「商談」 (Shoudan)
“Negotiation”

Well it appears Zestiria has finally decided to return to the storyline. After a several episodes devoted to Rose, Sorey is once again the focus of things as we receive a good dose of backstory and some finalizing development for our assassin girl. Having Rose become Sorey’s squire is a fitting conclusion I think, as it nicely ties up her plot arc while giving her a lasting position in the remainder of the story. Rose can now see Dezel and the rest, use her abilities to further her “defense of the weak” objective, and put to rest her tribulations arising from the whole revenge plot with Konan. Also helps that Rose’s prior assassin work was not condemned, but simply reinforced as the wrong solution for the world’s current predicament.

The bigger reveals—at least for me—this week though revolved around the comments on the origins of Malevolence and additional details on the Shepherd’s power. It seems Tales of Berseria will be tied through verbal snippets rather than full episodes this time around, as Berseria’s main plot is basically given away through Emperor Doran. It’s nice knowing that Malevolence’s origins are verified as emotions, with one man in the far past responsible for sealing away emotions in all but one person—Velvet Crowe. Besides arguably spoiling Berseria, this scene does illuminate a few options regarding Sorey’s fate as Shepherd, as it suggests he cannot fully eradicate Malevolence from the world. If Sorey cannot prevent Malevolence, what will he do? This would be an interesting dilemma as it’s the logical conclusion from all the revealed pieces so far. Given that Sorey is already musing over the possibility, I am looking forward to seeing how this plays out.

What I do know, however, is that the conclusion reached will likely not be the same as the game’s. It appears that Zestiria has gone anime original at this stage, with Sorey purifying a—albeit dead—dragon, which I believe was previously mentioned as impossible. Of course he had the assistance of Rose, but it does open the door to an anime original ending. I am still unconvinced Zestiria can tie the whole thing up in six episodes, but I’m more confident regarding the story than I was last week. Helping that belief is the knowledge that Alisha will be returning to the party next week, and as Sorey’s squire to boot—at least for the moment. I honestly expected Alisha would fall off in favour of Rose given Sorey could not hear her voice earlier, but in a way it does make sense. With Rose and Alisha both, Sorey can quickly run through problems much like the dragon here without necessarily feeling rushed. Given what’s left in the story—I gave in and spoiled myself on the plot :P—that just might be the pace of things going forward. Hard asking for much more considering what we have received so far.

 

Preview

18 Comments

  1. They changed a lot and I’m not sure what the point of it was.

    The Pope ran away in the story, producing the drug cure Konan had to keep a poor village he resided in from collapsing. A random dragon that’s just there for literally no reason in the church. Like What? The actual being behind the rain was a Cardinal and the manga had the simple and much better explained answer of making her an unwilling puppet of Symonne.

    Konan got away with his actions in the story because the Emperor was dead. His younger brother was king and the Cardinal was his advisor while acting in place of the Pope.

    As expected of Magilou Mayvin she intentionally worded everything she mentioned of Berseria in the most vaguest way possible. i mean I know she loved presenting their group as villains but there’s no reason to troll people with it as you die.

    Show Spoiler ▼

    TheVoid
    1. There are still someones out there, that did not played Zestiria the game, even if Berseria is out

      So would you kindly put game Spoilers in future in their tags?. Thank you

      Perhaps they found a use for the Wind Dragon going wild inside the X crossover. But then, how killed this one? i bet he did not died of age…

      i also could speculate about some connections they could use from Berseria here with Zesteria the X. But then it would be to much heavy spoilers

      Show Spoiler ▼

      Worldwidedepp
    2. After this episode I’m treating this as it’s own series that just shares the Zestiria name. “The X” probably means crossover like people thought, so maybe that’s the studio’s way of saying this is what Zestiria would’ve been like if Berseria had come first and Zestiria followed it. A lot of stuff was thought up for Berseria that wasn’t in Zestiria, but that was “fine” because of how long ago Berseria was. Maybe someone decided to dig a little deeper and use that to go a different route.

      And not to be “that guy”, but was the translation right when the Emperor said Velvet’s journey was “thousands” of years ago? Cause I thought the games made it out to be a thousand years ago at the most.

      Aex
      1. It was a 1000 or less years according to the official timeline. I think around 900-800 years specifically due to the 300 year old King Claudins death mentioned in the timeline.

        A lot of the stuff in Berseria was actually hinted, small bits of info, or included in the usual Tales World Guidance book. What Berseria does is go into more detail.

        TheVoid
      2. It does seem like this adaptation is meant as a rework, with the story corrected to account for the original defects and new information arising in Berseria. The only question is what the ending will be here, because the events of this episode certainly–if I’m correctly led to believe–retcon a good portion of the game’s ending.

    3. The dragon is confusing too because the anime has been hinting towards the Church engaging in some nefarious, Malevolence-creating act. Having just some random skeleton creating Pendrago’s persistent rain, which the Church wants to hide is a letdown–I honestly was expecting something more.

  2. The bigger reveals—at least for me—this week though revolved around the comments on the origins of Malevolence and additional details on the Shepherd’s power. It seems Tales of Berseria will be tied through verbal snippets rather than full episodes this time around, as Berseria’s main plot is basically given away through Emperor Doran. It’s nice knowing that Malevolence’s origins are verified as emotions, with one man in the far past responsible for sealing away emotions in all but one person—Velvet Crowe.

    Yeah, with ToB your got showed right from the Start. In Zestiria you know this secret around 60-80% in Game.
    Also, this Episode revealed an spoiler from Berseria. they avoid to say names. But they gave away in how this “perfect world” works. With mindless humans. Not like Vulcan’s (Star Trek), no more like Ants. and even Ants has more free will. This robbed of their free will, was a big Spoiler.. it had an impact on me, when i finally got this Info from the game. Now the Anime give it away for free…
    But oh well, the bird is out of the cage, no use in catching it back

    Also seems like this Episode was made in a hurry. Some pacing issues (Rose become a fresh Squire and go already on or over her spiritual powers). Perhaps the Ladylake Arc now will be the last. What then? Will they end it after that or do we get an possible 3rd Season?

    Also, i found an possible explanation for the corruption (the end boss in Zestiria)
    Show Spoiler ▼

    Worldwidedepp
    1. also what Sorey see after beating the End boss…
      Show Spoiler ▼

      Okay, i bite my tongue now

      Worldwidedepp
      1. Just in case, i hide it under the spoiler tag

        Show Spoiler ▼

        Worldwidedepp
      2. or easier, and totally in line with the Anime here…

        Show Spoiler ▼

        Why? Humans began to pray to their gods again, not only Fire, Water, Earth and Wind, also Light and Darkness

        Worldwidedepp
  3. Ep 19:

    Seems like there are some Game Strings role cut for some person here in this Anime version. i like it. Looks like we get some new “fresh” Backgrounds and drives here. I really like it

    More when the episode if live here, or i spoil it to much

    Worldwidedepp

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