I've always thought it would be cool to make an AU where they didn't get entirely cured at the end. Like having Yuna and Togo being wheelchair buddies, Itsuki learning sign language and finding other ways to make music etc.

@CakeoftheMews

9 ай бұрын

Ooh that sounds really cool!! I sort of understand why the girls were cured since like, the Shinju rebuilt their bodies as a sort of "good job protecting humanity" reward, but there should be SOME lasting side effects I think. Also the thought just came to me of Itsuki learning how to use a vocaloid program and absolutely killing it online with songs

@quantummelody2959

9 ай бұрын

@@CakeoftheMews perhaps they could end up like how they were halfway through the recovery montage. So like they've healed partially but not entirely. Then we could have a Yuna who sometimes uses a wheelchair and sometimes uses crutches depending on her energy levels! Either way I think Sonoko would be able to afford an epic powerchair.

@quantummelody2959

9 ай бұрын

@@CakeoftheMews also yeah itsuki would totally be a vocaloid producer

@serenasongbird

7 ай бұрын

What abt sonoko? 💀

@quantummelody2959

7 ай бұрын

@@serenasongbird depending on how much mobility she gets back I could see her using either a fancy normal power chair, or one of the ones you control with a straw. Either way I can see her often running over the feet of taisha priests "by accident". She'd probably also use speech-to-text for schoolwork.

I was also attracted to this anime by the tumblr post about the physically disabled magical girl...

I can definitely see where you’re coming from because I have someone at my school who also uses a wheelchair. But instead of treating him like someone special, I can like any other person and I see other students in my school treating him just as normal as I do even if he’s in a wheelchair so I get it.

Yuki Yuna is really an enjoyable ride for me the Characters are nearly perfect and if you like Madoka Magica then this anime is really a great alternative

I became really invested into this lore 😩😩 I love this anime!!!!!!

I have so many mixed feelings about yuki yuna, but something that stuck with me is how gorgeous and creative the mankai designs are

@CakeoftheMews

7 ай бұрын

Absolutely!! The distinct Japanese aesthetics are so good on the girls~

There is some questionable nature to the Mankai subplot and its resolution; and I’m not gonna play devil’s advocate and defend the ableist subtext. I still love Yuuki Yuuna and even the ending of season 1, I was so happy to see the girls recover and I saw this one comment somewhere on Reddit that the way the girls recover what they lost is compensation for saving the Shinju after the Vertex catastrophe. And I agree with it. Yes, it can be dodgy to some extent. But compared to other pieces of media I’ve seen that have treated serious topics with the sensitivity of poking ‘scary’ thing with a sword, Yuuki Yuuna is a lot better and an actually good anime (despite the sexualisation). It’s like you said, the characters are what makes the heart of the anime. Also; Gyuuki the cow is speculated and I think even indirectly confirmed to be Takashima Yuuna.

@CakeoftheMews

8 ай бұрын

Oh yeah that wasn’t lost on me. It’s pretty great that the shinju gave back everything it took from them. But it still sucks how the cool representation of Tougou was taken away in return ;0; all and all, still good! But things can be improved. Oh I saw that interview!! Where some parts of it are censored?? Like yeah Gyuuki was more directly tied to the Shinju than any of the other fairies and I dig that so much. It also makes all the scenes of him eating a LOT funnier when you think about them.

@elusivo3347

8 ай бұрын

@@CakeoftheMews I think if the anime included a little story of the Fairies and what they are could help expand upon the divine world Yuuki Yuuna established. Other than their roles to tie the Heroes down to their duties and prevent them from death, accidental or intentional. The anime could’ve provided an origin of what these creatures are and through the Fairies, we could’ve gained a bit more insight on the Shinju and the gods. Even exploring Wakaba’s status as a crow and Takashima (implied) as Gyuuki.

@CakeoftheMews

8 ай бұрын

@@elusivo3347 Absolutely! I always thought it was weird how important the fairies were, but how they weren't really around all that much. Like, they just sort of hang out in the background (mainly Gyuuki) which is cute! But I wish there had been more actual interaction with them. I wish we were given more info in the base anime about the Shinju and all that. Mainly so I wouldn't have had to spent much longer than I would like to admit trying to figure it out lol

@madisonyomans9004

4 ай бұрын

I’d rather it on the wiki to Gyuuki is Takeshita Yuna but may also maybe also god as well, since she was absorbed into God, when he was being for it created so.

