Law of Ueki

“The power to change my motivation into a review.”
One word to describe Law of Ueki is that it’s execution is plain wacky. Meet, Kousuke Ueki, a middle school student who’s handpicked by one of a God Candidate, Koba-sen, to participate in a competition where people battle out to become God. God Candidates can give their handpicked fighters some sort of powers, and Ueki was given with a power to change trash from tree. With this power, Ueki joins in the fray, battling against various opponents while befriending some comrades on the way to victory.
The story is definitely not Law of Ueki’s strongest point. Everything that happened looks too unnatural and forced out, especially the concept and settings behind the battles, which looks like a perfect set-up so that the characters can fight. The whole show is basically a battle tournament. There are some surprised plot twists from time to time so it’s at least not completely bad.

What I deem the best part of the show though, are the battles. As you can already see, the power the characters possess are really bizarre. Other then Ueki’s power, there is a power to change towels into iron, beads into bombs, coins into tornadoes, whistle into lasers etc… The basic concept behind Law of Ueki’s powers is that the use and transformation of a certain everyday item from State A to B. Though at later part, Ueki and some other characters use “sacred weapons” in their fights and their combat turns even more epic at that point.
Most of the powers may seem kinda lame at first but ironically enough, it’s these powers which made the battles interesting. In terms of battle, Law of Ueki differs from “The Big Three” which are all just about destructive power, destroying buildings/landscapes with one hit. Instead, the main characters in Law of Ueki rely more on strategies. It’s more about how creative one can get, using their own limited powers while facing a stronger foe. Seeing how the characters planned out the strategies and how they execute it, is quite amusing to say the least.

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Ueki himself is a good main protagonist, though it is impossible not to feel a bit bland and generic with Ueki’s personality. Ueki believes deeply in justice and always upheld his beliefs and morals, helping various strangers in the streets everyday. He also has the typical “I’ll protect my friends” altitude. One character I dislike though, is Mori. To me, she’s a useless character who did nothing but screamed “Ueki, Ueki, Ueki” all the time annoyingly just like Orihime does with her “Kurosaki-kun, Kurosaki-kun”. Another character I dislike is Hideyoshi, who fights in a more cowardly way with his sneak attacks. Even so, for a coward, he is even egotistical. He’s like a Law of Ueki-version of Ussop, yes…
The developments for the characters more then made up for it though. Flashbacks and backstories occupied a lot of air time of the show and you can find yourself getting fond of characters you disliked before after learning more about them. I can’t help but feel this is a bit overdone though since there are even backstories for the characters with very minor role. They are so minor they don’t even appear anymore later, so minor we don’t even care about them. Any developments on them feel totally wasted.

The Law of Ueki is definitely NOT a show where you can go “wow” with their visuals. It is pretty average and it’s something on a level where you would expect to see in a shounen anime anyway. Animations especially, are kinda weak. There are not enough frames so it may look stiff at times, most notably during fights where high-speed motions are needed. The colors themselves are quite a mess. At times, they are dull and lack contrast and most of all, they don’t have the ample vibrancy. Yet, at times, they are too bright it actually hurts the eyes. Character illustrations are at best around average too. They look bland but at least it’s not so bad to the point of ugliness.

Audios are another strong point of the show. Of cause, you won’t need me to mention about the infamous Romi Paku right? She, who did the voice overs for Ueki here, had voiced countless and famed characters like Edward Elric, Hitsugaya Toushiro and so on. The other voice overs are pretty good too, not sounding forced or unnatural and fits the roles of their characters excellently. The openings and endings are good. My favorite one is a track by Hitomi Shimatani who sang the first opening “Falco”. The arrangements and melodies of the track fit the wakiness concept of the show flawlessly. “Kokoro no Wakusei ~Little planets~” is also another good track which is worth a listen. The background music works efficiently well most of the time, matching with the appropriate atmospheres in the anime, though doesn’t leave much of an impact ultimately.

 

Well, The Law of Ueki is not the best show around but it’s still good for action fans to pass their time watching it. I myself, used to like Law of Ueki a long time ago. Also, as I had mentioned, “The Big Three” had been relying on insane brute strength these days and destroying buildings for 100+ episodes has a limit in itself. If you are getting tired of those, you can give Law of Ueki a try. It’s a good show for you to catch a break from your weekly marathons of “The Big Three”.