Kyou Kara Maou Season 1 (Eps. 1-39) Review
Title: Kyou Kara Maou
Year: 2004
Total Episodes: Unknown
Categories: Comedy, Adventure
Fansubbed Version Watched: AnimeOne
Episodes I Watched So Far: 59
Episodes Available ATM: 59
Kyou Kara Maou is a mix of comedy, adventure and shounen-ai. It’s about a male, black-haired (yes, that’s important) teenager, Yuuri, that gets pulled into an alternate world, where he is deemed as the Maou (Demon King?) - i.e. ruler of Shin Makoku - because of his black hair (nah, it’s just one of the reasons). With a Demon King, Shin Makoku can’t be normal of course. It’s a kingdom of Mazoku - long-lived, magic-using, human-like beings.
Once in a while, he does get pulled back to his home dimension - by falling into water, from puddles to fountains. But while he’s in Shin Makoku, there’s never a calm moment. From a male fiancee (yes, male), Wolfram, that Yuuri somehow picks up when Yuuri slaps him, to an obsessive bishonen advisor that cannot get enough of Yuuri, we are treated to light-hearted comedy. In fact, even on Earth, he has to contend with a fantasy-loving mom (with a tendency to dress guys in dresses) and an ever-absent dad.
Of course, being a comedy doesn’t excuse KKM from having a plot. That plot involves humans and Mazoku being eternal enemies, an almighty Original King (the very first Maou) plotting Yuuri’s path behind the scenes, and Yuuri himself transforming into a magic-wielding Justice-obsessed Maou. That’s about it for the first season, I think.
Personal Comments:
The first thing I have to say is don’t worry about the shounen-ai as its just part of the comedy. That said, Kyou Kara Maou initially looked rather promising - with the comedy that is. But over the first 39 episodes, it got rather stale. So, I looked around, and I found that I wasn’t alone. Check out Cinnamon Ass’ summary of episode 8 (KKM was dropped right after this summary) where you have this:
KKM! is in danger of getting stale. The Wolfram engagement joke is wearing thin, frankly, although that nightie is really quite astounding… and while there are some interesting bits of political plotting going on they’re not really developed much - fair enough, this is a fairly light-hearted series as it is, but it seems a little one-dimensional and predictable.
So, it’s pretty much 39 episodes of snail-like plot and character development. The second season gets slightly more interesting with a few plot twists, but barely so. You’ll really have to like comedy, or have nothing much else to watch in order to enjoy Kyou Kara Maou - especially since it’s going to be one of those very long series.
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This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2006 at 7:10 am and is filed under Anime Reviews, Kyou Kara Maou. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
February 10th, 2006 12:16
hmm, I have episode 1-19 and I was planning on getting to it eventually. To be honest I wacthed the first episode, and it was interesting, but even then I felt like it really didnt have all that much going for it. Now with your review, and Cinnamon’s, its clear I was up the right alley.
Perhaps I will watch some more and make a more thorough desison of my own, but for now its still collecting dust.
February 10th, 2006 15:44
I was so bored by this series that the idea of producing second season puzzles me to no end.
By the way, Vision Anime has set up a direct download site http://anime.dtwin.com/ (Which I have mentioned previously in one of my comments), they have added a LOT of new contents. Now they have almost complelte eps of DNAngel, Daphne in brilliant blue, Gaken senki Muryou, Hellsing, ROD the TV, ROD the OVA, Shura no Toki, Tokyo underground and Hack.Sign. Password changes quite frequently. It can be found at Vision-Anime@irc.rizon.net by typing trigger !DDL. Yay!
Have fun downloading.
February 10th, 2006 19:27
nimvus: Let it collect dust until you really have nothing to watch.
Rainy: Yeap, I downloaded Muryou from dtwin.com, but haven’t watched it yet.
But I’m hesistant of posting too much info on anime.dtwin.com since it is a channel-only DL site. That probably only means that I can’t post the trigger.
February 10th, 2006 20:14
hey I just got this weird error when I tried to access the dtwin.com site
I got the login infor, and password off vision anime IRC channel, but after i entered it, I got this:
Forbidden
You don’t have permission to access / on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.
is this normal if something is wrong on server side?
February 10th, 2006 20:17
ok well thats weird, sorry to make another post where it doesnt really belong, but its working now.
February 10th, 2006 20:18
Yeap, was just going to tell you to try again.
August 15th, 2006 08:50
Thats mean to say, KKM is getting boring, i’m on episode 69 and its just getting started(that my thinking) and there is only about 78 or 79 episodes in all.
To me Yuuri looks adorable with The Wolfram i hope they get married or something in these episodes
May 12th, 2007 20:47
erm how to download anime from the web http://anime.dtwin.com/
?
i wanted t watch it so badly but there wasn’t ay where i could find it…
May 17th, 2007 17:46
hey how do i get to watch kyo kara kaoh because i tried that website but it didnt work???
help?
June 11th, 2007 05:28
it is very cute……………….
June 17th, 2007 00:09
I realy like it
July 14th, 2007 23:05
Well, i dun noe bout u guyz, i lik d 1st epi till d end……itz all very interesting i muz say…so there, KKM reli is a succesfull Anime!!!
PS: I watch d whole thing n i cn tel u tat it has a very happy ending!!! A bit sad bt happy all d same…..KKM 4eve!!!
September 21st, 2007 20:03
bullshit,if you want an anime with absolutly no sense then go wath koni,kkm comedy is just a part of it,watch it all.read some of the novel and then talk.i don’t like saying this but it’s one of my favorite series so i can’t help it
January 20th, 2008 10:09
Nah, you were looking at it from the wrong vantage point. It’s not all about the comedy. You got to the point where the comedy was fazing out rapidly and being replaced by plot. There’s a complex web that’s being woven throughout the series that you have to see the end of to understand. There are nineteen episodes left for you to watch. ^^ Go ahead, watch ‘em. I know I found myself starting the last episode with no idea how they were going to wrap up the plot, and with a suspiciaon that the bad guys might win.
Or you could just not connect with the anime. *shrug* I guess it happens.
January 20th, 2008 10:12
Nah, you were looking at it from the wrong vantage point. It’s not all about the comedy. You got to the point where the comedy was fazing out rapidly and being replaced by plot. There’s a complex web that’s being woven throughout the series that you have to see the end of to understand. There are nineteen episodes left for you to watch. ^^ Go ahead, watch ‘em. I know I found myself starting the last episode with no idea how they were going to wrap up the plot, and with a suspiciaon that the bad guys might win.
Or you could just not connect with the anime. *shrug* I guess it happens. I know what dragged me into it was how unpredictable it was, and the light hearted simple message of faith it carries.
June 14th, 2008 15:24
I have to say I agree with Sir Gawain. I guess you could already tell by my name. I love the humor and it does have some depth to it. KKM has to be one of my favorite series. Some of the actions of the characters were predictable, but at times I wondered if I was thinking right or not–wondering if I new them well enough.
I also thought a talking (if you could call it speech?) sword was an awesome idea. Morgif has to be one of my favorites!
I hope you give this anime a try. It is worth watching.
June 18th, 2008 13:49
I love this series so far. Im only on Episode 12 though…
Does anyone know where to find Episode 12?
I can’t find it on Veoh and Youtube even though I found the other episodes.