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To start off, this short manga surprised me. Reading the other reviews made me feel like I was going to get a boring, well-drawn manga based on romance with mermaids and magic thrown in. In short, this is not what I received from this manga nor do I think it will be what you receive.

As a short summary and review, the read was very enjoyable and the manga itself was really good. Some of the best things this manga brought forward were the characters and their interactions plus a few really big plot twists/reveals. Aside from that, the art for the manga was incredible and ... is one of the better ones I've seen. It also has its fair share of romance and fan service from the mermaid parts, but it also isn't over-bearing. In other words, while it is a mermaid manga, the appeal to mermaids is not what drives this manga. As for the romance, if you are into romance manga or anime, I highly encourage reading this. It gives a complete romance story, with its complications, without most of the cringe or typical comedy that comes with a typical romance anime/manga. All in all, it was a very good and enjoyable read that was very worth my time reading.

Now I will go a bit more in depth on each of the sections below: Story, Characters, Art, What I Enjoyed the Most.

Story 9/10:

The story starts off with a typical shounen school romance feel to it. Gently and slowly, it introduces the bigger story pertaining to Seine, the mermaids, and the later introduced characters. While it starts off slow and seems to go a bit too far in depth into the side characters and Tatsuya's immediate past, it ends up showing that all of that was to set the right atmosphere for the reader heading into the main part of the story. After volume 4 (chapter 16), things really start to pick up and get interesting. The story takes a break from focusing on the love triangle and romance, as well as the seemingly random comedic character interactions, and begins to take a more serious and dark tone to it. After revealing a lot of the mystery to the story, it comes to a meager temporary conclusion. While it gets slow and boring for a couple of chapters, it begins to pick up again with the reintroduction of the romance that drives the plot. Eventually, it intertwines the mystery and the romance together into one complete story and plotline that is super interesting and very well written. Everything stays consistent and all things pertaining to Seine and Tatsuya's story are answered and complete.

Characters 10/10:

Even if you end up not loving the story or disliking a certain character, all the main cast of characters are very well written and shown multiple sides of. After reading the first 3 volumes, you get a good sense of Tatsuya's friends and relatives. Going forward with the story, you see their personalities and nuances continue throughout and the author gave attention to small details for even these less important characters. For Shiela, Seine, and Tatsuya, their stories, past, and multiple-sided characters are described and depicted with great detail. Every little reveal makes them more interesting and can instantly get you to hate or love their character. For the rest of the mermaids and the witches, their stories and personalities are left in a shroud of mystery. This is likely because they're part of a bigger story outside of Seine and Tatsuya. Regardless, the few chapters we do see them depicted in detail, they remain consistent and are immediately shown to have quirks and attitudes that you will immediately hate or love. Overall, all the characters are created very well and the attention to detail from the author is impressive regarding the consistency and multiple-sidedness of the characters.

Art 8/10:

Each panel and page of the manga is drawn incredibly. The background, character designs, and depiction of motion or action is all done very very well. The little details on the important panels had me stopping and staring a couple times just because they were done so well. Aside from the general butter-up statements, I have to admit that one of the best things this manga did was the depiction of the sea and water. While it was no perfect masterpiece, the water and sea were drawn and shaded so well that you could instantly tell what was water and what wasn't. With two distinct settings, it was nice to be able to instantly tell where things were happening. Not to mention, the shading overall was done super well. It added to the emotion and feeling behind each panel and each interaction. Overall, this manga is very consistent with bringing great art with every panel, page, and chapter.

What I Enjoyed Most: Overall Rating 10/10

Three things really made me enjoy this manga the most. The first of those three was the small details with the characters and in the background that the author made sure to keep consistent and throw in. It was fun taking a moment to spot little things in the panels and pages as well as to notice the reference between the chapters to keep the consistency of the characters. The second was the overall mystery behind the bigger story. Even though this manga doesn't go into the detail behind the bigger overall story, it gives a few hints at it. If this had a bigger fanbase, there would likely be some interesting fan-stories or speculations behind what happened before or after this story took place regarding the witches and the mermaids. The last of those three was the bittersweet ending that this story brought. I personally did not expect a romance manga to bring such an unexpected quality ending to me. I won't go into detail, but it left me with a manga I will most likely forever keep among my favorites.

