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Tales of Zestira the X (TV).


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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
Posts: 11762
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PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 12:24 am Reply with quote


Tales of Zestira the X

Genres: Fantasy
Themes:

Plot Summary: The story follows Sorey, a young man blessed with powers by a mystical spirit race known as the Seraphim who act as a stabilizing force in the land, as he travels to free the land of Glenwood from the threat of the Hellion, creatures spawned by negative emotions.

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuq5IXETA00&feature=youtu.be
----------------------------------

I remember watching the OVA special awhile ago and thought was neat that almost felt like it was a movie. It’s also adapted by Ufotable, a studio known for its strong production visuals. Looking forward to this one for sure.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
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PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 10:02 am Reply with quote
So is this going to be a straight adaptation of the game? Or maybe some sort or side story of spin off. I have yet to play the game as my backlog is too big (still have Vesperia, Xillia, Xillia 2, and Hearts to play) so if it's a side story I'd have to skip it.
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Dessa



Joined: 14 Jul 2004
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PostPosted: Sun May 01, 2016 11:02 am Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
So is this going to be a straight adaptation of the game? Or maybe some sort or side story of spin off. I have yet to play the game as my backlog is too big (still have Vesperia, Xillia, Xillia 2, and Hearts to play) so if it's a side story I'd have to skip it.


From the poster, and from what little information we've gotten before, it's supposed to involve more than just Zestiria. "The Journeys of the Shepherd go beyond Zestiria." However, from the image, it can't take place after Zestiria, unless there's some shenanigans going on.
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Vaisaga



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PostPosted: Wed Jun 29, 2016 6:41 am Reply with quote
So I've heard what happens in the first 4 episodes and I was quite happy to learn that they seem to be taking efforts to address all the things people hated about the game. For instance episode 1 spoiler[is all about Alisha.]. Also the "Cross" in the title apparently refers to spoiler[it crossing over with Berseria, as Velvet is in the opening.]

Quite a few things have changed, so if you've seen the prior TV special that doesn't mean you can skip the first few episodes.
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Stark700



Joined: 30 Jan 2012
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 10:20 am Reply with quote
Episode 1 (prologue):

Decent start, the story feels kinda confusing but I like the amount of technical effort Ufotable put in for the animation and music. In the meantime, seems like Sorey hasn't been introduced just yet.

Alisha seems to be more of the main focus for now while tragedy strikes with some weird mist against Clemm and the others. I hope the story is explained better as it feels like there's a lot happening for now. Looking forward to more though.
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Dessa



Joined: 14 Jul 2004
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 1:27 pm Reply with quote
Got some mixed feelings on this. Not bad, but mixed.

First off, apparently Daisuki is doing a week delay for the US. And funimation is making up their own translations for terminology, instead of using the game's (Daisuki's matches the game). If funi doesn't fix theirs for the home release, that may be a deal-breaker for me.

Secondly, the animation. It's beautiful, of course, being ufotable, but especially during the fight, it was a bit hard to tell what was going on.

Now, of course, we have the events of the episode, what it reveals, and how it relates to the events of the game.

I love Zesty. I know some people didn't like it, for various reasons, but I love Zesty. I wasn't sure until the end, but it managed to bump Abyss down out of my #1 Tales game spot, something I wasn't expecting any game to do. And Abyss' anime was wonderful. Some things were changed/condensed/skipped, but it stayed true to story, characters, and feel of the game. I'm expecting no less from Zesty the X.

So we start out with new content that's not in, nor mentioned in, the game. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it's fleshing out Alisha's character and backstory, something that was lacking a bit in the game.

We begin with Alisha investigating the ruins of a village that was destroyed by tornadoes. In the game, there are many such ruins that you find (though the cause of the destruction isn't revealed for most of them), so this works. We're introduced to her interest in the Celestial Records, and her hope for a Shepherd. One thing I found interesting, in the anime, is that it seemed that while Alisha hoped for a Shepherd to appear, and had pressed for the Holy Sword Festival, she didn't necessarily believe. This works well with her character in the game, especially early on.

That being said, there's a few things that seemed to contradict either itself, or the game. The first one, and most important, was spoiler[when Lunarre attacked her. It appeared that when Lunarre became a Hellion, Alisha could see it happening. This directly contradicts the game, as only Seraphs, and people with high spiritual power can see Hellions for what they are, and that Alisha, with whom it's a plot point that she cannot, should only see the man that he originally was. This also comes into play with the mist, the malevolence in the ravine, and dragon, as they fall under the same rules as Hellions.]

Where X contradicted itself was with this supposed "forest." When we were first coming upon the village, it appeared that there was a forest just to the other side of the village. Yet, when we're supposed to go to the forest... there's a huge area with giant ravines, and no trees? That just didn't make sense.

