Yuuki Yuuna wa Yuusha de Aru: Dai Mankai no Shou

At the cost of the gods' protection, a new era has dawned, giving the remnants of mankind a chance to rebuild. Having fulfilled their duties to Taisha, the members of Sanshu Middle School's Hero Club finally begin to enjoy their youth, living as regular students. However, such a conclusion did not come about without sacrifice.

In the year 298 of the Divine Era, Mebuki Kusunoki is among the potential candidates to become the next hero. Despite her painstaking efforts to surpass her competition, she loses the position to Karin Miyoshi, leaving Mebuki furious at Taisha's decision. Two years later, Mebuki is appointed commander of the Sentinels—a group tasked to explore uncharted territory beyond the barrier. The team's seemingly simple mission is quickly disrupted by unforeseen threats, endangering the innocent lives of the fleet.

To prove her worth as a hero, Mebuki vows to bring everyone back alive, no matter what it takes.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Yuuki, Yuuna Main

Terui, Haruka Japanese

Tougou, Mimori Main

Mimori, Suzuko Japanese

Nogi, Sonoko Main

Hanazawa, Kana Japanese

Miyoshi, Karin Main

Nagatsuma, Juri Japanese

Koori, Chikage Main

Suzuki, Aina Japanese

Nogi, Wakaba Main

Ohashi, Ayaka Japanese

Inubouzaki, Fuu Main

Uchiyama, Yumi Japanese

Inubouzaki, Itsuki Main

Kurosawa, Tomoyo Japanese

Takashima, Yuuna Main

Terui, Haruka Japanese

Kusunoki, Mebuki Main

Tanaka, Minami Japanese

Maeda, Toshihiro Producer

Kinoshita, Tetsuya Producer

Hasegawa, Yoshinori Producer

Washizaki, Kenta Producer

Reviews

Dec 29, 2021

LWH_Hei

Recommended

I am a simple person.
I rate the anime based on enjoyment.
This anime is 8/10, which is considered as good.

I read Nowayu Novel and I loved it. It's unfortunate that this anime summarised the entire Nowayu Novel in 3 episodes and ruined the great story and characters. If you haven't read the light novel, please read it before you watch the anime like an average yuyuyu fan would do.

Overall, I still enjoyed the series. They made some good additions to yuusha no shou chapters. I love all the characters in yuyuyu. I cried when I saw some of my favourite characters suffering. The animation, music ... and voice actings are top tier. And there is a good balance of slice of life and actual plot.

Yuki yuna may not be my top 10 anime, but yuyuyu franchise is definitely one of my fav.

P.S. I love Chikage

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Dec 18, 2021

The_Namer

Mixed Feelings

What a disappointment. Yuki Yuna had two stellar seasons, with the second seeming to end the overall story in a conclusive way. So where does the story go from there? It backpedals and retcons in some side-stories. Rather than describe the plot in detail, I'll cover the structure of the season so you can get an idea of how jumbled it is.

This was a really confusing season to follow because it was hard to grasp when certain events were taking place at first. I was a bit suspicious that the opening recap only covered season 1, but it wasn't until episode 4 that I realised ... these events were happening parallel to the Hero Chapter in season 2.

After spending some care-free downtime with the regular cast in episode 1 (probably the most entertaining episode of the season), we suddenly switch to a new set of characters for episodes 2-4. If the Heroes (ie. magical girls) from the first two seasons are like special forces, then the Sentinels from these episodes are the rank-and-file. They're sent out en masse against overwhelming odds, armed with weapons that only give them a fraction of a Hero's power. Their missions were tense affairs because it looked like it could turn into a bloodbath at any moment (I won't say if it does or not). While this could have been a good arc, it ultimately goes nowhere because it's happening alongside the established events of season 2 that the Sentinels can't change.