To start off, this review will contain spoilers in the lower half. I will write a disclaimer when spoilers will start.

For a short review, this is a great brain teasing show to either waste 12 episodes worth of time on or watch about 6-9 episodes worth of masterpiece and get the brain juices flowing to let your imagination run wild with the excellent concept of the show. This story starts off with a basic shallow betrayal and discarding of a hero from society and he ends up trying to make a happy-go-goody life with the demon queen's army. He finds it in shambles, by his ... own doing, and of course is rejected. Somehow he convinces the 4 generals of the army to accept him in under the condition he disguises himself. All that is great and fun if it were to continue on to be a shallow happy slice-of-life anime like that. Yuusha, Yamemasu is basically a show that comes off as a good time-waster and tries to become more, but fails. Overall, it isn't a show worth watching in entirety. (I'll get more on that in the spoiler section)

Now, for the good parts of the show. The comedy and slice-of-life happy times with hero and demon interaction are really enjoyable. While they are far from unique and are very expected, they still will be able to make you smile. Not to mention, with a child character thrown in the mix, you get some familial relationship vibes from it. For the darker parts, the demon general and demon queen's backstories are very shallow and overused, but they are depicted well. The hero's backstory and the overall reveal of the story is done excellently though. Aside from that, the few fight scenes were animated rather well and the soundtrack is absolutely beautiful.

I WILL NOW BEGIN THE IN DEPTH SPOILER SECTION

Story 3/10:

Here is the summary of the story: The story is not presented chronologically by the anime and instead starts with the misconception that the human race abandoned the hero that saved them. It turns out that this hero was actually the only hero of the human race for the past 3000 years or so. When the demons first invaded a society similar to modern day real world Japan, the humans were disadvantaged. The humans, in turn, created 12 "Demonhart Series" monsters with the ingrained message "Save the world. Protect humanity." While the other 11 heroes were stronger, they also had shorter lifespans. The 1 hero that is the center of this story is immortal due to the concept of 'infinite growth' or something alike. This hero had saved humans so many times and had been discarded so many times that he had begun to go insane during times of peace. The insanity increased to the point where he began to recreate the ancient heroes with a separate message of "Cause a disaster that will require me, the hero, to step in and stop." Coincidentally, the strongest Demon Queen started to raid before this recreation completed. Due to a real threat to humanity coming to fruition, the hero came to his senses and ceased the recreation. He then continued to defeat the threat and came to the conclusion that he himself was the threat to humanity. He needed to be defeated. So, he needed to find someone to entrust his power to. That person ended up being the demon queen. So...the story is supposed to be the final chapter, and the events leading up to it, in which the demon queen defeats the hero, obtains his power, and brings peace to both the demon and human world.

There is also the side story of the fact that the Demon Queen and previous Demon Kings have been invading to obtain the Philosopher's Stone (or rather an infinite magic energy generator somehow created by Ancient humans who had no knowledge of magic that could not be recreated with modern advancements). This was due to the false pretense that the Philosopher's Stone brought prosperity to the world it resided in. It turns out that was just a myth and the Philosopher's Stone is just a really powerful engine that operates the machines known as the Demonhart Series.

Now that the story is known, it sounds really good. The only thing that doesn't add up is that you have some ancient magical device created by humans of history that should realistically be able to recreated. The issue is that the anime decides to execute the ending of this story in arguably the most awful way.

