First Thoughts: Yona of the Dawn

I haven’t done reviews lately simply because nothing has caught my attention. And by nothing, I mean absolutely NOTHING. That is, until I happened to see a trailer for Yona of the Dawn on my Facebook newsfeed.

Has anyone realized the difference between harems and reverse harems? One thing, reverse harems seem to focus just as heavily on story as romantic interaction. Whereas in harems, no one gives a crap about story and just want to see fanservice. (These speculations come from my own personal experiences, mind you. Though I’d love to see someone prove me wrong.)

So far, Yona of the Dawn looks just as promising as what I saw in the trailer. Obviously they’re geared toward female audience members so I’m biased. While all the basic storytelling components are rather mediocre, there’s still something entertaining about it. Perhaps I’m just happy to at last find a new anime that doesn’t look like garbage.

Let’s talk art. I can’t say I like it, honestly. The hard blush characters have and the overall moe/shoujo style has never impressed me. The character designs are…fence-sittingly generic. What I mean is, I feel like I’ve seen Hak’s design thousands of times..

Yet Yona is a heroine I could easily recognize.

As for the animation…I’m once again, still on the fence. They’ve hardly used still frames (10 points to Griffindor) but there’s nothing impressive about the animation. Hopefully we’ll get some good action scenes later though (here’s hoping~)

Voice acting…define “acting”. I’ve yet to see the dub, but I’ll probably switch over to it simply because Yona’s voice gives me a headache. Her voice doesn’t sound natural at all, as if her seiyuu is trying to be 8 years old. But I see potential with this show, so I’m hopeful actual acting will occur later.

The score fits the anime, but it isn’t memorable. It does remind me of the score used for the Soul Calibur games, however, so +100 points for nostalgia.

Now let’s talk about plot. Here’s the reason I’m continuing this show. While the first episode was predictable and they do have a couple drops of exposition, I have high hopes for Yona’s character. I’m excited to see her development from a helpless princess to the determined and fierce girl shown in the banner art. I want to know what trials she’ll go through to become stronger. Unfortunately, exposition is still exposition. Characters say things that are out of place and obviously directed to the audience. There’s only been a small amount of it so far, however, and I’m guessing it’s because they wanted to jump straight into the story within the limited time of the pilot episode. It’s irksome, but I have a feeling this will not continue. The good thing is, what exposition they use are only little things like “I can’t wait to see my cousin who is 3 years older than me!”. No one says things like that, but it’s tolerable to be used here because it’s not some reveal that will impact the story.

Overall, I’m just happy to finally find a series that has caught my interest. Yona of the Dawn looks promising and hopefully it’ll continue that way.