Utawarerumono

An injured man is found in the woods by a girl named Eruruu, and everything about him is mysterious. Without knowledge of his past nor even his own name, he is welcomed to Eruruu's home and is given the name Hakuoro by her grandmother, and younger sister, Aruruu. While the inhabitants of the village have large ears and tails, Hakuoro's defining physical trait is quite different as he has neither ears nor tail, but only a mask that he cannot remove.

Soon after he becomes a part of the villagers' lives, a revolution against the tyrannical emperor of the land begins, and the conflict finds its way to his new home. Hakuoro must do whatever he can to save the people and the village that he has come to love, all while uncovering the mysteries that shroud his past.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Hakuoro Main

Koyama, Rikiya Japanese

Eruruu Main

Yuzuki, Ryouka Japanese

Aruruu Main

Sawashiro, Miyuki Japanese

Karura Supporting

Tanaka, Atsuko Japanese

Touka Supporting

Miyake, Kaya Japanese

Benawi Supporting

Namikawa, Daisuke Japanese

Oboro Supporting

Kirii, Daisuke Japanese

Kamyu Supporting

Kugimiya, Rie Japanese

Yuzuha Supporting

Nakahara, Mai Japanese

Mukkuru Supporting

Shimoyama, Yoshimitsu Japanese

Iwasa, Gaku Producer

Chung, Jin Ho Producer

Nagatani, Takayuki Assistant Producer

Kobayashi, Tomoki Director, Episode Director, Storyboard

Reviews

Nov 8, 2006

Crystal

Recommended

Utawarerumono manages to be one of those harem animes that anyone can possibly find enjoyable, even if they don't particularly like the concept of harems. Based on the ero-game with the same title, Utawarerumono focuses on an amnesiac man who is found critically injured in a rural village. With the kindness of the villagers, he recovers and spends his days peacefully with them. However, the peaceful times quickly end with a heart shattering event that throws the man and his fellow villagers into a life of war.

Story
The story in Utawarerumono is somewhat simplistic at first, with a majority of the anime following a simple formula ... of battles, battles and even more battles while introducing new characters. One may find that the way the story unfolds in this show is quite repetitive. However, if you're a fan of war stories with occasionally comedic situations and intelligent strategies to undermine the enemy you will most likely overlook the lack of variation. Despite what has been said, Utawarerumono also has a number of twists and turns (especially in the second half of the show) that should keep the viewer glued to their chairs long enough to see the story through.

Animation
Animation is both a positive and negative point in Utawarerumono. While the animation actually animates the characters in combat (compared to other anime that may just use still images and lines to indicate action) with a good amount of detail, recycled animation occurs. The reused animation is unfortunately quite noticeable (although not too frequent) and may detract one's enjoyment of the battles. The CG animation present in this show is a mixed bag. Some may like it, some may not. Either way, the CG is only used occasionally so it shouldn't be a huge issue. Character designs are more or less consistent, detailed and interesting, albeit one (or more) episode(s) may have the characters looking slightly more odd then usual due to different animators.

Sound
Sound is also quite a mixed bag; you may like it or hate it. The opening song is quite catchy, although there is nothing particularly memorable about it. The ending song also proves to have a unique flair to it, with the overall tone of the music befitting the ambiance of this anime. As Utawarerumono contains a number of battle scenes, the background music does well in giving out the proper mood that is needed to set atmosphere of the show. The voice acting is decent, with no one really standing out but with everyone befitting their character.

Character
Utawarerumono being a harem anime contains the usual female stock characters that you would find from other harems. The serious one, the flirtatious one, the cute one, the shy one and etc. However, due to the majority of the show focusing on war, thankfully most of the female characters are not just part of the harem and play a role in the story. Not every character is developed, most likely due to time constraints (although I'm not sure whether the original game developed the ones missed out in this show). Thankfully the main character and a number of other major characters are given some development and time to flesh out their backgrounds.

Enjoyment
As for why I enjoyed Utawarerumono - I have natural bias against anything that would be considered a harem anime, but the nicely animated action scenes and character designs won this series over for me. Storywise I thought most of the show didn't really offer much, but I was quite suprised towards the second half of the show where a number of twists were thrown in, making the overall story of this anime much more interesting. I also found almost all the characters to be likeable, except for the certain few which are obviously meant to be hated by the viewers. I only wish some other characters besides the ones given time were developed more properly.