I've been so excited to hear your thoughts on this show. I think you handled some of the questionable aspects of the show pretty sensitively and respectfully. Despite its many issues, it's genuinely my favorite anime (the first season at least). I stopped keeping up after KuMeYu, and never actually got around to watching the third season. I imagine the NoWaYu and KuMeYu storylines are not adapted super well, but to see that they were animated at all makes me really happy. I'll probably get back into the series thanks to this video. Btw, I would love to see you explore the franchise more in depth.

@LanceM1901

9 ай бұрын

s2 fixes most of s1 issues, but s3 is awful

@CakeoftheMews

9 ай бұрын

Yeah I imagined for people who actually read KuMeYu and NoWaYu, just seeing those moments animated would be really cool. But since I never read the light novels, I was mostly left confused and just like "alright well that happened". But oh man the core themes and characters still make me feel so much and I love them a lot~

21:47 I thought she was just talking in general terms. There was no specific "deadly plague", she was just talking about the idea of any kind of mass pandemic, or something else that could be deadly to humanity as a whole

Yeah this show was a really confusing to decide how I feel about it mostly due to the ending of s1. However I feel tho that scene where Karin takes on the Vertexes and the scene of her talking to Yuna afterward will always get me. Karin best character fr fr

@CakeoftheMews

2 ай бұрын

Exactly! I felt that this show, even if it was confused, there was still a heart that managed to resonate with the viewer. Also hell yeah Karin best girl

Yuki Yuna is a hero, IMO, is my best of the post-Madoka dark magical girl shows. Magical Girl Site is easily the worst.

When I first watched the show, I thought the big twist at the end was that Taisha was working for the Heavenly Gods. I always got that feeling because all the rituals seemed more about the Heavenly Gods than Shinju-sama. The real reason Shinju-sama was dying later in the series was because he was being appropriately worshiped. It sounds like a movie I heard of where a goddess was dying because the people wouldn't worship her properly. it was an odd theory that I had a long time ago.

I highly recommend reading all the novels, and just everything else in the franchise. NoWaYu is a massive fan fav, S3 left a lot of ppl pissed off. Not only was it cut so short but the changes made were nonsensical to say the least to fit in 3 and a half eps. Novel is 19 + 2 extras, later a 3-part spin off For new viewers, just read the novels b4 S3/DMnS. BTW I'm the user who posted that timeline you linked

@CakeoftheMews

8 ай бұрын

Yeah I can't even imagine what the anime cut out in order to get that story to fit within the time they were given. I can appreciate that the third season was trying to tie all the stories together and really connect the characters in this larger conflict, but man it did not work. At all. Also that's so cool! Your timeline is v handy~

@gian7288

8 ай бұрын

@@CakeoftheMews Let's just say the precursor chapter of the YuYuYus discovering Wakaba's diary got more screentime than the entire first volume of NoWaYu. Utano reduced to only a name drop is a crime, but at least they turned her hoe into the new Taisha logo. Yeah, it's that bad.... Most of what was adapted is chapter 14 to 19

I just ran into your videos from the magia record girls critique and i also have watched yuki yuna so i was excited to hear your opinion on it lol Madoka and Yuki Yuna are my only exposure to magic girl stuff and now im interested in exploring more of it from your videos Also wondering if you’ve read the second arc of magia record? 80(?)% of it is translated and its way better than the first arc imo

@CakeoftheMews

9 ай бұрын

I'm so glad you're interested! I try my best to spread the mahou shoujo propaganda~ Also I haven't read through it completely, but I know vaguely what happens! I would recommend checking out Project Mokyuu here on youtube! It's a fandub group who's going to be translating and dubbing all of Arc 2 for an English audience! Also, I happen to voice a character in it :3c

