Tales of Zestiria the X Episode 1: [Capital of Seraphim]

 So technically this is the second episode of Tales of Zestiria that aired this season but I decided to go with the Anime’s way of naming things. The first episode was the episode 0 so here we are, episode 1. 

After losing her friends, witnessing the death of that irrelevant kid and the awakening of the dragon, Alisha ends up taking shelter for the night in some ruins. The next morning, she finds some murals on the legend of the Shepherd. She’s quite happy about it because she’s like most of the cast: a big ruin nerd. It is good to have a little explanation of the Legend of the Shepherd though… I guess things must have been confusing for only anime viewers so far.  I cannot image how lost they were… since I was pretty lost myself during the episode 0. So basically, the Shepherd saves the world with the help of the seraphs, some sort of spirits. I think that’s it, I don’t want to say much since I’m afraid I might spoil the anime a bit.

There’s a little cat thing, some sort of cute mascot which protects her from the cockroaches invasion. Ewww… cockroaches… I despise them… There’s a few hints that could help us understand who is that cat thing and its relevance to the story but I guess that will be spoilers to say it so I’ll try to contain myself on this one.
So Alisha breaks the wall to escape, then there’s some water stuff and then she falls from really high. Normally such fall would have killed her but I guess her armor is well made and protects her from irrelevant and annoying things like gravity.

But anyway, she arrives in a garden, sees the symbol of the Shepherd on a rock and for some reason the rock starts to move on its own.  Then it shines and opens some sort of gate to another temple. Why did the symbol reacted to her? … I have no answers, sorry.

Next scene is Sorey doing parkour on some elevated rocks.

FINALLY!
HEY!

I almost screamed when I saw this little brunette jumping.  MA BOY SOREY! But if there is Sorey, it only means that Mikleo is close. AND HE’S HERE!

AL HAIL TO THE GLORY OF MEEBO MILKY BOY MIKLEO!

AAAAH I’m happy, I’m really happy.
If only you could see my face right now, there’s a big smile on it.
A really big smile, almost reaching my ears.

Those two gay nerds are trying to find some ruins to explore but the dude they call “Gramps” is trying to dissuade them. I did not find his reasons particularly relevant so I forgot them sorry… But anyway, the ruins our main characters are trying to reach are supposed to be the capital of the Seraphim, place where before, humans and seraphs were able to communicate with each others, thanks to some gifted people, assuring communication between the two species. Everything is written in the Celestia record, the same book Alisha is carrying around and crazy about. Sorey is crazy about that book too, I told you, the main cast are ruin addicts.

Because the two dorks are too curious they decide to go to the ruins against their Jiji’s will. They also plan on doing a little race between them to find out who’s going to be the first there and this is where we can start linking the episode to the OVA.  At this point, they put some scenes straight out the OVA and I’m not sure if they reused some of them completely or if they redraw the whole thing.

There you go , I made a little comparison picture:

It seems that even if the voice acting changed a bit (especially Sorey) some shots are awfully similar… huuummm… I’m not suuuure… A part of me still wants to believe that they didn’t reuse the same shots… But did they? Maybe they just changed the lightning hoping nobody will notice? If you know, feel free to tell me.

Anyway, with all that same shots or not thing,  I’ve noticed that they cut some rather importants parts such as:

Mikleo’s smug face.
I don’t know if I can forgive them…
This is something you CANNOT cut. 

Bu anyway, there’s some lighting bolts and a storm begins. Inside the ruins, the floor where Alisha was standing is struck by a lighting bolt so she falls. Same with the main dorks who arrive inside the ruins too. They quickly spot Alisha lying on the ground and because of Sorey’s insistance they decide to go and help her.
Then, there’s a cliffhanger with Alisha asking if Sorey is a shepherd or not. Now that part is different from the game. From what I’ve heard, the anime is going to take a different route and not follow the game so much. Which can be a good thing, or a not so good thing. Time will tell us.

I’m not so sure about the changes from the OVA they made in this episode. Sure they wanted the whole thing to look a bit different from the OVA but did Ufotabe make those changes relevant? Heh… not so much. It can be argued that this extended version of the OVA gave us a fresh look by changing the viewpoint and thus developing Alisha’s character a bit more but in reality, we did not learn anything from seeing Alisha being afraid of lighting bolts and cockroaches. Also they cut the spider fight from the OVA, making this episode a bit actionless compared to its predecessor. But everything is just my filthy fan girl opinion though, I am more attached to the boyz than to Alisha (mostly because she wasn’t very developed in the game) so I guess it can explains why I did not care very much about seeing Alisha being afraid of things. On the other hand, I appreciated those extra scenes between Sorey and Mikleo being really close “friends”. And don’t think I did not see you Sorey, putting your hand on Mikleo’s sweet hips like dat. I see everything… EVERY-THING.

I think for those who watched the OVA, this episode did not bring anything new to the story but offered us some extra scenes which is a nice compensation. After all, I consider the OVA to be a really good one so if they took some scenes from it… it only makes the episode good too right? A bit déjà-vu but still good. Although I’m still worried about Ufotable reusing the same shots from 2 years ago.

So overall I wasn’t bored while watching this episode and had quite a lot  fun trying to point out which scenes from the OVA they used twice. Also, I finally got my Mikleo scenes so I’m not going to complain today. I’m too happy for that.
I’ve also changed my mind about the Opening, after listening to it a few times, I’ll say this OP is pure fire. Still not as good as White light but it’s easily my favorite Opening for this season. I showed it to my brothers, one liked it and the other one didn’t. He’s the same one who dislikes D. Gray man… I guess he can say goodbye to his inheritance, he’s not going to earn a single Kopeck from me.

But hey yo, that use of the game skits to make a little funny preview was amazing. That’s really inventive and a nice reference for the game players. And their talk? “How do you speak to girls?” By being cool a Tsundere? EXACTLY MIKLEO! THAT’S HOW ITS DONE!
I must say, Sorey and Mikleo are a good comic duo, it always works on me. I loved the skits from the game, I think they are quite entertaining and if we can get more of them at the end of each episode? Hell yes! Give me all the skits. I can wait to see more of them, especially the Mikleo/Edna ones, those were my favorites in the game.