moen.antonia - 2015-12-27 12:37:41

After a long and hard journey humanitys hero has finally gotten to the demon lords castle and is prepared to fight. Instead of a fight though, he finds himself being asked for help by the demon lord, who also turns out to be female. She presents a mountain of evidence as to why the war with the demons actually have been a good thing for humanity and has helped advance mankind in a number of fields. She also notes that when the common enemy of the demons are gone numerous civil wars between humans are gonna break out. Thats why the demon lord and the hero decides to start working together. 
The story is about them trying to create a world without conflict where people can live in peace and prosperity. They do that by inventing and testing out a number of economic and social reforms. Similarities with the Spice and Wolf formula is many and I would say Maoyuu is nearly as good. The only things that bring it down is its insistence of including fanservice in strange places and distracts from the overall message of the show. 
The art is well made and gives the fantasy feel that fits well. The backgrounds are impressive and majestic. The characters are well designed if you dont count the fanservice bits and the cast gives off a medieval feeling that fits well with the fantasy theme. The soundtrack is largely mediocre but I found nothing that really took away from the show so I guess its passable. 
All in all Maoyuu is a adventure/fantasy show with clear influences from Spice and Wolf, about a hero and a demon lord trying to bring about a better world. 

gaylord.bertha - 2015-09-04 01:24:35

Story driven anime.  Characters don't even have names.  They are called things like "Head Maid".  I prefer character driven anime so I may be biased.

rudolph32 - 2015-02-24 16:11:38

Fantasy romance anime with an actual story that actually makes one think. While the romance is pretty adorable. And funny. Very well-animated. 
P.S. But, yes, excellent.

-Full Series In-depth Review To Come

jeff91 - 2015-01-03 00:13:18

Maoyu is a mixed bag. There are some parts of it that are really quite good, and even refreshing. There are also some things I didn't particularly care for. The important thing is that, in this anime, the pros outweigh the cons. Sure, there is some sappy romance in the series, but there is also an inspiring tale about innovation and the progress of humanity as well. In a similar vein, we are presented with a generic, god-awful male lead that seems to be more and more common these days, but he is accompanied by an intelligent, strong counterpart in the form of Maou.

The first episode is undeniably the weakest part of the series, and I advise anyone who intends to watch this to not drop it after episode one, in fact I would urge them to skip episode one entirely if it weren't for the establishment of the plot.

After this, the series picks up and has an interesting focus on economics alongside the relationship of Maou and the main character. A solid show and overall 8/10.

diego.bosco - 2013-10-12 13:48:28

This dialogue heavy anime is set in a medieval world, and follows the story of a Hero and the Demon King.

With hopes of bringing about an end to a war between Humans and Demons; a group of heroes is sent out to infiltrate the demon realm and kill the Demon King. On their way, the main character, Hero, abandons his group and heads off on his own to slay the Demon King. Much to his surprise, upon arriving at the castle he finds a crimson haired beauty who happens to be none other than the Demon King.

Just as the Hero wants an end to the war, so does the Demon King. She explains to him that a victory or loss on either side would bring about catastrophe. A few have amassed a fortune due to the war, and certain areas have prospered. A swift end to the war will cause starvation, poverty, and even enslavement of the opposing faction. The Demon King proposes an alliance with the Hero, to bring about a peaceful resolution to the war and build a world where both humans and demons can coexist. Rather than bring about resolution thru battle, both (mainly the Demon King) set out to resolve things thru better technology, politics, and economics.

Though I can’t really comment on the voice acting (since I don’t speak Japanese) the musical score for this anime was well done and did a good job to compliment the animation. In the animation department what really stood out were the backdrops and set pieces, rather than the characters. There is an issue with fanservice that everyone seems to bring up, but it’s not as bad as everyone makes it out to be. Sure I’ll admit that the Demon King was designed with rather large breasts, and that there are a few "fanservicy" scenes, but I feel it’s nothing that really adds or takes away from the anime itself.

The character development was good for the most part, especially with a few of the side characters, most notably the Older Sister Maid. The only character I didn’t like out of the bunch was Hero. He turned out to be pretty lame, as most of his actions are in response to those of the Demon King. This is an issue I believe even he mentions. He is a warrior thru and thru, other than fighting there really isn’t much he is good at. I would have liked to see him act on his own rather than just relying on the Demon King. Out of all the characters that appear in the show my two favorites would have to be the Demon King and the Older Sister maid. My only real complaint is the names of the characters, rather than proper names, each character is addressed by thier title (Demon King, Hero, Knight, etc.). At times you cant help but feel a bit detached from the characters.

