Good and evil, humans and demons and the Hero and the Demon King. In any other tale than this one, these dualities might be absolutes, black and white contrasts with no possible deviation. Humans are the defenders of good, and demons are evil destroyers while the Hero and Demon King fight in an endless struggle for the fate of the world.
However, in this series things are not that cut and dried. The humans are not the bringers of good they claim to be and are more dangerous to each other than the demons are. The demons are not the evil creatures they are made out to be and have more in common with the humans than both realize. And the Hero and the Demon King have decided on an alternative path to fighting.
Maoyu (Maoyu Maou Yuusha)
Studio: Arms
Director: Takeo Takahashi
Original work by: Mamare Touno
Licensed by: Sentai Filmworks
Number of episodes: 12
Story:
The story starts off as the hero enters the palace of the Demon King. It is not known why he has gone ahead of his three companions, but he has found himself alone in the lair of Demon King. As the he rushes to slay the Demon King, he is greeted with a surprise as the Demon King is not what he expected...
Instead of fighting the Hero, the Demon King decides that they should end the war between the humans and demons with neither side winning and causing grief over the other. She plans to do this with the help of the Hero and others through raising the economic, technological and educational levels of the humans with minimal fighting.
The setting itself is more or less the standard medieval fantasy setting with kings, monsters, heroes, knights and wizards commonly associated with it. Mainly the story puts emphases on the change the Demon King and Hero cause in the southern regions of the human continent, the medieval economics of the merchants and the grand strategy of the Winter King and Knight.
While the story is pretty enjoyable at times, it has plenty of flaws. The series has a lot of jarring time skips that can range from a couple of days to weeks to years. The aforementioned economic elements while a step in the right direction for the setting still feel rather shallow compared to say Spice and Wolf's. When the series shows its more strategic side it is quite good but these moments are rather few and far between. As the story progresses, a love triangle starts between the Hero, the Demon King and the Knight that really does not go anywhere and feels rather unneeded.
Throughout the story, the Demon King introduces "new" technologies and techniques to the humans as part of her plans. These improvements include everything from advanced agricultural methods to printing presses to black powder guns. The problem with these innovations is that it is never really explained how she comes by said technologies as the demons themselves are more or less on the same level technology-wise as the humans.
The most notable flaw with the series is that it is unfinished. It concludes with too much plot points unresolved and a few new characters are add at the very end. Perhaps, there will be a second season down the road, but I'll admit I'm a bit worried that it will be another series left unfinished.
Characters:
Characterization in Maoyu is rather interesting but also somewhat mixed. For starters, much like Humanity Has Declined, none of the characters are given names and instead are just given titles or called by their character archetypes. What's interesting is the subversion of typical archetype troupes that some of the characters do. The dark and evil overlord of demons turns out to be a kind hearted and intelligent woman, the hero questions if his only purpose is really to destroy, and the helpless serf over comes great strife with her own will.
Something else I like is how well the two main characters work well together. They often change between being awkwardly cute around each other to bouncing off each other's personalities. They just seem to fit each other as a couple perfectly.
Unfortunately, Maoyu has some flaws with its characters as well. Some characters, like the Mage, the Winter King and the three Apprentices, do not get much character development. The series often feels like it doesn't really spend enough time with these characters and outright ignores others.
The Hero himself is actually kind of bland. While he has his moments, he gains very little development throughout the series. Unlike the Demon King, he more frequently goes along with plans than coming up with them, and the few he does come up with are usually either incredibly simple or make him irrelevant in their execution. Additionally, he is pretty much more overpowered than pretty every other character to the point where he can literally level a mountain if he wants.
A sneeze was all it took
I suppose this does add something to him questioning if all he's good for is fighting but over-powered protagonists are usually uninteresting characters (Looking at you, Kirito)
The Demon King herself is... Well, let's just get the obvious subject matter out of the way...
This must have been how all the previous Demon Kings defeated the Hero.
Obvious fanservice-y design aside, I actually liked the Demon King as a character. She's smart, always looking at the bigger picture to determine when and how she should proceed with her plans. At the same time she's kind hearted and thoughtful of others. To be quite frank, she's probably one of the most well-developed characters of the series.
That's not the only thing that's well develo- nope, can't say it.
The trouble I really had with her is that while she and the Hero make a pretty nice couple, at times she felt overly clingy to him. Even that is mostly just me being nitpicky.
