(L+CR) Maoyuu Maou Yuusha

[HandofFate]

Saber was pretty fun to watch. I only read the manga version, so a few things seem to have moved around from my view, but don't really mind that.

Hope the 'evil' merchant guild doesn't mess things around too much. Didn't expect the Hero to split off and track down Caster.

[s07195]

I really liked this episode, and it seemed to go by really quickly for me.

The ED is also becoming really enjoyable to listen to, especially with the minimalistic animation in the background.

[frubam]

Originally Posted by Mentar

*sigh* stuff

I'm inclined to agree with most of this. I KNOW I loved the manga, and anticipate every monthly chapter, and while I think the anime is okay, it somehow doesn't seem as enjoyable as the manga did. At first, I just attributed it to a rewatching of old material, but after ep 2, it felt as if...how to say... the show just didn't tickle my fancy. It might be the omission of minor, unimportant things that wasn't plot related, but still gave characterization of the cast(like, for example, the swordplay session btw Hero and DQ's 3 students). If not that, I have no idea , but I know its something...

[Dark Faith]

Indeed, after reading Mentar's post I decided to check the manga, and while I'm still only a few chapters into it, I can tell it does a much better job at delivering the story.
The anime's still enjoyable, that's for sure, but the manga's superior.

[kagato3]

Originally Posted by Mentar

In this aspect, it also doesn't help to have almost all names changed from what I got used to. Demon King, Knight, Mage, Alliance... "these aren't the droids you've been looking for".

This you can't blame on the anime. None of the names have changed only what which ever of the subbers you are watching translated it to


monir
Hero might have come off a little better if they kept the part where he trys to teach the students to use a sword or if they went a bit more in depth with his doubts least ep. Hero's sphere of knowledge is combat and Physical strength. As hinted in this ep even holding back hero is too strong to do even back breaking farm work and before meeting the Maou he was almost a death seeker

I have hopes that now that he is on his own and closer to his own element that the anime will give him a chance to shine.

[rickadams]

Some 2ch person figured the cipher out too, and deciphered all the place names on the maps:

Map 1
Map 2

[Elestia]

Ergh. This epsidoe was lacking. It's probably because of the entire mood literally never changes throughout the entire episode, the reinterpretations to certain scenes, or the lack of weight to each character's emotions.

The Demon Queens/Crimson Scholar's inventions and discoveries were always supposed to be looked through a long term perspective. The introduction of the potato held huge implications to creating a stable supply of food to the impoverished nation of Winter Nation for generations to come. There was great emphasis placed on Female Knight's reaction to the potato that is almost made her seem desperate to recruit the aid of Crimson Scholar. Even in the Ishida version, the DQ commented on how appropriate the introduction of the potato should have been warranted by Female Knight. However, in the anime her reaction was lukewarm at best. I think it was best captured when they changed the scene slightly by feeding a potato dish to Female Knight and she responded with "This is delicious".

This also carries over to the introduction of the new compass to the Merchant's Guild.

Disappointed with how Big Sister Maid has been acting lately too. She was never this mopey in the manga and I'm not sure why she is acting all mopey as well.

They cut out part of the end where Female Knight also agreed with Crimson Scholar that this was not divine intervention.

Yuusha saying that the spirit does exist was never in the manga.

[Sheba]

The delicious irony behind that whole Akira Ishida this and that is that the anime have used Toi8's designs from the light novel as templates for the anime, yet simplified for convenience's sake. My ground for my claim? Toi8 IS credited in the opening, not Ishida. Meaning that they are using the light novel, not the manga. Ishida may be canon for you guys, but it is not more canon in the eyes of japanese readers than the various spin-offs.

As for myself, I am enjoying the voice cast, the music, as well as the delicious background that do give that fantasy scenery that I love, and the feeling of watching a Civ game with Maou using Tech Research hack.

