Hosted by Swift Communications


Utawarerumono

Utawarerumono
Animation - 7.4
Sound - 7.5
Story - 6.3
Character - 7.1
Value - 6.7
Enjoyment - 7.7
Average - 7.1

Reviewed 15 times Statistic Help |  Review it


User Review
Jump to page   of 1  

Avalanche (2008-01-30 23:06:50)   2008-01-30 22:44:44
Average 5.2
Animation 7
Sound 7
Story 4
Character 4
Value 4
Enjoyment 5
Converting erogé (H-Games) seems to be the rage these days. Starting with FSN, they are starting to crop up like mushrooms these days – a new season, lo and behold! A new erogé based anime. Most of them are crap, but then the hype behind Utawarerumono when it was on air was very positive. So with some vigor I tried it out. By the time I hit episode 19, I was slowly coming to senses that after Shuffle!, Uta is the worst erogé based adaptation ever.
::More from this review::

0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Maethril    2008-01-25 15:00:50
Average 8.5
Animation 7
Sound 8
Story 10
Character 8
Value 9
Enjoyment 9
I really enjoyed this one and it easily earned top 5 rank on my own favourite anime list, but now the review.

Animation was sometimes quite awful, but it accomplished to fulfill its purpose. So I don't want to whine about it.

Sounds well I gave little lousy grade, but it had too many minor flaws. I really liked musics and voice actor as well, but sometimes I founded little problems in it, like a timing was little late or too soon etc.

Story was the strongest point and it seems to absorb its watchers so deeply its own little pockets.
Story is really simple, but at the same time it's pretty complicated. I do not want to even try to explain it clearly.
At first it sucked up badly, first eps were so f....ing boring and seemed to be quite usual stuff. Man lost his memories and his good person plahplahplah.... But then it founded whole new gear and after that I couldn't stop watching this. Ending "suprised" me, couldn't believe what happened.

I have no complaints about the characters, they were very interesting and carefully conceived.

Well, then. If U are looking harem anime, then U should leave this one out of count, because I really didn't find nothing what I could say harem requirements.
But it is one very good drama in fantasy & scifi world. Nice little "suprises" and the ending, which made me love this one...
I have to watch it again.

PS. english dubbed version sucks very badly, it leaves some little important thigs away and its voice actors were very lame. It spoils hole series.


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Summoner (2007-06-26 00:18:34)   2007-06-25 01:08:56
Average 7.0
Animation 5
Sound 7
Story 8
Character 7
Value 8
Enjoyment 7
What is identity? Is it a thing each person gets born with or a thing attained through many experiences when maturing? If you lose your memories and start your life anew, will you really turn out to be the same person as you were in the past? If not, then which one is the real you, the one that is present, or the one of the past, who is trying to emerge?

Utawarerumono is an anime adaptation of one of the most popular (and best) visual novels in Japan by the same name. I myself own both pc and ps2 versions of it and have played through both of them. As all novel adaptations, this show is of course inferior to its great counterpart, however, I myself am fully aware of the fact that packing 60 hours of dialogues/monologues into 26 episodes series is not an easy job. That's why there are many.. err.. incomplete dialogues in this anime. For example there are many scenes where somebody answers a question, which wasn't even asked or skips a lot of necessary explanations, to save time. Nearly all main character's monologues are also cut out. Unfortunately, thanks to these changes, brilliant characters from the novel start to look somewhat cheaper than they really are. The thing is, to get the most enjoyment out of this show, you should certainly play the novel beforehand. Well, you should play it either way, since it's totally awesome. It is in japanese only though. -_-;

If you've read the novel then obviously you'll see this show no matter what. However, if you can't read the novel... well, this show is worth seeing for its original idea and plot. However, you shouldn't expect something supernal from a version which is so heavily cut that its substance reminds of a sieve.
::More from this review::

0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Budding (2007-07-12 11:57:10)   2007-02-05 13:25:01
Average 7.3
Animation 7
Sound 8
Story 7
Character 8
Value 7
Enjoyment 7
Utawarerumono is a 26 episode long anime series which start off with a promising storyline which ended up being quite the opposite.

