DESCRIPTION

CAST

MANGA AdventureKekkon Yubiwa Monogatari
ANIME AdventureKekkon Yubiwa Monogatari 2nd Season

REVIEWS

• 

  Azzarrel

  25/100
  A failed harem anime with characters that absolutely do not want to be in a harem

  Preface

  I must admit I am a big sucker for harem anime and I don't even know why. I often find their tropes and pseudo-romantic narratives unappealing, where either the protagonist ends up with an unsatisfactory choice or the story halts abruptly without ever being finished. Yet, here I am, delving into another harem series, hoping for a different experience this time. Regrettably, this anime turned out to be as dull and uninspiring as one might suspect, but most notably even fails to deliver as a harem show. Frankly I made it as far as episode 9 solely to meet the 75% completion requirement necessary to write this review. So, let's delve into its shortcomings:

  Primary Flaw: Why the Anime fails as a Harem

  The narrative follows a young man and his female childhood friend and love interest, thrust into a fantasy world where he is forced into marrying multiple girls to gain power and combat a magical threat endangering the world. Both protagonists harbour feelings for each other from the outset, openly displaying disdain for the forced harem scenario imposed upon them. I would be surprised, shocked even, if the anime ends in any other way than with the main couple returning to Japan to pursue a life together. Yet, the plot insists on enforcing this harem dynamic, devoid of any real competition, seemingly designed only to evoke anxiety and insecurity in the main girl. While the secondary characters possess some likeability, they remain one-dimensional stereotypes. Why even make an harem anime if the main couple is so strongly opposed to it?

  The Protagonist is insufferable

  Even the anime acknowledges the protagonist's shortcomings, openly portraying him as weak and indecisive, contrary to the expectations of those around him. While his weakness is no necessary disadvantage in in environment that so oversaturated with power-fantasy plotlines and the anime attempts to at least salvage the situation by illustrating his growth and determination, albeit overshadowed by repetitive harem tropes, he still lacks any redeeming quality fit for the role of a main character. His most annoying qualities manifest in his constant surprise, often depicted through exaggerated, high-pitched screeching. Additionally, he single-handedly sabotages any meaningful romantic progression. Unlike typical harem anime where external factors disrupt intimate moments, here the protagonist constantly obstructs his own path to romance. He becomes flustered at the mere suggestion of any kind of intimacy, exhibiting perpetual awkwardness and insecurity. Despite near permanent advances, he consistently rejects invitation to physical contact not only from the other girls, but also from his love interest, while paradoxically engaging in scenarios like mixed baths with his harem without any issues.

  Lackluster Fantasy Elements

  Considering the genre, my expectations for the fantasy aspects were not high, yet I was still disappointed. Most settings revolve solely around the latest addition to the harem, presenting challenges for the protagonist to overcome, thereby winning the girl's affection before moving on to the next location. While there are occasional fight scenes, they fail to leave a lasting impression. The plot suffers from numerous holes, exemplified by a character's sudden disappearance for half an episode, only to reappear without any explanation.

  Abundance of Ecchi Scenes

  If you are solely looking for ecchi content - and for whatever reason do not have access to any hentai site - you are at least not gonna be disappointed in this regard. The harem girls exhibit little modesty, frequently wearing revealing attire or appearing entirely nude. The team's primary destination in every major setting is the mixed bath, where the harem girls relentlessly attempt to seduce the protagonist. The abundance of naked scenes is notable, with the protagonist's most remarkable feat being his unwavering commitment to maintaining his virginity throughout the series.

  (Show is done now, so i can make this public again)

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• 

  whatusername

  10/100
  An anime notable only for its insistence to murder any potential it has.

  First of all, let's establish the baseline real quick. This anime is awful. The plot is very generic and filled to the brim with cop outs. The characters are uninteresting, with their prominent personality trait being "wanting to sleep with the MC". The animation is terrible, especially during the action scenes that are supposed to be the payoff for much of the plot, and just leaves the entire show unsatisfying. Even the ecchi part gets repetitive, as the only ecchi scenes to ever appear is the girls stripping nude or wearing lingerie, with absolutely no further development ever. Hence the 1/10 rating. Most hentai would be a better viewing experience than this.

  What I do want to rave about in this review, though, is this anime's incredible insistence in destroying everything that could be interesting about it. Let's start with the premise:

  wikipedia synopsis:

  Satou pines for his childhood friend Hime. One day, she says she is moving away, so he follows her into a portal where she is about to be married to a prince. When a demon attacks, Hime gives Satou her ring, granting him light-based powers he uses to defeat the demon. She explains she is a princess from another world who lived on Earth for her own safety. Her world is under attack by demons and she was destined to marry a hero and pass her ring to grant him power.
  The prince was supposed to be the hero, but Satou usurped his position. The ring is one out of a set of five. To become powerful enough to save the world, he must marry four other princesses and gain their rings to get power over four of the elements: earth, fire, air, and water.

