Tears to Tiara

Tears to Tiara is not so much a spiritual successor to Utawarerumono as it is a remake with a change of setting. Both shows were directed by Tomoki Kobayashi, with the production studio being Oriental Light and Magic. Both are adaptations of a tactical RPG/visual novel game from AQUAPLUS, and while the grand sweeping fantasy story is a departure from most visual novels turned anime, the original creators clearly only had the one diversion from the standard. The lack of originality here is frustrating for anyone who has already seen Utawarerumono. Nearly the entire ensemble of characters immediately draw comparison to counterparts in the other ... show; and, more damningly, so do plot points and twists.

The general plot of the story revolves around the Demon King Arawn becoming the leader of the small Gael clan, first leading them to fight off a malevolent Divine Empire,, then eventually to stop the corrupt gods that seek to destroy the world. The story is standard fare as RPGs go, even without comparison to its predecessor. Unfortunately, beyond even the uninspired narrative, Tears suffers from awkward pacing: on multiple occasions, apparent looming conflicts with the series most regular antagonist are ignored for multiple episodes in order to explore other sub plots or character arcs that sprout inorganically from the main story. Even worse, the transition of the primary antagonist from the Divine Empire to the corrupt deities known as the White Spirits is jarringly abrupt and lacking the world building necessary to properly convey the escalation of danger.

The underwhelming story might be forgivable had the cast been entertaining or endearing; they are almost uniformly neither. While Arawn is an improvement over Hakuoro as a protagonist, on account of starting off with much more personality thanks to an absence of amnesia, he is probably the only of Tears' characters that are a clear improvement over their precursors. The next most important characters, Riannon and Arthur, are adequate as the romantic interest who's a reincarnation of someone from Arawn's past and a tediously honor-bound warrior and future leader. With the exception of Ogam, who fills the standard wise old sage role, the remaining cast are so devoid of personality that some of them don't even warrant a stereotype, defined only by a recurring “joke” and the weapon they wield. One pair of characters get a scene about two-thirds of the way into the show presenting them as a longstanding tsundere-admirer relationship, despite having no interaction prior. Such an incident demonstrates that the anime is simply ticking off a checklist of expectations rather than making a genuine effort.

Not helping the character depictions is the dub. The translation is clearly attempting to be grandiose and noble to fit the story's epic scope, but instead comes across as trite and overblown, especially when the subject matter turns to power of friendship or honor speeches. Further complicating the acting is the effort to give many of the cast Gaelic accents, which in seems to make it more difficult for several of them not to speak their lines in a grating squeak (Greg Ayers' Negi Springfield voice is back, for example).

The animation is thoroughly average, although absent is the conspicuous CG from Utawarerumono used in the large battles. The trade-off for the more consistent look is that the fights are scaled down, which hinders the scope of the story. At least the character designs are appealing.

If you really want a mythic fantasy adventure where the protagonist leads an oppressed people to freedom and survival, watch Utawarerumono instead. If you already have, there's not really a need to watch Tears to Tiara.

This is the worst anime I have seen to date. The voice acting is horrible. The annoyingly bad celtic accents are unbearable. The story is never developed, the pacing is inconsistent,and the characters are never developed.

The anime starts out with an interesting story arc, but by the end of the second episode that is completely blown. This one episode should have been four. Within one episode a girl is to be sacrificed and the demon king returns to life to destroy the world. Then a twist comes...The Demon King turns out to be on the good side. He then ... sides with a tribe and becomes its chiefton through marriage. All this takes place in two episodes, without any character, story development, or backstory explaination.

Over the next few episodes, characters never become developed as more are tossed in. By the end of 5 episodes the Demon king has 3-4 wives, a few maids, and a minstrel that shows up and then vanishes.

Before we know it we are 8-10 episodes in and we have no clue about the world or the political structure. The empire is bad...but we have no clue why. The only thing we have to go on is a few badly used mythological references and names that are slapped on. (oh but a few more wives show up).

This is an anime that trys to be smart but fails miserably. From horrible celtic accents, to slapped on mythological references with no story or character development.

The only positive about this anime is the art, and even that is nothing special. The sound is average as well.
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This is no LOTR or Arthurian Legend, its a piece of garbage that is posing as a fantasy. I have no clue how anyone could rate this an 8 or above. And the horrible part is the fact that it had 26 episodes to get it right.

I'll make this short, It's nearly impossible to like a series when the main character is so unappealing. You would think the demon king/fallen angel would have some charisma or attitude, nope. The guy was dull, and yet every single women he came across would just had to fall in love with him and he would take them as his wife. Now I don't mind a good harem every once and a while but the way they did it in this show just seemed sleazy and to some extent pointless after a while. Nothing they could have done would have detracted from the horrible ... poligamy either, this shadow was doomed after the fourth episode yet I kept watching. The dub is also horrible, so there's that too.

This is probably one of the most boring movies I ever saw in my life.
Probably whole story could be packed in 1hour.
There story is bizarre: the kidnapped girl want to marry her kidnapper the demon king? Then they travel around the world with whole village. There is no action at ALL, characters are really poor. Voice of dubbed Arthur is so bad I don't believe this person was hired more then once but unfortunately he was.
The only interesting character is Morgan who add some fun to this extremely boring show.
The drawing is ok but the colors looks like from 90's.

Overall if you like shows ... where they talk 99% of the time this one is for you.
In first episode of Madan no Ou to Vanadis is more action and romance then in whole series of Tears to Tiara.