The only other character I feel needs pointing out is the older Serf girl. At the beginning she starts out as more or less the Red Scholar's (The Demon King's other title) and Head Maid's apprentice for most of the series. Throughout the first part of the series she only gets moderate character development as she goes from being a scared run-away serf to more or less a substitute for the Red Scholar herself.
Until the "I Am Human" episode, that is. Besides being incredibly well-written, powerful and just out classing the rest of the series, the episode did an absolutely fantastic job of developing the Serf herself as a character.
Animation:
Generally art-wise, Maoyu is really, really pretty. The animation is fluid with almost no drops in quality. The characters and environments have some rather vibrant yet earthy color pallets. Much like Humanity Has Declined, Maoyu's backgrounds tend to give off a more painting look to them which works really well with the earthy pallet.
One thing that really surprised me was that the art for the clothing of the characters had a static-yet-moving image feel to them. Kind of like the clothing and hair artstyle from The Count of Monte Cristo: Gankutsuou, though nowhere near as extensive and much easier on the eyes.
The only flaw I found in the series' animation is its use of CGI for large crowds. The regular animation itself is beautiful but then you get to scene with a large crowd and it's just a jarring shift from very good animation to some rather bad CGI.
Sound:
Much like the artstyle, the music has a rather earthy vibe to it with a more medieval simple instrumental sound on some of its soundtrack. I'll admit I was a little disappointed that the soundtrack did not go full on with the medieval sound to all of its soundtrack like say Spice and Wolf did but the soundtrack did a nice job of capturing the feel of the setting and doing a good job of backing up the animation and many of the scenes.
I found both the opening and closing were quite pleasant. The opening has a somewhat upbeat feel to it while also capturing the feel of the series quite well. Quite frequently an opening tends to have far better animation than the actually series itself but one of the things I really like about Maoyu is it uses the same level of animation throughout the series. This is good since, as previously stated, the artwork in the series is quite beautiful.
The closing does a nice job of winding down the series with a much more somber track to it while still much like the opening and it captures the feel of the series quite well. One of the things I really like about the closing is the medieval style book pages with illustrations of different scenes from the series. This gave off a more simplistic "Less is more" feel while also fitting quite nicely with the series' setting.
Opening
(Please visit the site to view this media)
Closing
(Please visit the site to view this media)
Currently Sentai Filmworks has not released a dubbing for Maoyu.
Personal Enjoyment:
Maoyu has its flaws- hit-or-miss characterizations, jarring time skips, story elements not well explained and it's rather unfinished. That being said, I quite liked Maoyu. The series is beautiful and does a good job of hitting the fantasy nerd in me quite well. Not to mention the "I Am Human" episode is easily up there in my favorite individual episodes of a series.
Final Verdict:
After assigning scores to:
Story: 3.50
Characters: 3.75
Animation: 4.00
Sound: 4.25
And my own personal enjoyment: 4.00
I have given Maoyu an assigned score of:
3.90/5.00
Recommendation:
I give Maoyu a solid stream recommendation. While I personally do not regret buying it, it definitely has its flaws. Maoyu can be streamed through Crunchyroll, Hulu and TheAnimeNetwork and can be purchased through Crunchyroll's store, Amazon, Rightstuf and wherever you can purchase anime DVDs/Blurays
Alternative anime to check out:
Log Horizon
Another series based off of Mamare Touno's work, Log Horizon takes the typical "getting stuck in a game" plot troupe but goes in a different direction by focusing on the players finding purpose in and affecting their new home rather than trying to get out.
Like Maoyu, Log Horizon has some economic and strategic elements as well as some interesting political ones and unlike another "Stuck in a video game" series, it actually has good characterization, interesting storylines and genuinely captures the feel of MMOs (*Cough* and is actually good *Cough*).
Spice and Wolf
On the topic of medieval economic anime series, it's impossible for me NOT to mention Spice and Wolf. Spice and Wolf follows Kraft Lawrence, a traveling merchant, and Holo, an ancient and "wise" wolf girl, as they travel back to Holo's old home and do all kinds of interesting economic stuff along the way.
Spice and Wolf goes rather hardcore into its economic which do tend to fly over some heads but always feels rather intelligent. It also has some wonderful characterization between Lawrence and Holo and its soundtrack may be one of my most favorite. Additionally the dubbing is rather excellent with J. Michael Tatum doing a wonderful job as Lawrence (albeit, I've yet to see a role J. Michael Tatum hasn't done a wonderful job with) and Brina Palencia doing an equally wonderful job as Holo.
Until next time, don't be an insect!