[Xander]

Let's just say I'm still glad that I've never read the Ishida manga adaptation, which this anime clearly isn't even pretending to use as the main source of its adaptation, since that's not the original work either and thus the animated version ultimately owes absolutely nothing to it...other than all these unfortunately misplaced viewer expectations, to put it lightly, from those who already read that manga and couldn't accept that they had to completely separate them, treating the two as entirely distinct alternative ways of adapting the original 2ch thread/light novels. Notice I'm not saying they can't prefer one over the other, however, on a personal level.

My greatest complaint with episode three was the continuing, though fairly expected, decline in the animation and art quality. I wasn't bored by the lengthy discussions so much (quite the opposite, I'd enjoy more of them) as by the rather unappealing visual content, especially during certain parts. A secondary issue would be these little time skips, which are sloppy albeit not cripplingly so, but I'm getting the feeling that's also part of the source material, one way or another.

Otherwise...I'm still pretty interested for the time being. The story seems to be still building up, which makes for a good bit of speculation fodder (at least for us new viewers, I mean) and isn't necessarily a huge problem if they do get a chance to focus on wrapping up the main threads later on.

[jeroz]

While I do miss some nice scenes from the manga, I don't really see the need to constantly bring up the comparison between the two.

back to the episode itself. funny how they kind of moved the "useless meat" segment here.

[D-KLAC]

ep.3

3 months in blue hero & red queen go a church who meet with knight-nun who worked with blue hero as where were you & slap the hero for it?

give all patch up give mage is still search for hero yet red queen reason to chruch to expand it have a church for red queen's area give her box of POTATO & nun-knight is in.

all well give red queen is concern about the alliance faction group while hero worry for mage so red queen give hero a dark armor to handle demon land & get the mage.

while also red queen worry her "potato" are not good for hero with top maid going make "sure" it ok.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by Elestia

Ergh. This epsidoe was lacking. It's probably because of the entire mood literally never changes throughout the entire episode, the reinterpretations to certain scenes, or the lack of weight to each character's emotions.

Exactly. The characters seem strangely "lifeless" to me. I don't really feel their joy and sadness, exultance or despair. It feels like a stage play done by a school class compared to a professional theater troupe: The lines may mostly be the same, but you can't really "feel" it. Going through the motions, but strangely "distant".

The only exception was the reinterpretation of the reunion scene, which turned my second favorite character from "mad, but relieved and happy to see him alive" to just "mad and cold/threatening".

In the manga, the reunion was touching and funny, and a joy to watch. In the anime, it felt merely highly embarrassing, and made me wish I'd just be elsewhere.

The Demon Queens/Crimson Scholar's inventions and discoveries were always supposed to be looked through a long term perspective. The introduction of the potato held huge implications to creating a stable supply of food to the impoverished nation of Winter Nation for generations to come. There was great emphasis placed on Female Knight's reaction to the potato that is almost made her seem desperate to recruit the aid of Crimson Scholar. Even in the Ishida version, the DQ commented on how appropriate the introduction of the potato should have been warranted by Female Knight. However, in the anime her reaction was lukewarm at best. I think it was best captured when they changed the scene slightly by feeding a potato dish to Female Knight and she responded with "This is delicious".

Yep. It was as if the taste was the relevant point, while it absolutely isn't (and they wasted a full minute on it). Emphasis on the wrong issue.

Even if you explicitly and completely ignore the existence of a vastly superior interpretation: The anime characters feel stiff, lifeless and strangely distant to me. I can't feel their emotions, and thus, I can't really sympathize with their plights very well.

Hoping that they are going to adjust things in the coming eps. If they insist on turning Female Knight into a Saber clone with a foul mood, this show might lose me before conclusion...

[Netto Azure]

I've already experienced an adaptation whiplash so this is ok with me.

I just appreciate seeing them animated. Although the Guild appears to be more malevolent though. Young Merchant looks nice

[Entravity]

Seiyuuuuuuu awesomeness. Decent episode I guess.

