Back to CloudyBrains's Profile CloudyBrains's Profile

The best way to explain FF:U's situation is this; it's not as bad as it may be made out to look, in fact a good story *is* there, but it does suffer from a lot of outside issues that hurt its production. See how the anime stops at 25 episodes? It was originally supposed to be about 50, with the ending actually being just about the halfway point, but had to be cut due to multiple budget cuts. There are published versions of the rest in the form of light novels, but none have been officially translated. That, and it's an FF anime in the ... way other FF games are tied together - recurring creatures, a mechanic named Cid, a few notable pieces of music, and a couple other misc features. Do not go into the series under the thought process that it's just like the games, because it's a completely separate medium.

If one can look past these things, and without going into story details, it's more or less remnants of a project that probably would have done a lot better if the creators of it were given the means to do so. The music has a unique feel to it, and while the animation can be rough (especially early on) in some parts, there are others later that look quite nice. Things are really rushed in the last few episodes due to the mentioned budget cuts forcing them to find a half-decent stopping point, but it's a fairly simple series to pick up and put down whenever since the first half is more episodic while the latter half is more serialized like a typical anime. It's fairly dark for what you might think as an FF anime, but subtly so. A lot of it comes from reading in between the lines and might not be apparent immediately.

You'll probably be able to enjoy it for what it is if none of the circumstances surrounding its creation bothers you and you go in without expecting it to be like an FF game. Personally, I love it with flaws and all, but not everyone will. Give it a shot, enjoy it if you want to and move on if you don't. It has some problems, but they're more a result of unfortunate circumstances than they are anything else.