Yuuki Yuuna wa yuusha de aru Online

Yuki and her friends Mimori, Fu and Itsuki are members of the Sanshu Middle School Hero Club. They help those in need until one day they are called to help everybody! They are transported to a strange reality where they battle twelve creatures know as Vertex. To do this they use an app on their mobile phones that transforms them into magical girls. When they finally defeat all the Vertex the apps disappear from their phones and it looks as if their days of fighting are over. However things aren't quite how they were; each of them has suffered a physical loss and as time passes it looks as if these may be permanent. Things get darker still when the girls learn the truth about the Hero System; their battles aren't over and each victory will lead to another physical loss… and they cannot die; even if they want to.

Given that this is about the dark side of being a magical girl some comparisons with 'Madoka Magica; are fairly inevitable and while I found that series to be better this was still enjoyable. It starts of nice and brightly with our heroines battling against the Vertex and even when we learn of their physical losses things are kept fairly light and we are encouraged to believe all will be okay; this means when we learn the shocking truth it hits quite hard. The characters are likable and distinctive and by the time we learn how bad things are really the viewer is likely to care for them. The ending is more upbeat than expected which some may consider a bit of a cop out although just as many are likely to be happy to have a happy ending. Overall an enjoyable series that fans of the genre will want to watch.

I found out about Yuki Yuna is a Hero when someone mentioned it was like SAO, so I gave it a shot and here are my thoughts.

If you're familiar with Sailor Moon or other animes like it, then you know what to expect. A team of girls are chosen by some sort of religion or something - over in Japan they call it the Shinju. The girls are put in some sort of forest or parallel world; they must protect the Divine Tree from creatures that are trying to destroy it.

But whatever happens there can have a major effect on our own world.

This show has some emotional moments that are depressing ... what the characters have to go through, the suffering, things they find out about the Shinju, and some other scenes that are emotional.

The characters are interesting, but I did have at least one issue with two characters: Yuki and Karin. For the other characters, we got some of their backstory as the show played along, but for these two, not so much. They did mention Karin's reason/motivation, but didn't go into detail about her history.

As for the story, well, it was pretty good. However, I will say that with female characters, anime always likes to show off women's bodies, and this show did that a few times, but not as much as a show like High School of the Dead. Many people might not like the story due to some weird stuff like the place they go and fight, the monsters they face, and the parallel world.

I was curious how the ending would play out; sometimes when I look at an anime I wonder if it will end tragic or sad. This show had me thinking the entire time, wondering if it would end with a bad or sad conclusion. Luckily, most of it didn't end that way, but it left you with at least one thing that was never explained.

Many people, for some weird reason, say bad things about dubs, but this show had some good voice acting. They did a good job of bringing these characters to life. Some people might say they don't sound as young as in the Japanese version, but who cares about that? Teens can sometimes sound like adults, and I think the voices fit these characters.

The animation and art style is beautiful.

As for music..yeah...dunno, maybe not memorable.

My final thoughts: This show may not be for everyone. When I first watched it I thought it was kinda ..eh.. like I didn't know if it would be good, but I did get hooked after watching it for a while. The characters made me want to come back. I thought the story and the dub were good, the animation and art style was beautiful, and the characters were interesting. This show might not be for everyone though. As for me, I don't like seeing emotional or tragic things, but this one isn't as bad as I thought. If you like Sailor Moon and any other anime that is like that one, then go for it. If you don't like those types, then move along. I personally thought this show was pretty good.

So when this was airing I heard it was pretty good but I put it on the back burner & completely forgot about it until it popped up on Netflix. I heard it was a similar theme to "Madoka Magica" which is one of my favorites so I was very confident I'd enjoy this before ever starting it. Right from the go my first thought was "wow! The animation & art style are great!, this is going to be good!" And sure enough shortly into episode one the main plot opens up, very similar to "Madoka" as I've heard. I was kind of thinking "man..I hope this isn't basically a total rip off of it" but its its own story even if it has its similarities. The story is about these young girls that have to fight & destroy these "vertexes"(basically giant monstrous entities) whos goal is to destroy mankind. The story is extremely character driven, you get a real sense of connection with everyone of the main characters. None feel left out which is great. My only complaint with the story is it doesn't explain certain main information very well, especially in the beginning, but because of that its a show that you can watch 2-3 times and notice things that you completely overlooked on your initial watch. The artwork, animation, & character design are all amazing. Some of the most beautiful stuff your gonna find. The music is great, everything matches the scenes so well & the OP & ED songs are so majestic, very pleasurable to listen to over and over. The show ends very good, it could end here and be satisfying but if you look up any information about the visual novels & light novels you'll see that its been completely left open for a prequel & sequel, so I believe the lack of information in season 1 would be completely covered with a continuation regardless if pre or sequel. If you were a fan of "Puella Madoka Magica" or other darker themed shows you can almost guarantee you'll enjoy this, its much darker than it appears. Definitely not aimed at children.

4/5 Why? Great animation & artwork, pretty decent story with a lot of potential(highly suggest looking into the light novels & visual novels after finishing, the amount of story that we've yet to see is just awesome). Great music & songs. This is one show that you can guarantee you'll notice things you didn't catch at first if you re- watch it. Fan of dark themed stuff with epic fights & battle scenes(really all the scenes lol), this is for you.