Senjou no Valkyria

If you have a PS3, you better buy the game! Wich is AWESOME! 30 to 40 hours of the best RPG so far in the PS3.. The anime, well lets just say that it's not what I expected; maybe because I played the game first.. So my review is for the ones who (like me) played the game before the anime...
Story, Hmmm.. It's not quite the same, but it's good...
Art, The anime tries to copy graphics of the game.. But It look weird.. Also Alicia gain a few extra pounds in the Anime.. hahaha..
Sound, sweet and beatiful as the game!
Charcter, They are the same, ... but sometimes Alicia its very annoying.. And Welkin kind of lame.. Also, Faldio has a lot more roll and i just hate him..
Enjoyment, I kept thinking the entire time "The game its better", so it didn't work up for me..
Overall 3.. Sorry.. If you don't have a PS3 nor the game. I think you will enjoy a lot more this Anime!!
I want to hear an opinion of someone who was seeing the Anime and then played the game!! Ciao..

Intro: I must confess, I was quite disappointed with this anime adaptation. I first heard of it when I was playing the game (which, by contrast, is amazing) and a friend happened to look over my shoulder and said that he recognized it. I asked if he played, but he said that only knew it because he had watched the anime. As a big fan of the game, I was immediately interested and enthusiastically searched for a way to watch "Senjou no Valkyria". You mean, there's MORE of the awesomeness and adorableness that is Valkyria Chronicles?! HELL YEAH! ... However, what I watched did not meet my expectations, nor did it rise to meet them. Granted, I will be the first to admit that I expected the anime to follow the game, even build upon its preexisting greatness; however, to my immense chagrin, the anime went in different direction, and not a good one. Here's why beginning from least to greatest:

Sound (6/10): In the game, I thought that the sound/music was its weakest point, as there was not much of variety of osts, nor did they differ much in tone. However, I thought the sound effects were decent and the voice-acting was good. Conversely, this was, in my opinion, the least problematic part of the anime. It used the soundtrack from the game, and did not add much to it. It certainly did not significantly contribute to my condemnation of this anime, nor was it sufficient to increase my opinion of it either. Never underestimate the effect of a well-placed, powerful ost...or a sniper round...

Art (6/10): Second, I would like to discuss the artwork. While it irked me at times during the game thanks to its minimalist direction, really only showing facial expression and dialogue during majority of the game's cut-scenes, I can appreciate their ability to stick to their guns (pun intended). The game remained true to the story-book motif, and while it would have been nice to have seen more of the characters' interactions, I can respect the reasons why they chose that idea and how it made the player pay more attention to what the characters were saying and how they felt. Additionally, the cell-shaded water-color graphics were really quite beautiful. Certainly, I can understand why the director chose to retain the art style from the game (which was really the only thing the two have in common), since the anime does not use the story-book motif, the cell-shade art style, though pretty, seemed out of place. Additionally, since the anime was not bound by that motif, I felt that they could have done more with it than they elected to do. Furthermore, (I'm not a pervert, I swear) why did they make noticeable alterations in the proportions of the female characters for the anime? The women warriors of the game were already beautiful; was that really necessary?