All faults aside, I really enjoyed this anime. I like that it had this whole "Spice and Wolf" feel to it. Of course it should, both shows are is written and directed by the same people. Unlike S&W rather than just focusing on economics, Maoyu also touches on themes of politics, religion, and discrimination. However the anime is a bit short and there were a few unanswered questions. Also there are a few characters that were mentioned but never really given much screen time or character development. If anything I think this show merits another season, 12 episodes didn’t feel like enough to cover everything and give it a proper ending.

brandon83 - 2013-09-23 14:40:22

Well its been a long time since my last review so I guess I should try to make this one a good one. Any way I hope every one reading this will have an enjoyable read and maybe even go watch this anime call Maoyu Maou Yuusha (damn that is a tongue twister). Also note this anime is VERY VERY dialog heavy so if you have a short attention span a need a battle scene to draw you back in or something like that this anime is not for you.

Story

Really the story had a clear plot from episode one. Hero (no really don't get me wrong the guys name is really Hero or something. I don't think one name was mentioned in the anime other that locations. Everyone was called by Hero or Demon King or Knight or Maid or something along those lines.) travels into the Demon realm to kill the Demon King but to his surprise meets a women who calls herself the Demon King (A traditional title yes she is a girl). From her they "work together" and work towards seeing "the other side of the hill" Really I'll be honest this show tried to make more money off the Spice and Wolf Medieval Economics idea and well it's not that good.

6/10

Ending

Also I have a picky thing about anime where the ENDING HAS TO BE PERFECT GOD DAMN IT well really this ending was horrible it went no where the well looked really really rushed

4/10

Love Story

I know this is not a marking point but I do want to put this out there. There are elements of a love story between Demon King and Hero but if you watch it, it will look very forced, like they had to throw in a love story to make it look like Spice and Wolf (DO note that the 2 anime have the same Director) 3/10

Animation

Really the animation is really nothing special for this time. Nothing really caught my eye out to anything 5/10

Sound

Again nothing very interesting. The sound track didn't have anything special to catch my eye.

5/10

Characters

The characters I will say is unique well there names really. I will say this anime's character names were very unique or lazy :P. For once this anime will be an anime I will NEVER EVER suffer from forgettheirnameus. A list of names

Hero

Mage (what made me think he/she has 3-4 personalities and changing bodies for each personality)

Knight

Demon King

Head Maid

Maids

Hunters

Soldier

King

and many other people.

Other then the funny names the characters were really nothing special .

6/10

Enjoyment

Well I may have been beating on this anime's story and other things but I will say I did enjoy this anime. Though the story being very side tracked and stepping very far away from the main plot it did keep me entertained for a extensive amount of time

7/10

Overall

Okay so I guess I haven't been able to write much on this anime well that's because there really is not much to write about. The story was side tracked and felt like the creators had an idea and threw it in for the sake of it. I will say though I really do think this anime had a lot of potential but sadly did not have enough time. Being only 13 episodes this anime could only fit in very rushed plot lines.

So after piecing scores together I have come to an overall score for this anime a 5/10 and can only recommend this anime to those who enjoyed anime like Spice and Wolf or enjoy dialog heavy anime.

I hope you can take something from this review I have wrote and feel free to thumb this review up if you found this review useful likewise if you didn't find it useful feel free to thumb it down I wont mind It'll just tell me that I need to improve in some places.

