First Impressions / Tales of the Abyss

Summary:

When Ion goes out for a walk one morning in the city, his escort gets attacked, and he’s captured by an oddly dressed trio. Luke’s group doesn’t find out about this right away, and in the meantime, they plan their trip to Akzeriuth. Since there are Oracle Knights ships watching the seas that ready to interfere, Jade proposes launching a decoy ship while the actual group goes by land to the city of Chesedonia before going by sea. Van decides that he’ll accompany the decoy to make it more convincing, and although Luke isn’t happy with this, he has no choice but to go along with it. Shortly after Van departs, Anise informs the group that Ion has gone missing. The group suspects the Six God-Generals, but they can’t give chase because they can’t risk revealing that they’re not on the decoy ship. Instead, they decide to make their way out of the city via a path through an old factory.

Waiting for them down there is Natalia with her bow, and she convinces Luke to let her join the group after blackmailing him with what she overheard him talking about with Van. The two pinky-swear on the agreement that she doesn’t tell anyone about it if he takes her along and if he remembers their promise after he heads to Daath. Natalia then proves her worth by using her bow to take down a pair of giant insects that were lurking in the shadows. As the group proceeds through the factory, Luke makes it clear that he’s the one in charge and that everyone should follow him. Watching Luke interact with the others, Natalia is reminded of her past with him and how he wouldn’t pinky swear with her. After Luke had returned from being kidnapped, she had visited him, but he was initially scared of her and didn’t remember their engagement. Nevertheless, Natalia stuck with him and he eventually went back to calling her by her name. Even now, she remains determined to bring back the old Luke and to make sure that their promise is fulfilled.

A little further down the tunnel, the group gets attacked by another giant insect, and this time Tear has to save Natalia from being jumped on. Luke, Jade, and Guy combine their attacks to take it down, and afterward, Jade explains to Guy the fusion arte that allows him to call forth his spear. Natalia also thanks Tear for saving her and apologizes to everyone for the trouble she’s caused. The group then finds the exit back outside, and they just happen to emerge near the spot that the Oracle Knight’s landship is parked. When Luke sees that Ion is being led into the ship by Asch, he gets a bad feeling and rushes forward with sword drawn. He ends up coming face to face with Asch, and Luke is shocked at what he sees: Asch has the same face as him. Asch, however, pushes Luke away and then leaves with Sync and Ion on the ship.

The shock of all this makes Luke feel sick, but the bigger problem is that their decoy plan has failed now that their enemies have seen them here. Since Luke had insisted on leading, Jade makes him take responsibility over their next action: pursue Ion by land or return to the capital and go by sea. Luke chooses to go after Ion, so the group makes their way to the desert. It is during this journey that Luke has another painful headache, and this time, he gets a vision of Asch. Asch informs him that Ion is going to the Zao Ruins, and he challenges Luke to come. Luke thus leads the group towards those ruins.

Preview:

Well, despite the big reveal this week of Asch’s face to show that it’s exactly like Luke’s face, I still think it was stupid to black it out all this time and yet show it repeatedly in the OP. They should have just modified the OP for these first six episodes so there would be at least some surprise left (to the Sunrise staff’s credit, they did make Asch’s hair look more like Luke’s in that scene). The bigger question though is what Asch having the same face as Luke actually means. Are they twins or brothers or clones or what? Asch is able to telepathically communicate with Luke, so there must be some connection instead of all this being a big coincidence. Speaking of twins and clones, I also noticed that Sync and Ion had similar heights and hair colors. Might they be related as well?

Story-telling-wise, one of the pluses of this episode was the fact that there wasn’t much jumping around from location to location as there has been in previous episodes since they spent most of the time inside the factory. Having said that though, the group did magically somehow get from here to the desert instantly near the end, so the problem wasn’t completely gone. I doubt the series will ever totally shake off that RPG journey feel that it has, and while I don’t mind the things like the battles which are pretty obviously boss fights from the game, the lack of transitions from location to location will probably continue to irk me at least a little. Fortunately, I’m enjoying the series and am curious to see what happens now that we know Asch has a connection to Luke.

46 Comments

  6. ah those dark wings, its a shame they wont be able to show the town they are all living it (at least i highly doubt it)
    since they spend the whole episode in the abondoned ruins ill assume they will do zao desert and maybe en route to the mountains or both in one episode then we will see akzeriuth which would mark the 1/3rd point in the game as well as the anime (8/24)
    all in all good episode , they really emphasized the flash backs though.

    Precise Moment
    Reply

  7. @AznCoffee: They’re the Dark Wings. More like “Noble Theives” and we all know that at least Noir isn’t gay. XD;;
    ————–
    I agree with Omni on editing the OP/ED to hid Asch’s face for the first 6 episodes. However, the Luke-esque hair he sported this episode definitely looked a lot better than in the game (where it was all blocky). Also, the game itself revealed Asch in the OP, albiet drawn differently than in later cutscenes. Still, it’s always been that obvious.

