Maoyuu Maou Yuusha: First Impressions

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Clearly Economics and Politics are too boring to the general public, so our Japanese friends have come up with a way to make it more accessible; add lots of bouncing boob shots.

As far as I can tell, Maoyuu Maou Yuusha is one of the more anticipated series this winter. With the most interesting origins of any source material - light novel posted on 2chan - it caught my attention early on and now I'm interested to see if it can keep it.

I'm not going to even talk about the fan service in this episode. Personally, I didn't notice much of it and because it wasn't blatantly obvious or over-the-top, there was nothing to complain about. My issues lied with the comedy in between, which took the first episode from being very good to just having potential.

I don't know what it was exactly that made the staff think they needed to make this a better with so much generic comedy. Achieving the complete opposite of it's goal (presumably), it lowered the quality of the first episode and was just plain annoying at times. The most I laughed at the comedy was at the end, but that was more a 1-2 second chuckle and not a full on fit of laughter.

Negatives aside, this episode is so far the best of the Winter 2013 crop. It introduced the very interesting world of Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, which on its own is enough to get me excited about the anime. Having an economics/business education background, I can appreciate all the technical jargon and most of all, the unique scenario.

Rarely is war seen as a good thing, or even a necessity from political and economic standpoints, but Maoyuu Maou Yuusha makes full use of a unique idea. Presenting the idea very well, I began to consider the possibilities and the theory behind it all which makes me want to watch more of this. Dialogue-heavy it may be, though it's not excessive enough to warrant dozing off mid-episode.

Lots of dialogue did mean the first episode was basically an ongoing conversation between Maou and Yuusha. Whether this stays the case or not is to be seen, and I really hope this won't be the set format for the majority of the episodes. On an animation note, Maoyuu Maou Yuusha is pretty beautiful and should keep those who prefer aesthetics happy.

Maoyuu Maou Yuusha has the most potential this season. There are a few kinks to be worked out here or there, but so far I consider it to be a promising new anime that I'm told cuts down on the fan service and generic humour as it goes on. I'll definitely keep watching it for now.