Again thanks for reading -Shadow

vito.gibson - 2013-05-18 10:39:35

The success of "Spice and Wolf" probably came as a surprise to most. Who'd have thought a dialogue-heavy fantasy anime about economics on the surface but powered by the chemistry between the lead characters underneath would sell, right? But sell it did, and someone must have extrapolated that there's a under-tapped market for such an anime, because the next thing you know, along comes "Maoyu Maou Yusha", a show so blatantly similar to "Spice and Wolf" (the fantasy settings, the economic lectures, moe heroine sporting ginger hair and unusual strength of character and intelligence, etc etc) that people immediately started labelling it "Spice and Wolf with Tits". And yes, the show puts a degree of emphasis on "tits", presumably because someone also extrapolated that the "Spice and Wolf" formula could be improved by providing the heroine with a pair of giant knockers to shake around in front of the cameras at every opportunity. But an improvement it ain't. And by sharing so many things with "Spice and Wolf" (including a big chunk of the staff), "Spice and Wolf with Tits" - or just SaWT for short - naturally invites comparisons with the material that inspired it. Alas, it's a comparison which ultimately does SaWT no favours because it falls so far short. But perhaps I'm being overly harsh on the show; it does deserve plaudits for putting some interesting twists into the age-old humans vs demons script. The show starts with humans and demons at war with each other, and the Hero - literally named "Hero" - storming the demon king's castle solo to try and end the war. The demon king (and guess what the demon king is called) surprisingly turned out to be an attractive girl with big bouncy breasts instead of a giant frothing monster with razor fangs. What also surprised Hero was her personality: she spoke a remarkable amount of sense, and, with a few well chosen arguments, demolished the pre-conceptions the Hero had regarding humans, demons, and the nature of the war. Bewitched by Demon King's silver tongue and hypnotised by her jiggling assets, Hero agrees to co-operate with her mission to set the world to rights with wisdom rather than wars. SaWT started a little rough, but its concept got me interested enough to continue watching. Most of the first half helped maintain my interest, mostly with the way Demon King went about changing the world through education, introducing new technologies, new ways of doing things and new ways of thinking. And it's this, and not the interaction between the main leads that's the focus of SaWT. But that's not a bad thing, because while the nuanced interaction between the protagonists excels as one of the greatest strengths of "Spice and Wolf", that same aspect is one of greatest weaknesses of SaWT. I realise things are supposed to be a bit awkward between the ridiculously shy leads, but the insepid dialogue and overblown romance cliches make a combination cringe-worthy enough to embarrass a 3rd rate romance novelist.While showing some initial promise, the show soon started falling apart. SaWT has a major problem of being overly self conscious of what it's trying to do, and so very little of what it does feels natural. Speeches about the ways of the world is almost condescendingly delivered through long expositions that's aimed more at the viewer than the other characters. Then there are Demon King's inventions: she starts off introducing things like crop rotations methods, but soon began inventing one major technology after another, like some kind of Thomas Edison raised to the third power. What's more, her contributions span across ludicrously diverse fields, from agriculture to medical science to navigation, to name a few; nearly every episode she conjures up something new. In one episode, someone other than her actually managed to invent something (namely, sparkling orange juice, aka Fanta), and, determined not to be outdone, Demon King invents not one but TWO things during that episode (and no, Coke isn't one of them). By the half way point of the series, I felt like I was watching some game like Civilisation being played, with the Demon King way ahead of the other players in researching the tech tree comprising mankind's greatest ideas and inventions.If Demon King is guilty of over-performing in her role, Hero is guilty of the opposite: as one half of the central protagonist pair, he simply doesn't carry his weight. While Demon King busied herself with changing the world, Hero spends the first half just tagging along and doing very little beyond admiring her. Though later he does goes off to distant lands and contribute to Demon King's plans there, we rarely see what he does because the story is still mostly focused on Demon King and her endless output of inventions. In fact, the imbalance issue extends to everyone else, too: the Demon King seems so intelligent that she makes the show kind of boring, and everyone else seems so dim that they can't do anything until Demon King bestows onto them her pearls of wisdom; you have to wonder how the human race managed to hold off extinction.SaWT also has pacing problems. While I enjoyed the gentle strolling pace of world changing used for the first part of the series, the global politics quickly escalated to the point where I struggled to follow. Everything had began changing in all the different nations, half of which the show failed to properly establish in the first place, and I'd also started getting lost in all the economic babble, perhaps due to my own meagre knowledge. The show simply accelerates away during the later parts and finishes in unbeseeming haste, leaving one giant political mess, full of dangling plot strands and badly explained developments, in its wake.But there I go again, coming down quite hard on the show. I do have a degree of respect for what SaWT tried to do, but the problem is that it simply did not do a good job. While it captured my interest early on, I struggled to get through the series as it progressed. It may not be a show devoid of intelligence, but it needed to be more intelligently written; it may not be a bad show, but it's far from being good. I guess it's just too much to expect a show that sought to improve upon something noted for its writing by throwing in a pair of big tits to amount to anything beyond A Good Try. And A Good Try is all SaWT managed to be.