Funfact:karin has the same voice actress for sayaka miki

@CakeoftheMews

5 ай бұрын

Sarah Anne Williams is brilliant in everything she does

Here’s my review of it that I’m sure nobody asked for. (Heavy, HEAVY spoilers ahead.) I know this is a very unpopular opinion, but I really don’t think Yuki Yuna is very good or the second best post Madoka modern magical girl series like many think. The pacing is horrendous for season 1, where it should be arguably the most important thing to help us get to feel for these girls. Episodes 1 - 5 feel like they’re speedrunning the whole Vertex plot and it hurts both it and the girls. For example, I feel like Karin becomes friends with the rest of the Hero Club way too quickly than she should, considering that most of episode 3 is just them talking about how to defeat the Vertex. Episode 4 should’ve given us way more scenes between just Itsuki and Fuu than we got, and because of the lack of them, they end up feeling distant from each other, which could’ve been handled properly, but the series also messed that up. Episode 7 just feels sort of pointless. The episode prior, the girls said that they’d get better soon so many times that I assume most viewers weren’t surprised when they found out about Sange. Because of this, it’s so jarring to see the girls goofing around and acting like nothing bad’s happening. This episode is also the series’ last chance to get us to care for the Hero Club before shit hits the fan, and the entire time the series just wastes time showing the girls enjoying their vacation. They could’ve had a much more personal conversation between Yuki and Tougou which we so desperately needed to make us feel like they’re best friends. Speaking of them, Yuki and Tougou don’t feel closer to each than to the rest of their friends either, causing the final few episodes to feel way more melodramatic than they should. Overall, season 1 could’ve been saved if it was given 24 episodes instead of 12, which I feel like was the intention original, but was later reduced for some unknown reason. Washio Sumi, despite being the most highly rated season, is not very good. Unlike season 1 which really just needed more episodes, this one needs to have some aspects of it rewritten. A few examples would be that even though they’re not supposed to be friends yet, but Sumi, Gin, and Sonoko act like they are. They’re cracking jokes with each other, and calling each other nicknames. They also mention meeting each other before as well, which makes me feel like this is more of an episode 2, than episode 1. Add an episode before this, and this would’ve felt much more natural. Episode 2 and 3 are pointless. First of all, the former only happens because of plot hole. Gin said that she couldn’t take photos of the Jukai, yet Aki somehow had a video of just that. Even if we use the argument that it, for some idiotic reason, allows videos to be recorded, but not photos, nobody could’ve possibly recorded the girls fighting because everyone besides them was frozen in place, and as I mentioned before, the girls were fighting. Not only that, but after all of the training they went through, the girls somehow look even more injured than they did after episode 1, which makes the entire episode feel pointless. Episode 3 is the only real slice of life episode in WS, and instead of letting us know more about the main trio, especially Gin, who especially needs more screen time for obvious reasons, it spends its runtime making dumb jokes, adding fuel to the yuribait fire, and showing ugly CGI dance sequences. It’s a shame, because Gin so desperately needed this episode to make us feel for her. Episode 4 is… it’s something. To me, using death flags is a cardinal sin when writing a character’s death. It makes the death feel less impactful by basically saying “this character’s gonna die.”, which can allow the audience to prepare themselves for what’s about to happen and be less saddened by it, and it just feels kind of manipulative and slimy. I mention all of this because they give Gin like 5 death flags in the span of 13 minutes. They couldn’t just stop at one, they realized they didn’t given us enough time to feel for Gin, so they pulled out like every death flag in the book. It was so infuriating. Episode 5 is better, but due to everything mentioned before, fails to make me sad. Episode 6… truly is something. Firstly, it raises a few questions about the Hero System which are only made worse in Hero’s Chapter. Taisha can change it at will, so why didn’t they add Mankai in earlier? Gin wasn’t the first Hero to die, and if they hadn’t changed it, wouldn’t have been the last. Not only that, but in season 1, we’re told that the girls’ powers were handed to them by Shinju, yet Taisha, an organization who’s basically a cult to them, can just change the Hero System at will. We’re never told how they’re able to do this, it just happens. Another plot hole sneaks its ugly head in what’s supposed to be an emotional scene when Tougou loses her ability to use her legs and her memories of the last two years, and yet she somehow remembers Gin, when that should be completely impossible. She met her just recently, and didn’t have any friends before the season began, allowing us to rule out the possibility that she was a childhood friend of hers. This error causes this emotional scene to just become infuriating. Washio Sumi is somehow worse than season 1, as its biggest problem was its breakneck pacing, while this one requires rewriting entire aspects of episodes, or even some entirely, for it to truly be emotional and impactful.

