Final Thoughts – Endro~!

Oops. Spoke too soon, huh?

I have spoiled myself enough to know that there’s a conflict and story coming in the last few episodes of the show, but having just finished episode eight, I’m just really bored, and evidently so are the characters, given that said episode revolved around the princess convincing Mao to kidnap her so she can watch Yulia save her. The problem I face with Endro! is that it’s cute and I like the idea well enough, but that idea sort of ran its course and it spins its wheels a lot while running out the clock, so we can have the usual Dramatic Two-Part Finale Where Something Actually Happens, but in the intervening time…

There’s been no character development for any of the four party members, at all. The show won’t admit that Mao is its main character by virtue of being the only one with any kind of arc, while Yulia and friends have been static basically the entire time. I just don’t find it very stimulating, honestly, and I don’t feel invested enough to make it to those last few episodes when I could be finishing The Morose Mononokean or Mob Psycho, or catching up with my massive backlog of older shows.

For a brief moment, the show looked like it was going to gain a cute yuri angle as the princess fell in love with her hero, but that hasn’t actualized into anything at all, just like every other idea presented, so…meh.

5/10.

Updated Impressions – Endro~!

It’s very cute and has a lot of good ideas, but it’s just not gripping me the way I want it to yet.

To put it plainly, what I’m looking for out of the second half of Endro~!
is plot. We’ve set up this very Pratchett-esque setting where the
princess falls for the hero even if the hero is a girl and NPCs stand
outside to warn the party about the danger of the nearby dungeon with a
dead-eyed stare into the void, but by the end of the third episode, the
Demon Lord herself has effectively given up on her own plot and resigned
herself to being a teacher, and I’m having trouble dealing with the
lack of conflict that decision has brought to the story. The Hero’s
Party rarely fights amongst themselves and the only real story we’ve
gotten is that of what actually happened in and before the first part of
episode one…So where exactly is it going?

I have some hope that
Mao will un-abandon her plans to seize power, or her even more powerful
counterpart shows up and kidnaps the princess, or something a little
more interesting than this pleasant little plot-vacuum happens to pull
my opinion up, because halfway through, Endro~! is coasting instead of developing its characters, and I’ve dropped shows for less than that.

Score so far: 6/10

Premiere Impressions – Endro~!

From the makers of Yuki Yuna is a Hero comes…a much lighter version of that story, I guess?

Well, it would be more accurate to say that Endro’s world is closer to that of DanMachi, but very lighthearted and fun. Everyone has an RPG class and there are schools to teach kids how to be adventurers and fight monsters, with the biggest kicker being that there isn’t a major villain in this world because said villain was defeated in the first five minutes of the show, after which the credits rolled, hence the title (short for “endroll”) and then the actual show began. The villainous Demon Lord is defeated and then reincarnates into the body of a cute monster girl who travels back in time and becomes the main character’s teacher before she rose up to become a Hero, and I know I’m losing you, but honestly it’s so cute that I can’t fault it for this concept. One of the keys to making a worthwhile Cute Girls show is earnestness, and that’s something Endro certainly carries.

I’m also pleased to report that Studio Gakumi hasn’t lost their production touch – it’s not going to wow anyone, but the look of this show is very solid and it presents us with pastel, color-coded characters without being so overwhelmingly bright that it hurts to look at (like Bloom Into You was). The animation itself is exactly enough to carry the show along despite clearly not having a tremendous budget (as this is an original story) and it’s got just enough polish to really stand out next to crap like Saintia Sho and Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka.

Look, I need something to tide me over until the return of Laid-Back Camp, and this will do just fine.