×
  • remind me tomorrow
  • remind me next week
  • never remind me
Subscribe to the ANN Newsletter • Wake up every Sunday to a curated list of ANN's most interesting posts of the week. read more

Forum - View topic
EP. REVIEW: YU-NO: A girl who chants love at the bound of this world.


Goto page 1, 2  Next

Note: this is the discussion thread for this article

Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Chaos Wings



Joined: 05 May 2015
Posts: 277
Location: Your guess is as good as mine?!
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:27 am Reply with quote
A poor-mans Steins;Gate maybe? At least MC-kun isn't the kind of stuttering spineless wimp we usually get.

Watching him reverse time to get his ass beat over and over again was also pretty entertaining in Ep 2.

Overall though this show just feels kinda weird, like all the characters seem more overtly caricatured than usual or something.


Last edited by Chaos Wings on Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:49 am; edited 1 time in total
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Kicksville



Joined: 20 Nov 2010
Posts: 1168
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:47 am Reply with quote
Chaos Wings wrote:
A poor-mans Steins;Gate maybe? At least MC-kun isn't the kind of stuttering spineless wimp we usually get.

Hoooo boy...they're not doing a very good job here if people are assuming it's a rip off of something it predates by nearly fifteen years...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message Visit poster's website
Chaos Wings



Joined: 05 May 2015
Posts: 277
Location: Your guess is as good as mine?!
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 11:53 am Reply with quote
??? I know this came before I never said rip-off, my comment was an observation about quality not age of creation.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
johnnysasaki



Joined: 01 Jun 2014
Posts: 922
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 12:13 pm Reply with quote
the original game was really ground breaking back in the day(all the VNs with time travel like the Infinity series,the Zero Escape series and Steins Gate pretty much owe to this one.) and one of my favorite visual novel adventures(just play with a guide,though, or else you will running in circles...),but I'm sure people here who seem to only have "problematic" and "yikes" in their vocabulary are going to hate it,of course,but seeing the salt over it is part of the fun too.
And remember,no matter how bad this adaptation may get,it can't possibly be worse than the 4 OVA one...
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Changeitup



Joined: 07 Apr 2019
Posts: 9
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:57 pm Reply with quote
Oh man, as someone who's watched anime for nearly two decades this show is an absolute blast from the past. They even kept it taking place in the 90's, with MC-kun having to use the school's phone to call his Mom. I appreciate them not trying to modernize it (like poor Banana Fish). I never read the VN this is based on yet it still feels crazy nostalgic.
While I wouldn't call this show "good," it has certainly been more watchable than I initially thought. The MC is proactive and tries to have a personality, even if said personality kinda sucks, and I appreciate how supportive he and his Step-Mom are of each other after their Dad's/Husband's death. Kinda makes me sad knowing it'll inevitably swing into creepy territory.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Fred Lougee



Joined: 01 Oct 2018
Posts: 127
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 5:40 pm Reply with quote
I feel that the show is rather handicapped by it's origins. Both the 1990s timeframe, which it has kept, making it almost incomprehensible for younger viewers from the level of both technology and sensibility, and the fact that it is based off of a hentai VN.

When the first episode aired I had the odd feeling I had seen something like it before. I initially dismissed this, figured that I had likely seen several animes which had borrowed elements from it over the years. Then I went searching, discovered that I had actually watched at least part of the OVA adaptation of the VN. That was produced by Pink Pineapple, a company whose level of content is about middling. They show sex scenes, but never any genitalia, blurred or otherwise. So, call it hard ecchi, but not really hentai. I think...

PP's version was a lot more of the story and less about the skin than the VN, or so I would assume, but was still a lot about the skin. In both the original VN and the OVA the intriguing alternate timelines business was really just window dressing for some degree of prurient content. The current anime is what happens when someone tries to remove that content, or most of it, and make a viable story with the remaining elements. It's almost astounding this can be attempted in the first place.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
michizure



Joined: 28 Jun 2006
Posts: 177
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 6:37 pm Reply with quote
Minor point of information: YU-NO is also streaming on Crunchyroll.

Not being familiar with the source material or earlier versions, the only really clever bit I've seen so far is name-checking the title as "you know" in English. So far, I think I wouldn't mind the harem elements if the capture targets weren't all insipid and limp.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:43 pm Reply with quote
Chaos Wings wrote:
A poor-mans Steins;Gate maybe? At least MC-kun isn't the kind of stuttering spineless wimp we usually get.


I thought Steins;Gate was a poor man's Steins;Gate. The main point of that time travel story: Don't invent time travel, don't use time travel, don't rely on time travel. The main lesson of the Back to the Future Trilogy? Multiverse theory is your friend. Same as Yuno, so far at least.