@bryancortes6633

6 ай бұрын

And here we make it to Hero’s Chapter. Its biggest problem is that it relies on the idea that the viewers are already emotionally invested in the Hero Club. As we’ve both mentioned, this season also makes the Hero System make less sense than it did originally. It also makes the Taisha look unintentionally more cruel than they were most likely intended to be. They never told the girls about the side effects using Mankai brings, and actively lied to them, telling them that they’d get better. But here, we find out that donating a bodily function to Shinju isn’t necessary to use Mankai, so what was the purpose of all of it? Plus, it raises the question of why they don’t just make a Sangeless version of the season 1 Hero System? It’s never said why they couldn’t, so far all we know, they could’ve but just chose not to. Both of these things just make the fact that the Hero Club trusts them again feel forced. It’s like if the Holy Quintet forgave Kyubey after everything he’s done to them and considered him a friend. It doesn’t feel natural at all. Yuki being cursed in episode 2 kind of makes the Shinju seem kind of like a jerk, and makes the explanation of season 1’s ending worse. A god that is completely willing to curse a young girl, who they also intend on marrying, with something that will kill her, and potentially even her friends if she tells about it, doesn’t seem like the type of god who would just suddenly believe in the courage of humanity and give the girls back their bodily function. Not only that, but the curse’s effects don’t make much sense either. Fuu got run over when Yuki didn’t tell her about it, but intended to. So how did the Hero Club manage to learn about it through her journal without anything bad happening to them? If we use the argument that Yuki didn’t technically tell them about the curse, so it wouldn’t hurt them, then why didn’t it work in episode 5? She explicitly told them there that she was cursed, and since all it took for Fuu to be harmed was for Yuki to intend to tell her, they shouldn’t be alive by the end of the episode. If the reasoning for why nothing happens to them is because they already knew it beforehand, then that doesn’t make much sense either, since I already mentioned before, Yuki never actually told Fuu about her curse, she just intended to. Before I talk about the ending, I’d like to mention some missed potential. Fuu’s parents died as a result of Washio Sumi’s ending. Washio’s lost 2 years of her life and one of her best friends because of the Taisha, and yet Fuu completely trusts them. It’d make sense for them to be at least a little angry at each other in Hero’s Chapter, and yet that’s not the case. It would’ve added so much to their characters if they actually argued with each other about this, even if it was just a one time thing in episode 1. Anyway, back to the actual show. This ending is awful… it’s somehow even worse than other asspully happy endings like the ones in Daybreak Illusion, Mai Hime, and even season 1 of Yuki Yuna. Unlike last season which had an explanation, although the explanation didn’t make sense, I can’t find any explanation as to why the ending of season 2 happens. So not only is this an explainationless asspully ending, but this is also basically the ending of the entire franchise. It just adds more salt to the wounds of the bleeding mess that was Hero’s Chapters. Overall, Hero’s Chapter desperately needs a 24 episode of season for it to piggyback off of, and a good amount of rewrites for some of the plot element, especially the horrendous ending. The Great Mankai Chapter feels like a waste of time. You already mentioned it in the video, but both of the adaptations for the spin offs are incredibly rushed. The thing is, Mebuki could’ve worked well as 4 episodes. It has 6 chapters, and they were able to fully adapt Washio Sumi’s 8 chapters into 6. There’s no reason why Mebuki’s adaptation needed to be this horrendous. The fact that this light novel was adapted so poorly causes the new episodes that focus on the Sentinels to feel unneeded as I have no reason to care for characters that I don’t even remember the names for. A poor adaptation also plagues Nogi Wakaba. They tried to turn a 21 chapter light novel into 3 episodes, causing me to care even less about all of these dead characters. And because they’re all dead by the time of Great Mankai Chapter, there’s even less of a reason to care for them. Episode 11 is literally just episode 6 of Hero’s Chapter, but with like 3 new scenes. There was no reason for this episode to be made. Episode 12 is the epilogue, which could’ve easily fit i to Hero’s Chapter as another episode. Because of how unnecessary this season feels, it genuinely makes me wonder why it was made. The adaptations of the spinoffs were poor, the penultimate episode is literally the same as the prior season’s finale, and the epilogue could’ve easily fit as a 7th episode to Hero’s Chapter. Was it as a low effort cash grab? Did they want to fully adapt Mebuki and Nogi, but didn’t have the time and budget to do so? Or did they realize they wanted to make an epilogue, and instead of releasing it as an OVA or a stand alone episode, wanted to tie to a season and used the spin offs to fill up time? I’m genuinely unsure on how they managed to mess up the entire finale of the Yuki Yuna is a Hero franchise. I don’t think Great Mankai Chapter can be salvaged. It’s just such a waste of time that fixing it wouldn’t be possible. The only place I can start with is that they adapt Mebuki into 4 episodes, and Nogi into 8, which wouldn’t be Great Mankai Chapter anymore and would’ve gotten rid of the epilogue. And adding the epilogue to the end of Hero’s Chapter gets rid of the entire purpose of Great Mankai Chapter. There’s genuinely no way to fix this season.

