Yuki Yuna is a Hero: The Hero Chapter – Suffering

It’s been Wednesday since the first post about season 2. So with that comes the second part, the Hero chapter. A part that I don’t feel like I have as much to say about. But regardless, there are some interesting things to talk about too. So what if this is a bit shorter of a post. Each part needs to have their own distinctions because they both present their own things around this cast of characters in these stories. Especially since the first part does heavily play into the chaos and suffering of this one in very interesting ways. If I had to say anything unusual with everything there, the structure was somehow innovative in this. Such a fun time for suffering.

So let’s get into the story because its pretty simple. After the finale of the first season, Sonoka joins the hero club as a completely uninjured person. The girls have fun helping the community and not being magical girls. A problem is that someone is missing Washio or Tougou, is completely gone. Only Yuki and eventually Sonoka remembers at first. When the entire gang remembers this girl, they get their transformation devices back and go out and get her. Yuki sacrifices her life to get Tougou back from the ceremony she was placed in and in doing so, got branded with a curse. Over time, she slowly dies while trying to pretend everything is normal. If people find out about it, others are cursed too.

The main problem I have with this arc is that it feels a little too long. The story with how its written and the concept behind it are great. Done before, that that doesn’t mean anything when it comes to the execution of the story. What happens if the hero with the largest amount of charisma in a story gets it taken away from her? That Yuki Yuna can’t act like herself or tell anyone because she has a disease that can her hurt friends. It is a very isolating sort of pain that affects Yuki Yuna and breaks her to her very core. This arc also creates some realistic drama for the team because as they notice something is wrong with their friend. The suffering of it all kind of lasts too long.

Yuki Yuna just does a great job of putting viewer in the cast’s place. We get to see this cast change from the previous season and see how those developments have been furthered. I don’t think that Karin would have approached our troubled protagonist if she wouldn’t. Same with the rest of the cast being so angry and trying to find another way for Yuki to live on. Yuki Yuna would have succumbed to her fate if she didn’t listen to them. It would be such a sad fate considering that she would never see her friends ever again. She would have taken the place of Tougou.

With that length of this part which could have been 90 minutes in length easily, the finale really puts the whole experience of the entire season with one singular moment of amazingness. That moment when the heroes of the past and the present shown in the Washio Sumi chapter and beyond come together to defeat their final enemy. All put into the power of the great Yuki Yuna hero punch. A moment that is definitely the most well animated and powerful moment in the entire show. Especially since it carries such a huge amount of weight that I love. The only problem is the aftermath is unknown for now. But that will change when I get to the Mankai chapter.

With that, I still have the visual critiques behind this segment of Yuki Yun as the rest of it. I feel like Yuki Yuna is always going to be efficiently put together and that is not a bad thing. Especially since a lot of its writing carries the weight of the series with its characters and the visual strengths show up when they are needed. There is nothing wrong with efficiency. In this case, the writing wasn’t as well executed as it could be. But that’s ok because all the important points that I needed for it to work were there. So it’s a weaker portion of Yuki Yuna for me but its still well put together in the end. I was still full of nerves through out it and full of joy at the right moments. That means it still works.