Uragiri wa Boku no Namae wo Shitteiru, more commonly known as UraBoku for short, is a shounen-ai anime recently animated by J.C. Staff. For some reason, writing a review for this anime was hard – I actually meant to write this about a month ago. Maybe it was because of the ending, but we’ll get to that later.
We are first introduced to Sakurai Yuki, a teenage boy who lives in Asashi Orphanage, who has been having very strange dreams, but cannot remember them when he wakes up. We learn that he has several supernatural powers, including healing and being able to read peoples’ minds and empathize with them by touching them. Yuki likes taking care of the children at the orphanage and telling them stories; one night he tells them a story about a prince and a princess who, although having never met before, somehow inherently know each other. As Yuki is leaving the children to go to bed himself, he gets a text from a boy at school, asking him to help him. Yuki, naturally, runs toward where his school is; he sees the boy, Uzuki, in the middle of the street just as the lights turn “red” (meaning there shouldn’t be anyone on the street). Afraid that Uzuki will get hurt, Yuki rushes to push him onto the sidewalk, only for Uzuki to disappear and for Yuki himself to be stuck in the middle of the street, unable to move. Just as a truck is about to run over him, a (very very very pretty) mysterious man rushes over to save him (whose name, we learn later, is Luka), which sets off the chain of events that lead into the plot. Although Yuki has never met the man before, he feels as if he does know him and has met him before, similar to the princess and the prince in his story. (Like my awfully convoluted summary of the first episode?)
UraBoku is one of those anime that are predictable. It’s not necessarily a bad thing; but for people who know a lot about literature (or watch a lot of anime), this anime is very predictable. But, oddly enough, it’s good, although that might be my bias since I like the subject the anime covers. One of the recurring themes of the anime is reincarnation – that a person is reincarnated a number of times until their duty or goal is reached, and then some. In this case, we have the Zweilt guardians (guardians meant to protect Yuki) who are resurrected every lifetime in order to fight against the so-called “evil” Reiga and his Duras minions (Duras are basically demons). The reason the Zweilts protect Yuki is that he is their “God’s Light”; he can remove pain from them, although by doing so he transfers their pain to themselves. To that end the guardians try to become as least injured as possible to avoid harming Yuki, their Light. An interesting thing to note, while we’re still on the reincarnation subject, is that Yuki is actually supposed to be a girl. In every lifetime, Yuki was born a girl, except for this one, the “current” one – and in all the previous lifetimes, Luka and Yuki were lovers. Actually, they’re still in love – it’s very obvious. No, I’m not being hypocritical. I’m stating the truth. Every single gesture, facial expression, and scene between the two are meant to emphasize the affection and love between them, even if they don’t actually kiss or outright say, “I love you”. In the anime, there are also a couple more shounen-ai pairings (Shuusei and Hotsuma, Kuroto and Senshiro). Oh, wait, I can’t forget the Luka-Yuki-Reiga triangle.
With that out of the way – it’s predictable, but it’s still a good anime. The themes are covered nicely, and everything fits into place very well. Most characters’ pasts are delved deep into enough to make you interested – especially interesting is the fact that Reiga, the “evil antagonist”, was reincarnated in Yuki’s best friend, Kanata-san. (Why am I using an honorific? Because Yuki yells, “Kanata-sannn!” all the time, so it stuck. Seriously. I can’t just call him, “Kanata”.) Another interesting thing to note is that the anime has a Jewish reference – the Book of Raziel, the book that Kanata-san/Reiga carries with him near-constantly. That’s really the only thing I caught. The seiyuu and the animation were good – well, of course the animation was good; this is J.C. Staff we’re talking about. The art is wispy and pretty, very similar to Vampire Knight, although I’d definitely say UraBoku’s is better (again, possibly some bias since I was never all that interested in VK.) The only thing that I found weird was the CGI – but that doesn’t really detract from the viewing experience. The soundtrack was good too.
I can easily say this is a good anime – except for the ending. THE ENDING. I hate the ending for this anime. Ugh, I might pick up the manga after all, because the ending was horrible. Don’t watch the ending. The last episode is great except for the ending – so don’t watch the ending unless you want to wonder what, exactly, the anime was even about. The ending manages to singlehandedly destroy and nullify any sort of reincarnation and true love aspects the series was trying to depict. Therefore, the ending does not exist. Hah! The last few minutes of the final episode have successfully been pulverized and expelled from my brain. What? The Uragiri wa Boku no Namae o Shitteiru anime ended? When?