Just as we're getting used to the new cast, episode 5 cuts back to the original cast (again set during season 2). This just acts as a framing device though, because we then jump back to another new cast of characters, this time the first ever team of Heroes led by Wakaba Nogi. This next prequel arc is, by far, the weakest part of the franchise to date. Earlier seasons of Yuki Yuna expertly rode the line of the tragical girl subgenre without turning into grimdark murder-fests, but the Wakaba arc tumbles off that line in the wrong direction. The problem is that it's trying to cover too much ground, too quickly, ends up using some ineffective shortcuts in its rush to brute-force us into caring. A brief montage skips through the apocalyptic events that set up the main conflict of the whole franchise, wasting the chance to show us these new characters bonding while the world falls apart around them. Instead we meet them once the new status quo has been established, in the aftermath of a disastrous battle that left half their team dead. It tries to make us care about these strangers after the fact by flashing back even further (yes, that's a flashback within a flashback within a flashback (flashbackception)), but it's all so abrupt and jumbled that it doesn't work. Meanwhile it uses laughably over-the-top visual shorthand to show the effect the girls' armour has on their bodies. There has always been a cost when a Hero powers up in this series, but without taking the time to show how those side-effects impact their lives like previous seasons we're instead shown a graphic display of blood squirting out of the girls from all angles as they fight.

It gets worse. One of the girls has a complete psychotic breakdown for reasons that the story can't decide upon. There were two or three different causes, and it all ends up a jumble. The show stops just short of her actually going on a killing spree, but it rides right up to the edge. After another big battle, this attention-deficit season loses interest in Wakaba and co. and switches back to the Sentinels plotline in episode 9. Since we have only spent three episodes with the Sentinels so far, and were introduced to a whole other cast in the intervening four episodes, I'd forgotten who most of the Sentinels were by this point. We rejoin them for another couple of episodes in a plotline again running parallel to season 2, which again doesn't feel like it adds much to the overall canon.

Then we come to season 3's greatest sin: episode 11. This is literally just a re-edited version of the final episode from season 2 with a couple of new scenes from the perspective of different characters and some new music. Reusing climactic scenes like this robs them of the impact they had the first time around. Season 2 built to this moment through a desperate and emotional arc of several episodes that slowly ratched up the tension. Without any of that, simply replaying the last few scenes of it and expecting the same effect just doesn't work.

At least the season ends on a high note with an episode-long epilogue that clears up what happens to everyone after the paradigm-shifting events that ended season 2. It makes for a satisfying capstone to the story as a whole, but I don't think it was worth the messy season of chopped up side-stories it took to get there. The most frustratig thing is that this season could have worked much better if they had just copied the format they used for season 2, giving us two six-episode arcs instead of splicing everything together in a haphazard order.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Dec 17, 2021

Rakshal

Not Recommended

Preliminary (12/12 eps)

Note that I didn't read the light novels the 2 of the sub-stories were adaptations on of. This review is also going to contain a lot spoilers, there is no getting around it for this one, honestly not too worried about it since I don't think this is worth watching if you are a YuYuYu fan or a casual watcher.

This is just awful. The story of Dai Mankai no Shou is a mixture of a prequel, midquel, and an epilogue. It starts with a midquel showing the original cast doing slice of life things, then a midquel of a new cast know as the Sentinels ... doing scouting missions in the void area, then a prequel of a different cast fighting the Vertex a few hundred years ago, then back to the Sentinels to show what they were doing at the end of Yuusha no Shou, then a retelling/retcon of the ending of Yuusha no Shou, then finally an epilogue. Does this sound like this has terrible pacing, because it does. Dai Mankai no Shou has the worst plot pacing I've ever seen in a 12 episode show, no event being given enough time to sit with.

The midquel with the original cast is a fine episode, actually probably the least damaging episode of the show, the original cast are sadly basically just memes of themselves and don't really have much in the way of character writing.

