The story so far: The magical girls Heroes of the show learned that power comes with a price. In this case, violating the laws of physics and using magic to save the day means they will eventually lose more and more bodily functions, and eventually parts of their bodies in what is essentially human sacrifice.
So you know, call me crazy but I think we left “Cute Magical Girl” town a while ago. Not that there was anything wrong with that town anyway.
Smiling at You
We start right where we left off, Togo is luring a giant Vertex to attack the Shinju-sama and Yuna is ready to smack a bitch. Can this marriage be saved?
Before, moving on with the plot, I just want to point out something weird here. In the English dub, Yuna tells Togo to stop but the latter says she can’t. The subtitles, though, reveal that apparently in Japanese they just say each other’s names. Now, I don’t want to start a war with people insulting each other over how they prefer to watch a series—Because do we really need more of those?—but what is it with anime characters always uttering someone else’s name? I guess it must be a cultural thing I don’t get but it has always surprised me.
Back to Yuna. She tries to reason with Togo but that’s a very difficult task as you’ve probably guessed. Right now Togo is in the “it’s better to die” category but that doesn’t seem like it’s going to remain consistent.
Their verbal sparring is supplemented by an actual fight between the two. Yuna achieves Mankai and succeeds in hurting the giant Vertex so it can reveal its soul but Togo is having none of it and shoots Yuna out of the way. She does have a point about them being trapped in a cycle with no way out but I feel that her reasoning would be a lot stronger if she had brought up the fact that her amnesia was product of the Sange.
Also, this makes me wonder, how are they gonna get out of this? Togo’s plan is complete annihilation and there are no other alternatives in sight. And this is the last episode of the series, not a season finale with a cliffhanger.
Well, I stand corrected. Togo does bring up her amnesia. Sort of. She never stops to explain what happened but I guess Yuna can see her flashbacks because she put two and two together. She’s a clever girl.
But if you know Yuna you know she’s a sweet girl that takes shit from nobody. Not even from her not-girlfriend.
That means Togo gets punched right in the jaw.
And then Yuna hugs her. What can I say? This is a strange relationship.
Togo apparently accepts Yuna’s empty promise of never forgetting her—I’m pretty sure Togo also didn’t want to forget Nogi—but I guess appealing to her emotions is something Yuna would be able to do. Still feels a bit forced.
But of course, there’s that whole apocalypse in progress and Togo really fucked up by enabling it. While the girls were busy getting over their marital issues, the giant Vertex shot a mini-sun at the Shinju-sama. I guess that’s game over.
“It isn’t your fault, Togo”. You might wanna reconsider that a little bit.
Despite her heroic speech, Yuna can’t handle the stress of stopping a celestial body dead on its tracks and falls down untransformed. Since she just went Mankai, I wonder what she’s gonna lose?
But don’t worry, the Inubozaki sisters are back. Fu is a little too forgiving of Togo’s actions for my tastes but I can totally buy it. She sort of is the mentor figure, after all. It also helps that Togo looks genuinely ashamed over what she did.
The three are not enough to handle a dwarf star so out of fucking nowhere and yelling at the top of her lungs, motherfucking Karin shows up. I do like her very much and it’s nice seeing the girls working together but how the fuck did she know what was even going on?
Magic, that’s how. Works for me.
We cut back to Yuna who lost the ability to move her legs. Sure, it’s a bit clichéd and kinda predictable but it’s the kind of corny shit I like and it’s poetic and crap so I’m totally cool with it.
Yuna is an anime protagonist and that means a few things: She’s hot-headed, stubborn, and powers up after screaming. Put all that together and she’s back in the game and ready to join the other girls in stopping the star that’s about to destroy the world.
“Yuna!”. Ok, how the hell did you know she was there, Karin?
Regardless, Yuna is able to destroy the soul by simply reaching the center and touching it. That’s a bit disappointing but the day is saved so it’s all cool. It’s kinda weird that we are not even halfway through, though.
Of course, we still need to see what’s the outcome of this. The Vertex are still a thing and the girls probably lost quite a few things along the way thanks to this little stunt.
From the looks of it, Yuna isn’t waking up. Lovely.
Some time later, Fu narrates that the world was saved, even if basically no one knows that.
And there are good news since apparently Togo recovered the use of her legs. Somewhat, she still needs to relearn how to balance herself. Being top-heavy doesn’t help either.