The ending ends up being that Leo is neither killed nor becomes evil and yet the "power of friendship" makes everyone reach an illogical happy ending. The whole point of the story was to stop him from going insane, so a new purpose would make sense, but it creates two more fallacies with the story. The first is that, if he just needed friendship, and he made friends with obviously weak people in comparison to him, then he would never have gone insane considering his meeting with the imp early on. The second is that none of the problems were actually solved. The demon world still is barren and he still hasn't had a guarantee to not go insane and berserk on the human world. At the end of Episode 10, if you stop and just imagine an ending where he either is killed and the Demon Queen makes peace or he survives and destroys both the demon army and the world, it would've been a better simple ending than what was shown.

In short, the premise and set-up was top tier, but the execution, presentation, and conclusion of it falls way short of where it needed to be to be considered a mildly coherent and well written story.

Art 7/10:

I don't have much to say here besides the fact that the scenery and background was decent, the character designs were cliche and not unique at all but still good, and that the fight scenes were well animated. It was nothing wow, but it was still good. There was nothing catching the eye on the good or bad side, so the fight scenes tip the scale to the better side.

Sound 8/10:

To start off, the opening and ending songs were amazing and are very catchy and hit really hard from the first tidbit of sound from it. Outside of those, the soundtrack was amazing and really added great emotion to the important scenes. It almost made me not bored during the 10 minute long dialogue and monologue sections in the later half of the series. The music is 10/10.

Unfortunately, the voice acting wasn't great. A lot of times, the emotions weren't really conveyed or it was just really boring monologue or dialogue with a tiny whimper of depression mixed in. Mernes's VA and Edwald's VA did a great job tho, but outside of that, was mediocre at best.

Characters 5/10:

Really, the only good character, up until the end, was Leo. He had a very complex internal conflict and had a two-sidedness that was mostly understandable. He also had a very dark past with tons of turmoil that would fuel such a personality to arise. Unfortunately, it was completely thrown out the window at the end due to the "power of friendship".

Aside from Leo, on the shallow side of things, Edvald, Mernes, Lili, and Echidna all had enjoyable characters. When it comes to character development, Mernes and Echidna had great character developments, but the rest really didn't change in a reasonable manner. Overall, aside from Leo, the characters were not unique and were pretty shallow, but were at least enjoyable.

Enjoyment 3/10:

Honestly, the first 9 episodes blew me away and it was on track to landing in my top 10 favorite anime. The tenth episode brought it back down to "it's a great concept and story, but just a good anime". The eleventh and twelfth episodes were tough to get through and nearly made me absolutely hate the show. It gave me a few smiles and the story got my brain going. I wouldn't be opposed to a spin-off show or movie about the Demonhart series in the future. Aside from that, it was awful. I'd say I enjoyed about half the first 75% of the show so it's somewhere between a 3 and 4 out of 10 for enjoyment.

Overall 4/10:

The anime was a good concept, with a masterfully written idea for a story, but the theme sacrificed everything good about it in order to create the worst ending I've seen for any show outside of cheesy kids' cartoons. In short, the anime was bad, and I wouldn't recommend anyone watch this in entirety.

To start off, you may see several negative reviews about this anime, but I doubt they watched the anime in entirety without a negative lens. Those who reviewed it negatively simply point out that there is a lot of gore, the CGI didn't blend well, a specific character was not enjoyable, and the over-obsessiveness of another character created awkwardly comedic moments. This anime simply wasn't an anime that suited their taste and they shouldn't have continued giving themselves a negative experience. To those who ended early, it is because they've watched Re:Zero and found that the show was unoriginal. While the beginning plot twist may ... have been reused, the anime in itself is actually very original.

In this anime, if the second half of Episode 7 and all of Episode 8 were excluded or better done, then the anime would be an obvious masterpiece to anyone who finished it. Those sections of the anime were the only negative things about it. It was all just pure fan-service, over-bearing sides of characters, repeated bad attempts at comedy, and exposition dumps (which were, in the end, misleading). Many people were probably disappointed and lost interest after those episodes and glanced through the last episodes and left with a bad impression.

