic beings terrorize the human race, but there a bunch of individuals who fight against dragons with powers of their own, known as Ds. Ds are people who gain the power to create Dark Matter, and using that they can create substances and create magic to fight dragons. A D can ... become a dragon, if their designated dragon draws closer to them. However the only people who have Ds powers are all girls, except our main protagonist Yuu Mononobe.
The series is broken into mini story arcs, usually focusing on one of the female characters.

The story is ok, but it doesn’t wow me. However it is pretty well paced, and when transitioning into another arc it does it very well, as in it gives each arc a clear ending. However the overarching story between Yuu and his sister Mitsuki, does become interesting as the series progress. I just wasn’t wowed by anything.

Characters - 5/10

Our main protagonist is Yuu Mononobe, the only male D in the world. Mononobe was sent to Midgar Academy, which is a girls only academy. He was sent on a mission by the NIFL to prevent the girls at Midgar academy from becoming Dragons. He’s the kind of character that’ll go out of his way to help those around him, at the same time he gets himself caught in situations where people kind of don’t want him to be in, often perverted ones. His D power is interesting, because he actually has to give up his memories in order to use his powers which makes his back story a little interesting. However his power is kind of overpowered, as he the most least experience member in dragon fighting can usually defeat a dragon with one blow compare to the school of girls who’ve been train their whole life.

Yuu’s main love interest goes to Iris Freyja. Iris fulfils the role of ditzy, moe fan service hopeless character archetype. She starts off as the character who cannot control her powers, but she has the more unique ability to create dark matter appear anywhere and explode them. Other than that she relies a lot of Yuu, as she has an obvious crush on him.

Another character that gets attention is Yuu’s sister, Mitsuki Mononobe. She has a dark past, as she was force to kill one of her friends when she was younger, and has been burden by it ever since. She uses a bow and arrow as her power. She comes off as the very serious strict formal type. She takes her role professionally and talks in a really monotone way. Her love for her brother goes a long a way, more than the usual sibling love.

Another character that gets significant screen time is Tear Lightning. The loli devil girl of the group. She is a transfer student to academy and immediately claims Yuu to be her husband as she doesn’t want to let go of him despite the age difference. Unlike the other girls she wants to be a dragon, and seems confused by the whole situation in general.

There are seven girl’s but only those three I just mention get attention. And Lisa Highwalker a tsundere and Firill Crest the socially awkward one get some attention to an extent. But other than those the other characters are kind of boring.

There’s not much development on the other characters, and when they are developed, it felt very rushed, as in you don’t even know if they got stronger or better. This doesn’t help the fact that, I don’t find any of them interesting or likeable, they all seem kind of annoying and seriously, they’ve been training to fight dragons their whole lives and some guy who doesn’t fight dragons that much, instantly does a better job than they do.

Animation - 5/10

Here is where the anime shines and kind of doesn’t shine. The thing the animation does well is how clean it looks, it looks like a genuine highly polished anime. But they do usually use a lot of basic, even though its animated well, it’s just really repetitive, such as when each character is using their weapons, its repeated over and over and over. It seems the animators were just lazy. Sometimes the lightning in this anime is either too bright or too dark, I get that it adds to the special effects and the scenes, which is fine, but sometimes it’s just glaringly bad to look at.

Now the designs of the dragons are alright to look at, when their standing still, but the moment they move it just looks pretty ugly. It looks as though it was just a huge giant mechanical robot and it moves so statically. Also the dragons are 3D renderings, and you know how I feel about 3D renderings in anime, it just doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t look good, and it doesn’t help the fact the dragons are not amazing designs, they’re not epic to look at when you think of dragons.

Some of the special effects can look lazy, but the weapons and the magic that comes out of the weapons look good when up close, but when from a far, I mean a far, it looks like paint. The weapons do look good in general.

Enjoyment - 6/10

Is this an enjoyable anime…yes to a certain extent. The story is somewhat interesting if you’re following Yuu, it’s interesting to learn more about him and what memories he loses. It’s also kind of interesting to see how he helps everyone with their problems being the only Male D, and his decision making between his friends and his work. But at the same time, it’s sometimes annoying to watch because of how bright or dark it gets, which just hurts eyes, and seeing the ugly movements of the Dragons. It’s disappointing because the opening and ending songs gets you pumped up for the episode, but the anime is maybe too average for its own good.