Story (3/10): The above categories were simply slight irritations; now we are getting to crux of my complaints against this anime and I shall endeavor to be a spoiler-free as possible (although this anime is already quite spoiled in my opinion). Yes, whenever any form of media is adapted to another, there will ALWAYS be at least minor discrepancies. I knew to expect at least some differences, but in my view, the story veered too far from what Valkyria Chronicles is (to me at least) supposed to be. The game, as well as the anime, spend a large portion of time on the character interactions rather than the battles. While the action sequences in the anime were decent, even I (who places a stronger emphasis on story over action) felt that the battles scenes were too brief. In my view of the anime, they would spend about 90% of the episodes on nonsensical character interactions (more on that later) and only include maybe a 1 - minute battle scene. As an anime based (loosely) off a strategy game, I can understand why they would chose to axe the tactical discussion and planning portion of "Senjou no Valkyria" first to avoid boring a casual fan of the anime and to make room for more important components, though I felt that each of the quite short battle sequences just happened randomly without much forethought. The tactics and strategy of Valkyria Chronicles is an integral part of its essence and what made it so good; the anime might have been better if they included a little more of that essential essence. To a degree that I didn't expect, they changed so many plot details and occurrences that the anime only vaguely follows the progression of the game. While the plot of the game was not its strongest point either (evil empire attacks and underdog wins), it did not behoove the anime to stray too far from what was established, because it worked. Furthermore, the anime's light-hearted, campy tone differed from the game, which was mostly serious broken by sweet and/or funny moments. At the same time, the majority of the anime's story focuses on overly-dramatized character interactions, whereas, the game keeps the interactions simple, yet profound. No unnecessary fluff. Perhaps my main knock against the anime storyline was its lack of cute Welkin x Alicia moments (c'mon, that was hardly a spoiler). Part of what made the game so charming and memorable was the relationship-building moments during the bite-sized cut-scenes. I had (wrongly) hoped that that adorable moments I was denied in the game due to the minimalist art direction would at least show up in full-picture during the anime; to my great disappointment, most did not cross over into the anime. Since Valkyria Chronicles is, at heart, a love story; those small, but vital moments being absent from the anime really soured the series for me. I will admit though, that the anime did two things better than the game: Zaka's appearance and Character X's death. In the game, Zaka kind of just shows up after Fouzen and is like, "Well, looks like I'm joining your squad now as a support tank!" Wait...what? At least in the anime, his transition make more sense and is smoother. Additionally, in the game, when Character X dies, there's about two scenes that deal with their death and then everyone is like, "Well, this is sad, but we still have a war to fight. Let's go." ...ouch...cold... The anime storyline does improve later in the series, but it is too little, too late. i could point out many example of divergences between the game and the anime, but that would take even longer and I don't believe it's that worth it.

Character (2/10): Okay, so this is my biggest and fiercest grievance against "Senjou no Valkyria": they screwed up the characters, completely! I usually care more about the overall plot than the characters whenever I engage in any sort of media, but Valkyria Chronicles the game is a rare exception. While certainly a classic, the underdog-beats-big-bad-empire plot line is hardly novel, but its the characters and their interactions are what make Valkyria Chronicles spectacular. I'm very critical of main characters, because it's very easy to make them generic, but I really liked game Welkin. He's a decisive, and brilliant military officer, and as a fellow 22-year-old ecologist, I thought he was extremely relateable guy. Though a LITTLE spacey and awkward, especially when entering eco-geek mode, (game) Welkin is an honest, calm, and caring man more-than-deserving of Alicia. I really respected him as the game's protagonist and consider him one of my favorites. In contrast, anime Welkin has to be one of my most hated protagonists. They greatly exaggerated the spacey and oblivious aspects of his personality, made him incredibly indecisive (which is a huge no-no for a supposed military commander/war hero), and dense. Episode 11: "Oh...I didn't notice that Alicia was cute. I just saw her as a subordinate (insert head-knock and tee-hee here)." YOU IDIOT!! In the game, we've established that you think Alicia is cute by the beginning of chapter 3 (and vice versa)! That was perhaps the most painful and inaccurate thing to watch in the anime. Ah, yes, speak of the devil (angel?): Alicia. I was greatly saddened by how they chose to portray her in the anime. As a video game character, Sgt. Alicia Melchiott is probably one of my favorites, she's a beautiful, bad-ass warrior woman who still has cute, thoughtful, and sweet aspects to her persona; when I heard that I could get more of her in anime form, I was like "YES!" But what did I (and perhaps many other fans) get instead? A generic tsundere. Okay, I confess, that the tsundere is my favorite anime girl archetype (it's n-not like I l-like it or anything, baka! SO CUTE! YES!), but Alicia is NOT one of them (or isn't supposed to be). Alicia is only hostile towards Welkin during the Prologue of the game because of the CIRCUMSTANCES; she arrests him because she thinks he's an Imperial spy. After she's convinced he's not, Alicia is nothing but warm, friendly, supportive, and sweet towards him (except when he says she's "beetle-tastic" or makes hold hold the goat excrement) because that's her personality is like. One cannot be a tsundere of circumstance; it's either part of a character's preexisting personality (perhaps influenced by circumstances) or not, and Alicia has too sweet a natural overall personality to be a tsundere. The decision to portray her in the series as a tsundere Finally, good things, (and bad things) come in three, let's get the finale of this unholy trinity: Faldio. He seemed like a fairly okay and chill sort of fellow in the game, but aside from plot-related stuff, he didn't factor into the story much. In the anime, though, he plays a much more prominent role, and not in a good way. Once again, they took a minor aspect of his personality, which is only mentioned in his personal file, and blew it out of proportion. Yes, the game says he a flirt with the ladies, but he NEVER hits on Alicia, EVER. Hell, that is not even implied at any point during the story; Alicia is Welkin's girl from day one and Faldio is enough of a bro to respect that boundary (of course, game Welkin isn't a blithering baka either). Instead, in the anime, they focus the majority of the story on this tired love-triangle trope and push this weird Alicia x Faldio development and the rivalry that ensues between him and Welkin because of it, effectively reducing one of the best video game romances (and possibly one of the best fantasy romances) to nothing more than cheap, generic, angsty drama! NO, THAT IS NOT OKAY!! Everyone else I don't even care enough to comment on. Oscar was kind of cool though.