But she’s far from the only one recovering. After several episodes, Itsuki finally regains her voice. I wanna make a special mention about her not saying a full sentence right away. They take their time to show her pronouncing a single syllable and Fu understandably dropping everything and hugging her.
To top it all off, Karin is also recovering. She can at least use one of her eyes and apparently her hearing is back. She’s still not fully healed from the paralysis but that’s okay. Everything is getting better and it seems their duty was fulfilled so no more drafting. A shame they can use their powers but that’s really nothing compared to being able to, you know, live.
And showing the lesson stuck, Karin isn’t the least bit worried about not having a clear purpose in life anymore. She’s a normal girl now so it’s nice that she finds a normal interest.
Naturally, it’s not all a bed of roses. Yuna is still in a coma, apparently for weeks now and nobody really knows why. There’s some wanking about how Yuna is so noble and willing to sacrifice herself when really all five girls contributed in roughly equal measures. I get it, she did save the day but if we rate it by how much they sacrificed Karin and maybe Itsuki should be on the top.
The girls visit the catatonic Yuna who is as lively as you can expect. Togo is understandably sad that her not-girlfriend is in a comma and starts blaming herself. Fu stops her and while I see the point of not blaming anyone because it doesn’t help one bit, she was responsible for almost ending the world so it kinda is her fault.
It seems I was onto something when I mentioned the cultural festival a while back. They still haven’t gotten around to preparing for that. I bet that’s gonna be how it ends. Basically the girls are still not sure if Yuna will even wake up and much less if in time for the festival so Yuna’s parts are a difficult topic to deal with since none of the girls wants to admit that maybe someone else should replace her.
In another visit to the hospital, Togo reads Yuna a story very similar to the series. So much so that it’s probably the script. While this is happening, Fu takes her eyepatch off and confirms that she recovered her eyesight. We also see Itsuki practicing her singing. Considering the idol scene and the fact that she’s a twelve year old, I’m a bit scared.
Togo can’t take it anymore and breaks down crying. I’ve gotta give props to the animators for making Togo’s tears ‘ugly’. It’s not exactly hard to look at but it’s not the usual cry that’s just a normal face with water falling from the eyes. You can tell she’s feeling very sad and guilty over what she did.
But ZOMG! Yuna woke up from the comma! That’s totally unexpected and not at all cheapens the comma subplot by making it feels a few minutes of the episode.
The roles are reversed and now Yuna is the one in a wheelchair. That reminds me, do Yuna’s parents know what happened? Like, did anyone even come up with a half decent excuse for why their daughter was catatonic?
“Yuna did it by herself. Using her own strength and courage.” Don’t you love it when a series’ main conflict is solved off-screen and described in such simplistic and disappointing terms?
Anyway, we get a nice callback to the ending of every other episode, that has the girls walking near the cost and shooting the shit. It’s nice and a good way to end the series but we still have five minutes left.
We finally, after 12 fucking episodes of buildup get to witness the true climax of the series. The cultural festival.
Yuna’s character finally beats the Demon King (that’s Fu by the way) after making a heroic speech that boils down to: Friendship is awesome, fight for someone you love.
But oh oh, Yuna suddenly collapses. That’s not in the script!
Don’t worry though, it’s just a fake out to make all the girls show up on stage and receive the big applause. I like the meta flavor of ending with a literal audience cheering after the show is over but I prefer the more down to earth “walking by the beach” ending.
Before we are done, does every girl regaining their bodies mean that Nogi suddenly sprouted legs and an arm? That would be freaky.
And that’s all she wrote.
Now, I’m all for a good ending. In fact, I was completely expecting this series to end like that. As brutal as the Hero system could be this still was still basically a superhero story and regardless of how fucking grim it could get it was going to end mostly ok. And besides, you can’t build a franchise with a dead world. Japan loves its franchises.
But this? This? This is bullshit.
It feels like I missed an episode. This lack of commitment to the horrible system in the story is baffling. It’s like someone wrote a straight magical girls series but someone else that wanted to write a war allegory made things grim for a few episodes until they beat him and the original guy finished his story as it should have ended.
As dark as it got, the show was always clearly on the idealistic side. Yuna herself is a personification of the main themes. I mean come on, it’s on the title. You totally can pull a happy ending out of this but you need to set things up. If things go to hell you need to show the journey back. Don’t throw a misguided villain that actually ends up fixing this huge dilemma by accident. It’s anticlimactic, goes against the themes of the show and it’s just plain dumb.