[Nachtwandler]

The only problem I have with this series is the pace. They should adapt it more slowly like it was with S&W

[zRichard]

Originally Posted by Xander

Let's just say I'm still glad that I've never read the Ishida manga adaptation, which this anime clearly isn't even pretending to use as the main source of its adaptation, since that's not the original work either and thus the animated version ultimately owes absolutely nothing to it...other than all these unfortunately misplaced viewer expectations, to put it lightly, from those who already read that manga and couldn't accept that they had to completely separate them, treating the two as entirely distinct alternative ways of adapting the original 2ch thread/light novels. Notice I'm not saying they can't prefer one over the other, however, on a personal level.

I've read the manga and this is exactly how I feel about all these comparisons.

I'll add that even if the manga were the original work, the anime should be judged by itself on how well does it stand on its own as an anime, and not on how much it lives up to a comic. Different media have entirely different hurdles to clear after all.

Originally Posted by Mentar

In the manga (...)

I disagree, I think the anime portrayed the scenarios quite well. I feel that the characterization of the new characters was done even better than the world building. An anime-only viewer won't have any wrong ideas about the personalities of the new characters. This is thanks to the anime-original scenes that were sprinkled about in the early episodes.

[Sheba]

Originally Posted by zRichard

I've read the manga and this is exactly how I feel about all these comparisons.

I'll add that even if the manga were the original work, the anime should be judged by itself on how well does it stand on its own as an anime, and not on how much it lives up to a comic. Different media have entirely different hurdles to clear after all.

.

The thing is that the manga itself IS another adaptation from the light novels, illustrated by toi8, which are adapted from that play on 2ch board. In the end, the director went first for the light novels.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by Graveyard Duck

You can if you use two characters with complementary intellectual specialties. Take Prelude to Foundation as an example. Hari Seldon is trying to develop a mathematical system for predicting and directing the future of society. He needs an understanding of history to choose the correct starting conditions. But since he is from a backwater world and was primarily interested only in math until the point of the story, he knows little about history or society. So he is paired with a historian, Dors, who serves the double role of giving him social observations as well as being his bodyguard. Because Hari is intelligent, he is able to interrupt Dors' exposition to provide his conclusions. This serves two purposes in addition to drawing out the social observations:

1. It allows the story to present common misconceptions, because Hari is a neophyte, though an intelligent one.
2. It interrupts the exposition, so it's not one character droning on and on.

We can apply this model to a theoretical concept of Maoyu. Let's suppose that instead of the Hero, the Demon King's partnership is with the Knight. The Knight is a reasonably intelligent and reasonably high ranking official of a highly influential organization in the human world. Her expertise can include political maneuvering in the human world. This would divide the world building between the Demon King and the Knight to have one present the end solution and the other to present the method of implementing the solution. Compared to the set up now, it would have have a few advantages:

I'm not sure that'd work that well. For one thing, Demon Queen has been working on her plan for years. She wouldn't have started things without a working knowledge of how human society worked, considering how crucial it is.

For another, Female Knight embodies chivalry. Political backstabbing aren't supposed to be her thing.

[zRichard]

Originally Posted by monir

So far so good, well except for those moments when the Yuusha takes up space into the screen. Okami to Koushinryou didn't have that annoying problem since the male protagonist was fairly competent.

I wonder if any manga/novel reader had the same impression about this hero when reading about this story for the first time.

No need to be a manga/novel reader to have this impression about Hero. Your questions is something that the character is asking for himself too.

In EP2, after the serfs were made humans, he's thinking about how little he's done since he belonged to Maou.

In EP3, he can't even do a farmer's work.
Hero: "I wanted to work the fields with everyone else"
Maou: "You tried once, and it was disastrous. You couldn't control your strength"

Hero's lack of use right now is not much of a flaw as it is a plot point.
Thankfully, he was given a task now that only he can fulfill.

______

Forgot to mention that this episode introduced the Church and the Merchant's Union (translated as Alliance I think). The role of these two new agents should be considered in future speculations.

[Cyprene]

I think people are overemphasizing this. Think about how this episode ended.

Demon King: "Some of the Demon Lords are getting uppity. Take this massive suit of black armor and go kill them."
Hero: "Got it."