Anime Review: Towa no Yugure

Towa no Yuugure is an original anime by P.A. Works… a studio that has produced some pretty good original stories and visual novel adaptations in the past, so when they decided to do one involving my second-favorite sci-fi genre, artificial intelligence, I was keenly interested in checking it out. The episode I checked out is labeled as Episode 0, serving as a prologue of sorts. Still, it was enough for me to formulate an opinion on the series. Will Towa no Yuugure be another success from P.A. Works?

Let’s Jam!

The Story

Akira lost both of his parents in an accident when he was just seven. A colleague of his father took him in, where he met Towasa, his new stepsister, who is just a year older than he is. Towasa is a super genius, already achieving doctorates and starting her own A.I. research company at the ripe old age of 18. Akira is infatuated with her and wants to follow in her footsteps, so he begins to secretly study her research in hopes that, one day, he could stand by her side, both as a colleague and as something more than just a stepbrother.

However, things aren’t going well for Towasa as several other companies within the sphere of A.I. research and development are displeased with her success and have conspired against her, even going so far as to bring religion into it, citing how immoral and unnatural A.I. is in the eyes of God. This causes a halt in research for her company. While she is on this hiatus, Akira uses the opportunity to get closer to her. Eventually, they go on a date where they end up confessing their feelings to one another.

Towasa decides to plow through the negative and resume research. She holds a press conference in the hopes that showing off her research will sway the naysayers into believing in her work. As she is giving her speech, someone rushes the stage and shoots at Towasa. Akira rushes and shields her. While she is struck, Akira is fatally shot… or so we think. Akira then wakes up in a shell of a building, looking out over the city that is left in ruins. Now trapped in a distant future where the world went through an apocalyptic period, he must track down Towasa and figure out just what happened to the world, but before he can get far, he is confronted by a group known as OWEL, the governing body of the new world.

Before any harm can come to him, he is rescued by an android named Yuugure… the only thing is that Yuugure looks suspiciously like Towasa! Even though she denies it, one thing is for certain… Akira must now traverse this new world with Yuugure by his side to learn the truth, but the path ahead isn’t going to be easy.

The Characters

I will do my best to elaborate on the characters because from Episodes 10-12, there are some MASSIVE developments that hit all at once that play deeply into each character’s development and role within the story. So, in the fairness of avoiding massive spoilers, I’ll try to be as brief yet concise as possible.

Akira Himegami

As mentioned above, he lost his parents and lived with Towasa. Over time, the two fell in love with one another. He ends up shielding Towasa after an attempt on her life goes wrong. There’s quite a bit of a time gap here, but he awakens in the future. While I won’t go into specifics, I will say that the ending to Episode 9 and all of Episode 10 do an immaculate job of filling in that time gap, explaining everything that happened to Akira after the shooting and all of the events leading up to him waking up in the future. Whether it’s in the past or future (or present, in this case?), Akira is a caring and compassionate individual. He’s a nice mixture of a character with a spine, but one that always plays it cautiously, while trying to find a peaceful solution to things. He would much rather talk something out, but isn’t afraid to jump into action when things warrant it. He’s a pretty balanced main character, but despite that, he wasn’t exactly unique, as we’ve seen this archetype many times before. I would say he was decent at best in the main character role.

Yuugure

She is an android that’s part of the Outside Series, manufactured by Towasa in the past. The reason for her creation is unknown all the way up to Episode 10, when everything gets explained; however, the one constant is that she’s in love with Akira. There’s a slot problem with that… Yuugure isn’t Towasa, and Akira is still in love with Towasa… even if it’s several hundred years in the future, and she is most likely dead at this point. Despite that, she cannot let go of her feelings for him. She also likes to keep secrets from Akira… especially when it comes to Towasa. This drives Akira mad at times, but she has a very good reason for keeping those secrets. Again… Episode 10 (I feel as if I’m going to be saying this a lot). As for her personality, she’s a bit forward, but she’s kind, caring, and considerate. She’s also VERY protective of Akira and will stop at nothing to protect him… especially when she goes off to fight/distract Yoiyami, putting her cybernetic life on the line, just so Akira can reach a train and continue his journey. If anything, she’s loyal, but that’s what love does to someone sometimes. She was a solid character, albeit a little annoying at times with her wannabe tsundere moments.

Amoru

On their journey, they rescue Amoru from OWEL after they use her. All she wanted to do was protect a book that her parents created, but ended up on the banned book list. OWEL, of course, cared nothing for her or her family’s precious creations. This is where Akira’s spine kicks in, and he jumps into action. Of course, Yuugure has to make the save, but Amoru is so grateful for them that she ends up joining them on their journey and eventually falls in love with both of them. Since marriage is antiquated and replaced with a new tradition called ehlsea, where you can marry multiple people, it’s Amoru’s wish that she can ehlsea them both and live happily ever after; however, sometimes, wishes don’t come true, and they make for interesting plot points in Episode…………………………………11. Thought I was going to say 10, didn’t you?