@bryancortes6633

6 ай бұрын

Overall, I find the Yuki Yuna is a Hero franchise to be very overrated, and not deserving of the title of second best modern magical girl series. If this somehow changed your mind on the series, then awesome, if not, that’s also awesome. People are allowed to like and dislike different series, and I have no problem with you liking something different from me. (Also, about the last bit of magical girl genre’s current state. I don’t agree with the notion that dark magical girl series are Madoka rip offs, more so that it heavily inspired them. I also don’t agree with the idea that there were dark magical girl series before Madoka. Many of the series people call “the real first dark magical girl series” either aren’t magical girl series, or aren’t dark. For example, Revolutionary Girl Utena isn’t a magical girl series. There’s no magic in it, and most of the cast is comprised of boys. The closest it has to a magical girl series is that the protagonist is a pink haired girl, and there’s transformation scenes. Both of which aren’t exclusive to the genre. Even how the transformations look and how they happen are different from the stereotypical way it would happen in a magical girl series. Mai Hime feels more like Fate/Stay Night, than an actual magical girl series. And series like Princess Tutu and Nanoha aren’t anywhere near as dark as fans of it claim them to be. Hell, Nanoha actively tries to downplay the more unsettling aspects of Midchildian society like the child soldiers, and children fighting for sport. The closest series I can think of as the first real dark magical girl series is Niso Isin’s Magical Girl Risuka, which is very obscure, and basically unknown to western magical girl fans since it never received an anime adaptation, and the light novel never received any sort of translation. The argument that MM destroyed the magical girl genre can also be made, since every release since it has either been a dark magical girl series that was inspired by it, a parody of the 90s/2000s version of the genre which all feel sort of mean spirited since they’re basically kicking and laughing at a horse’s skeleton, or some sort of sequel/remake/spin off of an older series. Besides Magilumiere, which as a critique of capitalism should’ve been dark, the last original lighthearted series was all the way back in 2015 with Wish Upon the Pleiades, and even that’s debatable since the series of OVAs it’s a part of released in 2011 while Madoka was just starting. I know that lighthearted magical girl series had their fair share of dark moments, but they weren’t as dark as Madoka or any of the modern series.) I had to separate this review into three different parts as KZread doesn’t allow you to make comments that are this insanely long.

@CakeoftheMews

6 ай бұрын

I agree with you on a lot of what you said! While I was still able to get attached to the characters, it absolutely could have been done better. I was just vibing with what we did have. Though, small correction! The Shinju isn’t the one who cursed Yuuna. It was the Heavenly Gods who cursed her, and they’re the ones that the Shinju is protecting humanity from in the first place. So, that’s one plot hole cleared up for ya :3 Also, there were non-parody/edgy magical girl shows after pmmm’s release. Like Flip Flappers and Little Witch Academia. Not to mention, but I find the caveat of “that aren’t sequels/reboots” to be kind of reductive? Because like, yeah things like Precure or Sailor Moon Crystal existed before hand, but they still made new content afterwards. The “classic” magical girl was still alive. Also, the classification of “princess tutu isn’t as dark as fans make it out to be” is a bit of a non-provable point because like, how do we measure the “darkness” of a show? Princess Tutu deals with some pretty heavy stuff. It may not be blood and guts but it’s as brutal as the fairy tales it’s based on.