Enjoyment (2/10): I know that when watching an anime is feels like chore, I'm not enjoying it. I trusted the words of the friend who recommended it to me and kept hoping it would get better, but that hope was in vain. If I haven't already made it clear why I think "Senjou no Valkyria" was not enjoyable, then I think you, dear reader, have missed the point of everything I have said up until now.

Overall (4/10): Most disappointing, and a waste of my time. You know an anime is bad when its best aspects are its art and music. Yes, I knew the anime was going to be at least somewhat different from the game, but I was unprepared for discrepancies of this magnitude. Even as I tried (I really did) to not compare it to the game, "Senjou no Valkyria", as a stand-alone anime series is, at best, mediocre. If you are a fan of the game, I would strongly urge to not watch this anime, as you may be as disappointed as I was. Sega and Sony are surely not lacking in monetary resources, so they had every means at their disposal to make "Senjou no Valkyria" something truly amazing as an anime, perhaps even better than the game. Instead, as a fan of Valkyria Chronicles, the result greatly pained me. That is why, dear reader, I spent two hours longer of my life on this sad excuse for anime adaptation of a fantastic game so that you, dear reader, can avoid falling into the same trap that I did. I can only pray that my words do not fall upon deaf ears (eyes?)...and that you even bothered to read this far (which if you, you are to be commended, thanks :D). If you truly want to experience the splendor, and awl, and absolute adorableness that IS Valkyria Chronicles, don't subject yourself to this anime. Instead, play the game, because you, dear reader, deserve better than this.

One of the more garbage anime I have ever watched. Unbelievable that the top 2 rated reviews are 10's. I wanted to stab myself with a writhing swordfish and vomit blood everytime the estrogen for brains MC showed his lack of testicular fortitude.

I'll start with the story. The story is awful. I didn't play the PS3 game so I'm not going to judge this through any biased lense, nor am I going to necesarilly blame the animators if they were just sticking with the source material, but trash is trash no matter how much you sugar coat it with Alicia's subtle yet blazing hot zettai ... ryuoiki. The premise is basically just a highly fictionalized version of WW2 where darcsens = jews. Most of the plot developments are highly predictable cliche scenarios, ie: corrupt superiors and war time violence. Nothing is wrong with this, troupes and genericism are fine in my book if the execution is good, sadly the execution in Valkyria Chronicles is essentially analogous to dying horribly of starvation and disease in a concentration camp which ironically enough is literally a partial description of this anime's shambles of a plot. Without spoiling, the WW2 parallels get thrown out the window a little over halfway through and this somehow devolves into a more cliched ridiculous pisstake than it already was.

The art is okay. I say that because the art style itself is very good in my opinion. Alicia and Selvaria are so cute my pocket rocket does a shaft neck tilt every time one of them gets a second of screentime. The character designs as a whole are a strong point in this anime, but thats pretty much all I can say thats good about the art. The animation quality is decent, but very poor during the action scenes. I actually spit out my drink at one sequence during a later episode that looked straight out of MS Paint. The backgrounds were boring but okay for the most part. Also there was this stupid shading pattern that looked like random streaks they used which served no purpose whatsover except to make it look like they actually did something unique and admirable in the animation style. really pissed me off and made me lightly cut my wrist a few times. Overall the art is pretty bad and makes u want to gougue your eyes out like everything else in this anime.