Verdict - 5.5

With that in mind, I give Unlimited Fafnir a 5.5/10. It’s not bad, but it isn’t great, it’s average. It doesn’t wow me in any factors nor does it disgust me in any factors, it’s just really average. I think they played it too safe to be honest. It’s ok to look at times, with an ok story, but the cast of characters apart from Yuu, they are pretty meh.

Come Lion Tamers, we'll try again to examine another in a long line of anime, trying to earn the viewers' hard earned dollars.

I speak of "Unlimited Fafnir"-2015

Firstly I want to speak a little about certain trends in anime, that all of us recognize when we have the notion forced upon us.

1). Most start in a high-school environment.
2). Most struggles are becoming increasingly supernatural
3). A inordinate number of these things involve a huge number of pretty little girls, with great big childlike eyes, and short skirts, that appear in their early teens, but have the buxom figure of a girl in their late teens, if at ... all.
5). And all the girls tend to have cute little Japanese voices that just make you want to collect the whole set, especially if they get together and hug each other like tiny little girls we wish were actually in the world.

And in some cases all of that fan-service gets so rank, that it interferes with the telling of the story.

Unfortunately, Unlimited Fafnir does not have that problem, because the story is simple enough, anyone can follow it, and almost predict the next move through virtually every one of the story arcs. All of which follow a basic scenario:

1). Monster wants to pair-off with little girl student
2). Little girl becomes the subject of a 'Perils of Pauline' danger zone, and forces everyone, especially our nice-guy hero, to save her, and destroy the monster.
3). Through larger and larger ideas of "...we can do it if we just try harder ...", or the other staple in such stories "... our love will sustain us ..." victory is ours, and we all go home happy and feel all cuddly inside.

Okay, I'm a sucker for a romantic and friendly ending, but this anime uses the basic cliches to the point of irritating me. Which is hard, because anime scenarios tend not to bug me too much, as long as there's a point.

But in the end, I came away with a strong feeling that girls know when they have a good thing, and boys aren't always creeps (unlike some anime). A great relief.
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Let's look at the technicals.

The artwork is above average, with its usual penchant for drawing pretty girls, pretty. And almost every single one of them is drawn very well endowed, many to the point of bouncing off the ground if they fall over. That part is pleasant (not for the girl, I'm just remarking on the possibility of a not-so-funny accident), but I was embarrassed for the artists. And also contains some pretty good 3d parallax aspect-art dealing with tall towers in architecture.

Here's an example of the girls, just an example, we get to see her nude in the first 5-minutes:



The other really bad part was the monsters. All of this type of story has monsters. These are all drawn with really lousy 3D artwork, which turned me off. I would have been much happier without the injected 3D CGI artforms. Dreadful, every last one of them.

Sound. Dialog was read almost uniformly by a whole bunch of cute Japanese Kansai dialog talents. Some of which are so high-pitched they sound like little squirrels; and not in a good way. I would have preferred a little more variation in voicing skills, from one artist to another. Again, this trend had me embarrassed for the artists and the producers. I did not try to watch the dub-english version. Wouldn't have helped at all. The mushy stuff was mushy without dialog, and the dreadful artwork for monsters was going to get no help from English audio. Besides Kansai dialect cuteness has no translation in English (there are anime I prefer in English, this isn't one of them)

Music. The OST is very good, here's a sample. This piece is just plain outstanding, unusual for this kind of fan-service fest:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYw0RsUrJmA
HTML5
720p MP4
360p MP4

The OP and ED were uninteresting. Not horrible, they just couldn't catch my interest.

Characters. Forgive me for sounding like I'm coughing, but the characters are right out of a filmschool manual. And most of their personalities tend to not fit their character cast designation. On the other hand, the average male viewer won't worry about that. All the young ladies are completely huggable. Bad matches for character against script purposing won't occur to us while we're watching them.
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With all that on the line herein, I must tell you that if you can stand this thing, all the way to the end; you will come off with a set of feelings that are normal for watching little squirrels running around tree-branches in the romantic way that leaves one smiling.

