Just finished this anime. It's only short but my god do they cram a lot in!

Utawarerumono stars a rather adorable (although occasionally hopeless) young dog/girl named Eruruu and a mysterious masked man suffering from amnesia named Hakuoro. The story then moves on to gain many more characters that are unique in their own ways.

The main flaws with this anime are firstly it's name. What I found off putting in the beginning was trying to remember what to type into search engines. Even when I did it took me until about episode 20 to get the spelling right and even now I cannot pronounce it! I can see this as being one reason why this anime hasn't received the full attention it deserves. (even if it is a very small reason) The second is the fact that it takes 3 episodes to really get started. Although this is for developing characters it doesn't really prepare you for the rest of the anime. From then on it's a rather whirlwind-like plot line which makes you afraid to momentarily look away in case you miss something. This does not necessarily mean it's transfixing as an anime, it simply means so much happens that you might miss a vital plot line if you're not paying attention.

On the positive side the style and plot line are absolutely adorable. The animation, particularly during fight scenes, is very fluent and makes the whole anime a pleasure to look at.

Although the anime has a very large harem it is not a particularly enraging one. I personally loved the canon pairing between Eruruu and Hakuoro but I didn't disapprove of the other characters. In fact all of them were amusing and agreeable. Fortunately there are very few moments that deeply angered me but they added to the story.

The surprising thing, especially with an anime with a large harem like this one, is that it actually has a satisfying ending. The ending has a huge build up (in amongst a lot of confusing stuff) and I've watched far too many anime in which the plot line has finished with much unexplained but this anime actually wraps itself up. Although the ending is a cliffhanger it's rather obvious what happens and I found it very enjoyable.

All in all especially as it's such a short anime it is very worth watching! I liked it very much. (show less)

Keep in mind that I didn't play the video game or read the manga so I had no idea what to expect when I decided to watch this series. A lot of the action in the series centers around large battles that remind me a little of Beserk. There are also several characters that are especially adept at fighting, and they kind of serve as the "heros" of the series if you like to think in terms of LOTR type stuff. I was satisfied with how the story progressed and there is a good balance of action, plot, some humor and mystery on the side. The plot actually turned out to be more complex than I was expecting it to be, but I think it is more comprehensible than other shows like Darker than Black that tried to be thought provoking but ended up being too cryptic near the end. If I were to try and find a fault with the show (and there aren't many), it might be that there are a lot of cool characters that I would like to learn more about, but that is probably impossible without stretching the series out too much. In short, watch it. Its good times. (show less)