I like what I see so far and I love what I see as its potential. And at least it's not another story with "30 year old man dies as nobody, gets reborn in a power fantasy" as its... let's face it, as its point. Now there's a self insert character for you. Takuya is a solo defined character, a rarirty in these days of Light Novels where many main characters end up with several identifying markers for extreme cross appeal. "He's a 12 year old girl NOW but he also identifies as a 34 year old man... so it's a series with a 34 year old character as the main character!"

Takuya is a teen male... and he has a definite type of woman he finds appealing. It's so retro and direct that I think it's refreshing. Also, I don't think it's a normal "self insert" Visual Novel as then it would have the standard roster: One girl older, one girl younger and at least three in the same grade. These women are Takuya's type and not necessarily yours.... and most of them seem to mirror his step mother in some way, what are the odds....
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Cardcaptor Takato



Joined: 27 Jan 2018
Posts: 4784
PostPosted: Fri Apr 19, 2019 7:46 pm Reply with quote
Changeitup wrote:
Oh man, as someone who's watched anime for nearly two decades this show is an absolute blast from the past. They even kept it taking place in the 90's, with MC-kun having to use the school's phone to call his Mom. I appreciate them not trying to modernize it (like poor Banana Fish). I never read the VN this is based on yet it still feels crazy nostalgic.
I remember Island from last year was also set in the 90s even though it's a newer visual novel. This show makes me wonder if Island was influenced by Yu-No any if it's such an influential visual novel.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
_Archer_



Joined: 23 Feb 2012
Posts: 110
PostPosted: Sat Apr 20, 2019 8:17 am Reply with quote
Really glad to see that this series will be getting a weekly review. It's a shame the author isn't a fan of Takuya as he's usually considered one of the highlights of the story because of his witty remarks, personality, and how he interacts with the environment.

And to take note about two things about the original game and this adaptation:

1. This anime is based on the recent SFW remake, so while there will be some fanservice, I don't believe there will be any sex scenes. Frankly, even the original didn't have that many sex scenes compared to your standard eroge given its length, just tons of fanservice.

2. This is nitpicky and I'm mentioning this more as food for thought rather than any sort of critique, but it's probably more accurate to say that YU-NO is an adventure game rather than a visual novel. While visual novels are typically already considered adventure games, YU-NO is an actual point and click game where you have to examine the environment and make use of the Reflector Device, which is actually your only way to save in general in the game, to solve various puzzles and events to beat the game. They aren't super complicated (some will disagree and say use a guide, but it really isn't that hard to beat without one as there are enough in game hints), but the gameplay is certainly more involved than your standard pick and choose VN like the mentioned Fate Stay Night.

And to those who for whatever reason never played the game and are only basing what the know off the old hentai OVA, this anime is of course leagues more accurate and is actually following the real story of the game. The old OVAs didn't even have Ryuuzouji in them to give you an idea of just how off base they were.

The anime right now is going through the Ayumi route, which is what I would have started with if I was making this anime as it's the most straightforward and serves as more of a tutorial route to really show the power of the reflector device to the player, so in some respects I'm happy with how the anime has been going so far, but it's still lacking some of the finer details that would have made the plot more clear at this point.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Fred Lougee



Joined: 01 Oct 2018
Posts: 127
PostPosted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 2:56 am Reply with quote
_Archer_ wrote:
Really glad to see that this series will be getting a weekly review. It's a shame the author isn't a fan of Takuya as he's usually considered one of the highlights of the story because of his witty remarks, personality, and how he interacts with the environment.

And to take note about two things about the original game and this adaptation:

1. This anime is based on the recent SFW remake, so while there will be some fanservice, I don't believe there will be any sex scenes. Frankly, even the original didn't have that many sex scenes compared to your standard eroge given its length, just tons of fanservice.

2. This is nitpicky and I'm mentioning this more as food for thought rather than any sort of critique, but it's probably more accurate to say that YU-NO is an adventure game rather than a visual novel. While visual novels are typically already considered adventure games, YU-NO is an actual point and click game where you have to examine the environment and make use of the Reflector Device, which is actually your only way to save in general in the game, to solve various puzzles and events to beat the game. They aren't super complicated (some will disagree and say use a guide, but it really isn't that hard to beat without one as there are enough in game hints), but the gameplay is certainly more involved than your standard pick and choose VN like the mentioned Fate Stay Night.

And to those who for whatever reason never played the game and are only basing what the know off the old hentai OVA, this anime is of course leagues more accurate and is actually following the real story of the game. The old OVAs didn't even have Ryuuzouji in them to give you an idea of just how off base they were.

The anime right now is going through the Ayumi route, which is what I would have started with if I was making this anime as it's the most straightforward and serves as more of a tutorial route to really show the power of the reflector device to the player, so in some respects I'm happy with how the anime has been going so far, but it's still lacking some of the finer details that would have made the plot more clear at this point.