The sound was largely trash and by trash I mean decent material. Both OP's were okay & both ED's were okay. Nothing standout but at least it didn't make me want to jump off a cliff like the recycle bin storytelling. It had a generic video game/action flick soundtrack during the actual epsiodes, so basically just trash.

The characters were the equivalent of ur neighbor's kid taking a voracious dump on your porch and I mean that in the most detestable way possible. The only reason its not a 1 is because the invading antagonists were actually pretty interesting characters up until the end where they all devolved into cliche riddled wank-stains. Our MC here, Welkin, is probably the worst MC of all time in any medium. He's a total softy and continually fails to do anything heroic or respectable beyond the most intrinsic required level of MC heroism. He acts like the corrupt military's lapdog and does everything in his power to cower out of the romance plotline. bruh literally tried to get friendzoned. he also gets finessed at every turn & this trash heap of an anime tries to frame it admirably ike being a babyback bitch is actually a redeemable quality. Ignoring the MC (which is impossibru because hes the MC lol), the characters are mostly stale one-note token characters. These issues become exponentially more prevalent when whatever edgefest overlord wrote this story reveals his fetish for "permanent consequences" for some of the more interesting characters in the show, which I won't elaborate any more on to avoid spoilers. basically the characters made me want to kill myself in a number of ways. Also the facial expressions were absurdly predictable, moreso than in any other anime I've seen. So yeah characters are truly awful in this anime - 0/10.

Enjoyment? Whats that? Never heard of it, or maybe im suffering temporary trash-induced amnesia because enjoyment seems like a foreign concept at the moment. i dont know how else to word it, but this anime is trash. if you want to watch an anime that makes u want to carve out your own heart with a steak knife than Valkyria Chronicles is the anime for you.

Overall this anime is complete trash i give it a -4/10 but MAL forces you to use absolute values so 4/10 aka it sucks!

Valkyria Chronicles (The PS3 game which is the source material of the anime) is a piece of art with it's immersive storytelling, humane and multi-dimensional representation of the main, and a certain part of the secondary cast of characters, and with it's subtle way of conveying about the ""two sides of the coin", portraying the lack of solid difference between the warring factions of your ordinary soldier on either sides, all displayed on a background, unraveling the war-torn, even if fictional world of Europa.

And despite it's interesting premise, the anime adaptation of that material "Senjou no Valkyria", crashes down in all ... the beforementioned highlights, which made this franchise different from the other similar ones, shoving in our face chewed up, and weirdly twisted story, altered with too much plot-holes, one dimensional characters, bearing resemblance to the original cast, but having their definitive traits hyperbolized to, in the most cases, abnormal and absurd scales. In the same way, the flow of the storyline in the source material, with it's ebbs and flows of relaxing adventures, followed by relatable and well-written personal struggles and political conflicts, from various perespectives is smashed up with the anime adaptation's almost seemingly two distinctive parts - the first episodes, giving you feel of watching teen rom-com with seemingly zero interest of the characters upon the current problems of the war (while it's assumed they're army recruits) and the second part, very hard trying to be more mature and serious, which by itself is step in the right direction, but in the current case, trying to build up tension and feeling of relateableness with the beforementioned "haapy go lucky" portrayal of the characters, which are dwarfed to the well-known archetypes (the Tsundere, the overly generic main character, the third wheel in the romance) is plain tragic to watch, and it also feels very awkward at times.

One of the important messages of the source material was, by showing us the sorrows and the horrors of the war, seen from the point of the common soldier, combined with his own personal struggles, reshapes his perception of right and wrong, but in the same time, by being in touch with his dreams and wishes, gives him will to prevail and move forward, which could also be an inspiration for us as well in our own lives.On the other hand, the major focus of the anime was mostly about the romantic relationships, and the unwavering unity of the squad, aka "Friendship Power" which sounds much more cheesy than developing actual plot and clever tactical strategies to outmaneuver and outwit their opponents, which makes any feeling of actual gritty combat non-existent in the anime. An also, the romantic aspect (which is one of the main themes here, it seems) is very poorly and unoriginally executed.

