Kyou kara Maou!

My initial reason for starting Kyou Kara Maou! was the shounen-ai premise (boy is transported—or rather, flushed down a toilet—to another world where the laws are extremely different and ends up accidentally proposing to one of the Maou's sons; sounds like fun to me!) and I became a little disappointed when I realized it wasn't a strictly shounen-ai anime, or even one that focused largely on romance, but after only a handful of episodes I was addicted to the humour and characters and there was absolutely no return.

Kyou Kara Maou! is a truly hilarious anime, and it's filled with so many great characters that it's impossible not to have a few favourites. The characters and the interaction between them all was what made the anime so good in my opinion, and even though I must admit that the show has its share of filler episodes, I just adored the characters too much to really mind.

Despite the humour, however, Kyou Kara Maou! does have a serious story (once it kicks in) and some very intense episodes with a few plot twists and character back story that isn't so cheerful, especially coupled with Yuri's struggle to bring peace to this new world he's been crowned king of without resorting to war or fighting of any kind.

Yes, Kyou Kara Maou! is lengthy and probably a little cliché, but if you fall in love with the characters the way I did then you'll wish it had've gone on longer. I was sad to see it end, and it's absolutely become one of my favourite animes. If you like lighthearted anime with darker undertones that's full of great characters and don't mind the touches of shounen-ai (or crossdressing boys, for that matter), then I wholeheartedly recommend this series to you!

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I have to say - it took me almost three months to watch the whole thing. I had the first season on DVD, and I had to watch most of the second season on youtube since I only acquired a fansub recently. It was worth the wait. What will I do now? No more Kyo Kara Maoh! for me?

Let's start with the story. I think the first episode usually defines how a series will go. I was laughing my pants off the first episode alone, and it was like that for most of the series. I really liked the concept - it did remind me of Fushigi Yuugi a bit, another seemingly normal teenager shipped off into a new world, rather flushed into a new world. That was only an initial reaction though. I forgot about comparing it to Fushigi Yuugi after a few episodes. I also have to note that this anime is easy to understand. I really think that an anime should be easy to understand and still be able to entertain everyone.

The only problem I have with the series is it's "fillers-galore". It made the series longer than it needed to be, and I have to say that the creators did poorly with the time management and pacing. At first the fillers were amusing, but it got to the point where there were too many of them.

I was a bit worried concerning the premise of yaoi. It's not yaoi after all, but it came really close to shonen - ai (but then again, is it really shonen - ai?). I found me and my brother screaming at the sight of Wolfram wearing his pink night gown, sleeping in Yuri's bed. I had the same reaction when Wolfram offered to scrub Yuri's back in one episode. While those scenes were a bit uncomfortable, they are just foot notes after all, and are usually for comedic relief. Although for some reason, I would like to see Gisela end up with Wolfram. I don't know why exactly. There was also the problem with Yozak cross dressing. He is such a good looking and muscular guy. Why be like Dennis Rodman, Yozak?

No doubt about it, I like the drawing style. Most of what I like are the well drawn bishies, of course.I love the bishonens. My favorites are Wolfram and Konrad, but towards the end I was like "Ken's handsome too". Gwendal's not that bad either, although the wrinkles bothered me a bit. everything else is also considerably well drawn. The backgrounds are nice, and I like the color palette. I didn't find colors that clash together, etc. I would like to take note that the women in this anime are also nice drawn. My favorite is Anissina. She's the one who looks the most consistent (Is Cheri really that old?), and Greta's also adorable.

At first I didn't really like the music. It wasn't the kind of music I would listen to, so my initial reaction was a miss. However, after hearing it constantly and repetitively, I learned to like it. I am proud to say I have memorized all the lyrics to the opening and ending themes.

The background music was also considerably well. I realized the music complemented the scenes very well, and they were discreet enough to put focus on the scenes and not overshadow them.

Voice acting was so - so. I realized that the seiyus had a hard time pronouncing their characters' names - Wolfram became Wolfram-u, Konrad became Konrad-o, and so on. Similar problems occured when the characters spoke in english as well. The seiyus are Japanese after all, so A for effort.