  Now, the premise is already extremely lame. An isekai featuring a generic high-school protagonist with a god given harem destined to become extremely overpowered to save the world. However, we do have some ideas that could be interesting to see:

  1. For the MC it's an isekai, but for the main heroine it's an reverse isekai, maybe they'd have different perspectives to share about this situation?
  2. Since he has to pick up five princesses of five different nations, we would be picking up five people of differing expertise and differing perspectives who can provide their own contribution to the party.
  3. We would also be traveling across the world to see these nations as well, which would be a great opportunity for some world-building and for the MC to actually see the world he's fated to defend.
  4. The power of the rings is apparently dependent on the relationship he shares with the princesses, so we could get some good character building and relationship building here.

  

  So what's the actual execution, you ask?
  1: Not addressed for the first 10 episodes.

  

  By Episode 11 Hime reveals that she's okay with her homeworld being destroyed and all her friends and family being killed as long as she and MC can be safe in this one. Yeah.

  

  2: The first two princesses we pick up are complete dead-weights. Neither of them are capable of any physical fighting or any magic, and neither have any other expertise to offer. They don't even throw around their political weight as princesses. The third princess is a physical fighter and actually contributes. Unfortunately she can't contribute much as the fights quickly escalates to giant monsters and demon armies that are way out of her range. The fourth princess is a huge powerhouse that can transform into a dragon, but isn't allowed to transform because plot magic, so she's a dead-weight as well.

  

  The fifth princess is a deus ex machina used to plot convenience the MC. Once her plot device expires, her biggest contribution is being a flashlight.

  

  This is despite the fact that each of the princesses carries a magic ring as well, since they are meant to be wedding rings and thus in pairs. So the rings on the MC are able to conjure fireballs and tornadoes, but the rings on the princesses only function as lightning cables plugging the MC into his princess batteries.

  That's right, in a premise where the main hero is entirely reliant on his party's support, his party is either completely useless, or rendered useless by the plot. Despite the fact there are already mechanisms in place that would allow them to keep up.

  3: Most of the party's interactions with the rest of the world takes the form of incredibly idiotic isekai politics. Some highlights includes: the elf kingdom willing to allow the rest of the world be destroyed because they are allegedly protected by a magic barrier (it does not actually work);

  

  The show straight up lying to the viewer and pretending a country was being occupied by a foreign force

  

  (they are here only to help fight off the demons and leaves peacefully the next episode);

  

  One of the nations sending their princess and the ring to a whole another world, that has demonstrably only been accessible by like, two people in the entire show, without ever informing anyone. The ring that, if they didn't have, would result in the world being destroyed.

  

  Honestly it's almost like this world actively wants to get itself destroyed. Why are we saving it, again?

  4: Similar to how the princess's power sets gets sabotaged once they join the party, their characters also completely deteriorate once they join the party. Pretty much all they do is try to get into the MC's pants, and get into pointless harem drama. I say pointless, because the MC constantly makes it very clear that he likes Hime the most, and that he's not planning to do anything to any of them until they save the world. In other words, there is already a winner at episode 2, and they are already announced that there will be no physical advancement of their relationships until basically the end of the series.

  But that's fine. It's not like the MC is here only for their bodies. So what do the girls do?

  The answer is nothing. None of the girls have any hobbies or anything interesting to say. Most of them do not contribute anything outside of plot required exposition dumps or trying to get into his pants. Hime in particular spends almost every single episode only ever talking about how she feels bad that other girls are being close to her man. You know, putting aside the fact that if they don't then the world ends. In fact, in the one episode where the party gets a break, instead of going off to rest or do their own thing, the party just stalks the MC for the episode.

  

  pictured: the only sensible person the whole show

  The lack of effort on these characters slips into their character designs as well. For every character, despite the rapid shifts in the environment they travel through, none of them ever change their clothing unless it's into a swimsuit or lingerie. MC and Hime are particularly awful, as both of them wear their high-school uniform. For the entire season. Through a desert at one point. The exception is episode 11, where they get changed for about 5 minutes before Hime goes back into her high-school uniform and everyone else is shoved off-screen. These characters aren't allowed to express any personality through their design, and the personality they express through their speech and actions is about as much.

  Premises can be really lame, but ultimately the thing that matters for writing prompts is the execution. While I certainly was not expecting an show that puts isekai and ecchi and harem in its premise to have some kind of award winning story, I also was expecting the show not to take all of its premises and run them straight into the ground. Honestly speaking, I'm quite looking forward to Season 2 just to see how much they won't let the girls do.

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