Elsword: El-ui Yeoin

Elsword : The El Lady --- EARLY REVIEW ---

Okay, this anime is finally out.
To anyone who has never played the game (Elsword), do not watch.
It's adapts the game from the Hamel story arc and that's a good amount of story and character introduction before they even reach Hamel.

It was made specifically for the community of the game which was asking for an anime of it this whole time.


Let's start with the actual review :
...

Story :
The story is not good but it does the job and is pretty enjoyable.
The overall plot won't be anything special and I wouldn't want to spoil anything so let's head on to the characters since they're the main thing both in the game and in here most likely.


Characters :
Okay, let's start off with he cast.

Elsword - Elsword is portrayed as Lord Knight here, meaning he is 16 years old.
The game has several job paths for every character and it seems that they've picked Lord Knight as his canon class.
He is 13 when the story first starts out and judging from the anime now, he is 16 by the time he reaches Hamel, so yeah, a hefty amount of story left out.
When he is 13 years old his personality is very Shonen MC like, he is stupid, brash and obnoxious but packs a punch.

Anyways, Lord Knight is alot more stoic than any of the other Elswords.

His concept describes him as the serious side of Elsword meaning the way he is portrayed here is accurate to the Lord Knight and everyone who says otherwise is not that familiar with Elsword.
Elsword used blunt Greatswords when he was little but LK Elsword is changed and is willing to kill for his friends which is why his sword is sharp now.

LK is implied to be really fast when it comes to swinging his sword. In the game he has a passive called Sonic wave which makes him shoot out well... Sonic waves because of the speed he swings.

Elsword (LK) is more calm than other versions of him and also smarter, he tolerates Aisha instead of bickering with her like he has done in the past.

Aisha - Portrayed as Elemental Master here. She is 18 years now, being 15 at the start.
She's the typical Tsundere but her design makes her a joy to look at.
Unlike Elsword, she didn't grow out of the brash stage and still lashes out on him from time to time in a true tsundere fashion.
It is implied that she has a crush on him in several media of the game and even in this very first episode where he thanks Eve for saving him from a back attack.

Eve - Portrayed as Code Empress, she doesn't have a set age since she's a Nasod, described in a term non-Elsword fans are familiar with, an android.
She is the Queen of Nasods.
But she's more than an android, she says she doesn't have feelings but the other characters don't seem to think that way. She also have sort of a crush on Elsword... or did at least, that has long since been ignored.
She only showed signs of that on her release event.
She's the smartest one of the El Search Party and can analyze situations the best.

Raven - He is the oldest guy here, striking it at 27 years old despite his young looks.
He is portrayed as ''Reckless Fist'' here.
Due to reasons he has 1 missing arm, too bothersome to explain, lol. Just look up a video of his background story on YouTube.
And it was replaced with a Nasod arm.
Reckless Fist focuses on pure brute strengh and unrefined technique.
The Nasod arm has evolved so much that it's become a part of Raven and is causing him a huge amount of pain at all times, he is fighting against his hand all of the time and due to the stress of the pain a chunk of his hair has turned white.
It is shown that he finds Rena attractive (most likely cause she looks like his deceased wife) and finds her ''suitable for men'' as seen in Eltype, an official Elsword magazine. It has 3-4 issues I think.

Rena - The elf archer, she is portrayed as a Grand Archer for the canon.
It is unknown how old she is as she is an elf and they live a really long time.
She is usually the rational one of all the group and keeps them in check but there are time when she snaps and nobody messes with her when she's angry. Most of her anger comes from Elsword and Aisha's bickering (how good for her, due to Elsword maturing, no more bickering :> Rest well nerves)

Add - He shows up just for a little in the first episode and he is portrayed as Lunatic Psyker.
He is basically Accelerator from Toaru Majutsu No Index, that's really the only way to describe him as he was made with Accelerator in mind, they even got Accelerator's Korean voice actor to voice him.
Unlike Accelerator, he is not evil at first though, he's just an asshole and is kinda mentally unstable but the moment he is introduced he helps the main cast and joins them.
He does have some ulterior motives like stealing Eve's Nasod code which is located on her forehead.
Lorewise he is probably the strongest character with Elesis coming a close second.

Elesis - Speaking of Elesis, screw her.
Nah, kidding.
Elesis is Elsword's sister and is portrayed as a Grand Master for her canon class.
Her personality is basically Lord Knight Elsword but not as stoic, she is more relaxed and smiles more.
She's one of the main focuses of the middle part of the story, with focus shifting onto Elsword now in the latest parts of the story.
The El Crystal being the main focus of the early part of the story.
She's Elsword's inspiration and goal.

Ara - Clumsy stereotype, she's also cute.
You basically know her personality just from that short description.
Her goal is to bring her brother back to normal as he has become a demon and is causing havoc to innocent people.
She is portrayed as Sakra Devanam for her canon class.

Chung Seiker - Portrayed as a crappy Iron Paladin, he is a guy the same age as Elsword and his goal is the same as Ara's but instead of a brother it's to his father.
He is basically the polite, well-mannered trap.
They should've picked Deadly Chaser as his canon job, looks better and it's manlier.

Luciela Sourcream or Lu for short - Cute loli, she's a demon whose power got sealed due to plot reasons, watch a YouTube video of her story if you're curios.
Portrayed as a Noblesse in here, she's at least above a century or two despite her loli appereance.
She turned into a younger form of herself due to losing so much of her power.