@bryancortes6633

6 ай бұрын

@@CakeoftheMews I’ve never watched Little Witch Academia, but Flip Flappers isn’t a magical girl series. The only thing it has in common with the genre is that it has girls that transform, and transformations aren’t a magical girl exclusive thing. As for the exclusion of sequels, remakes, and spin offs of older series, that’s to show the state the lighthearted magical girl genre is in. These series would’ve been made regardless of whether Madoka came out or not, and they make up 1/3 of the genre’s new releases. Besides them, the only recent lighthearted magical girl series is Magilumiere. It’s a little upsetting to see that the version of the genre which is the most iconic is only carried by new installments of older and more nostalgic series instead of getting new releases, especially since dark and parody magical girl series usually get one or two new releases each year. As for Princess Tutu, while it does touch on some heavy subjects, I think it’s more tonally consistent with other magical girl series that were released around that time. Although they were generally lighthearted, they could still have serious and dark moments. I feel like Princess Tutu fits that bill.

8:05 *COUGH*and love interest*COUGH*

My maing ripe with YukiYuna is how it didn't fully adapt the first novel, because the first novel pretty much tells you HOW the world ended up as a tiny island. The Vertex coming down, eyesky syndrome (or whatever it was called) and the gradual deletion of humanity and the magical girls the Shinju minimally blessed with magic to do a job. What I can't agree with however, is that saying everyone being cured is abliest. The show starting with Togo in a wheelchair and then getting up to mankai IS still world building. Her having THREE fairies as opposed to the girls one, is showcasing that something already is off about Togo. Remember, Togo isn't just leg crippled, she is also mind crippled with Amnesia... with the Shinju removing her memories of the last 2-ish years only to put her back into the fray. Then we learn from Sonoko, that Togo has done Mankai, twice and now Thrice in the anime. However, relating it to the real world, Togo being in a wheelchair is the equivalent of her winning a marathon and someone shooting her spine out and disabling her from the waist down. Not a single person would want that, and people in that situation would want their legs back. That being said, the enemy of the anime, are still the Vertex and not the Shinju. The Shinju is doing her best, lets be real. The last Earth god to protect from the Heaven gods. It's clear that it's power is waning and it isn't limitless and obviously requires sustinenance to keep dishing out power. "You take some divine magic, and in return we keep this island safe but i'll need some energy back" The first girls had an awful system. No protection, pay in blood and the awful trump system which condemed the majority of them. The first gen Mankai system was probably the most fair. An insane burst of power to obliterate the foes, in exchange for body parts and while it is RNG, the tree compensates for this by providing general support. But again, I still think the first LN should have been fully adapted... I still remember reading that mall chapter where they find the piles of bodies in the middle.

@CakeoftheMews

3 ай бұрын

Oooh the light novel sounds so interesting!! It seems to play into the horror of the whole situation. When it comes to the ableism stuff, I completely understand what you mean. I still don’t know how to feel about it because it does suck that bam they all get cured, but it also amplifies the horror of it all.

@frogradar

3 ай бұрын

@@CakeoftheMews The first Novelo was honestly such a good read. You're right that the anime doesn't give enough time and clearly wanted to do 2 of the LN's but the first one is really all about the absolute devastation of humanity from the vertex. HIGHLY recommend. Also I do think the Disability talks are very grey area when it comes to this show in particular.

Can you review Sega Hard Girls?

@CakeoftheMews

9 ай бұрын

That really depends on if it catches my interest ^^;; But it seems to have something to do with Hyperdimension Neptunia, which I do have an interest in~

@tiagoferreira1169

9 ай бұрын

@@CakeoftheMews what you think of the tiny little biscuit called neptune neppy

people get a better taste