Yuragi-sou no Yuuna-san
Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs

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My honest opinion on this story is simple - I came for the ecchi and finished because of ecchi, I didn't care about the plot, I nedeed good, strong story like To Love ru and it delivered.

The colored version of the story is really great for people who likes drawing of girls with big boobs, every single chapter filled with delight, the art is truly enough to make you invested.

However the story is very typical - Basically To Love Ru, but in hot springs. There are not a good main girl like Momo, so no harem ending, the problem is from the very ... beginning the story tells you right away who will be the winner, so I didn't see any point to explore other characters story, since what is the point, when only one girl will win?

The biggest flaw of the ecchi is an absurd amount of text, I don't see any reason why I have to see this amount of bubbles every single page, it wasn't nedeed at all, since most of it is filler. If you don't like seeing a big amount of text, this manga is not for you. Honestly this is a reason why I will not read it again for a very long time, since to get to girls you need to read quite a lot of fillers.

The last arc (around 2-3 last volumes) is extremely convoluted, I don't know why the author wanted to make a simple story that complicated for the sake of explaining to us why other girls are not gonna get their ending, otherwise someone will die, it is bullshit.

Thinking about it, I didn't really told you about any characters, even the MC. All I can say, that he is too perfect, basically kinda Shiro Emia, a self-insterted protagonist as always, it is very sad to see that due to publication in shounen jump, everything just stops at him falling on girls and their body parts. Any man in his position will literally do a bit more or at least take the situation into his control, even Yuuki Rito from To Love Ru had moments where he had to do lewd stuff by his own will, not here. Mc is only receving. His "savings" of girls are not what I mean here, the situations where he could make a step to make more intimate relashinships with girls will not happen.

And yet I think this is a good ecchi story, unlike To Love Ru darkness with it school girls who are just kids basically, here we have more developed girls. 8/10 (Read only for ecchi)

This manga is an ecchi harem rom-com that also has a good amount of action. For the first half or so of the manga it simply tells the story of the daily life of the protagonist, Kogarashi, as he deals with various hijinks centered around Yuragi-Sou, which is a hot spring inn that had been converted into a hostel for those of the supernatural persuasion. Kogarashi is a pretty fun character during this portion because although he’s a pretty generic good guy and lucky pervert, he’s also incredibly competent at pretty much everything due to having been possessed by ghosts that were experts at pretty ... much everything. He’s great at everything from baking cakes to taking out youkai. There is some action in the first half, but it’s mostly just centered on showing how overpowered Kogarashi is.

The heroines introduced are also pretty great and very likable with good starts to their character arcs. It’s also a nice touch that unlike the vast majority of manga with lucky perverts, after the first volume the heroines don’t blame or attack Kogarashi for all the crazy stuff that ends up happening. While for the most part the manga is a pretty straightforwardly focused on simple ecchi and harem tropes, there’s enough variety surrounding that to keep things pretty interesting. Still, that can only take things so far and things do start getting kind of dull eventually.

That’s probably why in volume 14 the manga starts changing quite a bit. It begins to take itself more seriously and has a much larger focus on drama and action. There’s still a good amount of the harem ecchi comedy stuff that serves as the core of the manga. But intermixed with that there’s a real plot with real stakes. Unfortunately, the serious side of the manga isn’t very good. There are large scale plot threads with intrigue, mystery, suspense, and big twists, but they feel pretty rushed. It moves through major plot points way too quickly without fleshing anything out properly. The world building in this manga is really weak, which wasn’t an issue when it was just harem ecchi comedy, but it becomes more of an issue once the overarching plot becomes important.

The action is also too messy. How supernatural abilities work is played too fast and loose for most of the manga, so in the moments where it actually takes them seriously and tries to properly structure things, it just felt inconsistent. For example, the numerical power levels are completely absurd and make no sense. There are a few great fights, but they don’t fit into the manga all that well holistically. The serious parts of the manga are pretty good in terms of helping with the pacing of the manga and in terms of preventing it from getting repetitive, but don’t really elevate the manga all that much on their own. And thus the parts that emphasized the serious plot lines over the harem rom-com hijinks felt like it was putting the cart before the horse.

