Kyo Kara Moah mostly
revolves around the characters themselves instead of an overall core plot.
Though it takes awhile for the series to go anywhere, the anime is an enjoyable
romp thanks to its colorful cast of characters. Yuri, a high school baseball
jock, doesn’t care for politics and only wants everybody to get along. Yuri’s
godfather, Conrad Weller, is his personal bodyguard and war hero. Conrad’s two
brothers include the younger bishounen-like character, Wolfram von Bielefeld, a
pompous demon boy with a bad temper sworn to protect Yuri. The oldest brother,
Gwendal von Voltaire, is a military strategist and commander of the Demon
Kingdom army that has a strange obsession with all things cute and adorable.
Even with the interesting protagonists, the show itself is a
bit slow and a lot of it ends up being “cutesy filler” that is done in order to
appeal to a bishounen audience. A common running gag is Yuri being engaged with
Wolfram, but the constant reminder of a boy being engaged to another boy
quickly gets old and is used as the target for fan service. Once the anime
starts to get somewhere, the DVD is almost over.
Though light hearted, Kyo
Kara Maoh does have its serious moments with the role of
politics, war, and racism. With humans and demons showing prejudice to each
other, much of the arguments end up in conflict, though the fighting is rather
tame and it leaves a lot to be desired. The hand-to-hand combat in particular
is boring, and often times the anime concentrates on getting screenshots of the
male characters.
Thankfully, the usage of magic fares better and the
animation is given an exceptional boost in quality. The magic itself is absurd,
offering some zany uses such as lighting striking the roof of a house only to
write the kanji for the word “justice” or a humanoid monster created from mud
and rock.
It isn’t just the animation that suffers; The DVD itself has
problems of its own. Though FUNimation video quality is absolutely fantastic,
there isn’t anything else that the DVD would offer besides a handful of Geneon
trailers. There is a severe lack of any special features and given its
relatively high price--71.99 on Amazon--there is no incentive to purchase the
DVD unless you just want the core package, which is 39 episodes with a duel
language support for English and Japanese as well as English subtitles.
If there is anything going for Kyo Kara Maoh, it is the comedy. There
aren’t too many shows out there where a boy is given a swirly and suddenly
arrives in a strange world where dragons and “bear-bees” exist. The anime
formula here is a bit different, and given its obvious target audience, Kyo Kara Maoh is one that actually works.
Rating: C+
Anime 3000 reviews anime, manga, and games based on
specific criteria designated by each medium's respective editor. Anime is
reviewed on ascale from F to A+. Series or movies that receive a score of A- or
above are considered outstanding, B- to B+ recommendable, C- to C+ average, D-
to D+ unrecommended, and F terrible
Did you
know? Kyo Kara Maoh!
was originally a Japanese series written by Tomo Takabayashi and later adapted
into anime and manga.