Thanks for clearing that up. Truth be told, I don't know much about the eroge, never having been into them. But I do have an understanding of the way the business works to some extent and know that in a saturated market anything to distinguish a product is beneficial. A hard sci-fi element for as a viable plot-mover is brilliant, if you can make it work. It appears they so quite well did in the case of YU-NO.

It also puts me in mind of something I only recently discovered, much to my surprise. I have been a fan of epic fantasy literature since my teen years, probably has something to do with the copies of The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings dad left laying around and I started reading them when I was 12. Andrew J. Offutt was one of the writers I took a liking to when his contributions to the shared-universe series Thieves World created by Robert Lynn Aspirin and Lynn Abbey caught my eye. His tales, about a rogue assassin named Hanse, a.k.a. Shadowspawn who falls in love with a Gypsy-esque fortune teller, were some of the best written in the series, I thought. But unlike Asprin, who went on to write the serio-comic Myth Adventures and Phule's Company novel series along with several others, Offutt was largely absent from the landscape. Shame, I thought, because I really enjoyed reading him. And then I read an article written by his son a few years ago. He had recently passed away and unbeknownst to even his son he had been one of the most prolific authors of "adult fiction", all under a plethora of noms-de-plume. Not erotica, but flat out smut, almost all of it science fiction or epic fantasy themed. His son discovered this while going through Offutt's effects, finding a box of receipts for manuscripts accepted from a publisher he did not recognize. The younger Offutt contacted the publisher, learned that they would accept any manuscript submitted, most likely publish it, but because he submitted so many for so long they had no clear counting of the exact number of titles which were his works. his son wrote in the artice that he had "passed as a science fiction writer while actually pursuing a 50 year career as a pornographer". Well, the porn probably kept beans on the table but I think the science fiction paid better.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ryanvamp



Joined: 08 May 2007
Posts: 416
PostPosted: Sun Apr 21, 2019 7:50 pm Reply with quote
This has been an entertaining series so far. I'm not surprised at all it got a middle-of-the-road/bad review here.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Chrono1000





PostPosted: Fri Apr 26, 2019 6:30 pm Reply with quote
I think the main issue with YU-NO is that it is somewhat outdated. The people who like ecchi are used to modern ecchi shows and might find the 1990's antics to be strange, the people who dislike ecchi shows will dislike it because it is an ecchi show, the game still hasn't gotten a western release, and the ideas that made it famous have been seen in other anime over the last 20 years. With episode 2 I started to see what made it innovative and episodes 3 and 4 had some great character moments. YU-NO covers a lot of mature topics for when it was released such as abuse, blackmail, depression, emotional manipulation, and suicide. I can see why it was able to get a two cour anime though the accurate adaptation does make it a tougher sell for the western anime market.
Back to top
Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Fri Apr 26, 2019 8:10 pm Reply with quote
Episode 4

My first thought on that call from Geotech's lawyer was that it genuine but after Kaori baited Takuya with it, it just reeks of set up to me. "They did try to contact you" indeed. There's being too polite about a criminal investigation, then there's calling the woman's stepson at summer school because you "can't" contact her at home. No, they'd be going there in person if anything like that happened....

And then there's Kaori herself. I... don't think? I don't think an actual broadcast reporter would want to be be seen in public checking into her hotel room with a high school male, it's just a feeling. And then there's their sexual verbal foreplay... The woman didn't just keep up with him, she scored points off him. It's almost like she was told to go after this guy and that he has a certain attraction to older women....

Since I don't know the specifics of how the remote works, I can only guess that Takuya set up a "save" point after which he can play with time up to that point. But shouldn't going back straight from the present also be possible? Just show him working over which buttons do which, which buttons are missing... and which girls have which buttons. So far, we know where one of them are but that's it.

I was working under the assumption that Takuya's father married Ayumi just to cuckhold his son... and I'm still on the fence with that one. Nothing like "keep an eye on your stepmom for me" following "you're really into her, aren't you?"

As for Ayumi, I'm ruling out both suicide and Toyotami as the culprit. I think he's the one who set up the muggers but it's just about the sex for him, that's it. I mean, there was multiple used condoms in her trash. The guy does not have the spine to have sex with a woman for some time and then kill her.

Well, just the wrappers were in the trash... nothing like taking evidence with you... huh.... or is it: Huh? I expected time travel and sex, I didn't expect time travel, sex and a murder mystery. I really like it.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
ThrowMeOut



Joined: 10 Oct 2018
Posts: 256
PostPosted: Fri May 03, 2019 3:25 pm Reply with quote
Man this show feels like a rough draft of Stein's;Gate. It's like SG took all the decent ideas this visual novel had and made them, um, gooder.
Back to top
View user's profile Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic    Anime News Network Forum Index -> Site-related -> Talkback All times are GMT - 5 Hours
Goto page 1, 2  Next
Page 1 of 2

 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group