In fact, I would even go so far as to say happy endings in dark series are great. The characters go through hell and some of them may die but at the end of the day when the world is saved and the big majority gets a satisfying ending, it makes it all worth it. I was cool with the idea of Karin, Fu, and Itsuki recovering. They had completed their story arcs so it made sense for them to make a full recovery.
Yuna was in an odd place because she was the protagonist. She was equally likely to sacrifice herself for the greater good as to actually enjoy a happy ending.
But Togo? I’m sorry, but I can’t take that crap. It’s a cop out. She regains the use of her legs after putting the entire world in danger and ends up crying for a bit before Yuna predictably comes back from her coma. She gets the golden ending and all it took her was actively attempting to bring about the apocalypse.
It’s weird, it felt as if there were no stakes. And I think I know why. It’s not character driven. See, the climax of the series was a giant fight. But here is the thing: The Vertex have no personality. That’s not a criticism, it’s a fact. And it’s fine, they don’t need motivations. Sure, their origins are interesting but the plot is that they are a threat that could end the world. The conflict doesn’t come from wondering if they could kill the girls. Heroes are literally invincible. The true conflict shows up when the girls are pressed to choose between the existence of their world and the health of their own bodies. It’s brutal and that’s why the fights are interesting. In every one of them I knew they were going to win but I kind of hoped they didn’t because of what it meant for their bodies. It’s great but they could kill giant rabbits for all I care. The entire series rests on the horrible choice they have to make, it’s drama on a platter. And they blew it.
But regardless, time for what you are actually here for: The ratings. From worst to best.
Itsuki: First things first, the youngest member of the team. Itsuki isn’t a bad character on her own but she’s overshadowed by everyone else—kind of ironic when her character arc revolves around her trying to deal with that. Sure, we eventually get to see more of her in the middle and specially in the end but most of it is covered up by the other girls reacting to her. Too little too late. At least she has the most creative weapon.
Togo: She’s… odd. I made a lot of jokes about her being a robot and while a few of her statements are a bit creepy—I still don’t know what the hell she was talking about when Itsuki destroyed the watermelon—she can be fun. Unfortunately, her characterization goes off the rails during the last three episodes and the revelation of her past feels less like a clever plot twist and more like an afterthought because it has very little impact on her. She goes crazy because of it but it never feels like an organic progression and more like the catalyzer for the obligatory final battle.
Yuna: The titular character is what you would expect: the determined, brave, somewhat naive, and with a huge heart. Unfortunately, Yuna doesn’t rise much above that level and the plot never pushes her to do much more than just fight so it comes across as her just being lucky. Also, her lack of major flaws and overly positive attitude makes her feel shallow compared to the rest of the cast.
Fu: While I may joke about her overreactions and how girl power is not a thing, Fu is a big source of comedy in the show, which earns her a lot of points. She’s also headstrong but not overly so and she’s the only one besides Karin to actively pursue the objective of becoming a Hero to kick Vertex ass. It’s a pity we don’t see much of that. Still, a fun character.
Karin: Because she had the most character development out of the five and the arc I most enjoyed. She’s the straight man to all of the other overly excitable girls which makes sense considering she has the most militaristic background. Even then, she’s snarky and her tough exterior—mind you, one that isn’t overly aggressive but rather clearly socially inexperienced—hides a very emotional and scared person, and I’m a sucker for those. Yuki Yuna may be a Hero but Miyoshi Karin is the embodiment of perseverance.
The next thing on the list is addressing the elephant in the room. Make no mistake, despite its flaws and all the jokes I’ve made, I do believe this is a fine show and under no circumstance should it be called a rip-off of Puella Magi Madoka Magica. They are series that try to tell a story in an environment that’s darker than usual for the genre. And that’s where the similarities end. Seriously, in terms of plot structure, themes, characters, and even how idealistic they are, the shows are two very different beasts. Calling it a copy is at best an uncreative joke and at worst poor criticism.
So that was Yuki Yuna is a Hero. It certainly was something. But don’t worry, we are not done yet. Remember what I said about franchises? Turns out there is a prequel of sorts to the series focusing on Nogi and Togo when they used to be partners. I sure hope it’s good because when I think of quality “prequel trilogy” isn’t something that comes to mind.
Cornelio's Corner 
Karin is my fav
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