Finally, I want to touch on the fight between spoiler[Lunarre] and spoiler[Symonne]. I greatly approve of spoiler[Symonne] showing up so early, it'll give more time for character development, something she was sorely lacking in the game. It also seemed that she was planning on spoiler[killing Alisha to cause despair, which would lead to malevolence]. Or, at least, this is the only thing that makes sense, based on the game. Why she fought spoiler[Lunarre] makes no sense to me, though. We know from the scene earlier and from the game that he's trying to assassinate Alisha, so it makes sense that he would follow, but not why he'd fight spoiler[Symonne].

And, of course, we have the opening. Pretty standard, and I'm impressed that they opted to not spoiler[show Rose's Armatization], usually there's tons of spoilers in the opening. Did find it interesting that they only showed Sorey's Armatization with Mikleo (my preference, personally), and none of the others. And it'll be interesting to see how Velvet is mixed into play. I have some theories, but I'm not sure.

spoiler[In the game, you learn that while some Seraph are born that way, others are humans who have died. It is possible that Velvet became a Seraph after her death, and that she joins the party in that capacity, or at least they meet her like that.] Alternatively, it could be that spoiler[they find an Iris Gem with story for her. This could also have story from other games as well]. Not knowing much about Berseria, these are the only things that makes sense to me, barring time travel.


Overall, I enjoyed the episode, and am looking forward to next week's. The series is going to be 25 episodes (13 in Summer, 12 in Winter), so it'll be tight, and much will be cut, but it seems that it'll work. I'll try to see what I can figure out for estimations on how things will line up, and I'll post that once I figure it out.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 2:02 pm Reply with quote
Dessa wrote:
We know from the scene earlier and from the game that he's trying to assassinate Alisha, so it makes sense that he would follow, but not why he'd fight spoiler[Symonne].


Pretty standard "I won't allow anyone else to kill you" stuff.

Dessa wrote:
I'll try to see what I can figure out for estimations on how things will line up, and I'll post that once I figure it out.


You probably shouldn't. Some people get super testy when source material info is posted in these anime threads.

For this episode, boy is Alisha having a bad day. And ufotable is blowing its load everywhere as usual. Hopefully since it's split cour they'll be able to keep up. I don't want it turning out like God Eater.
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DuskyPredator



Joined: 10 Mar 2009
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PostPosted: Sun Jul 03, 2016 10:36 pm Reply with quote
Episode 1

I am not familiar with anything from the franchise, so no spoilers guys. A little busy and or chaotic first episode, a little hard to follow in places but I get the general idea. But man does this look good, like top tier good. Like look at how it handled large crowds, the CG background may have looked a little low in details like rocky formations with that sweeping spot, but it just popped with all the little people walking around in a way that did not look messy like other CG people in crowds, almost like you could think of them as more standard 2D images, with added shadows too.

The character designs in general seemed top pop in most of the varied scenes. Most strikingly half way through where we had effects like the tornado and all the reds along with a few of the blues. When the tornado first started to hit the rock it did look a bit stilted, but as the layers of rocks pulled off it looked really good. The episode ended on a pretty dark note, I am interested to see where it will go from here,
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Animegomaniac



Joined: 16 Feb 2012
Posts: 4070
PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 10:05 am Reply with quote
So this is really is ufotable? I was just guessing that while watching it as it had the same miserable fighting style I saw in UBW. Fights are not literally flashy you know... They need to check Jubei chan or other Daichi works to figure out how to animate visceral sword/basic martial arts fights. It's actual simulated movement, not simulated movements that works... Uh, wait...

Ok, the more frames you do, the more real it looks. The more frames you take out... or replace with "afterimages"... the more fake it looks. "Oh, cool!" versus actual awesomeness.

Also, I discovered a new color; Brown gray... or is it greyish brown... which I'll call brey. That storm was just full of brey. In fact, there were a few shots that were nothing but brey and a line forming the horizon.

I had no idea what was going on and I did not care but I did laugh a few times. Like when that sudden girl was suddenly sucked up by that sudden tornado... or about that certain martial weapon put into that block of something by that female gendered being of that unnamed body of water.

Ufotable; Well, when you got a cash cow, milk it until it runs dry.

Last word: Clemm. Clemm? Clemm!!!
Rating: Urg. I think that's a number, right? Fit for another ufotable series with an unnecessary Episode 0. No, I'm sorry, Episode 00. Urg. Sounds about right, I think it's the sound I made when I saw the "Episode 00" title screen at the end.

Last minute realization: Prologue #00? So it can't be Prologue #1 or even Prologue #0 but 00? And there's going to be four of these? This one could be summed up as a two sentence dialogue exposition: "Something we don't understand happened which we checked out. Bad move as a lot of us died as more things we didn't understand happened."

