Score: A

And so it ends. I’ll give Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen credit. The show overall was pretty disappointing to me, but it ended on a strong note. If you are going to do anything then at least leave with a pretty good impression and this show manages that. I had an interesting time watching the bit of trickery by Haku and of course finding out about Oshutoru’s final moments. It was admittedly a bit confused at the start. Thinking “what the heck?” since it looked like Oshutoru was the one dying last week…..and that was right. They just pulled off a bit of a trick here to make you wonder if that was really the case or not. That somehow Haku sacrificed himself and they healed Oshutoru in some way. Honestly I was probably fooled easier than I should have been, but the show went all out to sell it. Showing all the somberness with Kuon really sold this as a big tragedy.

Of course it was a tragedy for the cast in a lot of ways. Everyone believes Haku is dead, though frankly I’m sure most would have been broken up to find out that Oshutoru was gone. How much per person would have varied, but it was a tough day for them all. No one more though than Nekone. Her brother literally turning to dust before her eyes….that’s freaking traumatizing. She has a difficult job ahead as well. She can’t afford to grieve too much or people might have doubts. Though since Haku is “gone” then she has some excuse. But now she has to stick close to Haku and help him as best she can. Pretending that her brother isn’t dead right now. It’s a tough job, but she’s got to do it. Haku as well has it really hard. He has to act like he’s dead. This guy who always just wanted to take it easy can’t slack off. The role of Oshutoru has to be played and he’s going to fight for the sake of a country. Interacting with all his friends, but unable to just be himself. That’s a huge burden and honestly I do think he’d be better off letting some people in and letting them know. I get it, if the truth was revealed then he’d lose all the support. He’d have no way to rally people to action. But if he doesn’t have his allies with him then he’ll have no hope regardless. And without total trust this whole thing will fail anyways.

Though rather impressive that they fooled Kuon. Fooling the person who knew him the best and spent the most time with him. That’s some great acting. Though makes that scene all the sadder in hindsight. Haku has to straight up tell Kuon that he’s dead. He has to see how she’s reacting to the news of his death and deal with that weight. It was a tough scene when it was just Oshutoru having to do that. I’ll also give that scene some style points. I’m not always big of playing it silent with dialogue popping onto the screen…but it worked. It made the scene all the more tense as you of course realize that someone isn’t there. Everyone just slapped with that news across the face. All their faith in Haku seemingly….not rewarded in that instant.

What a horrible day for Nekone

It was a sad farewell for Oshutoru. The guy fought with everything he had against Vurai and paid the ultimate price for it. They came all that way to save him…but couldn’t. They got out with their lives, but not his. Nekone had to watch her brother turn to dust. Of course that was horrible for Haku as well who didn’t want to say goodbye like this. Being given the responsibility and powers from Oshutoru and told to carry on without him. I still think if the show had done a better job building Haku up then this would make more sense, but oh well. It’s a crazy thing to put on Haku since he isn’t Oshutoru. He can’t fight like him. But really it was just quietly horrifying. Bit by bit Oshutoru turned to dust…Arms, legs, everything. That mask is a horrible weapon. I’m not sure what the usage limit or what will cost a person their life, but it’s terrifying. Of course the Emperor never really cared about the people around him so giving them these dangerous things wasn’t a problem. He needed weapons to fulfill his will and he got that.

What a job though taking on Oshutoru’s whole life now. Haku has to put everything that was him on hold. A guy that was arguably lazy now can’t afford to do that. Now he’s the centerpiece of a war to put the weakened Princess on the throne and take Yamato away from people like Raikou. An incredible endeavour considering what they are up against here. All those pillars are going to stand in their way, maybe they can recruit Mikazuchi, I don’t know. How exactly does Haku pull this off? He has his team still, though whether they will eagerly follow Oshutoru I’m not so sure. Without telling Kuon or anyone it might be tough. Honestly he probably should just tell Kuon everything. Probably should tell most of the group. What Haku needs is a circle of people he can trust and trust him. But at the moment he trusts all of them, but that’s not going to be so quickly returned. All the more pressure keeping up appearances with the people he cares about the most.