Ciel - Lu's servant. Portrayed as a Royal Guard.
He's the human who took care of her after he found her with an amnesia.
His village got attacked by a female demon named Karis and all of Lu's memories came flooding back into her, she remembered who she was.
Lu got killed trying to protect her and before his soul goes out of his body, she spoke to him with her soul and made a contract with him, if he is her servant for eternity he will be resurrected as a demon. Hence he was resurrected.
He also has a soft spot for cute things and is pretty good at baking cookies despite his appearance and his career and working in the underworld before he died as a human.

Ainchase Ishlam or Ain -
The new character, he's only made an appereance in Episode 1 side content when it comes to the anime which explains that he appeared in Ep 1 but only Elsword is aware of him of sorts, it needs more explaining.
He most likely won't appear in the anime.

Art : The art is pretty good, it's crisp and looks gorgeous.

Animation : The animation is of a pretty decent quality, I honestly didn't expect that for an Elsword anime.
The choreography for the fights is pretty meh but it does the job.
I just hope the anime doesn't forget the main good thing about Elsword and what fans what to see is character interractions.

Music : The opening and ending are really good, I like them alot.
The OST is decent, not anything too special though.

Sound : The sound effects were pretty crisp and satisfying. Overall well done.

Yeah give an anime adaptation of an MMO and start it past the mid point of the game's plot...BRILLIANT!!!!!!

Ok, so sarcasm aside, Elsword is an anime LA didn't even expected to get an anime and LA being a rather early fan of Elsword and played the game for hundreds of hours but had fallen off it (Computer issues) much later, LA still liked this grindfest of an MMO.

So how does the anime stand to the MMO?...well...

The most bizarre thing about this anime is that it starts the anime at the mid-point (start of Hamel to be precise) with the all of the El Party members ... having already grown to their 2nd Job Classes, so this is telling that this is for the fans however it utterly isolates the newbies wanting to get into this MMO through the anime in the first place, it's just a weird choice even starting here where it did. The only point LA thinks to defend this decision is that Elsword wanted to get into the action quickly thus chose a pretty heavy story-centric point of the story with the majority of the cast being complete aside from four that later joins. But nonetheless seeing many of Elsword's more action-packed events happen in animated form is a pretty good trade off.

Character-wise we have our typical character tropes we usually see in their job orientated MMO's. Elsword is the hot-blooded dense guy, Aisha is the tsundere, Raven is the brooding emo, Rena is the mature one, Eve is the kuudere, Chung is the nice guy heavy and Elesis is the leader and LA's favourite character of this anime (and by extension was LA's main in the actual game), the thing is for the most part, characters isn't what drive the plot, it's the "next goal" and the more obvious "save the world" plot cliche. The only ones to get some sense of character development are Elsword and Ignia with the link being wanting to save people, just HOW they do it becomes conflict to the two of them, Elsword himself also gets a dilemma with betrayal as to how too kind-hearted he is. Chung and Ara gets one if only because of their family members being brought over to the demon side and how they try to get over it in some cases, finally Add gets one of him not being a jerk to the rest of the El Party, the rest of the main cast well uhhh...well your gonna be out of luck. Overall, character development wise due to the rather big main cast roster, it's rather all over the place, as again it's more plot-driven than a character driven narrative.

The main point of this anime is yes an advertisement to the MMO and everything but it kinda brings the MMO to an animated form and it did it's job all things considering, bringing references, shipping characters (seriously the shipping moments in this anime is outrageous, it's almost blatantly tongue and cheek about it) and elements to the game brought to life and telling a rather simple story of good vs. evil (ohh come on...it is simple!, a detriment to the game as well mainly because we have a party of good guys wanting to kill the demons and save Elrios, basic goal is this, being honest here. If we're speaking world lore that's different but what the anime gives us...then yes it's simple.)

In terms of animation done by DR Movie did a pretty great job, from the crisp character designs, good backgrounding and the even better battles shown is greatly detailed. If there is one other reason to watch Elsword besides being a fan of the game, is that the animation is GORGEOUS or AMAZING to look at..this coming from a Korean studio in the first place!, however as detailed as most of the animation gets, it does get shoddy at times with blatant slips of quality here and there for the most part are rare, but still animation is gorgeous or amazing when it does want to be.

The thing is for voice acting, LA has some experience in the Korean voice acting (as in LA has heard it quite often in childhood) and from this LA will say that Koreans have a thing to over exaggerate their vocal inflictions in a cartoony way in comparison to Japanese where it's more refined and professional. Now is LA saying the Korean voice acting is terrible, ABSOLUTELY NOT, the Korean voice actors fit into their characters well and for the most part is great, what LA is merely saying is that with LA's experience with the Korean language and everything it's just something LA picked up while watching this anime and there will obviously be a disparity to Korean and Japanese voice actors in the long run of things. Overall decent Korean voice acting which "kinda" got annoying with some squeaky vocals here and there...*cough* Ara and Aisha *cough*.

Elsword's anime by it's definition is an advertisement for the MMO and though with a bizarre plot choice, varying character developments in which your favorite character "might" get shafted as a satellite character (no seriously), great technical aspects from the voice acting and animation and bringing in references and elements of the game in subtle ways, LA thinks this "advertisement" of an MMO was done is a decent way, problems yes, but nonetheless since LA was a fan of the game LA might have some bias towards this franchise. But still even with it's faults, Elsword the Animation for an MMO anime adaptation was handled properly, not the best adaptation LA has ever seen but is a decent watch nonetheless.