Hello everyone, Justin here and welcome to another edition of the Otaku Mind. Most of you might remember the Demon Lord arc from two years ago. During the arc I reviewed animes where the demon lord was the main character and one of the animes I reviewed was Yuushibu a rather underrated ecchi comedy series that came out in 2013. Apparently that was everyone’s favorite review during the arc and as I look back on that anime I came across a lot of people who said they didn’t like it all that much which really got me thinking was Yuushibu a bad anime and I overlooked a lot of aspects of it during my review. Well for this Otaku Mind let’s take a look back on the anime and see if it still holds up or not.
First a quick overview of the anime. The anime focuses on Raul a guy who wants to become a hero and defeat the demon lord. He goes to hero school, makes friends, and everything only to discover that after graduation the demon lord has been defeated and world peace has finally set in meaning the world no longer needs heroes. Not having anything to fall back on and stuck in a world that has no need for his skills Raul is forced to get a job at an electronic store. One day a girl named Fino comes in asking for a job where we find out she’s not only a demon but she’s actually the daughter of the former demon lord meaning she’s next in line to be the demon lord but doesn’t want the title. The anime just follows the day to day life of Fino trying to fit into normal society and work with Raul serving as her mentor and keeping an eye on her.
The best part about this anime is Fino. She’s the main character and she’s a great character. Despite not wanting to become the demon lord she still acts like one. In the first few episodes she scares almost all the customers away with her greetings, evil smile, maniacal laugh, and at one point almost kills a robber while being oblivious to it. But at the same time she’s quite cute and energetic. Every time we see her she’s bursting with energy and giving 110% at her job or whatever task she’s doing. She’s always willing to listen to others and even though she may not seem like she’s paying attention deep down she is and is trying hard to understand and fit into human society. She’s also optimistic, in almost every episode she messes up on something and gets reprimanded by Raul but she doesn’t let it get her down. She learns from it, smiles, and tries her hardest not to repeat the same mistake showing us that she’s learning from her mistakes or at least trying to do her job properly. Finally, she’s a really caring person. Despite being the demon lord’s daughter she’s quite innocent and nice to everyone around her. Even though she doesn’t want to be the demon lord she hasn’t completely turned her back on her kind. She instead wants to come up with a way to improve the life of demons and try to reach some form of peace with humans.
Raul serves as the male lead and also goes through his own battle such as battling his depression of not being a hero and getting screwed over by the world. We understand his pain and how embarrassing it must feel for him to get out of school and not get the job he wanted which is something a lot of people go through once they get out of college. Some people don’t find a job at all and others are forced to work a job that belittles them in every way. To be fair Raul doesn’t seem to hate his new life as he’s good friends with everyone at the store and at the end of the anime re-finds a purpose for his life and a way to use his skills in a world that we thought didn’t need them. I also like how he’s patient and caring of Fino. Raul was the first person to discover that Fino was the demon lord’s daughter yet despite this not once does he try to attack her or shun her. He pretty much accepts her as she is and is very patient when he trains her. He gets mad at her for messing up but it’s not a nasty or mean mad it’s more of a comedic mad where he kind of understands why she’s doing the things she doing because of her lifestyle but at the same time he can’t believe she would do this. In a way he kind of understands where Fino is coming from and I honestly do see some similarities between the two. Both of them are trying to find their purpose in a world that no longer requires their initial services because the ladder doesn’t want to take on the role and just wants to live her own life the way she wants. Raul is very understanding of Fino and doesn’t try to force his ambitions on her because he knows it’s wrong to sacrifice the life of a friend just so he can live out his dream.
The rest of the characters are alright but we never really get a chance to explore them. Like for example, there’s more to Seara than just being the store manager. Despite her peaceful and nice appearance, she’s obviously hiding something from the others about her past. Nova is basically there for fanservice, Lam really doesn’t do much, Elza is obviously a love interest but they never do anything with her and you have to wonder why she works at a convenience store when she would be a perfect fit for Leon, and Visor and Lore are just there to be there but I do find Lore the better of the two as she actually serves an important purpose in the anime. It’s minor but at least she does stuff. Probably the one character I felt was wasted the most was Airi, Raul’s good friend from hero school and another love interest. She’s basically the female equivalent of Raul in that she’s lost her purpose in the world as well except she still intends to believe in her dream while Raul has accepted that his dream is dead and is trying to move on with his life. She has a lot of cliché character tropes. She’s tsun, gets embarrassed quite easily, stubborn, and will make a huge mistake near the end of the show only to work with Raul to fix it.
The animation is still great to look at in my eyes. It really does look great. I like the character designs, the backgrounds are very detailed, the use of CGI is good, and I like the incorporation of magic and science in this world. They have machines but they’re powered by magic so the world still feels like a fantasy world but also a world of science. It’s almost like technology is meeting down the middle between these two and it’s pretty awesome in my opinion. The one aspect of this anime I didn’t like was the story. The plot is good I like how they show what happens to the world after the demon lord dies. Usually shows stop at the defeat of the demon lord and just says everyone lived happily ever after. Here, we actually see how the demon lord’s death effects everyone. Heroes lose their jobs and weapon shop owners as well as blacksmiths are forced to shutdown because there’s no longer a demand for them or their products. Yeah a lot of people got screwed over in this anime. This actually shows us how evil is just as important as good in the world. There needs to be a balance between the two. This is actually one of the reasons why I like the Venture Bros. so much. There’s actually a system setup between good and bad where both sides play by rules but at the same time they have their own agendas and can actually get along with each other in the process. Anyway, the story for me is where this anime fails. I really like how they were going in the direction with the small ma and pa store taking on the large corporate store who obviously had all the advantages except for customer relationship. I really was hoping Amada was this undercover demon operation of them trying to slowly take over the human world with demon products and they would try to get Fino to join them. But no, it becomes a story of forcing Fino to be the demon lord and everyone trying to save her. A waste of potential in my opinion and the one thing that really hurt this anime for me. The one factor that I know a lot of people didn’t like and I think is the main reason why some people didn’t like this anime is the fanservice and yes there is a lot of fanservice. When I look back on it there was more fanservice than there really needed to be. But even so the fanservice never really bothered me. It wasn’t bad service, it was put in at the appropriate time, and they didn’t get out of control with it as a lot of animes do. Could the anime have cut some of the fanservice scenes and used that time to better develop some characters? Yes, and they probably should have done that but just because an anime has fanservice in it doesn’t mean you should hate on it. That’s like me hating a Stephen King book because it has horror in it. If it was bad fanservice I could understand but here it’s actually quite good fanservice. If fanservice’s not your thing that’s fine, I understand, but don’t hate on an anime because it’s fanservice. When you see an anime tagged ecchi you should know what to expect. Highschool DxD, To Love-ru, Shinmai Maou no Testament, and H.O.T.D are all animes with a large amount of fanservice yet I can honestly say I’m more interested in their stories, characters, and seeing what happens next. The fanservice for me is just a little something extra.
Conclusion
So is Yuushibu a bad anime? No, I don’t think so. I still like it but it’s not as good as I originally thought it was. If I was grading it today I probably give it 6 or a 6.5 because they don’t explore a lot of the characters as I would have hoped and really did drop the ball on their story. It’s still a good anime with great leads, an interesting perspective on the world after the demon lord dies, pretty good fanservice, nice animation, and a fun idea. You guys are free to hate it if you want but in my opinion it’s still a good anime to watch and worth seeing at least once. Thanks for reading and I’ll see you next time on Project Nitsuj.