Urara Meirochou

Labyrinth Town is a legendary city composed of ten districts, home to witches and diviners alike. In the outermost district of this maze, many young girls begin training to join the ranks of the "Urara," a group of women known far and wide for their ability to divine the answers to the world's most difficult questions. Chiya, a wild girl raised amongst the animals in the mountains, is invited to take her rightful place as a first rank urara. By joining them, she hopes to divine the location of her long-lost mother.

Chiya quickly makes three friends: studious Kon Tatsumi, aspiring witch Koume Yukimi, and reticent Nono Natsume. Armed with only their own ingenuity and a vague connection to the gods, they begin their journey in the way of the urara.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Chiya Main

Harada, Sayaka Japanese

Tatsumi, Kon Main

Hondo, Kaede Japanese

Yukimi, Koume Main

Kubo, Yurika Japanese

Natsume, Nono Main

Yoshimura, Haruka Japanese

Iroi, Saku Supporting

Suwa, Ayaka Japanese

Natsume, Nina Supporting

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Quispilquette, Marie Supporting

Yahagi, Sayuri Japanese

Kurou Supporting

Ooshima Supporting

Takakura, Yuka Japanese

Tokie Supporting

Noto, Mamiko Japanese

Matsukura, Yuuji Producer

Kobayashi, Hiroyuki Producer

Fujishiro, Atsushi Producer

Tanaka, Junichirou Producer

Reviews

Sep 17, 2023

RESOLVING_POWER

Recommended

I watched Urara Meirochou. Here are my thoughts:

This show focuses on novice users of divine powers and their journey to improve those skills. I like divine themes in any kind of story, so I'm probably a little biased in the degree to which I liked this anime. In fact, I wish the show focused even more on the actual divine powers and supernatural themes. In terms of screentime, this anime has a lot of typical slice-of-life scenes. However, there are sprinklings of broader plot that are strategically added. When they do occur, the divination scenes are quite nice.

The main characters in the show ... are all likable and have good chemistry in their interactions. However, this anime has too much comedy, in my opinion. Both in terms of the way it interrupts enjoyable moments and in the way that so much overall screentime is sucked up by mediocre comedy. The timing of the comedy was poor too. It often broke the tone of a scene in a disruptive way, and in general was too frequent for my taste. I sometimes felt like I was getting emotional whiplash by the way the mood constantly jumped around. It felt like the show was trying to cater to someone with an extremely low attention span. There were many moments where I was soaking in the mood of a scene, only for it to be disrupted by some unfunny tone-breaking comedy. This is the show's greatest flaw from my perspective. However, in fairness, the latter half of the series is comparatively less comedy-heavy.

The art style is unique, creative, and in general quite nice. The style of the background setting, like the town's houses, is unique. The soft pastel colour palette is nice. Stylized frames with artistic patterns and the like (think Hidamari Sketch) are effectively used during dialogue scenes. The pervasive use of soft curvy haphazard linework contributes to the show's playful fantasy-like atmosphere; it sort of reminds me of childrens' storybooks. Some of the character designs are fairly cute, with cute outfits too. The animation quality in this is fairly average, but there is a lot of visual detail. You can tell that a lot of attention was paid to minor details, moreso than I'd expect from this kind of anime. I found myself pausing frequently just to admire random objects or features in the frame. Cinematography is used effectively and creatively as well. Each scene usually has lots of variety in terms of 'camera' angles, framing, distortion, etc. A lot of care and creativity was put into this anime's visuals, even though it doesn't have 'butter-smooth' animation. I really enjoyed the visual aspects of this show.

The main characters have incredibly cute voice work, which is great because the show is dialogue-heavy. It seemed like a fair bit of attention is paid to sound effects, like during divination scenes for example. Even mundane things, like the sound of movement on tatami mats, are handled in detail and with care. The OST seemed good, although it is usually overshadowed by dialogue and sound effects.


My overall rating: 8/10
Despite my distaste for the comedy and the way it was implemented, this show is exceptional in many other ways, and I very much enjoyed watching it. The atmosphere, setting and themes are rich and unique. The art style is creative and unique. All of the main characters are likable. The divine powers theme in the story is interesting and refreshing. However, if they got rid of the comedy and focused even more on the divine elements in the writing, I imagine that I would rate this anime even higher. In fact this anime had all the ingredients to be a 10/10 for me personally, and that potential could have been realized if things were executed differently. Regardless of my lamenting some squandered potential, I enjoyed this anime quite a lot.

I want to read the manga because the writing seems like it has lots of promise.

Lastly, to anyone who enjoys the SoL genre, absolutely I would recommend this anime. It is creative, comfy, cute, playful, relaxing, and unique. I enjoyed every single episode and always looked forward to watching it. It really was exceptional.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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May 19, 2021

AnshulGoyal

Mixed Feelings

"Urara Meirochou" rather that cute children, it didn't had much to offer. I would say that for any drama to be successful we need a story. But what was the story here? A mountain girl wants to be a urara which is just like a priest or a fortune teller managing a cult in any back alley around the globe.

Really I don't know why the hell this show got such good rating? Is this world really full of perverts who would like anything as long as there are cute girls in it?
If this is the case then this industry is doomed.

The story was ... comic and not much comic to lift the score of this show. 4 girls 1 is introvert, 2nd is extrovert, 3rd is normal and over excited and 4th a jungle girl. Really a deadly combination and I really expected a lot but was rather shocked after watching and thought a twist must be there but there wasn't any.

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Apr 4, 2018

Rexosorous

Not Recommended

NOTE: this review is for my own personal use only. i've noticed after a while, i forget why i rated a show highly or poorly, so i'm going to write reviews after completing each series so i can reference them in the future.

urara meirochou started off as a comfy "cute girls doing cute things" show, but my eyes quickly dulled after each episode had to have a bonding event. each and every episode had to have one character feel alone or out of place and then it has to end with someone crying and everyone saying "we'll do it together" or some bullshit like that. ... the whole "friends give me strength" thing is fine, albeit overused, but it was just so dumb and cheesy.

towards the end, we started to get some sprinkling of an underlying story, but of course it ends on a cliff hanger and refuses take itself seriously. in the middle of a major plot point, it hard cuts to a slapstick joke. it feels horribly out of pace and kills the mood and pacing. and it does this more than once in the same episode. in this regard, it follows the same pitfalls and many other slice of life shows: have your majority of the show be comfy and then force drama at the end, but don't have any form of conciseness. not to say that this will always kill a show for me, but it does leave a bad taste in my mouth ESPECIALLY when you tease me this hard. the problem is the show brings up something extremely interesting and starts to form a compelling story, just to spit in your face for getting your hopes up.

the characters are just merely caricatures. it's what i expected to begin with, given that it is a slice of life show. the characters don't change, but are given the illusion of change. for example, each character undergoes a moment when they "realize" that they can rely on their friends (or some similar epiphany) and this gives the illusion that our character has changed. but this doesn't change the way our character acts or how they interact with the others at all. regardless of this "epiphany", the character would still go to the ends of the earth for their friends and vice versa.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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