Yokurata

Yokurata is a former member of OWEL whom they meet along their journey. He teases that he has information on Towasa and ends up joining Akira, Yuugure, and Amoru on their journey to Tokyo. He’s smart, he’s trustworthy, and he is a great resource to them along the way. His demeanor is that of a wise man who is always practical in his thinking, often being the voice of reason to them. His helpful nature makes him a good supporting character. Of course, there is more to him than what we are led to believe, but that’s saved for the end of the series.

Towasa Oumaki

I can’t, in good conscience, touch this character. Going beyond anything I said in the Story section would expose the entirety of this show’s biggest plot twist… so, I am just going to defer to you, our good friend known as Episode 10, to fill in the blanks for me. I will say, in a non-spoiler way, that she is one of the most dedicated researchers I have seen. Even in failure, she presses forward to find a solution to every problem put in front of her. Even when things get dire, and she wants to give up, she continues… that includes pushing herself beyond her physical and mental limits, but when you learn why she has to, you truly feel for her as a character. I won’t go any further, but once Episode 10 hits, she becomes my favorite character in the show because she knows the gravity of her actions, but she does everything in her power to compensate for them!

There are other characters we meet along the way, but their parts are only served for single episodes or mini story arcs, then they disappear. Just some filler characters… and I do mean filler. That’s something I’ll touch upon later.

Art, Animation, and Sound

I’m just going to come out and say it…. P.A. Works… you can… and have… done better than this. Original anime series are your forte, and even with no source material, you have typically nailed it out of the park in the art and animation department… but not here. Angel Beats? Excellent. Paripi Koumei? Also excellent… this? Eh… not so much.

But what? What about all of those epic fight scenes?

Okay… I’ll give you that. When there were fight scenes, they were done very well. You could clearly see the shift in normal animation to sakuga as if someone snapped their fingers and turned on the budget. Outside of that, the animation was average at best, but the artwork… it didn’t have that P.A. Works style to it. It was a bit on the gritty side, and sometimes the characters didn’t look like themselves, so consistency was a big issue here.

I also wasn’t a fan of the designs of the characters themselves. While the characters did have their uniqueness about them, they also didn’t look unique either. What I mean is that you could easily tell the characters apart from one another, but their designs look as if they’ve been in a fantasy series a time or two… especially Akira. He gave me Arthur vibes from Tears to Tiara (that’s a reference!) in the sense that he’s just a generic-looking brown-haired boy. I also get why he wore a poncho the whole show, but it just kind of destroyed his design versus how he was in Episode 0. I’m sure other people will love his design, but it did nothing for me.

As for the soundtrack… when battles were going on, it was some of the most epic music I’ve heard throughout the season. Outside of that… there was music? I seriously couldn’t recall anything outside of any battle theme. It was mostly filled with ambiance or a generic mood tune now and then. So, outside of some riveting, blood-pumping battle themes to complement the sakuga moments, I can’t really recommend this OST as it was nothing special at all.

Overall Thoughts

Towa no Yuugure is what you get when you come up with a great idea for a story, then realize that it would only fill 5 episodes of anime screentime, so you just fill in the blanks with meaningless filler. Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to call it completely meaningless, but the number of times I got bored and fast-forwarded through the middle of this show was shockingly high. Some episodes just didn’t seem to go anywhere, and it caused the middle of this show to drag… and drag… and drag… and drag some more… and just when you thought it would stop dragging, one of the slower episodes reminds you that “hey, we have a main plot happening here,” it goes back to dragging its feet.

Sorry, but I hate it when a series does this. It hooks you with the first couple of episodes, then degenerates into something that’s slow, painful to watch, and boring for the entirety of its middle, then hits you with the things you actually wanted to see right at the end. With a little reworking, this could have been a 6-episode miniseries at best, and honestly? If the show was Episode 0, 1, 2, 9, 10, 11, and 12… this would have gotten like a 4.5 / 5 rating from me, but the long, painful, and boring journey to get to Tokyo where all of the good stuff happens, almost made me drop this show, but I stuck with it because I needed to know what was on the other side of the slog.

Because of that, the show’s biggest plot reveal at the end of Episode 9 felt more like a desperate plea to viewers to stick around and keep watching rather than the shocking moment it was meant to be. That’s not a good thing. When the show did pick back up, I highly enjoyed it and, as I mentioned, it made me wish this were a much shorter series that stuck to the main plot a lot more rather than treating the majority of the series as “My Cross-Country Adventure to Discover Myself with My Android Companion and Underage Love Interest.” Add “In Another World” to that title, and I’m sure you’ll get the next low-brow isekai trash hit.

The sad thing is, I can’t really recommend you to just watch the aforementioned episodes because even in the boring parts, there are a couple of characters… like Yokurata… that get introduced that are essential to the story, so you do have to slog through it the murky middle of this series to get to the good stuff, but when you get there, you are well-rewarded.

Before it picked up, I was prepared to give this show a 2/5, but thanks to the very high note it ended on, it bumped up the score.

Overall Score: 3/5