Tales of Symphonia The Animation: Tethe'alla-hen

Note: This review was written on my Review Book on Wattpad. If you are interested, don't be shy to check it out! (Link's in my bio)

Also: I'll be posting the same review for all three seasons, since I made a general review for the series, not the seasons in separate.

Ok, so if you guys don't know, Tales of Symphonia is one of my FAVORITE animes, along with the rest of the Tales of Series. After i finished ToS, me and a friend had found other animes in the series as well, which we both love to death.

So my friend said she found an old ... Gamecube game that her father owned called "Tales of Symphonia." It was an anime RPG about a girl, Colette, was chosen to be an angel, and the Chosen to regenerate the world. A few days later, I saw she was an anime on YouTube, and it was a good thing a stopped her there, because that was when things got really sad and intense, and she probably wouldn't have looked that happy in first period that day. But anyways, we started watching the series from episode 1, and we finished the series in a few weeks time. For a short anime, Tales of Symphonia is a very good anime, that is really worth watching and re-watching over and over again. I've only watched the series 3 or 4 times, but my friend said she's seen it around 30, maybe 40 times.



Anyways, let's get started on the review! Hope you all like it!



WARNING! THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!



Story: 10/10



Ok, so I'm sorry if I'm taking this not hard enough, but like I said before, I LOVED this series. It's one of those short stories where you rewatch them over and over again. And only for 11 episodes, it surely brings out its potential.

Tales of Symphonia takes place in the kingdoms of Sylvarant and Tethe'alla. where three races of people lived; humans, elves, and half-elves. The half-elves believed that their race was treated unfairly, and formed a pact, called the Desians. The Desians were defeated long ago by the hero, Mithos, and the goddess Martel, but, over time, their power had weakened, and the Desians has risen once more. Meanwhile, Colette Brunel, a 16-year old high-school girl, has been chosen to become the Chosen Angel of Regeneration. Her friends, Lloyd Irving, Genis and Raine Sage, accompany on her journey of regeneration, only to find that out that her journey was more like a sacrifice, if you know what I mean. Now, the gang must try to get her back, while saving the world from hatred. Recruiting a new team of allys, Lloyd and his friends set off to save Colette. and the rest of the world.



Like I said before, this is a beautiful story. I'm not going to go much into detail, due to some really big and sad spoilers, but it's a really good story to the anime, and I definitley give it a 10/10.



Art: 10/10



Again, I really feel like I'm being to easy on this anime, it's just I love this anime a LOT. The art style is beautiful in this anime. The special effects, the battle scenes, the designs, EVERYTHING. And I gave it a 10 for art, because everything was beautiful. I'm sorry I'm giving everything on this a ten, I just really fell in love with this series as a whole, art, characters, everything.

Another thing I really like about the art is the character designs. My favorites are paticualry Sheena's, Colette's, and Presea's. They're very unique, compared to your typical combat skirt, or suit of armor. Like I said, maybe I'm being to easy on this anime, maybe I'm not. But anyways, another 10/10 for the art.



Sound: 9/10



Ok, I really love the soundtrack to Tales of Symphonia. I have all three theme songs on my iPod and I listen to them ALL the time. It's just you don't want to listen to some of them too much, especially right after you finished the series. It kinda stirs up some of the sad scenes from the series (*cough cough* DEATHS *cough cough*) My friend says she hardly ever cries, but this was the first anime that was really hard to watch in public. Even so, there are some themes in the ToS soundtrack that make me smile, while others get me teary-eyed. Whether you see that as a good thing or not, I really enjoyed the soundtrack, even though it gets you in tears at times. So basically, I'm giving it a 9/10, not another 10 suprisingly.



Characters: 10/10



Okay, so like I said before, I LOVED everything about this anime. The cast is AMAZING. Like, theyre the kind of cast that you grow attached to, no matter what kind of character they are. And by that, I mean your characters can range from the pervy and outgoing Zelos, to the quiet and strong Presea. And I'm going to admit, I love each and every one of them. It's just one of those animes where I can't choose just ONE favorite character. Like, this is one of those animes where you love ALL of the characters. So yeah, basically another 10 for Symphonia.



General/Enjoyment: 10/10



Yeah, I know, not really a big surprise here. I said this many a time before in this review, I LOVED this anime a lot, and there's really no flaws that I saw in it, unlike the past couple of animes I had just given reviews on. And if you're like me, and loved the series just as much as me, I'd reccomend trying the game if you can afford it, as well as others in the series, like Tales of the Abyss, Zestiria, and Vesperia. Yeah, what I'm trying to get at is that it's a really good series, and I think at least everyone should at least try it before they bite it. It has a little of everything for everyone; drama, action, adventure, a little comedy and romance... Yeah. Anyways, yeah, a big One-O goes to this anime, its a great anime, and I highly reccomend it for anyone. show less

With the first part of this game adaptation being rather lackluster, the second part is now upon us and it's time to re-ask the same question from the first part, how hard does this part fall over itself because of cut content?

The Short Version:
(+)Returning characters feel much more fleshed out.
(+)When the new characters are introduced with more or less the same level as with the returning cast.
(-)Core character downgraded to a plot device.
(-)There's more Houdini characters. (I.E. characters that appear then disappear)
(-)Lackluster Soundtrack.

