Genre: Action / Adventure
Episodes: 26
Noteworthy experiences inspire me to write. That, and boredom.
So I was in this happy mood and I decided to give TALES OF THE ABYSS a chance.
Bottom line: it’s an anime based on an RPG. Like most RPG worlds, almost everyone is armed with staff or blade, magic is commonplace and beasts roam the land. There is, of course, a war going on but one need not fear; there is a prophecy about a chosen one who will bring peace or something.
As I played my copy, the opening credits started to bombard me with background information and a ton of words the writers made up. What a way to start.
Throughout the intro, the narrator continues to pull out all these funny words out of the sky in the most un-Tolkienish manner. Unless you are Lewis Carroll or J.R.R. Tolkien, you’re allowed to have only 5 invented words. Any more than 5 and your piece is bound to become craptacular.
Then cue OP song. Gawd, what a looong OP.
Half the show is basically more background info about the tales of the abyss universe. I won’t spoil you, or rather; I won’t bore you with the details. To be honest, it could have been done with more creativity, finesse and style. The plot almost made me click X. That and the fact that the hero is wearing a stupid costume. It’s gay and not in a good, fashionable way. Is he exposing his abs? Who the hell designed his coat? What are those things hanging from the side? Yaks.
So on to the good part. This attractive (READ: HOT) wizard woman comes along singing a song that consists of one line, casting a sleep spell on everyone unfortunate enough to hear it. But not everyone succumbs to the spell as it seems that the hero, his servant, his sensei and the gardener (GARdener!) are able to resist the spell. The wizard woman proceeds to attack the sensei, calling him a “traitor”, which is in turn saved by his student, the hero. (I find this rather ironic because the sensei is in the middle of training our hero, so shouldn’t it be the other way around?)
Here the phenomenon of applied phletobinum is manifested and as their weapons clash, they are mysteriously teleported far away, in the outskirts of the city. It seems that their weapons are the seventh fonin or elements and they hyper resonated. It appears that there are only six fonin, and the discovery of a seventh one throws the world into chaos because of its ability to predict the future. Ooh.
Lying on the grass unconscious, our hero hears the same voice in his head he hears all the time, urging him to wake up and referring to him as “Fragment of my soul”. As he obliges, the first thing he sees is the woman who attacked his master earlier, hovering above him. Strangely enough, he doesn’t get defensive; he does not demand to know who the woman is. He just walks around stupidly, staring at the sea that now dominates the landscape. He proceeds to demand to know why the woman attacked them back at the manor/mansion/whatever.
Several wolf-like creatures soon appear, but the wizard woman cuts them open like they were warm butter. That was the best part of the show most probably, and it lasted but for a few seconds.
Next thing I knew the end credits were rolling.
6/10. They could have done this one better. For example, I felt that a linear style of unraveling the story suppressed the potential the first episode had. An epic battle would’ve been nice, leaving audiences wondering what that was all about, and then cut to the hero’s training. They spent half, and I mean half, just talking about past events in an attempt to help the viewers understand what’s going on currently. It was being spoon-fed to the viewer, as if the writers thought that their audience wouldn’t have any brains.
I’ll be watching episode 2 tonight.
-Isteb
Tales of the Abyss (NEW Fall 2008 Anime)
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