Outside of those two episodes, this anime is amazing. The fight scenes (excluding the final fight scene) were incredibly well done. The story is very unique and has several interesting and unexpected plot twists. The music fits so well throughout and the voice acting in most sections (except the final fight scene) was really well done. The characters are original, and while it seems that women were forced into this anime, they actually work really well for the story. Overall, if you sit back and just let yourself watch the anime (like most fictional stories should be interpreted) it is most definitely enjoyable. That's my short review. Below I will go into further detail.

Story 10/10:
I have never watched Re:Zero. So, this start with an unexpected plot twist from the get-go for an isekai wowed me. If you did watch Re:Zero, it serves neither as a unique interest nor an effective hook. But, if you continue watching through the first half of the season, things get really interesting. It could've easily gone to a mc + sidekick vs the world type of deal or even a mc + best friend happy stop and start type of deal, but it didn't. The plot twists and the plot reveals were all super interesting and excellently used. While a lot of exposition dumps happen in the beginning and at Episodes 7 & 8, the rest of it is presented in manner similar to flashbacks or mystery-story leads. This creates a perfect air of mystery and leaves a lot of loose ends once old loose ends are tied up. The first half of the season was amazing. As for the second half, it was even better. We learn a tiny bit about what the world actually is like and what the real big story going on is. It definitely is a great set-up to continue off of.

Art 9/10:
The character designs are really impressive. Aside from that, the fight scenes (aside from the final fight scene) are actually really well blended and choreographed. They also have great animation and detail for those fight scenes. The final fight scene had moments where it was obviously bad, but during the actual action bits (not the still-bits where dialogue occurs) it was blended really well and looked nice. While it was by no means the best it could be, considering it wasn't Demon Slayer level budgeting, it was great.

Sound 8/10:
The voice acting for the most part really did a great job of conveying emotion when it was needed (or not conveying emotion for characters that shouldn't've). Aside from that, the sound effects were timed correctly and helped engross the viewer into the scene. Definitely one you should watch with headphones or surround sound for a much better experience. Not to mention the intro and outro songs were really good and the music throughout really helped dial into certain scenes. The sound overall was very good.

Characters 9/10:
The character developments, reveals, and flipsides that were shown were great for all except one character. Momo's two sides to her character (which are in essence two different forms of the same personality trait) are almost overbearing. One side of her is over the top and the other side is too edgy. However, her fight scenes and character design were really good. As for the other characters, to highlight a few, Menou's internal conflict and push and pull of her heart strings throughout combined with her no-emotion executioner side create a perfect contrasting duet for the story. The Princess's recklessness paired with her surprising intuition creates a character that has most likely has more depth and past than what has been revealed. Pandemonium has a great character for what she needs to portray as well as quite an interconnected and emotional backstory that is very well revealed and somewhat unexpected despite the obvious clues for it. Overall, all the revealed characters aside from Momo were given great depth, personalities, and backstories.

Enjoyment 10/10:
I truly enjoyed this show from start to finish. My bias says this is probably the best isekai I've watched. If you take out my bias, this show at the very least deserves a better rating. It is underrated. (At time of writing this 6.89 is the rating)

This review contains some vague spoilers.

To start off, this show, like many others this season, wasn't very great. It had a copycat storyline to a more popular show (Squid Game) and had very few unique qualities. Aside from that, it was a unique standout from the rest of this shows this season, so I continued to watch. Overall, it was very enjoyable to watch and had several surprises through the second half of the show.

Story 10/10

The story is only 10/10 for me because of how it ended. It starts off pretty normal and dumped upon about how one friend in a group is in debt ... and they go to some powerful organization to play a game to relieve the debt. Obvious plot twist is that the powerful organization actually adds debt and is designed to psychologically break down the characters. The story stays true to that and many unexpected revelations about the characters fuel the plot. As games are added, it adds new characters and shapes the existing characters to show unexpected sides. The great thing about the story is that it's easy to follow and pretty straightforward and whenever there was a plot twist, all the information to know the plot twist would happen was reviewed and everything was explained. In the third game of the show, when Yuichi and Tenji are matched against another group and the storyline perfectly advances to show an unexpected end result. After that unexpected result where many would claim it is stupid and just plot armour, it explains everything that the story had showed actually led to that result. Instead of some illogical explanation or some unexpected supernatural abilities, it actually shows that it was the work of a dark empath (someone who understands personalities and emotions and is able to use them against people). It does this once again in the final two episodes leading to a development that will test two of the other main characters. Overall, this story is really well explained and explains itself in full detail without leaving any plot holes or illogical plot twists.

