This Ugly Yet Beautiful World: V.1 Falling Star + Series Box

Volume one of This Ugly Yet Beautiful World wasn't a bad. It's just the expectations that it set for itself were way too high. Firstly, it's presented as GAINAX's 20th anniversary anime. GAINAX is the same company responsible for FLCL and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Honestly, I don't think that This Ugly Yet Beautiful World even comes close to what those two anime are or have achieved, and putting those names on the back of the DVD case really damages the integrity of this anime. It just isn't that good to be presented as a showpiece.

Another problem I found was the fact that the story moves way too slow. At twelve episodes, you'd expect things to really get down and dirty early. While the first episode was exciting, which I'll talk about later, it goes from there to introducing a slow stream of characters. By the fourth episodes, all we really know about the overall story is that two girls have come from space to freeload off a couple of good-hearted high school guys who are surrounded by a bunch of oversexualized friends.

In essence, this volume of This Ugly Yet Beautiful World was a fan-service extravaganza, aimed solely at pure exploitation. There is a scene where one of the characters, Jennifer Portman, invites one of the alien girls, Hikari, to take a shower with her. This, I'm sorry to say to everyone who actually enjoys useless animated nudity, is pointless and made nearly no sense.

If it wasn't for the exciting first episode, where Takeru first meets Hikari and has to defend her against a giant insect-like snake, I would have completely written this series off. But that episode promised a lot for the future of this anime, and though that promise doesn't come through in the following three episodes, I'm hoping that it will in the next volume. Another thing that made this volume a little more tolerable was the animation; yes, it was cutesy, but it was also fluid and highly detailed. So if you can stand a slow moving story and enjoy cutesy animation and some brief, if intense action, with a lot of promise, then I recommend This Ugly Yet Beautiful world to you. Otherwise, this is an anime that can probably be passed up.

First of all, I gotta say: this anime comes from the group behind both Evangelion and FLCL. I'ma big fan of FLCL's style, but I never liked Evnagelion. So much wasted potential and two - not even just one! - mediocre endings.

I mention this only so you know what a leap of faith it was when I bought this DVD based only on what I read on the backs of the first and third volumes. I felt I could relate to the main character, Takero, so I ran with it.

I don't think I've ever enjoyed an anime more than I did these first episodes. Despite the presence of the classic "boy morphs to fight monsters" anime staple, this is not your kid brother's anime. In the first volume, alone, it immediately shapes into an excellent showcase of human - and not-so-human - emotion.

The anime can be said to have two flaws, though I only count one. First, and this is the one I count: the second episode. Too much happens too fast, the episode struck me as ... forced. Second: the American scientist. I'm a little disappointed in how ... not scientific she comes across, for the most part. She is clearly some wacky stereotypical view of American women, however, and I find that crazy amusing, so I let her slide.

Oh, I don't usually watch my anime with subtitles. I watched the English dubs. For those who care, the English voice acting ain't bad, at all.

i have already viewed this anime in its entirety, and all i can say is that it is quite unique and definetly worth looking into. dont worry, yes it does have alot of fanservice, but it does deliver an interesting story a little later into the series. it is definitely unique. plus the opening theme is so strange that its awesome. just one more thing, if you think that it is just a fanservice fest, you should see "he is my master", which was also done by gainax

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