There is overall character development, but it's far from realistic and mostly relying on tropes, with the sole exclusion of Faldio, who gets far more screentime than in the source material, and he has his own developed story, which is a small breath of fresh air considering the others. The other good sides of the anime are the art and it's sound, although they're not really lifesaving for this adaptation in my opinion, since the story and character departments are handled horrible and almost parodically.

To summarize my thoughts - Senjou no Valkyria is not horrible anime by itself, although it's quite generic and average by any standards, which had great potential, if the source material was handled well, to be one of the best animes, depicting the feelings of hope and despair in wartime, which instead decided to be this light-hearted, bright-coloured goofy action which is good for killing time, but oblivious in any other serious aspect.

(I am about halfway through the series as I cannot get myself to enduring more episodes, but if I finish it and my opinion changed I will update this review.)

This anime is based on the game "Valkyria Chronicles", which I personally really liked. Now the series deals with the same story as the game and starts off with much potential, the art style also stays true to the original.

BUT: sadly, this does not keep up.

The anime has much more unnecessary fanservice, random anime clichées are thrown in which the game did not have, some characters act completely different than in the game (Alicia suddenly became ... a Super Tsundere, and sadly that's not all that has changed).
Further, in addition to the original romance subplot, several other romances are inserted without much thought and they seem totally out of place. I mean, they made one character a love rival (in the series he had no romantic interests at all!!!), just to make the relationships more "intersting". They became more ridiculous, that's all.
Some plot elements are also altered. I know it's not easy to make a series based on a game, but most changes were not necessary.



To conclude, it is REALLY REALLY hard to watch this if you liked the game and impossible to take it seriously (they even inserted a panty joke).
I would not recommend this for anyone. If you want to enjoy a good story, play the game.

Valkyria Chronicles like so many game adaptation anime suffers from plot holes, pacing problems and underdeveloped characters. I never played the RPG and evaluate this as anime first.

Story - 3:

An alternate timeline setting that somewhat resembles WWII Europe and lost civilization quickly spikes the interest of the viewers. And just as fast causes confusion for everyone who haven't played the game. Series makes huge leaps from one development to the next, never truly uncovering the desired depth of the story line. This is the plague that haunts game adaption anime time and time again. You don't get the gradual exposure to the story line like ... you would by progressing through hours and hours of gameplay. Instead it stretches into 24 episode of unnecessary fillers followed by rushed 4 episode ending which is forced so much that 20 episodes that came before it appear irrelevant.

Art - 8:

For 2009 the art is incredible. The color palette is well balanced and creates realistic feel the studio obviously aimed for.

Sound - 3:

Voice acting and soundtrack felt like an afterthought the entire series. Just a few days after finishing the series, I second guess myself if there really was any sountrack to begin with and voice acting is so bland you can hardly remember what each character sounded like.

Characters - 1:

One of the most irritable MC's ever. Full of herself Alicia under the impression that the world revolves solely around her, and denser than a diamond Welkin who took 24 episodes to arrive at the most predictable outcome. Supporting cast is so bleak you will not remember any of them after a week. Most, if not all, the characters are very frustrating and one dimensional. Even key roles are underdeveloped, forced, cliche and frankly have 0 impact on the story as a whole.

Enjoyment - 3:

The series were unnecessarily long, not justifying the time invested in 24 episodes. It would have been a better fit for a short 12 episode show. Past episode 5 you start to wonder if there is a meaning behind short side-stories presented in rapid succession, but realize that it would have been better to skip to episode 21 and wrap up the series. Never truly understanding the point of those 20 episodes in between. But it is once again the downfall of all the game adaptation anime.

TL:DR;

Overall - 3:

Unless you ran out of anime to watch I would not recommend wasting your time on this series. Just go ahead and play the game, judging from all the reviews it is a very good title and I'm sure it tells the story in a better manner than the anime.

Godawful adaptation. The original game is great, and a borderline masterpiece from an art direction and character writing standpoint. Go play / watch that instead.