Although the character designs and overall animation is good, there are quite a number of re-used scenes, especially during battle sequences. Occasionally the synch of the voices also doesn't seem quite right, depleting the overall quality of the anime. There was also one particular episode with extremely poor graphics and animation, damaging the consistency of the anime. In the end, the animation of Utawarerumono just feels sloppy. The designs are good, but the quality and consistency of the animation just makes me feels as if the animators were being slightly underpaid.

Both theme tunes are decent, as is the background music and voice overs, despite the occasional miss-synch. However, there is also nothing particularly outstanding about the music and sounds in Utawarerumono either.

The storyline for the first half of the series is very good. It's interesting, occasionally humorous, and raises a number of interesting questions to be answered by the second half of the series. However, those answers were far from satisfaction, in fact, they weren't even remotely interesting. A number of absolutely pointless, illogical and flawed topics were brought in simply for explaining the poorly fabricated answers, ruining the overall enjoyment of Utawarerumono all the way till the end.

Utawarerumono features a set of extremely interesting characters, some of which were well developed, while others were barely developed, and some were ruined by the development. The poor topics introduced to satisfy the storyline lead to the demise of interest for several very intriguing characters, including the main protagonist himself. Still, there were a few who remained fascinating till the end, so not all of the characters were ruined by the storyline.

Utawarerumono was captivating to watch for the first half and a bit, before it became a downhill spiral in terms of storyline. This factor also pretty much ruined the re-watch-ability, and turned this promising series into a pretty average anime.


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Dante    2006-12-28 21:39:14
Average 5.2
Animation 8
Sound 7
Story 3
Character 5
Value 4
Enjoyment 4
Utawarerumono was quite promising from the start but slowly went downhill. Despite the interesting character designs and world in which the story takes place, the weak story and lack of character development ruined this experience for me.
::More from this review::

0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Solitaire (2007-01-27 12:57:03)   2006-11-28 19:25:53
Average 6.0
Animation 7
Sound 6
Story 4
Character 6
Value 5
Enjoyment 8
Utawarerumono is a series with a horrible beginning and end, but excellent all the way through the middle.
::More from this review::

0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

isokana (2006-11-14 07:12:53)   2006-11-13 13:56:14
Average 7.5
Animation 8
Sound 7
Story 6
Character 8
Value 7
Enjoyment 9
Utawarerumono is such a bad name for this anime. If I were god or something similar, I would make it "Furry Tail Adventures".

The basic problem with Utawarerumono is that it tries to be two things at the same time: a fun harem-like spectacle and a serious political fantasy. While it's nice the shows performs quite well with the first category, this also seriously hampers its changes of being successful in the latter one. It's really hard to watch a series where you can face a brutal battle deciding the fates of many people and the next second you have an innocent, winged loli character with maximum bust size playing with some other furry-eared creatures and a tame tiger.

In a nutshell Utawarerumono is something like this: there's Hakuoro, a guy with a stone mask that couple of country girls find wounded in the forest. They help him recuperate and he helps the village with some trouble with the local lord. Things escalate and finally we have a war that is deciding the fate of the whole world. Sounds impressive but I think it was somewhere around episode 10 or 11 when I lost any hope for Utawarerumono's story. Until then I had a slight hope that it would make sense but at that time I realized the story was only an illusion that would bend to whatever ridiculous demands the plot demanded. And this proved to be right when the completely insane ending started. If I had gone through that hoping Utawarerumono could deliver some real feelings or anything meaningful, I'd been extremely offended. Now clichès didn't feel so bad as I was watching the show for its crazy ideas and furry fanservice. Overall the story is also disjointed hinting some big events to come and then concentrating on Hakuoro playing humorously with his harem for 10 episodes or something. Adding to this catastrophy the story leaves some things just hanging in the air, never fully explaining them (like the story of Hakuoro's ex-wife). What was nice is that they showed quite well how the war mostly affected the regular people (their lives were cheap, very cheap).