    Next episode seems to catch up where Chesedonia was cut out, adding in events missed there, as well as continuing with the Zao Ruins. As for the jumping around…The desert is literally right outside the back entrance of the factory in the game, so it isn’t actually as much of a jump as you think. Still, it covers too much of a distance on the map of Auldrant to be physically possible. Really — the game doesn’t even try to elaborate how a factory can run underneath an ocean and pop out on an entirely different part of the continent a substantial distance away:
    http://www.gamefaqs.com/console/ps2/file/929343/45453

    miken-chan
    Reply

  9. You wouldn’t really notice Asch looking a lot like Luke in the OP until his hair isn’t brushed back and is styled as Luke’s. Also, the only ones who will find it obvious are the ones who read Wiki, played the game, their gamer friend told them about it or they’re plain observant. ^^

    Still, I can’t wait for the next episode!

    Aeneid
    Reply

  12. “Despite the big reveal this week of Asch’s face to show that it’s exactly like Luke’s face, I still think it was stupid to black it out all this time yet show it repeatedly in the OP.”

    Yeah, I was wondering why they were fussing so much about hiding Asch’s face, when you could see it all the time in the opening, and even see Luke fighting Asch.
    And maybe because I couldn’t understand much of the dialogue, but I felt like this was almost a filler episode. Yeah, we got to see Asch and Luke fight, but it wasn’t much, and like you said, the big revelation that Luke and Asch look identical doesn’t seem all that surprising with how often we’ve seen him anyway.

    Nazarielle
    Reply

  29. If yall want the spoiler to end all spoilers just read the FAQ by EChang on GameFAQ. Its a ridiculously long read but it will answer all questions if you didn’t play the game. Hell, I even used it to get through the game 🙂

    Megas
    Reply

  31. I really think the whole not showing his face thing in the show (because they did it in the game too even though you saw his face in the opening) was really to show that the characters themselves hadn’t seen it- which is kind of a big thing. When Jade saw he was surprised and rather than let you assume “oh obviously Luke and everyone else hasn’t seen it up until now” you know for sure they hadn’t. I mean you know Luke hadn’t seen it before now or he would have reacted but yeah this takes out the guess work. That’s just my 2 cents.

    Oh and as someone said, the desert thing is because the desert literally is right outside the factory. They should have stated that but yeah it wasn’t like magic.

    Silawen
    Reply

  32. finally they show aschs face…it was so dumb for them to do that…everyone knew just what he looked like from both the op and ed…i hope that seeing him will make luke cut his hair now like in the op…since his long hair with the yellow tips is quite gay on him..it def looks better on asch..lol

    whatchamini
    Reply

  33. well, stupid me, i Wiki’d this show before ti started airing just to get a little brush up before actually watching it so to an extent, the whole luke/asch i kinda read already, but i stopped right away so from this point on, i dont really know what is going to happen, though i did read a bit about Van as well, but if you are AT ALL familiar with this type of thing(show, genre, game), some aspects of the show shouldn’t surprise many people. the hiding of the face wasnt too big of a deal, yeah people would have guessed already mainly because of the opening, but it is not like they went to crazy lengths or anything, we know that at first Jade was the only one who saw his face, not to mention he read what was on the disc, add in his little speech to himself about the disc and we get a not too big of a surprise. but still, obviously this isnt the Big Reveal that completely shatters the reality of the characters yet. i mean, we ARE only at episode 6.

    GGear0323
    Reply

  34. Well bout Asch face being like Luke’s – this is the truth from the game (big spoiler!):
    Show Spoiler ▼

    mutio
    Reply

  37. The last scene ‘s differrent in the game. In there, it’s not that the director try to make Asch’ hair to be like Luke.

    In the game. Asch always has his front hair up and when he met Luke at that scene, IT’S RAINING so when they kind of fight violently HIS HAIR GOT DOWN and SHOWN that he exactly has the same hairstyle like Luke and yeah same face with that.

    So yeah too bad the anime didn’t do some details like in the game and shown his face that much in the OP.

    saris
    Reply

  39. @Nightokun, your question cannot be answered, because :

    the score never predict anything about Luke n his poeple going to Akzeriuth, and use his power to calamity.

    the only thing stated in the score is, [based of shinsen-sub]

    2000, in kimlasca shall be born one who inherits the power of Lorelei, he’ll be a boy of royal blood, with hair of red. He shall be called the light of the Sacred Flame (Luke) .. .
    2018, the young scion of lorelei’s power (refer to ND2000)shall bring his people to “the miner city”. The youth will turn his power to calamity and be a weapon of kimlasca. . .

    but then again julia’s score never went wrong 😀 :D, and there’s many things that’s not predicted by julia’s score. :D:D

    i realize this, as i play the game for the 2nd playthrough..

    tabibito
    Reply

  40. @P3
    Wasn’t the promise made AFTER he “returned” home? I’m pretty sure.
    Also
    Show Spoiler ▼

    mutio
    Reply

  43. @mutio
    Abyss newb
    Show Spoiler ▼

    P3
    Reply

  44. @ Mutio
    Show Spoiler ▼

    ravebeing
    Reply

  45. Hmm
    Show Spoiler ▼

    mutio
    Reply

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