And then you remember some of the less fortunate moments, and the feeling leaves one with that "... what did I just watch? ..."

So, I was going to give this thing a solid 5, but because of some of the OST, I ended up giving Unlimited Fafnir a mild 6.

Sorry folks, it's been one of those weeks. I gotta get away from anime for awhile. I'm becoming too critical of some parts of the whole Anime Genre.

The best thing to do at night is to write a review on your phone, right before going to sleep, at 12 am and having to wake up at 6:30 am for school. Stay in school kids.

The story was quite confusing to me. It went around the place without staying on a main theme. A new girl comes up? Sure, let's add a fucking dragon that wants her. It wasn't very original either. The only male to have an ability most females have and be placed in a school where everyone is a female. Sound familiar enough? (Hint: INFINITE STRATOS)
I was expecting an original, ... not over-the-top fan-service and some decent action. Loli fan-service is a no no. To add to that, there was only one kissing scene in the anime, considering it's a harem AND romance. I swear every male protagonist in a harem is gay. Action wasn't that good, but it wasn't the worst thing in the anime. It wasn't that epic to give me goosebumps and usually the male protagonist would be OP and apparently this one would be (as mentioned that D or not, the main character would never be defeated) but it didn't look like it, nor did he have many abilities that would surprise everyone around him and make them think that he's the saviour of the world. The story in the anime isn't finished yet, so the rating of this review might change.

The art was above average and it wasn't very dull. The bright colours would help a happy scene become more happy and sad scenes become more sad. Like some anime, the thing that was intrigued me was the size of the eyes. It's almost half the size of their heads. I know this is pretty common but if it's that big it starts to become weirder.

One thing I'm going to mention about sound is that I read a comment in the anime website I watched it on was that apparently the soundtrack was "stolen" off a 3DS game. That's not confirmed but it was a bit interesting. The OP/ED was ok, but I don't judge anime based on just the music.

Like I mentioned in the first paragraph, I hate male protagonists who are very oblivious to around him. As a straight male, I'd rather want someone who is very cool, calm and smart male character. Mononobe Yuu is the male character in the series. Yes he has some parts about him I don't like, but at least he's not the type to hold all the girls and not even choose one. Mononobe Mitsuki is Yuu's supposed sister. I like girls who are hardworking, but sometimes being too hardworking can get annoying. She is the type to do it all by herself and would sacrifice herself. I know that sounds like a glorious thing to do, but you're not only and have friends to help you. She is smart and cool on the outside, but emotional in the inside. Other characters are semi-likeable, depending on your tastes of women.

If I was stranded on an island after a plane crash and my laptop was with me, along with my TB harddrive full of anime, I would probably skip on this. I mildly enjoyed it at the start but it got really repetitive after. Some people have different tastes and I do like ecchi/harem/romance/action type anime, but this wouldn't pass my standards.

If you're thinking of similar anime to this, I would say Infinite Stratos. Like I said, personally I didn't really like this anime but if you're like me and bored most of the time, then this might help you cure your boredom. I don't like forcing other people not to watch the anime just because of a review of why people don't like it. Would I re-watch it? Sorry, but that's a no. Though, there might be a Season 2 if the sales are good.

Whilst I do agree with the other reviews stating it's general un-originality in terms of plot (both kinds), character design and development as well as overall art style there was at least one area in which I found some intrigue. This is because in most anime of this type the protagonist already has amnesia or just a particularly unremarkable background filled with plot holes and hastily hidden with distraction and plot armour. However, in this anime the main protagonist actually had a decent backstory, we found out when the creature affected him, when it affected his friend, when he decided to fight the dragons and ... further details about his past such as his previous affiliations with various countries and companies, furthermore they didn't make the overwhelming power he got seem as cheap as it otherwise would have, they gave reasons and costs for why he received the power and what would happen to him if he misused it. these aspects aren't usually included in most anime especially ones this short. I find it unfortunate to find that this series hasn't been concluded because whilst it may have been mainstream as hell, it would have been quite interesting to see how the cost of his memories would play out in the long run with his goals and the people around him.