Utawarerumono is based on somekind of an ero-strategic game and it shows in the characters. Hakuoro gathers an impressive harem around him with girls of all kinds of personalities. And these are not any standard girls: to maximize the fanservice effect they have a wide variety of different kind of ears and tails and wings. From this group most (at least guys) can find their favourite. For me this was Touka, a skillful fighter with one-minded justice in her mind. There others from the gentle neighbour girl to winged mother figure to relaxed buddy type. They are so stereotypical and designed to appeal to male viewers that it's hard to take them seriously. Some development can be seen but it's really superficial and everyone keeps doing their thing from their introduction to the last episode. The guys aren't any better, just fighting and spouting out the same things all the time. Even though the characters sound bad, they are mostly really funny and enjoyable to follow exactly because they are so predictable and they play quite nicely together. But when things get serious, it's just uncomfortable. Luckily most of the series is about comedy and fighting.

Animation isn't too spectacular. For regular scenes it's standard for the year 2006. Single fights are fluid but when bigger armies match, they use computer animation that looks severely out of place. The world is a standard fantasy world with castles and somewhat refreshingly lizard mounts. The character designs are quite nice with various animal traits mixed with human appearance. The opening song is one of the better ones from 2006. Otherwise the sound-world is painfully dull with below average voice-acting.

Utawarerumono had two choices: it could be a carefree harem comedy or a serious fantasy. It has the elements to make a very good series either way. But unfortunately it decided to do both. The result is a sour mixture where both elements disturb the other. My recommendation is to watch this with the logic circuits in your brain switched off and drown yourself to the well-tailored fantasy harem with a lot of blood flowing around and leave the serious thoughts to some more worthy shows.


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

flipping_heck    2006-10-25 13:49:05
Average 6.7
Animation 8
Sound 7
Story 4
Character 7
Value 7
Enjoyment 7
Its strange this, Uta is a good anime but like alot of good animes i like, it always fails in one of its key aspects.

When i mean good, i meant that Uta started well with an intriging plot, a good cast of (D&D style) characters and a good setting with lots of action generally. The problem lies when it tries to execute many of the above aspects, its a hit or miss in many cases, for example. the characters, out of the many present, only a very select handful were chosen to be given any form of character development or enough screentime to like them, inarguably, Karura, the kick-ass screen-hogging ass kicker is the top draw, while others pale in comaprison in terms of screen time, development and even the action.
The biggest example of poor execution is the story, the plot is good, shrouded in mystery and tension, it fails to live up to its promise, what with lack of info on Hakuoro, its fantasy turned sci-fi plot is not detailed enough and it feels very very loose.

Its strange though, Uta never tries to acheive anything more than an almost bog-standard fantasy anime, what with the potential it has. The sci-fi style theme at the end is not hard to present as shown by one of my fave animes, Scrapped Princess, but somehow with the 26 episodes here, Uta tries too hard to fit everything in those short episodes and subsequently it never appears more than just 'adequate'.

What is there though is quite fine though, again, Karura rules the roost with her charming, kick-ass ways. Erruru and Arruru are instantly likable, Oboro jobs like hell but a fun character, Benawi is a great character but needed more of him and in general the whole cast really fit their role well. The action (though repeated sometimes) is decent to watch, nothing outstanding, nothing too special, but does the job decently and is not boring at all.
There's a good amount of entertainment aside form the action, with the comedy situations early on, and the drama like stories during the series adding quite alot.

But still, this anime just feels a bit wasted, its too short what with the material given, the story is overly confusing with the characters not given the chance to develop much, but what is still there is good to watch to an extent, sure its not amazing, but it could have been that good.

Overall: 7/10
Grade: B-


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

nauXolo    2006-10-23 21:43:11
Average 7.8
Animation 7
Sound 8
Story 8
Character 8
Value 7
Enjoyment 9
It has been quite some time since I've watched an anime that has captured as much attention as this one has. On the outset, it seems like one man's rise to bring peace to the countries but it slowly develops into one with numerous devastating wars and battles, and finally it goes back towards its main optimistic message and theme, "Peace, life and happiness". Small nuances aside, Utawarerumono has a healthy balance of characters and storyline. Despite the fact that we are introduced to so many characters by the end of this series, this anime never loses that original feel of unity that it began with. Furthermore, the storyline is interesting and appealing enough to keep you glued to the screen: not only are there plenty of large scale battles, but there are often various subtleties during dialogue that may be missed if one does not pay attention to it.

