「レディレイク」 (Redireiku)
“Ladylake”

I’m tempted to start calling Zestiria the Tale of Buildup because for every spurt forward in the story, we receive three transitory episodes. Jokes aside, this week concerns Alisha as the trials and tribulations of Sorey’s first squire are explored. While this was another tepid buildup episode, I must admit that Zestiria at least knows how to make the most out of these moments. Backstory is interspaced with enough action to mitigate boredom, and the show has a good habit of revealing information in a pleasing manner—at least for me. No overbearing info dumps or jargon, just enough words to let the mind fill in the blanks. Might also help ufotable produces some of the nicest looking CG water in anime I’ve seen thus far.

As with the previous Rose arc, the central theme here continues to be the moral ambiguity of justice. Unlike Rose, however, Alisha tackles the concept from a quixotic good perspective—pretty much Sorey in female form. For me this leads to some annoyances, such as Alisha’s staunch refusal to kill or placing the lives of others above her own. Alisha’s desire to do good for example could be better served by first ensuring she’s still around to save others, or offering support covertly rather than out in the open–hard saving anyone if dead. Her “must not kill” pledge is particularly aggravating too when noting her knights—who she deeply cares about—are more likely to die if concerned about the lives of an enemy who does not care about theirs in the slightest.

What keeps Alisha from the developmental brink, however, is her own introspection. Alisha admits upholding her morals is challenging, maybe even impossible, and that some moments will require abandoning them. It’s similar development to both Rose and Sorey, where Sorey specifically too desires adhering to personal ideals, but understands the limitations restricting their usage. The talk with Lunarre was an excellent example of this, where Alisha never wavered under his devious, cachinnatory goading and stuck firmly to her own principles while acknowledging the truth behind his words. Still think the girl is nuts trying to prevent the death of everyone, but at least she recognizes her ideals may be fantasy.

Putting aside Alisha’s moral wrangling though, at least we are looking at an interesting upcoming fight. All major parties are coalescing in Ladylake around some serious bait, Zaveid has reentered the picture, and we’ve got a new, nasty bit of Malevolence certain (hopefully) to give Sorey and his harem squires a good challenge. Also have a worthy evil in the form of Bartlow who certainly deserves any comeuppance. Given Zestiria is likely treading anime-original territory now, I have no idea how things will turn out next week, but it will certainly be entertaining in some form. After all, it’s about time Zestiria gave a good, protracted battle to make up for all the buildup we have received.

 

Preview

16 Comments

    1. It’s an even bet now whether we receive an anime original ending or a third cour IMO, unless the show decides to pull a God Eater and leave a cliff hanger halfway through. Frankly the surprise of it all is what keeps me interested every week, no one has any firm idea how Zestiria will wrap things up.

    1. Only if this winds up being a two cour run IMO. In a multi-cour series these buildup episodes would be the minor character building arcs before traversing the central conflict, but we don’t know if Zestiria has anything beyond this season or not. The fact we have no information on what happens after this cour is probably the most annoying bit of this show for me because the story structure screams third season.

      1. It’s not even the pacing that’s the issue (although it is a problem), it’s the overall directing and screenplay this season;…it’s really really lacking and that’s what’s getting under my skin. There was a bit of a pulse with rose but besides that, all the characters are so uninteresting to watch (hell even rose became uninteresting to watch, and i dont even know how that’s possible)

        sonicsenryaku
  1. or they end this Show with an open end. You know the game ends with the Kill, where here in this Anime perhaps they prepare to journey after this Guy

    – But what role play Velvet?
    – in ToB she has already an “nickname”
    – In Zestiria (game) i never found out the name of this Pistole Zavied is using. Now it has an name.. or i am old
    – the introduction of Kings. i think they are already plans for an anime original ending, but then where is this Lion of Malovenlance, this one Sorey meet at the battlefield
    – Seems like only Sorey have the Seraphin fusion animations. i bet many would cry out of happiness, if we get some Alisha ones.
    – Zavied could fid Alisha interesting, because she reminds him of his own past and… you know, what was Eizen about to kill?. he perhaps she some strong points in Alisha, and got curious and interested in her.. Perhaps he can fall in love again.. But She is human, he is an Seraph. Only visible to her because of Sorey’s power. perhaps he promise to be some kind of Guardian Angel
    – and some more, but this should be enough for now

    Worldwidedepp
    1. also

      i found an collision Plot hole of ToB with this Anime here now…

      Show Spoiler ▼

      Worldwidedepp
      1. Actually in Tales of Berseria it was explained by Eizen that when he was still invisible to humans, he’d haunt around on the pirate ship he travelled on. The crew thought there was a ghost on the ship, but it was actually him fooling around.

        So yes, they basically see a floating gun if they don’t have the required resonance to see Seraphs.

        Zestiria the game did mention the name of the gun btw. After you defeat him in front of Pendrago’s entrance, he gives you the gun and it’ll say you obtained Siegfried.

        Ryudo
  2. Why are people worried about episode count? This is only episode 7, they have way more than enough time to reach the ending considering they’re skipping all the dungeons and filler stuff like the memory orb hunting endgame.

    Rae
  3. “Rose is so last week, it’s all about Alisha now.”

    this is so damn true XD and i havent even watched the previous episodes because theres just too many of her. And yea, i had my fill of Rose too.

    onion warrior
  4. I was really interested in seeing how they’re going to avoid killing their country men. But then this happened.
    https://randomc.net/image/Tales%20of%20Zestiria%20the%20X/Tales%20of%20Zestiria%20the%20X%20-%2019%20-%2011.jpg
    Guess I have to wait for next week to find out.

    The best way would be relying on stealth. But look at that armour.
    https://randomc.net/image/Tales%20of%20Zestiria%20the%20X/Tales%20of%20Zestiria%20the%20X%20-%2019%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
    No way they’ll sneak around wearing those.

    theirs

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