In the end it was a strong last episode for this show. It managed to bring some good emotional impact. Seeing Kuon crying in the arms of Oboro, presumably having gone back home….that was pretty tough. She basically lost the person she loved and never really got around to admitting that to him. That’s just agonizing for the poor girl. One of the best characters, she’s left wandering aimlessly. Sure she was close to this group, but she lost the one person she cared about most. How Kuon moves through this grief would be interesting to see….but that’s the end of the show. There is a third game, but god knows if this ever gets another season. At least we went out with a bang. Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen failed for me on a lot of points, but it knew how to go out. Haku raising his banner and preparing for an epic battle. That we’re never going to see XD. Oh well. Still a strong last episode.

Final Thoughts
Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen is really quite the unusual show for me. More often than not when I find a show to blog I end up at least feeling pretty good about it. This feels more like some kind of fraud. The first couple episodes gave a good impression of a series that will make you think this is going to be a really fun show. Kuon was a really good character who made this impression of someone who would break a standard mould and be a prominent main character. Haku seemed like a good deviation from the standard as well. Someone smart with some skills, but also pretty lazy. The OPs give you an impression of a show that will have some good action and adventure. The reality? Nope. There is a bit of action and a little adventure, but it’s very much the minority. The first OP frankly should have just been fanservice and slice of life scenes. This show pulled me in and then when I was invested….it took away everything I wanted to see.

This was a mostly slice of life series with a lot of bath scenes. And I mean a lot of bath scenes when I say that. A lot of the early part of this show was pretty boring. The cast was alright, but only a few of them really stood out as interesting people. Atui was pretty good. Her intro made you think she’d be this love obsessed fool, but she was pretty calm and rational. Good in a fight on top of that. Rurutie on the other hand? Fell into the abyss. They made her into this ridiculous yaoi fangirl and rarely let her leave that restrictive character type. When she did step up it was nice, but felt a bit too surprising since that didn’t seem to be the kind of person she was. Nosuri and Ougi? Honestly pretty forgettable characters. Saraana and Uruuru barely had characters outside their introduction episode. Despite all the slice of life we had in this show, a lot of characters felt underdeveloped.

Even the action outside the last few episodes wasn’t that great. Often entire armies would be forgotten, Haku despite people acting like he was growing and getting stronger….rarely fought anyone. Yet he was constantly getting accolades and credit despite rarely seeming to do anything important. The last couple episodes were really good. The action was impactful and the stakes were high for the characters. I just feel like that’s not enough. The show needed more of that in its entirety. There didn’t need to be a war every episode, but it needed more action than it had.

The show just seemed to lose itself until the second half when it remembered that something had to happen before the show was over. Suddenly you had a war with Tusukuru and the incident in Yamato. That war had its own issues since I was facepalming over Kuon’s dumb decisions. The young woman we were counting on to be a main character was just making poor choices. Turning on her country….because she had some friends? Friends she could have just told not to get involved if they could. Not helping them attack her people and get people killed. Heck the moment Haku was announced dead she just walks out on everyone! The bonds so darn important when it came to fighting against her people didn’t mean that much after all.

I can see how people might have enjoyed this…but honesty this show will go down as my most disappointing series to have blogged in a while. I loved the original Utawarerumono. Maybe it’s unfair to compare a sequel to it, especially one that has another game on the way. But I have to judge based on what I know and have seen. This show took 25 episodes to get to the point Utawarerumono reached in about 3 or 4. Haku is prepared to fight this big war and carry on Oshutoru’s name. That’s great, a good bit of development for his character. But when I look at the show as a whole, Utawarerumono: Itsuwari no Kamen doesn’t match up. A couple strong first episodes and a couple strong last episodes doesn’t erase 20 or so episodes that could have been done so much better.

Goodbye Utawarerumono. You had some good moments, some bad moments, but now it’s finally over. I don’t know if the third game will be adapted or not, we’ll just have to see. But I’ll be pretty cautious next time when it comes to having too high of expectations.