Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter Episode 10

Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter Episode 10

Humanity vs. The Gods

We’ve gotten to the point in Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter, where the anime looks good visually, but the plot makes absolutely no sense. I love that they’re no longer using 3D CGI for character models. I just have no idea what’s going on.

To be clear, I do understand what’s happening on a literal level. Yuna is being married off to the Divine Tree so that humanity can be saved, and her friends are attempting to stop this from happening because they’d rather have humanity all die together than lose just Yuna.

The confusing part is the foundation the entire series is based on. I guess I could look past it in the previous seasons, but at its core, Yuki Yuna is a Hero makes no sense. Why is humanity fighting against the gods? Why are the gods fighting against humanity?

Itsuki Inubouzaki from the anime series Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter
Itsuki Inubouzaki

I’ve mentioned this in some of my previous episode reviews, but the heroes are fighting to protect the Divine Tree. And at the same time, it’s the Divine Tree that’s attempting to destroy humanity (and itself by extension).

Also, humanity’s last resort weapon they plan to use to defeat the gods is powered by — wait for it — prayers to the gods. So they’re praying to the gods to defeat the gods? And the gods give humanity their power to defend themselves from… themselves?

If anyone actually understands what’s going on, please let me know. I genuinely don’t understand the fundamentals of this series. Are the gods the antagonists? If so, why do the Heroes rely on them? And why does marrying off Yuna save the world?

This is an original series, and I get the feeling “original” means they literally make it up as they go.

Everything is Pointless

The Taisha has finally revealed itself to be just a massive suicide cult (which most religions are anyway, so that checks out). As I stated last week, their goal is actually to kill off all the remaining humans and have them join the gods in the afterlife.

And, it seems like many members of Taisha have finally realized that they’ve been going about achieving their goal the wrong way all this time. Why do they need to fight off the gods while the marriage ceremony between Yuna and the Divine Tree takes place?

If they simply don’t fight off the gods, they’ll get to die and join the gods within the Divine Tree sooner. In fact, they state as much. They say that whether or not the ceremony is a success doesn’t matter because they’ll become one with the Divine Tree either way.

The Taisha turning to dust from the anime series Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter
The Taisha turning to dust

I think this was supposed to show how desperate and misguided the followers of Taisha are. But that’s not how it came off to me. All I saw was a bunch of characters realizing the massive plot hole they’re all living in. They seem to have realized what I’ve been saying all along: That none of this makes sense.

Hopefully, when the Heroes save the world without the help of the Taisha, those who chose to die instead of fight don’t get to come back. Though, I’m not sure if that sentiment extends to the Sentinels who gave up the fight. I don’t think they actively chose to do so.

With the Taisha members who turned to dust, it was implied they chose to stop rebelling against the gods and instead accept their fate. With the Sentinels, I got the feeling they simply fell into despair and that was the result.

Karin, the Strongest Hero

Is Karin actually the strongest Hero? I don’t think so. But she claimed she was when she decided to take on the gods in order to buy her friends time. You have to respect her confidence to be able to say something like that to the gods.

Something I realized when Karin mentioned how she could take on this task as she still has her Mankai is that the current Heroes don’t fight in the same way as the Heroes of the past. The original heroes called upon deities to grant them power.

The current Heroes, on the other hand, do not. Instead, they use mechanical “devices” that are basically exoskeleton-spaceship hybrids. I don’t believe the reason for these differences was ever explained. Or, at least it wasn’t in this season.

Karin and Sonoko fighting the gods from the anime series Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter
Karin and Sonoko fighting the gods

To be honest, I think the inclusion of summoning the power of deities was just something Yuki Yuna is a Hero decided to steal from more popular series, notably Fate. Yuki Yuna is already a bootleg, far worse, version of Madoka Magica. So it doesn’t surprise me that it would copy other popular anime as well.

The fact that the Heroes being able to summon deities to help them fight was randomly introduced and received no explanation is just further evidence that its inclusion wasn’t because it’s important to the story.

All they had to do was add in a single line mentioning something like, “the deities no longer answer the calls of the Heroes because _____.” It’s not that hard to come up with an arbitrary reason just to cover your bases.

But, no, the writers of this series didn’t even put in that minimal amount of effort. After all, the Fate-copying part of the series is over. We’ve moved back to the Madoka-copying portion so we can just forget what came before existed.

Conclusion

The more I watch Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Great Mankai Chapter, the more I realize how poorly written it is. And I’m amazed that there are actual human beings (debatable) out there who think this is somehow better than Madoka. What’s wrong with you? Who hurt you?

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My review of Episode 11 is available now.

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