So it's going to be UBW two 45 minute prologues followed by a single episode "sum up" all over again? I know what the "urg" meant now. An involuntary gag reflex...
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 11:46 am Reply with quote
No, next week will be episode 1 proper. It'll cover what the previous TV movie did, but I've heard there's plenty of changes.
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Cam0



Joined: 13 Dec 2009
Posts: 4884
PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 1:28 pm Reply with quote
I'm not really all that sure what to think about this episode. So much stuff going on, but with no knowledge about the plot, characters or the world, none of it really much sense.

BTW is there a typo in the thread title? I think an "i" is missing. Zestiria

Vaisaga wrote:
And ufotable is blowing its load everywhere as usual.


Hmm.. I think I have a dirty mind.
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Vaisaga



Joined: 07 Oct 2011
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PostPosted: Mon Jul 04, 2016 3:55 pm Reply with quote
Cam0 wrote:
I'm not really all that sure what to think about this episode. So much stuff going on, but with no knowledge about the plot, characters or the world, none of it really much sense.


The main take aways are 1.) the world is in some serious shit and 2.) those in power (represented by Alisha) are incapable of handling it.

Cam0 wrote:
Hmm.. I think I have a dirty mind.


Not your fault for reading that exactly as I intended it to sound Laughing
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leatherhead333



Joined: 15 Aug 2013
Posts: 1187
Location: Kansas
PostPosted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 7:01 am Reply with quote
Dessa wrote:
Got some mixed feelings on this. Not bad, but mixed.

First off, apparently Daisuki is doing a week delay for the US. And funimation is making up their own translations for terminology, instead of using the game's (Daisuki's matches the game). If funi doesn't fix theirs for the home release, that may be a deal-breaker for me.

Secondly, the animation. It's beautiful, of course, being ufotable, but especially during the fight, it was a bit hard to tell what was going on.

Now, of course, we have the events of the episode, what it reveals, and how it relates to the events of the game.

I love Zesty. I know some people didn't like it, for various reasons, but I love Zesty. I wasn't sure until the end, but it managed to bump Abyss down out of my #1 Tales game spot, something I wasn't expecting any game to do. And Abyss' anime was wonderful. Some things were changed/condensed/skipped, but it stayed true to story, characters, and feel of the game. I'm expecting no less from Zesty the X.

So we start out with new content that's not in, nor mentioned in, the game. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, as it's fleshing out Alisha's character and backstory, something that was lacking a bit in the game.

We begin with Alisha investigating the ruins of a village that was destroyed by tornadoes. In the game, there are many such ruins that you find (though the cause of the destruction isn't revealed for most of them), so this works. We're introduced to her interest in the Celestial Records, and her hope for a Shepherd. One thing I found interesting, in the anime, is that it seemed that while Alisha hoped for a Shepherd to appear, and had pressed for the Holy Sword Festival, she didn't necessarily believe. This works well with her character in the game, especially early on.

That being said, there's a few things that seemed to contradict either itself, or the game. The first one, and most important, was spoiler[when Lunarre attacked her. It appeared that when Lunarre became a Hellion, Alisha could see it happening. This directly contradicts the game, as only Seraphs, and people with high spiritual power can see Hellions for what they are, and that Alisha, with whom it's a plot point that she cannot, should only see the man that he originally was. This also comes into play with the mist, the malevolence in the ravine, and dragon, as they fall under the same rules as Hellions.]

Where X contradicted itself was with this supposed "forest." When we were first coming upon the village, it appeared that there was a forest just to the other side of the village. Yet, when we're supposed to go to the forest... there's a huge area with giant ravines, and no trees? That just didn't make sense.

Finally, I want to touch on the fight between spoiler[Lunarre] and spoiler[Symonne]. I greatly approve of spoiler[Symonne] showing up so early, it'll give more time for character development, something she was sorely lacking in the game. It also seemed that she was planning on spoiler[killing Alisha to cause despair, which would lead to malevolence]. Or, at least, this is the only thing that makes sense, based on the game. Why she fought spoiler[Lunarre] makes no sense to me, though. We know from the scene earlier and from the game that he's trying to assassinate Alisha, so it makes sense that he would follow, but not why he'd fight spoiler[Symonne].

And, of course, we have the opening. Pretty standard, and I'm impressed that they opted to not spoiler[show Rose's Armatization], usually there's tons of spoilers in the opening. Did find it interesting that they only showed Sorey's Armatization with Mikleo (my preference, personally), and none of the others. And it'll be interesting to see how Velvet is mixed into play. I have some theories, but I'm not sure.

spoiler[In the game, you learn that while some Seraph are born that way, others are humans who have died. It is possible that Velvet became a Seraph after her death, and that she joins the party in that capacity, or at least they meet her like that.] Alternatively, it could be that spoiler[they find an Iris Gem with story for her. This could also have story from other games as well]. Not knowing much about Berseria, these are the only things that makes sense to me, barring time travel.