The cast was also a mixed bag. The writing does a great job with all of the main heroines with most having good character arcs. However, Kogarashi felt mishandled. It doesn’t really flesh him out at all until volume 18 and even then, it doesn’t really feel it does all that good of a job with his character arc. And while the writing does a good job on the heroines’ side of relationship development, Kogarashi’s side is very underdeveloped. While he’s great as a simple harem protagonist, during the latter portions of the manga to the change in tone and atmosphere it felt like he should be more than just that, so his lack of development is pretty disappointing. The side characters could also have been handled better. Most of the important ones weren’t really focused on enough to have any substance, but were focused on enough that the amount of focus they got in the absence of anything substantial felt like a waste of time.

I also can’t say I’m fond of the ending and epilogue at all. It’s somewhat hard to describe this in such a way that there aren’t spoilers, so my apologies for this being kind of weirdly written. Near the ending of the manga, there’s some convoluted plot events that result in basically going through an omnibus of different endings with one for each heroine. However, after everything has been resolved it picks one of those heroines as the true heroine that Kogarashi ends up with. I feel like I would have been okay with either one of those things, but both together don’t work.

While my favorite heroine wasn’t picked, I honestly wasn’t expecting her to be, and I was okay with who was picked as she seemed the most obvious choice. However, the endings for all the other heroines were pretty decently written, and the main ending felt like it was undermining them and any emotional impact you felt from them, which was pretty unpleasant. After showing the possibility of endings for all of the heroines, I feel that this became one of the rare manga that would have been better with an ambiguous ending. The epilogue was also really weak. It was essentially an image and a paragraph of text describing what they were doing for each member of the cast. This resulted in spending more time than necessary on most of the characters, but not enough on the most important.

The art in this is excellent in terms of style and quality. The art for ecchi is great from the beginning. The art for action starts out a bit weak but it also becomes great by the end. The character designs were great too with a lot of fun outfits as well. Translation wise there was some really weird word choice at points, though I can’t say for sure whether it’s due to the translation or the original text. There were also some minor mistakes, such as the wrong description being in the text box for Hiyori in the character introductions at the beginning of volume 24. Also, for some reason volume 15 says “Older Teen 15+” on the back in yellow, despite all the other volumes saying “Older Teen” or “Older Teen 17+” in orange. I don’t see anything different about the contents of volume 15, so I suppose it was a mistake. But I suppose now I’m just being nit picky.

tl;dr: A harem ecchi rom-com manga that intermixes its light hearted and serious parts pretty well, but the serious parts are pretty weak and the ending is really messy.

English

I started to read the manga because the anime was kinda disappointing, although I am an avid consumer of this genre (or precisely because of it) I found very little things of interest in Yuragi, their characters weren’t unique or memorable, at most Yuuna deserve a little of recognition, the art was standard and their stories converge all the cliches of ecchi and romantic comedies of the last decade. I found it some draws of the manga, so I decided give it a try, found it with almost exactly the same.

Miura is an amazing artist, is one of the works best drawn in the Jump, ... his trace has force and energy, if he decides go full shonen, has the scale and level of detail for be one of the best in the magazine. If he chooses Fanservice exhibits all a capacity for draw girls of all proportions, even I wanna a doujinshi of his own. One of the best talents right now in the Jump, I will say that his biggest lack of are the backgrounds, more surely he does not take care of them and doesn’t matter, the models of his characters don’t let time to consider the other elements, seriously, 10/10.

But his ability like a writer it’s all a different matter, and here I don’t have good adjectives to describe it. The characters in the anime just were a superficial representation of usual archetypes, according I was advancing more chicks appear, but none of them win the attention or rivals with Yuuna, the concentration of the interest still remains in 3 attitudes or reactions. Event To Love Ru do a better job with the variety of situations, here are beyond the absurd, his only attractive is the ilustration. A success that quickly burned itself by the quantity of repetition.

Neither Kogarashi is a good MC, too perfect and idealized it for gain the attention. So the big interest remains in the story, apparition of rivals and similar, to the moment of let in in these tones happen a big twist with few important values involved at thematic level, even better, don’t exist, all the developments are predictable character growths, of understand and accept themselves, there isn’t bigger message or thematic than link each element.

None story arc is especially memorable, all their develops are almost the same, with overpower and some big ending movement, the context that encloses such fights, I mean, the mythology for the story, its interesting and dense. So well-constructed that easily can diverge conflicts of the key points of it. I won't be bothered if coming back to this world, has a lot for give.