Because Utawarerumono does well above average in nearly all aspects, it does not excel in any particular one. There are many possible complaints and annoyances that one may point out. For example, there really are a lot of characters... and by the end, even some of the more key characters from the beginning are just ... there, not doing much. Of course, each character gets its own episode focus and we do get to know each one of them quite well AND each character has a decent role in each flowing episode, but it is just hard to give so much attention to everyone at the end.

The storyline may also be considered a bit farfetched to some. A bit similar to how Trigun told its story, the beginning of Utawarerumono is basically some sort of medieval style world with castles, sword fights, and only arrows as projectiles. However, towards the end, the series starts getting a little science fictiony to the dismay of potential viewers who did not see this coming. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed all the war scenes and battle scenes.

Despite the potential problem of overextending itself, Utawarerumono tells a great story, with a great cast of characters. The excess of cute girl characters that keep popping up may distract some from the awesome story, but overall if viewed from a purely storytelling entertainment purpose, Utawarerumono should not disappoint!
::More from this review::

0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Amaryl    2006-10-15 17:44:09
Average 7.0
Animation 7
Sound 7
Story 6
Character 6
Value 7
Enjoyment 9
Utawarerumono is a simple anime that doesn't really care for its flaws. There are many, but they aren't really a bother.

The animation is in no way overdone, the only reason for it to be just a little bit above average is because of great use of CGI. Characterdesigns are rather uninspired, more stereotype for their character. Later mecha seems to be blown up versions of Al, from Fullmetal Alchemist. The CGI, however shines. Not that it's that good, it's just not overused and actually holds true to the meaning "Special Effect". Combat could be something this anime could've exceeded in, but many repetetive filler scenes of a hero slicing half an army dull the significance. Their are good battles and great direction, but there was unfullfilled potential. Fortunately, there is lots of gore. Not the kind that turns your stomach or makes you sit at the tip of your chair, but the kind which lets you know cannon fodder is being used.
Sound really had nothing special in it concerning BGM. The voice acting was a lot better. Not in terms of seiyuu performance, but rather in casting. Each character had the perfect voice actor fo the character, or so it seemed.
But when characters and story are concerned, Utawarerumono doesn't deliver at all. Each character is as one dimensional as a dot. None undergo any development. Even the main character, Hakuoro, stays who he is until the very end. He gets a bit background, but that's also the very "plot" of Utawarerumono. In the end, the very mystery about Hakuoro's identity is explained in a rather anticlimatic way. The first time part of his dark identity gets revealed, it turns out to be an insignificant event. In the end, you wish they'd continued along that plotline where the righteous Hakouro had a dark history as a villain Rakh Shine, however, as soon as this "arc" is over, it's also forgotten. A new villain arises, gets slain, repeat, suddenly flashbacks to Hakuoro's origin, then it kind of ends. Fortunately, the ending is quite satisfying. The kiss between the male and female lead had to happen sometime, and it had perfect timing. This still wasn't done perfect, but good enough to end the anime.

Then why an enjoyment rating of 9? Well, like i stated, Utawarerumono doesn't rally care for its flaws, it just comes with them. Their is enough comic relief until everything gets serious and the anime just has a nice touch to it. It's easygoing, not complex. Just a little soothing fairytale...with lot's of gore.

If you like a small fantasy trip and you're looking for an easy series, Utawarerumono will not be a bad choice.


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Pakxenon (2006-11-18 00:20:21)   2006-10-01 14:44:35
Average 4.7
Animation 7
Sound 5
Story 3
Character 5
Value 3
Enjoyment 5
Utawarerumono (The One Being Sung) starts slow, gets good, gets gory, and ends bad/rushed. Potentially a good story turned trash at the turn of the 24th episode as it mixes up genres in the wrong way, trys to explain everything with something completely unrelated to the main theme, and a harem of characters that turns out useless/unnecessary.

