This Ugly Yet Beautiful World (2004– ) User Reviews (3)

Sort of beautiful

[paul_haakonsen · 5/10 · 6 March 2010]

Alright, what do you get if you take "Ah! My Goddess", mix it with "Devilman" and throw in a pinch of "Pokémon"? ... Simply put, you get this anime, "This Beautiful and Ugly World".

The story takes place over 12 episodes, of which the two-quarters of the entire show is really silly and at times sassy and too much. It was not before the last 3 or 4 episodes that the series became really nice.

Sure the series have nice characters, most of which are well thought off and given good stories, so you get to fall in love with some of the quirky characters. However, I was unfortunate enough to sit through all 12 episodes where it was dubbed into English. I hate Japanese anime that is dubbed into English, because the voice actors always usually do a poor job. And "This Beautiful and Ugly World" was no different. Had it been kept in Japanese it would have been so much more worth sitting through all 12 episodes.

What puzzled me about this series was that most of the time, the story had a very childish and naive quality to it, then it would suddenly be interrupted by unnecessary nudity. The series did not need that nudity, and would have been better without it. It was too disruptive and weird.

The story was well enough driven forward, despite it being childish and silly. And it is interesting enough to keep you intrigued to see what happens next. I only give this series 5/10 stars because of the childishness and unnecessary nudity. Despite this, I was thoroughly entertained, but there are lots of other much more nicer animes out there.

This ugly yet beautiful series

[RavenGoddess · 7/10 · 28 November 2006]

I just finished watching this series it was a really good series for 12 episodes I wish the series was longer though to flesh out a few things and a few characters. The main Characters were great you fell in love with Hikari,Takeru,Akari,Ryou,and his sister Kimi, and laugh at some of there but found the girl named Mari annoying and some times wanted her to just die Exspecially close to the end of the series, all and all it was great the ending was a bit depressing to at least me I was hoping for somethings to just happen and expecting others It was hopeful thinking on my part I totally recommend it to all lovers of anime you will enjoy this series as a whole it bag of comedy,Romance,Drama, and a bit of action thrown in for the hell of it.

This Ugly Yet Beautiful World

[Tweekums · 7/10 · 17 June 2009]

I watched this series after reading a recommendation that people who liked "Elfen Lied" might also like this. People that have seen that series will know that it contains lots of gory violence, rather a lot of nudity and not very much jokeyness. This is rather different in that it isn't very violent, contains plenty of laughs but does include a fair amount of nudity. It is very much a series of two halves, the earlier episodes are predominantly comedic where the characters do relatively normal things and in the later episodes they battle to save the planet from an extinction event.

In the opening episode Takeru and Ryou, two school boys witness a bright light in the sky which crashes to Earth. When they investigate they find a naked girl with bright red hair and no memory. Shortly after this a monster appears but it is defeated when Takeru transforms into a creature himself. He names the girl Hikari and takes her home, a little while later another girl arrives and is given the name Akari by Ryou who found her in the forest. The two girls soon become part of a group of school friends and join then in their day to day activities such as going to school and taking a break in the mountains. The group are also joined by Jennifer Portman a blonde scientist who is investigating extinction events and is usually found with a beer in her hand.

I've tried to keep spoilers to a minimum so as not to spoil the series. It isn't the best anime I've seen although it was fun enough, especially the earlier episodes. The animation was fairly standard in style with characters that look like those in many others shows, although it doesn't go in for characters with unnatural hair colours apart from the new girls and it is commented on that it isn't an expected colour. As mentioned before there is quite a bit of nudity, while it is gratuitous it is more amusing than sleazy.

These comments are based on watching the series in Japanese with English subtitles.