Issues with the anime, in a nutshell:
[*] butchers the art style; Alicia in particular looks very off model
[*] utterly butchers the original characters and overall writing / tone – the original actually felt like a bunch of anime-ish young people that ended up in fantasy WW2; this does not, and undersells the qualifications and training that Welkin et al had to, probably, make this feel more like a "relatable" shinji-fell-in-a-robot type story to young japanese people
[*] turns Alicia into a tsundere, ... and butchers most of her original characterization
[*] reportedly (note: I haven't actually seen this, but according to other reviews) completely glosses / omits over some of the critical darksens + empire / nazi germany scenes from the game. There were only a few of these scenes in the game, and was pretty subtle, but was one of the better depictions from the perspective of a frontline soldier of a holocaust-analogue (and "work in progress") in popular fiction. Absolutely shameful, but then again not surprising, that they would remove most of that here.
[*] if the original was anime-ish, THIS anime is chock-full of the absolute worst anime tropes (eg. "fanservice"), and is an awful desecration / "reinterpretation" of the original source material: even if most of the major plot points are similar, they're not necessarily executed well, and the character and writing improvements are very specific and are NOT an improvement. If there's anything in particular that could be said is often wrong with modern anime as a medium (and target audience, specifically) this is it, in a nutshell
[*] A1 is capable of great work, so they have no excuse whatsoever (although judging this in the light of later, excellent works, like 86, might be a bit unfair)

Overall, avoid. This is hardly the worst anime ever made, to be clear (and clearly, probably, took quite a bit of work to actually make) – but it's an awful handling / reinterpretation of the original source material, and it'd be an utter shame if anyone saw this first and got an awful (or at least mediocre) impression of the source material as such.

If you want a (great) experience of this, go pick it up and play the original game off steam instead.

The fact that the original game basically flopped in Japan (probably in large part because the game is very western-focused, and japanese audiences seem to apparently not be interested in a band-of-brothers style story about fantasy WW2), is basically why we can't have nice things. This anime, and for that matter valkyria 2 / 3, is as much a part of the problem here as anything else.

(though if you want a great anime to watch, also made by A1, see 86 – it's a much darker take on a similar-ish WW2-inspired premise (with a romance subplot), and I'd be VERY surprised if the author wasn't at least partially inspired / influenced by the Valkyria Chronicles game, among other things)

[3/10] Overall
[4/10] Art + animation (points deducted for off model character designs, specifically Alicia and the fact that Isara has stupidly large anime eyes for some reason in this – and the fact that all tanks here seem to die in a single shot, and the Eidelweiss is portrayed as a super-tank (which it is not), and has utterly ridiculous handling + speed in the anime for a tank that size / weight (again, portrayed perfectly fine in the video game))
[3/10] Music + sound design (almost exclusively uses game soundtracks, and doesn't necessarily use / edit them well; decently good OP)
[0/10] Writing (I don't care if this anime "expands" on the original's world building; the anime's take on many if not all of the game's characters is utter dogshit, to say the least, and the plot / story changes don't improve the original's (barebones) writing, at all)

Addendum: the original game has a FANTASTIC english voice cast, and should put a lie to the idea that anime can't have good / great dubs as well, if funded (and directed, and integrated + planned for) appropriately. The anime obviously is japanese only (and uses the same cast as the game), but I would actually argue that that's to its detriment, since the english VAs actually had a much better and more nuanced take on the original characters, imo

Overall, very late take on an old anime + game, but that's my 2c

I'm sorry but this anime is shit. It started out good but ended on a sour note. I'm really disappointed since i read the reviews of others and 7.6 is a good score. but it was just a waste of time. Alicia is just the worst. She is such a brat and a drama queen. I couldn't understand her character. The MC was decent, if the anime went into a strategical military type of anime it would've turned out great, but no, it went into fantasy and magic lasers. Honestly why even bother with strategies when one character is overpowered enough to overthrow a ... country. Should have a fantasy, Sci-fi tag in there. And also Dementia because this anime made me crazy.

one of the worst shows i have ever seen i expected a gritty show about totally not ww2 but what i got instead is a incredibly cheesy and generic love story instead of a show about war if you whould remove the terrible romance part and focus more on the actual war this show whould be much much better thats why im only giving it a 1 /10

it really did have potential but it sadly failed in that department and i could swear that i fell asleep a few times. definitely one of the few if not the only anime that i outright hate and ... despise