Art 6/10

A lot of the "artful" scenes are either still images with some sort of effect for anger, rage, or insanity. Any action scenes are zoomed in on specific motions followed by still images of impact. There really isn't any wow symbolism or beauty to the visuals of this show at all. With that said, the story and characters greatly make up for it.

Sound 8/10

The music in this show and voice acting are good, but not great. There is no wow factor about it but it does help dial the viewer in and actually experience the emotions in the show. It is one of the few shows where a painful scene actually makes me somewhat feel the pain of the character. It did that through the voice acting alone. Aside from that, the music really does help illustrate who's in control of the scene or story at that given time (or who is on the surface at least).

Character 9/10

One of the biggest things I love about anime is its ability to go in depth into characters and create characters that you can truly love, hate, or relate to. This show has done an excellent job of doing so.

One thing I've seen in a lot of discussions and a lot of reviews is the requests or criticisms for stories to have an intelligent main character. This was similar in the past when they wanted a unique storyline about a year ago. That was WEP was released and its unique storyline ended up catching viewers displeased (unlike me and a quieter majority of the community). This time I'm speaking up. While many reviews and discussions are saying Yuichi is not an intelligent mc, I'd argue that he is exactly the intelligent mc that we are lacking. Unlike in other shows, with abilities that end up boosting their power, Yuichi doesn't have any. He's a normal person in a normal world. Yet, he somehow stands above the rest while masking his intelligence throughout the majority of the show. Instead of using logic, infallible plans, or relying on timed events, like many intelligent mcs have in the past, he uses emotions and personalities to work towards his goal.

Yuichi is a wonderful intelligent mc in the respect that everything he does is actually understandable and doesn't have obvious flaws. Light (from Death Note) and Lelouch (from Code Geass) had flaws in their plans or plots that were covered up by supernatural abilities. Yuichi's plans instead had backups, emotional ploys, and using personalities against themselves in order to fuel his plans. He is a true master of the mind who simply works towards the goal of keeping friendships and relationships intact while destroying those who have an opposing ideology.

Aside from Yuichi, the other friends have flipsides, unexpected weaknesses, and unexpected motivations to fuel them. Tenji starts out seeming like a manipulative loverboy who plays a stoic calculating characters and then turns out to be a person who just studies well and wants revenge. Kokorogi seems like the innocent smiling doll and then turns out to be a weak emotional case with a less than clean past. The other two mcs character development has not been completed, but I'm sure will be similarly unexpected.

Aside from the protagonists, the antagonists haven't had much revealed about them. I'm not sure how I feel about that being that the antagonists are a large portion of this show and aside from Maria, the other three shown seem to have had inconsistencies with their characters. But, the show has done an excellent job and I'm sure that down the line, those are cleared up and went over.

Enjoyment 9/10

This show was definitely one that I enjoyed. From unexpected plot twists to full on explanations of how the show leads you one way and had actually not twisted or turned at all to showing the breakdowns of psychological warfare and stretching the rules, this show was a roller coaster of unique excitement. With all that said, I did not watch Squid Game, so I wouldn't know how similar the excitement is. I also have not watched a lot of anime, so I wouldn't know if there are ones like it. Overall, I found it very amusing and not annoying. It was time well spent and the second anime that made me want to write a review for it and the only one I actually wrote a complete review for. The best parts of this show for me were the main character and the last two episodes.

Overall 9/10