One main problem with this anime is that it makes you hate each and every villain. Sure, rooting for the good guys are good, but when you want every single villain dead, why bother having those villains torture the good guys in each and every arc? Sure, it makes Hakuoro-san look good, but it's too cheap and makes the world look like a crappy place to be in.

The second problem is the overall uselessness of the harem Hakuoro-san has collected. Each person Hakuoro-san wins over is overpowering to the next, but they never get used when they should have been, used in cheap battles, and in the end they face an overpowering enemy that they can't get a scratch on.

The third problem is - WHERE DO YOU GET ALL THOSE RECRUITS? The armies are HUGE, yet the population doesn't look like it's depleting. MANY battles take place, and MANY villages get burned, but in no scene does it look like the world population look decreased. The insane amount of generic soldier this series has probably totals several ten thousands, yet in this feudal world, the population doesn't relatively decreases.

The last problem is the ending. So this is an anime with swords, arrows, and a near-invincible tiger. See problem #2 for the tiger. It suddenly switches into some sort of mecha genre where huge armored machine-things simply overpower the rest of the world, swords and arrows don't work, and gates are crushed in seconds. Add to the fact that the rabbits that are controlling them are supposedly 'losing' the overall battle because their borders are increasing everyday. AND THEN, it switches to sci-fi, coming up with an explanation for all the 'human''s ears and tails and wings. Some fantasy anime this is.

Now for the good points:
-Great animation. Blood and gore at some of it's best. Great fluidity and character designs (though not very attractive). Great war CG battles.
-The capturing of Hakuoro-san's harem. Except for that annoying Oboro and his 'ani-chan!', most of the harem is acceptable.
-The woman have BUSTS. I get turned on and off at the same time.
-Most episodes are action-packed and plot progressing.
-IT KEEPS YOU GUESSING AT EVERY EPISODE: THE GENDER OF THE TWINS. AND STILL THEY DON'T 'REVEAL' IT AND YOU WILL START TO BECOME VERY UNCOMFORTABLE.

A nice watch. Confusing at the end, however.


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Entreri (2006-10-22 03:12:51)   2006-09-09 00:38:59
Average 8.3
Animation 8
Sound 8
Story 8
Character 9
Value 8
Enjoyment 9
Utawarerumono is a good series, but it is not a fantastic one. It draws many good things and a few bad ones, but it fortunately tilts to the good side of anime. While some certain individuals will find this anime blend and 'cardboard', it largely depends on their enquired tastes.

It may present an ordinary first impression to the normal viewer, although surprisingly it does promises very differently throughout time, and of course with patience.

If one can accept and overcome the stock characters, the 'typical' medieval theme and is tolerant, Utawarerumono is, without a doubt an enjoyable anime.
::More from this review::

0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Tusaki    2006-07-14 16:26:40
Average 9.0
Animation 8
Sound 9
Story 9
Character 9
Value 9
Enjoyment 10
Overall I have been enjoying this alot (more than the other two reviewers).

It is a thrill to watch the story develop, and I particularily liked the setting (got to love the animal/man hybrid living in medieval times and riding dinosaurs... I like fluffy tails!) and the way the characters interact with each other.

I agree that the show has a lot of super powerfull characters, but since each of them has their own unique personality and the viewer learns plenty about their history and motives I say this is a good point of the show. They give color to the story.

For some weird reason it is classified as a "harem" anime, but this is so wrong. It is an adventure, just sit back and relax, and as with more anime, watch beyond episode 5, the first 4 are more of an introduction.


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

Annihilator-X-    2006-07-02 03:45:29
Average 8.8
Animation 8
Sound 9
Story 9
Character 10
Value 8
Enjoyment 9
Firstly I have to disagree with ImperialPanda about characters randomly popping up. Each character has been at least introduced properly. E.g. Kagura. I admit the introduction and the character developments are lacking. But I wouldn't been suprised for it being a 26 ep anime.

there are no pointless episodes (no filler episode); but the scope of the story from the game I played; 26 ep is just enough to strike a balance between action and character development.