Overall, I enjoyed the episode, and am looking forward to next week's. The series is going to be 25 episodes (13 in Summer, 12 in Winter), so it'll be tight, and much will be cut, but it seems that it'll work. I'll try to see what I can figure out for estimations on how things will line up, and I'll post that once I figure it out.


Going to point out a few things wrong with your post. Firstly it is stated in the game that dragons spoiler[have such an extreme concentration of malevolence that they are visible to normal humans who normally can't see hellions. In the battle against Tiamat the humans help out Sorey an co. during their fight against it. So her seeing the dragon isn't wrong. The mist/clouds isn't wrong either. The opening of the game shows people looking at a giant black cloud rushing toward a town and they are clearly aware of it. High concentrations of malevolence is visible to humans........well sometimes. I admit the rules for how the sight of malevolence works in the game has it's own faults as I could point out instances where that established internal logic doesn't make sense so I don't really blame the anime if it messes up a few things.]

You are right about the fact she spoiler[shouldn't be able to see Lunarre transform since without the help of Sorey she was blind to hellions like everyone else. Part of me suspects that the plot point of her having low resonance which causes Sorey to be in pain to be dropped though. If I remember correctly Alisha and Rose are shown fighting together in the opening. And that never happens during the course of the game until the DLC episode when Sorey is working to purify the land. Given the backlash of Alisha's involvement I'm betting that she'll actually stay with the group in the anime or at least longer than she did in the game. This opening episode seems to hint at that given that she was the main focus.] I personally didn't really care for the bad stuff happening to her here though. They spoiler[killed off pretty much every single side character that wasn't in the game which sucks because I was hoping they do more to contribute to show than just being fodder to get murdered in front of Alisha and make her even more tragic.] spoiler[I kind of feel Alisha already had it the worst out of everyone during the course of the game at least (not including backstory stuff). She really didn't need more of that under her belt if you ask me.]

I like your theory about how they will link TOB into this though. That's one part of the story I can't wait to see unfold.

Anyways here are my own thoughts. Even though I’ve played the game I honestly only have small grasp of whats going on here. This is obviously a prequel to how things started in the game but I think this anime will end up going in a different direction which is fine by me. It’ll keep me on my toes more. Having said that there was a crap ton of exposition in this episode. Almost to much imo. Not saying it was boring since it talks about stuff the game didn’t cover but my mind felt a little overloaded. That’s what I get for taking such a long break from anime I guess =/.

Things I’ll point out for fun:

1. So uhhhhh why did Lunarre just leave Alisha there? Isn’t she his target? He even says that she was his prey. Yet he awkwardly just leaves her when she was vulnerable. Why? o_O. Plot armor? I think it was plot armor……..literally. spoiler[Also the fight Symonne was pointless]. Just a bunch of flashy explosions for no real reason. And what kind of roids was her horse on? It was able to run faster with two people on it while her comrades somehow ended up sucked into the tornado even though they shouldn't have been far behind.

2. The animation in this anime is badass. Even during the swooping CGI shot I was blown away. Of course whenever I say that the animation tends to start slipping later on. It’s like clockwork I tells ya. Hoping they can keep things consistent. Please don’t give it the God Eater treatment either! Razz

3. Speaking of God eater it appears we have another character with “a gentle breeze would realistically cause my tits be exposed in this wonky outfit” (fun fact that actually happens in the game's opening but she's facing the opposite direction of the camera). But the purple haired chick doesn’t have breasts so it would be ok right? Razz


Last edited by leatherhead333 on Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:20 am; edited 1 time in total
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Vaisaga



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PostPosted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 7:11 am Reply with quote
leatherhead333 wrote:
1. So uhhhhh why did Lunarre just leave Alisha there? Isn’t she his target? He even says that she was his prey. Yet he awkwardly just leaves her when she was vulnerable. Why?


Where would be the fun in finishing off an already weakened opponent? He'd probably only be satisfied if he beat her after fighting her at her best.
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leatherhead333



Joined: 15 Aug 2013
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PostPosted: Thu Jul 07, 2016 9:17 am Reply with quote
Vaisaga wrote:
leatherhead333 wrote:
1. So uhhhhh why did Lunarre just leave Alisha there? Isn’t she his target? He even says that she was his prey. Yet he awkwardly just leaves her when she was vulnerable. Why?


Where would be the fun in finishing off an already weakened opponent? He'd probably only be satisfied if he beat her after fighting her at her best.


Not going to spoiler[spoil what he does later on] so you are free to believe what you want. But even from an anime viewer only perspective it's clear to see that he's a slimy bastard. Honor is the last thing he'd care about. Maybe respect from his comrades but honor? Nah. He could just kill her and take credit for it. Who's going to say he didn't do it himself? The Dragon? xD
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