Overall
Overall, Utawarerumono manages to deliver an enjoyable package to the casual anime viewer. One may desire to watch this show more then once due to the presence of foreshadowing and a good amount of the background story told in different episodes. Either way, Utawarerumono has a little bit of everything for everyone. It has fan service-like scenes and characters, a large amount of intense action scenes and an intriguing and somewhat deep plot for those seeking something less mindless and profound. It may not prove to be strong in any given area, but it delivers a show that should leave most anime fans somewhat satisfied with what they've just seen.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Jan 29, 2012

ggultra2764

Mixed Feelings

There are two words that best describe my thoughts of Utawarerumono that not too many folks would like me to utter: otaku bait. I know this would seem kind of shallow-minded to anyone that may like this series. But considering mostly every prominent character in this series has some sort of animal ears and tail plus look ridiculously cute or physically attractive (along with this anime being an eroge strategy game adaptation), I rest my case with these two words being uttered.

For the most part, Utawarerumono's characters and plot developments are pretty formulaic and straight-forward. The series runs into several arcs with Hakuoro and his ... allies running into some hostile enemy threat trying to either halt his revolt or take over his kingdom, Hakuoro coming up with a clever plan to halt said threat, gaining new allies from offing said threat and then a breather episode with comedy highlights coming from the quirks of the characters or everyday scenes with Hakuoro, Eruru and Aruru. While the first arc was okay with Hakuoro leading the commoners to revolt against their corrupt glutton of a ruler, the later arcs do get monotonous with their developments with every country in sight seemingly wanting a piece of Hakuoro and his kingdom for shallow reasons.

Character development with new characters in these arcs is limited to their appearances in said arcs and once they become one of Hakuoro's allies, their roles become mostly downplayed to being loyal soldiers to Hakuoro when they participate in a battle. Other than Hakuoro and a few major characters, you don't get to see too many developments with these ass-kicking characters after they become one of his comrades, which is kind of a shame as a couple of them had their interesting traits and backgrounds during their debut arcs, mainly Oboro and Touka. A number of the major villains confronted in these arcs are so over-the-top and ridiculous with their appearance, behavior and/or mannerisms that they are laughable, especially Hauenkua who reminds me enough of how nuts Escaflowne's Dilandau was.

The other prominent focus of the series is on Hakuoro's mysterious past which the series drops hints of in the not-so-entertaining later arcs of the show. Amnesiac hero storylines normally have a good amount of potential in unveiling some interesting developments for said main hero and a show's plot. But while Hakuoro's character is an interesting and likeable one, what I come to learn of his origins and background comes across as quite a big contradiction to the type of world Utawarerumono had set up throughout its run.

Visually, the series does sport good looking scenery and characters (despite the latter's clear "appeal") with vivid colors and a decent amount of detail applied to them. The show's animation is average at many points with occasional use of shortcuts and some bad use of CG animation in the rendering of armies during battle scenes.

While I did get some enjoyment out of seeing Hakuoro and some other characters in their struggles throughout Utawarerumono, the show's cliched plot setup, weak focus on other prominent characters and ridiculous reveal on Hakuoro's origins greatly weakened the quality of the series in my eyes. This is a good example of why I'm cautious with approaching anime adaptations of eroge games as the quality of said title tends to vary and usually won't translate too well when made into an anime.

Reviewer’s Rating: 5

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Apr 29, 2011

Gilgaki

Not Recommended

I think this anime was just poorly executed.

The overall story is actually good and interesting, at the beginning and again at the end, it was just buried under piles of nonsense and extremely forgettable characters. The story follows Hakuoro, who after being found and rescued by a small village he becomes the leader of a rebellion, emperor of a country and then spends his time fight wars with every other country around.

A major plot twist happens near the end that was so unexpected and weird that my initial reaction was "I am just going to pretend that didn't happen..."and even when it gets explained ... in the end and you no longer have to pretend it didn't happen, I was still thinking, "it could have been better."

Because there were so many "mini-wars" they all ultimately blended together because they weren't very memorable. Characters were introduced and I had high hopes for what their future actions would be and how they would affect the plot but then the plot would change because of a different war in a different country and then those expectations just crumble into dust. There are some parts of this series that are completely boring as sin.

The character designs are pretty enough, but this series, which is based on war, didn't have any memorable fight scenes of bad-assery. Seriously, even with the flat characters this would be more entertaining to watch if the characters at least could kick some ass in awesome fights. But the fights were boring and predictable. On the other hand, the characters being completely flat doesn't help. It's hard to get excited about a fight if you simply don't care whether or not a character dies.

I always believed that good, well developed characters can carry a plot no matter how contrived it is, but in this case the characters are so bad, you're just sitting there thinking "Who cares?"

Honestly, I really liked the opening song for this anime, so it was my favourite part of watching.

Reviewer’s Rating: 4

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