The Legend of Heroes: Sen no Kiseki - Northern War

For many years following the North Ambrian Disaster, North Ambria has been known as the poorest region in Zemuria. After the state suffered a major loss due to the mysterious Salt Pale turning citizens and buildings into salt, the economy has never truly recovered. Out of necessity to secure foreign investment for the state, the former state military has turned into a group of mercenaries known as the Northern Jaegers.

Wishing to join the largest group of mercenaries on the continent, Lavian "Lavi" Winslet, a promising rookie, enlists with the Northern Jaegers. Although she has only been with them for half a year, the reserved but capable Lavi Winslet is well respected by her peers. When Lavi and her team are tasked with gathering information regarding the Imperial Hero of Erebonia—a new threat to the state—she discovers that there may be more to the continent's intricate politics than meets the eye.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Winslet, Lavian Main

Koichi, Makoto Japanese

Drake, Talion Main

Ono, Yuuki Japanese

Robinson, Martin S. Main

Nakamura, Yuuichi Japanese

Frost, Iseria Main

Bridcutt, Sarah Emi Japanese

Bright, Estelle Supporting

Kanda, Akemi Japanese

Schwarzer, Rean Supporting

Uchiyama, Kouki Japanese

Bannings, Lloyd Supporting

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Bright, Joshua Supporting

Saiga, Mitsuki Japanese

Orion, Altina Supporting

Minase, Inori Japanese

Mao, Rixia Supporting

Satou, Rina Japanese

Sabat, Christopher Producer

Li, Ni Producer, Planning

Suehira, Asa Producer, Planning

Chan, Ming H. Producer, Planning

Reviews

Nov 12, 2024

sya2434

Recommended

firstly overall is really good to me, the art the story me as sen no kiseki fans i really like this anime. i've been waiting for this game to come out as anime. but i liitle disappointed at first because this story is different from the main story but im okay with it after watching it cuz they show us the story that didn't appeared at main story (game). as for those who lost you should watch the game first cuz this anime show the other side story not the main story but still connecting with main story. for those who want fully understand ... the lore u should watch the game first sen no kiseki 1 & 2 then watch this anime. that all from me sorry if my english is bad im not really good at it

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Apr 2, 2025

hexashadow13

Mixed Feelings

tl;dr: A midquel that’s kind of fun at times but doesn’t really have any substance of value.

This is an anime that takes place in between Cold Steel II and Cold Steel III. If you have no idea what that means then this anime definitely isn’t for you and there is no point in reading this review any further. This anime was clearly designed for people that are already fans of the Trails franchise and very familiar with it. However, I’m going to be judging this a bit differently from most.

You see, while most fans watched this after having already played CSIII and CSIV. I on ... the other hand decided to watch it in between CSII and CSIII. Thus, I watched this knowing who all the reoccurring characters are and the general state of the world when this was occurring but no clue what what the Northern War was actually about. All I knew about the North Ambria was the stuff you learn related to Sara in CS II and the stuff related to the Salt Pale Disaster mentioned in Sky. And from that point of view, this anime was decent enough. It definitely had major issues and I wish it were better, but I don’t regret watching it or think it was a waste of time.

The first half chronicles a group of North Ambrian Jaegers as they go on a covert mission to investigate the hero of the Empire, the Ashen Chevalier. They are the worst spies in existence though. And they get into all sorts of bizarre situations. For example, they stop a terrorist attack by a bunch of people in Mishi costumes who stay completely in character throughout the attack. Things also flow absolutely bizarrely at times, with certain things being really rushed, but most of the time everyone basically acts like they’re on vacation. I’m not entirely sure what was intentionally funny, and what was funny as a result of bad writing, but overall I found all of this hilarious. Throw in a bunch of cameos and such, and overall I enjoyed it quite a bit.

The second half actually relates to the Northern War. Everyone is back in Northern Ambria who is on the brink of an invasion by Erebonia. This part is much more serious. The plot was a mess. The vast majority of it still has nothing to do with the conflict with Erebonia. Rather, it has to do with some internal conflicts where of course Ouroboros plays a part. However, I have no clue what was actually going on in the final stretch. Maybe it makes more sense to those that have played further into the series, but I was completely lost. And while the first half was amusing, it wasn’t really enough to build up any investment in the new cast, so pretty much all their character beats fell flat.

There was also a heavy emphasis on exploring themes relating to what being a hero means, but it didn’t really do it all that well. It was here that I found it interesting how similar this series is to Akito the Exiled. The obvious similarities are of course that its a midquel side story that features a blonde girl as the protagonist. But it also explores themes relating to being a hero in a very similar manner and botches them similarly. All in all I suppose it was nice to learn a bit more about North Ambria, but there wasn’t really any substance beyond that.

The art and animation overall were pretty mediocre. The anime original character designs were also really plain. Still, there were small details that I liked, such as Crowe reflecting in Rean’s eyes when he was discussing his motivations. Though there were also some major screw ups. For example, using English text in world and writing Yumir instead of Ymir. The OP and ED were decent enough but not particularly good. The soundtrack uses tracks from the games pretty well.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Jan 12, 2025

Sasu556

Not Recommended

The TL;DR is that this was made as an ad for a gacha game and thus I recommend steering clear of this. For anyone who is not a Trails fan, this anime is utter garbage. For anyone who IS a Trails fan, this anime is THE BIGGEST insult to the entire franchise. If you like Trails or are thinking of trying it, play the actual games and feel free to forget this thing ever existed.

For context: It chronologically takes place between Cold Steel 2 and Cold Steel 3, during a major event that happened in that period. One would think this anime would focus ... on said event and explained what happened in detail, portraying the key characters from the game through the perspective of a new cast, right? But no. Nothing happens during the vast majority of this anime. They even take time to introduce some goddamn random ahh clown that serves 0 effing purpose in episode 3, only to disappear a moment later.

The only relevant episodes are roughly the last 3, and even those give you less information than a mid-conversation recap from Cold Steel 3 does. It explains nothing, yet only adds more questions. It's only purpose is to serve as an ad to the Northern War mobile gacha game they released, and quite frankly, everything about this is horrendous (even the gacha game itself). The character designs, the pacing, the cuts, the fact they put up a flashback scene literally 5 seconds after you've seen the said flashback scene. In short, steer clear of this giant pile of stinky. It's not worth your time and it won't explain anything.

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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