Tales of Zestiria the Cross: Saiyaku no Jidai

Tales of Zestiria, the franchise based on the game. To be clear, the prologue is literally the special that apparently takes place before the main series. Dubbed also as “Tales of Zestiria the X Prologue: The Age of Chaos”, it stars protagonist Alisha as she investigates a strange phenomena that has hit the kingdom of Hyland.

For those unfamiliar with the game, I think it’s safe to venture into watching this without a decent knowledge. Although judging on the setting, it’s probably a good idea to get familiarized with the world fiction as the show has high fantasy elements. The special episode contains elements of ... fantasy that portrays peculiar characters such as Lunarre and weapons that you’ll easily find in fantasy genre games.

Meanwhile, the special episode can also be rather confusing to watch as events unfold from the start. One of the main characters, Clemm gets caught into a violent catastrophe that puts her life in danger. Furthermore, Alisha and her crew runs into a strange female character with dark magic-like abilities. For it’s worth, the episode pretty much feels like it drops the story into the middle of nowhere for viewers. What I would recommend is watch the 44-minute special episode OVA (Tales of Zestiria: Doushi no Yoake) to get familiar with the franchise. It’s also noticeable that Sorey (the main male protagonist) is absent from this special. As such, Alisha is the main focus and her character is already established as a courageous heroine who puts others’ lives above her own.

However, the story itself appears to be more of an abbreviated version of the franchise. It’s more of an attempt to hook people into watching for the main series. In particular, we can easily recognize the stellar production quality by studio ufotable. Similarly, the music produced by Sakuraba Motoi shows his talent with the high quality OST. There’s also some bits of world building although it’s far more likely that the main series will expand more into that. In addition, the episode makes it clear that there’s mysterious forces at works. So should you watch this? On paper, it definitely looks great in terms of production quality but the plot itself can see rather confusing. For a prologue though, it does a fair job at establishing the attention for viewers starving for more.

*This Ova is a prequel of the main anime that will be aired the 10 july *

The point of this prequel is to make us familiarize with the setting of the anime (medieval, with dragons, knights, beast, magicians,...).

I've discovered that there is an other prequel called: Tales of Zestiria: Doushi no Yoake(2014) which I raccomend not to watch since it will ruin you the surpries of the main serie.

Story(8):
This is similar of the most common fantasy/medieval anime, to summon is a sort of King Artù, we can clearly see that there is a sword on the stone, and the rest... well yea magicians, dragons,...

Art(10):
Just one ... episode, but yes, if all the main serie will adopt this kind of art I will only love more the anime. The art is superb, clear and very appealing, detailed and....well if you watch the scene of the dragon you will understand everything :)

Sound(8): well used, nothing to say, the ending was good but I've heard better song which suited better for the setting we are in.

Character(-):
Cant really say a lot, 1 episode isnt enough, some might have played the game so they know more about it, but I realized that the guy on the cover isnt in this ova, that means that one of the main characters isnt there.

Enyoment(8.5):
Like I said before I really like this types of settings with magic, beasts,...
so it's only natural that I rated 9 this Ova, but the major factor that make me rate 9 this ova is the art, like I said before amazing.

Overall 9. Enjoy!

Just an introduction episode to set up the story. The poster boy wasn't in it and we are really only introduced to the princess. There seems to be some political strife, ongoing natural disasters (which don't seem to be natural at all), some mysterious runes, and some magic stuff (which kind of just inserted at the end). The narrative was a bit confusing because it kept jumping around but the art and animation were pretty good. There is the sword in the stone reference to King Arthur. Not familiar with the source material but I'll give the main show a try but we'll see.

Dubbed also as “Tales of Zestiria the X Prologue it takes place before the series and features a certain event that happened with Alisha the princess and her few comrades and why princess Alisha decided to find shepherd and why did she ended up in that Ruin at the begging of the first episode.....

The main star of this prologue was Alisha although the MC of the series is Sorey the shepherd as i mention it just features a certain event that happened with Alisha on her journey

The animation was outstanding as obvious because it was created by ufotable studios .....


well what can ... you expect from a prologue ? Its basic purpose is to give an Idea of the past, character's background and a little information about the events that caused the story of the anime to take place

So as for those purposes this prologue achieved it's purpose completely and gave everything which was expected from it so for that it deserve a 10/10 !!!

This episode is fascinating to me, and maybe I'm just not well-versed in prequels, but the fact that this prequel was aired before the main series is interesting.

So, for art and music, is it sufficient enough to just mention that this is made by ufotable? I think it is, but I'll talk about it anyway. The music in this episode was nothing short of majestic. It felt sweeping and epic, and it made many of the ending scenes feel that much more grand. Obviously, though, the real pièce de résistance in ufotable works is the art. In this particular episode, everything from the smoke ... to the fire to the water to the lighting was done to perfection. This is potentially the only studio that will ever be able to pull of CGI elements in their anime and this one is no exception. There's this amazing moment during this episode where the ground is literally upheaved, and it was animated beautifully.

At this stage, there isn't much to say about the story or the characters since this is only one episode, but I will say they hooked me. The storytelling in this episode built to a crescendo in a lovely way. You'll understand if you watch it, but the pacing of it was quite nice. This isn't much of a review-like statement as much as it is an opinion, but the sections of the characters we did get to see in this episode were probably the parts of the characters we needed to see to get excited about what's to come, so good on you, ufotable. Another thing this studio does really well, in my opinion, is fighting sequences, and this episode also showcased that nicely as well.

The reason I haven't given this episode a ten despite all that stuff I just said is partially because it was simply a single episode, and it's difficult to earn a ten on just that, but it's also because it didn't explain much at all. For a prequel, I thought that what was happening on screen was going to be explained a little better than it was. That's what I usually expect out of prequels anyway. If it gets explained in the main series, then great, but I felt like this episode should've given me a firmer foundation to leap off of going forward. Like I said, though, I am excited, so we'll see what comes next.