The first few episodes with the Sentinels are mixed bag, but are the most interesting episodes of the show and my favorite bunch. It shows Mebuki, the leader of the Sentinels trying to lead the other Sentinels into scouting missions, with the majority of the members not physically or mentally prepared to handle being attacked by Stardust. It then ends with a cliffhanger of everyone's memory being erased after the events of the beginning of Yuusha no Shou. Then they reintroduced towards the end with them having to protect priests while they pray a weapon into activating. During which those inside the sphere praying will disappear if they loose faith while doing it, except then it also just yeets some of the Sentinels outside of the prayer sphere. That annoyed the hell out of me, because now it harms the pay off of the first few episodes where the leader Mebuki more or less achieved her sole goal to get every single member out alive. It also then causes harm since there is no grief for the teenagers just get unceremoniously killed off. What the weapon is even suppose to do is confusing as well, when it gets activated it just shoots a beam that coincidentally matches with the attack of Karin, Sonoko, and Itsuki then breaks a glass ceiling or something. Also really lucky that it matched up with the hero's attack. So the Sentinel related episodes started off intuiting but got ruined towards the end. The characters in the Sentinel episodes aren't great, Mebuki is the best written one with clear goals and conflicts, though it is damaged towards the end with her not really being impacted with the death of some of the other Sentinels. The rest are just a single character trope with no depth.

The few hundred years in the past prequel on the other hand it terrible from start to finish. It starts of with 2 characters dead... alright, guess well never know them, except when they lazily just throw in flashbacks to try and add character to them. The plot revolves around 3 of the past heroes back when heroes were known to the public and how the public reacts to it and how the heroes deal with the publicity. Problem is that the general public is comically dismissive, the news of 2 of the heroes, who are teenagers mind you, dying is basically met with a "lmao" from what we are shown. Chikage is the specific target of bullying by her classmates and has abusive parents on top of it in case you needed more angst, but none of the other heroes suffer this problem. On top of this she is also emotionally dependent on Takashima, and just seeing her interacting with Nogi puts her in such a bad mental state that ends up trying to murder Nogi, only to then have her powers taken away from her by the Divine Tree. Then learning to error of her ways, she sacrifices herself to save Nogi from some Stardust. It is very poorly done, Chikage is written like she is a psychopath who looses her mind very easily, which questions why the Taisha or the Divine Tree chose to make a hero out of someone who is so clearly mentally unstable. Nogi's character is flat, her one goal is stated to be revenge against the Vertex but it isn't really translated well into the script. Takashima is literally just Yuki. That is it, she just a clone of Yuki. The ending of the prequel also just rips the payoff of Yuki willing herself into hero form from the first season but with no emotional weight to it. Just, "Hey remember that one scene from the season you like?"

Then we have the retelling of the ending of Yuusha no Shou, which was about as worthless as a recap episode. There wasn't much new added to it, but what was added either was just indifferent or damaged the already badly written ending of Yuusha no Shou. Not a lot to say here.

Then we have the epilogue. It is also bad, it is basically trying to add to the world building showing the general public not trusting the Taisha anymore. Sonoko makes a really good suggestion of starting a coup to overthrow the Taisha. That makes sense, not only is the general public not happy with the Taisha lying to them all the time, but also at least 4 of the 6 heroes should be furious with them at this point, I mean everything they have done has cause immense suffering. Nah, the other 5 talk her out of it pretty easily. This is honestly character damaging for the original cast, especially for Fuu. Then we have a 4 year time skip, Karin, Yuki, and Togo are doing expeditions into the new territory that was revealed with the destruction of the void area, Fuu is a scientist now I guess, weird considering she wasn't characterized as being particularly interested in science or particularly intelligent, Itsuki is a singer, and Sonoko is the new leader of the Taisha I guess.

Art is fine, not much to say on that. The OST and voice acting are is still great, shame the voice actors got wasted on such a terrible script.

This might be the single most disappointing thing I've ever watched. Pacing is awful, characters are either flat or written downright terribly, and the story is functionally broken at times. Emotional moment have no weight to them since the characters aren't well written nor have I been given enough time with them to Stockholm Syndrome my way into caring about them. It feels like someone cynically went, "Crying scenes and characters yelling is what made YuYuYu popular so we'll do more of those, also throw in some gore in the middle because people like that in magical girl shows now." The first season got me to tear up multiple times during it, Washio Sumi no Shou got me to tear up a few times, even Yuusha no Shou got me feeling things occasionally, Dai Mankai no Shou I felt nothing but apathy towards and only really finished out of obligation. Just, absolutely disappointing.

Reviewer’s Rating: 2

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