All in all, I think that this anime is really good. I can't say it's the best I've seen, but it's almost there. The only problem I had with it was the pacing - as I've mentioned the anime didn't need to be that long. It had way too many fillers, and that keeps me from saying it's good enough for everyone to watch and to like.

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If you want to marathon a long anime and you don't like shounen-ai style anime, DO NOT START HERE! Hehe. If anyone knows me at all, you know darn well how much I dislike shounen-ai, and this show has it in spades. There is even a "reverse harem" for the main character. But its not hard core boy love like most come to associate with an anime labeled with "shounen-ai" its very mild and as such, isn't really that bad to watch for anyone who enjoys a decent adventure/shounen anime. The story evolves around a teenage boy named Yuri Shibuya. He's a normal teenage boy who loves baseball and enjoys normal things fifteen year olds like. But the story starts to progress when a bunch of bullies give him a swirlie (dunking his head in the toilet). In the toilet water, a portal opens up to an alternate reality where humans and 'demons' coexist. When he got flushed down the toilet I couldnt help but think of Inuyasha and how there was two coexisting dimensions in that show as well. To make a long story short, yuri happens to be a long awaited reincarnated king that is supposed to assume the throne of the 'demons.' Of course hilarity action and adventure ensues.

The story is standard fare, with Yuri progressing and learning new things and helping others. All that is good and everything but it takes about 30-40 episodes till the real story line unfolds. Very similar to Inuyasha, Yuri must prevent the opposing powers from collecting certain peices that will bring the end of the world. It's a very generic plot but the stories intertwined with the main story are wat make it fairly interesting. The "boy-love" comedy bits troubled me a bit at first but further down it became more and more funny rather than annoying and there were parts thats I actually laughed out loud. Another great part of this show is how it makes fun of itself. Knowing that they are doing an anime thats been done numerous times before, they made different rules and regulations in this alternate universe. Episode 1 will introduce you to some the hilarious laws. Theres even countless puns and gay jokes galore. For what they're worth they're all pretty funny.

It also helps that main characters all sound so macho and rough most of the time but also have a flipside/softside to all of them. Their macho side shows about 80% of the time, but their softside is just pure comedy gold in my opinon (personal favorite is Gwendal). But its not all males all the time (thank god), theres also a handful of woman characters in it as well. The girls all appeal to the male audience though with all of them having rather large breasts and beautiful faces. And a lot of the girls have their own silliness that makes this show such a treat.

The art and animation of the show isn't very impressive at all which is a little surprising considering that it was made in 2004 and having 78 episodes. But i guess its safe to say that the art and animation is about average for for that time frame. Background and static art are all detailed enough but has a nice amount of "haze" to keep the quality from going any higher than low. The characters are drawn pretty good, all main characters having that 'pretty boy' look and the girls looking too perfect. If there was a comparison to the character art i think it would be close to Ouran Host Club.

The sound and music are also mediocre as well, typical sound effects but nothing over the top. They're are pretty generic and im sure you can spot a few sound effects from other anime. The music is also very average/below average. Nothing very memorable about the music. And im not too fond of J-punk as the opening song (and its on ALL episodes) The ending songs do switch up at least and I did find Arigatou~ by BON'z (eps 40-on) to be pretty catchy and nice.

Overall this is, at best, an average shounen/comedy with nothing really memoriable or worth putting on my "favortie anime" list. Its also best if viewed in short sets instead of a 3 day marathon. If you don't mind your comedy having naked boy's, boy love, cross dressing, gay love triangles, and other homosexual tendancies worth laughing at (think Darma and Greg), watch this show. But if you dont want to waste your time watching an average show with a dash of shounen-ai then dont watch this. By the way, if you take out the fillers this show can easily be 15-20 episodes (yes thats how many fillers it feels like that are in there)

For a shounen anime, the main part is the path to the end not the plot. Unfortunately path they set isnt as memoriable.

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I LOVE THIS ANIME! It was so cute and adorable and just awwwwwww!

This is the anime that I cried the most in!
I love the action, the adventure, the comedy, everything about this anime is hilarious! It's great for the younger children even though I'm 17 and I felt like a little kid watching scooby doo in the mornings. This absolutely my most favorite anime in the adorable genre!
I loved how it explained everything, there weren't a lot of cliff-hangers, it was a magical kind of anime