OP Sequence

OP: 「Free and Dream」 by Suara
Watch the OP! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Streaming ▼

 

Summary:

While her brother Arthur is away from town, a girl named Riannon gets captured by a priest named Drwc and his army. He plans to use her as a sacrifice to revive a demon king in a plot to rule the world, and although she initially refuses, he coerces her by threatening some children. Those same children tell Arthur of what happened when he gets back, so he goes after his sister. By this point, Drwc has brought Riannon to the demon king Arawn’s tomb, and Arthur and his men are forced to fight their way inside. Arthur doesn’t get to the site until after Drwc revives the Arawn, and Arawn takes on a human form and approaches Riannon.

ED Sequence

ED: 「Blue Sky, True Sky 」 by 結城アイラ (Yuuki Aira)
Watch the ED! Mirror 1, Mirror 2, Show Spoiler ▼

Since Suara sang the OP for Utawarerumono, it feels appropriate that she sings the opening song for this series as well since much of the production team is the same. The song ended up being just okay though – not nearly as catchy as I remember Musouka being – and it was more interesting to see all the stuff going on in the accompanying animation sequence. A sign of good things to come I hope. On the other hand, I liked the ending song a lot more – it’s a good song to end episodes on – and the ED animation sequence had some nice character images.

Preview

I didn’t get around to watching this yesterday when it aired, but a couple of friends had really good things to say about it, particularly in regard to the production quality. And while the music turned out to be nothing special, the animation was indeed very nice – pretty well drawn characters, a good amount of detail, and it didn’t have the crappy-looking 3-D soldiers that were in Utawarerumono. Hopefully that quality won’t drop too much in coming weeks. The story meanwhile appears promising even if it didn’t feel like a whole lot happened in the first episode. I could have added some more detail to the summary, but it still wouldn’t have been very long because most of the second half was just the revival ritual combined with Arthur killing grunts. And don’t get me wrong: Arthur killing grunts was actually some pretty good action – it just means that less happened in the plot as a result. I do question though why bad guys would ever think that summoning a demon king who’s going to destroy the world is a good idea, contract or not.

There’s also a fairly big cast with some top voice talent (most of whom haven’t been introduced yet), and that usually means an interesting relationship web to go along with the main plot. That being said, having so many girls on the character list also makes me think that the middle episodes of this series will likely take on a girl-of-the-week approach. Maybe they’ll surprise me with something else. Either way, this first episode was good enough that I’m definitely planning on watching a few more, if not the entire thing.

27 Comments

  1. This should be pretty straightfoward fantasy anime with quite a lot of fighting and a little moe flavor, well, like Utawarerumono. Vaguely based on King Arthur’s story but for the most part it has original storyline.

    calde
  2. It looks like it has many similar elements to Utawarerumno – and a title that can be easily spelt as a bonus. This is no bad thing since Utawar…whatever was a excellent anime, aside from the unsatisfying ending, and 3D soldiers which were implemented badly.

    Ninja Penguin
  3. This series is bsically based on a visual novel / “H” game, so if there gonna attempt to develop the characters individually with the demon king, they will “obviously” take out any hentai scenes and just make it visually appealing, im worried they might exagerate the fan service, but having not seen the previous VN worked on by leaf, my expectations are pretty high for this since i enjoyed the game alot.
    the plot is relatively simple but it has its fair share of twists.
    as for the actual episode, it was good, although not having the same voices as the VN was surprising after getting used to them but ill manage.

    Precise Moment
  4. This T3 anime is based on PS3 version of the game which has not only taken out all the H scenes of the PC version but also the storyline itself vastly re-written.
    As for the voice actors, actually basically the same, but just appering with different name. I heard that there are some rule of actors union in Japan for voice actors to appear with different name in an H game. So far, Riannon is the same, Arthur is the same, Arawn is the same and the man with hood is the same. Some characters appear to have casting change but so far it’s all good.
    This T3 game is not VN, and most other Leaf games brought to anime are not either. Utawarerumono is not, Comic Party is not, heck, even White Album is not. Leaf has released quite a lot of games but “Visual Novel” games are only 5 so far. And To Heart and To Heart 2 are the only VN games which turned into anime, I believe.

    I do agree the 1st episode of this show is pretty good. K-ON!, Cross Game, Valkria Chronicles and this show are the ones I will definitely follow this spring.

    calde
  5. “Ok is it me or is Arawn swordfighting while munching on an apple? (which for some reason makes me think of Ryuk from Death Note)”

    it is because Arawn is ownage. doesn’t need to use both hands.

    rasgae
  6. The brother is the only other male in the main cast besides the demon lord, right? This is pretty much Utawarerumono without the animal ears and even more of a harem tilt… I have my reservations.

    Wererat42
  7. “I do question though why bad guys would ever think that summoning a demon king who’s going to destroy the world is a good idea, contract or not.”

    my thoughts exactly, the opening episode definitely piqued my interest though

    jho
  8. Arthur killing grunts was pretty much the highlight of the episode, and I mean that in a good way – it was pretty gritty, with shrieks and blood (red blood, too, not black – no nice boating here) gushing all over the place and whatnot. A pleasant departure from the generally sterile anime action scenes. I think this show will be very enjoyable as long as one doesn’t expect more from it than from an average harem fantasy visual novel adaptation.

    Bane
  9. Looks very mundane. I’m sure there will be a few girl-of-the-week episodes, since this DOES strike me as very average, even with nice animation and quality voices, none of it appears as memorable as Utawareromono, with its good pacing and well-rounded cast. I had become interested in this when I heard the same company was doing it, but there’s no Hakuoro, Eruru, anyone, in sight (yet?).

    Suara sang a very good OP for Uta, too.

    scherzo
  10. @ewok: People who played the eroge would kill you for saying that… Keep watching or read some spoilers and you’ll know why.

    @Wererat42: Well, there’s Ogam and Rathy (hehe)

    @Kerfirou: Are effing kidding me? PC Riannon>PS3 Riannon. That clown dress and the stupid hat kills her design, plus, her PC desing is more moe.

    @Whoever said this is based on king Arthur’s story: It’s more based around some story in the Mabinogion, actually.

    GDrive

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