The Story (8/10): With the carry on from part one, the story having layers stacked upon it now, the connections between the characters ... and the events surrounding them are becoming easier to tie lines between. The overall feel of the anime has improved as well, where as the first part felt like it was more about saving the world, this one is on a much more personal level, which is why I think that this story is better that part one; it's a lot more focused. For instance, in part one the show put emphasis on focusing how important the journey is to restore the diminishing world. Part two on the other hand is focused solely on restoring Colette, making the entire show all the more effective when aiming for the feels and there's a few of those moments spread throughout this part. The show does this while managing to keep the over-arching plot present, which is also another plus.

The Characters (7/10): With the majority of the cast returning from part one, they feel a lot more whole and more like proper characters, with the exception being Lloyd and Colette. I feel like he's falling into what I call the 'Classic angry protagonist' abyss, where the character is trying to do their best with the given situation, but they can't help but get angry every time they feeling like, "I can't do anything and that makes me angry and sad. (like for example, Eren from Shingeki no Kyojin.) It was annoying in part one, and it's still annoying now. Thankfully though, that does change after a while. On the side of Colette she has been demoted from Core Character that actually has a presence, to a plot device that is more of a background prop, bad move series. Bad move.

Aside from the returning cast we have several new characters, again I'm just going to stick with the main cast.

Sheena Fujibayashi: Enemy turned friend and is more vulnerable than she seems.

Zelos Wilder: The Child of Regeneration for Tethe'alla and the red head.

Presea Combatir: A failed by-product of the Exsphere experiments and female lumberjack.

Regal Bryant: The new character who gets the most development and a lolicon.

One thing they did well while developing the new characters is that, while they were developing one character, they were also detailing some of the other ones, going to the extent of even giving one of them an episode long backstory. Of the new characters it's definitely Zelos that's the most underdeveloped, all I know about his is that he's the Child of Regeneration and that's it, and he stands out like a sore thumb for that very reason.

The Art and Sound (7/10 & 6/10): The art hasn't really changed between the two entries, although you can start to see more of the famous animation quality from ufotable starting to seep it's way through, the 3D movement is again improved and the fight scenes feel like a much more basic version of the ones we saw in Unlimited Blade Works. Not exactly the kind of quality I expected from a company at the peak of their game.

The Sound on the other hand has taken a slight dip in my opinion. The OP and ED aren't as enjoyable as part one's and they put in what I call 'Jump-scare queues' When they suddenly just put in a very loud sound for dramatic effect. Then again, the show's quiet when it needs to be for the emotional weight of certain situations, and the rest of the musical section is about as good as part one.

What do you think of this anime?

I think that this second part, as a whole, is a vast improvement from the first. The characters are more fleshed out, the art is finding it's feet, and the story is getting better. I wouldn't say I'd buy this anime though still after all of its obvious flaws.

Would I recommend this anime?

If you've seen part one? Yes definitely. If you're just jumping in at part two for some reason? No, because you won't have the same experience as someone who has seen part one. (Thus I highly recommend you go watch part one, then come back to this entry.)

Goodbye my brethren, see you in the next one.

The story is rushed and all over the place and I know that since it's so short, they didn't have enough time to shoehorn in a lot of things from the game, but since the game is so long, I think they should've made this into a regular T.V. series than in OVA. That way, they can flesh out these complex characters and include more events that happened in the game. While, I can do with a few changes, such as the whole Chocolat thing because I don't care much for her, I would've loved if the series had stayed much more faithful to the ... game.

There is too much crying in it, while the game has came out in the time where video game characters hardly ever shed any tears, that still doesn’t warrant this much crying throughout every other episode of the series. Yes, I realise the characters have plights but I could do with some less crying. Presea cried a lot more than I remember her doing in the game. Now, let's go into more details about the problem with these characterizations and we'll compare them to the game:

Lloyd seems much more bubbly and silly here. While he does have a fun-loving side in the game, it's more toned down in the game. Yes, Lloyd is a kid, but he comes off as overly perky and it's annoying. Anime Lloyd is a lot more of a passive innocent bystander in the OVA while Game Lloyd was more of a pacifist who loves peace. Lloyd is also more of an idiot here than he was in the game such as in one scene that isn’t in the game where Soulless Colette is about to attack and Lloyd uses the power of love to stop her. What a cheesy scene. Game Lloyd was idiotic but showed some street smarts and logic at times. His hotheadedness and immaturity is also cranked up here, too.

Colette's tenancy to see the good is exaggerated here. She is so overly positive that she brushes off people fighting as a friendly sort of thing. While she was overly optimistic in the game, she still was more pacifistic in the game when it came to fighting and wasn't as optimistic towards people fighting.

Sheena is a lot more aloof in the anime and her hot-headedness is exaggerated here. She is a lot more violent than I remember her being. Anime Zelos is much more sassy here than he is in the game. He probably showed a bit of sass in the game but it's cranked up here. Presea is more impulsive here, shown when she suddenly attacks Regal right after hearing that he has killed Alicia. Game Presea was slower to anger and while held a grudge to Regal, she didn’t start fighting him off the bat until towards the end of the game.

Overall: This anime is a mess. This TOS series has completely screwed up Miyajima's vision of these characters. Play the game instead, it may be a little cheesy but a lot more realistic than this. This is just a cheesy adaptation of a nice game that is not the same as it.