Tales of Zestiria the X Episode 0: [Prologue-The Age of Chaos][First Impressions]

Yes! I was really waiting for this one.

The episode begins with Princess Alisha exploring some antic ruins and discovering some painted roks linked to the legend of the Shepherd. She mentions the Celestia record, a book where all those tales are compiled. It’s quite a shame they don’t explain the legend in further details but I have strong hopes  they’ll do it later.
While there’s some sort of festival going on in the main city, Lady Lake, some people are concerned by the apparition of strange phenomenons all around the land. Especially a threatening dark cloud which doesn’t seem to disappear with time. So the Princess sends one of her guards, Clem, to investigate, but two weeks later she’s still not back.

On their way to somewhere, Alisha and her gang get attacked by some bandits and after an epic fight one of the bandits transforms into some sort of Fox vampire… I’ll call him Fox guy for the moment.

Because Clem still hasn’t come back and nobody knows what the heck is going on with the land, they decide to go look for her.  On their way to find her, they discover that the land is ravaged and everything seems dead. There’s also a kid, but I doubt she will be relevant to the story, and kids are lame anyway.
So they finally find Clem but there’s a big tornado so they have to run, leaving the professor dude inside the cave he went down. Speaking of the professor guy, he finds finds some sort of Blue water which turns into black smoke inside that cave. In the meantime Clem explains that if the world is starting to be really shit it’s because the balance between forces of nature is disrupted, so that’s not very cool. Plus, there’s also a dragon who’s now awake and the tornado keeps getting stronger and stronger, eventually taking the life of Alisha’s soldiers. In other words, thing sucks.

Then a Dark Loli appears for no real reason and the Fox guy too. Fox guy wants to fight Dark Loli because he’s crazy so they fight. Meanwhile Clem dies and Alisha doesn’t understand what’s going on in front of her ( Like me).

Now that all of her friends are probably dead, Alisha is a bit lost and walks in an abandoned village, I presume. There, she meets with that irrelevant kid who dies because of the tornado. Heh, I told you, kids are useless. Finally the Dragon appears and the END.

Well, that was confusing… A lot of things happened but still, this episode felt too short. I want more!

Charibo’s first Impressions:

I am biased

Tales of Zestiria is the only opus of the Tales Franchise that I know. Because I had nothing better to do last year, I watched some let’s plays of the game so I kind of already know the story. Now, I know a lot of the Tales Franchise’s fans don’t really like Zestiria for various reasons but that’s not my case. Mainly because: I don’t know the other games and I haven’t watched their adaptations so yeah…. Tales of Zestria is the only one I know.
I’ve also seen the 40 minutes OVA, Tales of Zestiria: Doushi no Yoake (which I recommend) and I’m even reading the mango Tales of Zestiria: Michibiki no Toki , well only 4 chapters have been released but yeah… I read them. That’s how familiar I am with the Zestria and knowing my memory, I’ve probably already forgot what happened at the end of Zestiria… At least I won’t be able to spoil anyone now.

Now as for the episode in itself, it was… unexpected? I certainly did not think they would focus the action on Alisha. Well, that’s a good choice I think, I don’t recall Alisha getting much screen time in the games so if they can correct that in the anime that’s good.
To me, this episode was a bit messy and rushed. We got a bit too much infos in the first ten minutes and the second part of the episode left me: What the hell is happening? But I guess they wanted to introduce most of the background story in that prologue episode before starting the main story line. But that two week jump at the beginning without any warning? Uh, not sure I like that. You want what else I did not like?

No Mikleo

Where’s my Mikleo?

Hey yo, I signed up for this because of Mikleo.
WHERE’S MY MAN?!

Nah, I’m joking, or not… As you might have noticed I’m slightly obsessed with Mikleo, simply because he’s one of my favorite characters ever. Yeah, I know…  I’m he worst. But anyway, I guess it makes sense  not to show him nor Sorey since this episode is supposed to be the Prologue. So I guess next week they’ll show us the meeting between Alisha and the main guys. Are they going to redo the OVA then? Show some different scenes? I hope they will.

The Opening is nice. I like FLOW, well at least, I like their openings. Everybody keeps on talking about Colors but I’ll stay true to Kibou no Uta. But anyway, I still think the Japanese Opening of the Game is better, even if honestly it’s not really surprising, the OP for the Game is just… see for yourself:  ♫♫♫♫

But yeah, the Opening is fine enough. While listening to it I thought: Hey! Is that some cornemuse in the background? Did FLOW thought: “Hey! It’s a story about a shepherd, let’s put some cornemuse, that’s the instruments shepherds are using when they are guarding sheep right?”. 

Now, the music in this episode was A+++, everything that I like, I’m a sucker for epic soundtracks so of course I was delighted with the music choice here.
As expected the Art is breathtaking, it’s just… wow… The little fight scene between Alisha and the bandits was epic and the Storm chase too, Ufotable really outdid themselves on this one. I wonder how much they spent on this episode …

I’m a bit worried about that Berseria Crossover though. The Opening sequence showed us Velvet, the main character of Berseria so I really hope it’s not  going to be a pure “marketing anime” only here to sell the upcoming game. Please make this character relevant to the story.
The pacing is another of my worries, based on what I’ve heard it’s going to be a 2 cours show with a second season in Winter. Maybe they are going to put the Berseria crossover in the second season while the first one will adapt the Zestria’s story? Or maybe they are going with a complete different story? I don’t know, I’m a bit lost but I sure want to see how things are going to turn out.

I might too pessimistic for a first episode but I’m really hoping this anime will turn how to be good and if not, at least decent. But to me, it looks like Ufotable is trying to correct some of the game’s flaws so heh, I want to be optimistic on this one. Overall this was a fine first episode, nothing too remarquable but no major flaws that needed to be pointed out. It definitely left me more enthusiastic than I originally was.

Also give me more Mikleo
More Mikleoooooooooo

Probability of Watching:  Of course.
Probability of Blogging: I want to see how this is going to turn out.