There are many battle scenes, however I wouldn't say the action scenes are too overwhelming in quantity, giving each battle scene only last for 5 min max. I don't think the amount of battles can easily be reduced to more character development as each ultimately ties to the story.

Nevertheless I agree with ImperialPanda that we would prefer more character development but certainly it's not lacking given that it's a 26 ep anime with a deep story as backup (It's from a game by Aquaplus).

While the animation quality does not match master piece like Suzumiya Haruhi, it is definitely not bad.


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

ImperialPanda (2006-07-11 18:08:43)   2006-06-06 19:41:27
Average 7.3
Animation 9
Sound 9
Story 5
Character 6
Value 7
Enjoyment 8
Well, it's been a relatively calm season as far as unlicensed anime goes. There hasn't been any shows which can rival bleach or fma, in terms of popularity at least.

So on to Utaware... The overall premises and character designs are quite nice, and some of the action scenes are very well done. However, the transition from game to anime is not without its flaws, flaws which become increasingly annoying as the anime progresses.

The general story, as it begins, is almost exactly the same as 12 Kingdoms. However, while the first couple steps were extremely well executed, it quickly goes downhill from what would've otherwise been a high-quality show. The beginning places a casual, entertaining, and reasonable focus on character development. On top of that, a near-perfect amount of action gets sprinkled in (well-animated action, might I add).

But the show quickly becomes action-heavy. Honestly I never imagined I would be saying this... but jeez they really need to cut back on how many action scenes they have. This is made worse by lumping in the traditional cookie-cutter cannon fodder. In one scene, a couple enemy soldiers starts attacks against Oboro (protagonist sidekick). They end up *holding* their attack in midair for like 2-3 seconds and then get ridiculously sliced by Oboro. Right.... Ok.... Reminants from the turn-based RPG?!? -_-

Like I said, sometimes the action scenes are good. But other times there's an obvious "invincible" character on one side or another and it just gets super lame. (like "why tf did they even bother making this scene?!")

Cut those out, add in some more character time, and the show would've been improved considerably.

Secondly, the show doesn't seem to have an overarching storyline to connect episodes with each other. FMA: hunt for philosipher's(sp?) stone, 12 Kingdoms: each *clearly defined* story arc has their distinct objective. Bleach: kill stuff/save someone. And then throw in some sidequests. Might sound a little lame, but an overarching goal, spaning for a majority of the show until some plot twist or another, greatly helps with overall coherence.

With Utaware, episodes are very disjunctured. Things move from one objective to another quickly and without reason. Sure there are some scraps but it's not nearly enough. Large story elements get injected without any prior foreshadowing. To make it worse, dozens of characters just pop in... *and out* (the important part), which only helps to further destroy any sense of coherence and flow.

The characters themselves... There's not really much to say, because there's nothing devoted to character development. Pretty much every single character sans protagonist is the exact same person since eps 1, or whenever they were introduced. No change, no growth, nothing. Absolutely static. Cool? No.

Finally, the setting of the anime is setup extremely poorly. Going back to 12 Kingdoms: First, the geographical makeup of 12 Kingdoms is presented early, which I believe is helpful in creating a focused mindset. Second, the countries which were involved in the story were each home to several scenes. These scenes add faces to the countries, giving the identities and basically just breathing life to what would otherwise be a simple [country] name.

Utaware? No. Countries randomly pop up and their existance serves no purpose other than to present an army which fights protagonist groupies. Just random names with nothing attached. Like I said, poorly implemented.

Bottom line: somewhat enjoyable, but lacking in elegance and style.

P.S. Animation +1 for eps 14. ;>


0 of 0 people found this review helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes / No

User Review
Jump to page   of 1  



Anime and Manga database (AnimeNfo.com)
© 2001-2006 Kevin Lamothe (supers) | Terms and Conditions
Hosted by Swift Communications


banner


Site design by ecxol.net:
ecxol