Despite the big attractive of the universe, doesn’t reflects on the implications of their arcs, are quite standard, just guided to the grown of the characters, and this don’t event reach a full cohesion, again, is to the drift. The best moments are when (and despite certain character) can be totally serious, Miura knows how write a drama, is his next work has a more mature tone, full of hot girls, will be awesome.

¿I had regret it? Neither, has been a entertaining watch because don’t uncomfortable or hate anything, I just missed that could be much more considering the good level of the rest in the work. Its just a work with a high artistic level but mediocre story and content.

I wait his next work, I hope will be a step forward in the right direction.

PDA: Always we remember that awesome cover to the best Yabuki Style.


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Comencé a leer el manga porque el anime me había decepcionado, pese a ser ávido consumir de este género (o precisamente por eso) encontré muy poco de interés en Yuragi, sus personajes no me resultaban único o recordables, a lo mucho sólo Yuuna merece un poco de reconocimiento, el arte era bastante estándar y sus historias reunían todos los clichés de las comedias ecchi de la última década. Me topé con algunas ilustraciones del manga, entonces decidí darle un intento, encontrándome con casi exactamente lo mismo.

Miura es un increíble dibujante, es de las obras con mejor dibujo de la Jump, su trazo tiene fuerza y energía, si decide ir full Shonen, cuenta con escala y detalle para ser de los mejores de la revista. Si opta por Fanservice exhibe toda una capacidad para dibujar chicas de todas las proporciones, hasta quisiera un doujinshi suyo. De los mejores talentos actualmente en la Jump, diría que sus mayores faltas son los fondos, más seguramente ni se encargará de ellos y no importa, los modelados de sus personajes no dejan tiempo a considerar otros elementos, de verdad, 10/10.

Pero su habilidad de escritor es otro asunto, y aquí si no tengo adjetivos positivos que brindar. Los personajes en el anime sólo me parecían caracterizaciones superficiales de arquetipos frecuentes, y conforme fui avanzando más chicas aparecen, pero ninguna capta la atención o rivaliza con Yuuna, la concentración de su interés siguen en 3 actitudes o reacciones. Hasta To Love Ru hacía mejor trabajo con la variedad de sus situaciones, aquí son ridículamente absurdas, su único atractivo es el dibujo. Un acierto que rápidamente se quema por la cantidad de repetición.

Tampoco Kogarashi es un buen protagonista, demasiado perfecto e idealizado para captar la atención del lector. Así que la concentración del interés se centra en los arcos que conforme va construyendo mientras va avanzando la historia, aparición de rivales y similares, al suceder da un radical giro para entrar en tal sintonía, cuando ocurre pocos son los valores involucrados a nivel temático, mejor, no existen, todos son desarrollos de personaje en busca de entenderse a sí mismo y crecer, no hay mayor mensaje o temática que enlace cada elemento.

Ningún arco es particularmente memorable, todos se desarrollan de maneras similares, con ridículas escalas de poder y algún gran golpe final, eso sí, el contexto que encierra tales enfrentamientos, ósea, la mitología de la historia, es densa e interesante. Tan bien construido que fácilmente pueden divergir conflictos a partir de los puntos claves de la misma. En algún momento no me molestaría regresar a este mundo, tiene mucho para dar y brindar.

Pese al atractivo del universo, no se refleja en las implicaciones de sus arcos, son bastante estándar meramente guiados al crecimiento de los personajes, el cuál no termina de encuadrarse, nuevamente, va hacia la deriva. Los mejores momentos es cuando (y a pesar de cierto personaje) puede ponerse completamente serio, Miura sabe hacer drama, si su próxima serie tuviera un tono más serio con mujeres hermosas, lo borda completamente.

¿Lo he lamentado? Tampoco, ha sido una lectura entretenida porque no incomoda ni se odia nada, sólo echo de menos que podría haber dado más considerando lo pulido que son los otros elementos. Sólo es una obra de alto nivel artístico de mediocre historia y contenido.

Espero su próximo trabajo, espero sea un paso adelante hacia la dirección correcta.

PDTA: Siempre recordaremos esa magnifica portada al estilo de Yabuki.