Anime: Ar-Tonelico Sekai no Owari de Utai Tsuzukeru Shoujo

Disclaimer: I have not played the game(s), and I'm not a Console RPG fan.

Animation
There is nothing really noteworthy in the animation. It is quite standard as far as today's animation goes - good cg, good character design, nice backgrounds and well-paced action scenes. Nothing special though.

Sound
The soundeffects were good, nothing to really complain about here. Nothing to praise either though. The music was unnoticeable, just like good background music should be, tying together with the scenes so you're able to enjoy it the better. However, the really bad thing about the sound was the main character's voice actor. I wanted to rip his vocal chords out on a couple of occassions. The girls had somewhat better voiceactors luckily, some even having a nice singing voice (there is a bit of singing in the anime).

Story
Humm, there wasn't really much of a story... Without spoiling very much I think I can sum it up in these words: guy has an accident, meets a nice girl and an annoying girl, fights a monster. They did try to fill it out with a bit of useless byplay, adding a scene that really had no connection to anything in the main "story" whatsoever, except that they mentioned the "nice" girl once or twice.

Character
This OVA really assumes that you know the characters from the game(s). If you don't, expect to be disappointed (like I was). There is basically no character development, all the characters just seem flat. The only one they tried to give a little depth to was the main character, however they failed utterly in that. I do however understand that this is just a short OVA, so I can't expect very much from this department, even though there are similarly short OVAs that does excellently at this (take Hoshi no Koe or Pale Coccoon for example). Thus I give this a 4 instead of a 3.

Value/Enjoyment
If you, like me haven't played the game(s) and don't know the characters, I'd say there is nothing here for you. Watch something else instead. However, if you have played the game(s), and enjoyed them, you might be interested in this little extra piece of story, told in a different format from the actual game(s). Other than that, stay clear.

(If you read this review, please rate it. Reviews rely heavily on the viewers feedback, no matter if it is a mere "I agree" or a hard critic -as long as it is constructive-)


(my review is made with little or any knowledge of the game from wich it was adapted.)
Well, what made me want to see this, was that it had 2 of the 4 genres I most appreciate in anime (in the case Adventure and Fantasy). Yet I was a bit sceptic about it being a 1 episode OVA. Unfortunatly my expectations weren't wrong.


Story: Honestly... there is none. It wouldn't be fair to a great deal of OVA's if I said it had one. Basicly the hero (Rainar) fall's with is ship from the one of the levels of Ar Tonelico(wich is a tower, and... er.. its too confusing really...). After crashing in the floating island directly bellow the tower, he is saved by a girl(that can do enchantments by singing in an ancient language),and then basicly, they fall again. And they manage to put the ship operational again, go up, and then they... (take a guess...). And it ends even more confusingly(at least for those that didn't play the game), because after the ending theme there's one other scene. Disappointing.


Characters: Their design is pretty good. Their background and development is as to be expected from a 1 ep. OVA, but at least for the main character Raina I can say he had potencial. if the anime was longer he could turn out to be an enjoyable character. For the rest of them I barelly remember names except for Orika(wich is the girl I spoke in the Story above).In resume: Rainar and the overall good design saves them.

Animation: The standard nowadays. Good animation, pretty good character design as I previously said, fluid movements, nicely rendered effects. But there's one big downside here. The only actual thing that really had detail other than the characters was Rainar's Ship, backgrounds are awfull. The 2 demons that make their appearance also required much more attention to detail then the one their were given. Resuming: The overall animation is good, but backgrounds and the 2 minions show careless detail.


Sound: Soundeffects are in overall good. The voice actors also do their part, and yet there was one voice that I found a bit "odd"; Rainar's voice. I mean it worked well in the small comedy scene in the beginning, yet in the ending battle it was horrible. It's not that the voice or the voice actor are bad is that it just doesn't seem to fit the character design (the first thing I that crossed my mind when I heard him was: "shouldn't he sound different?"). As for music, not much to mention. No opening theme, yet the ending theme is good. In the end I didn't like the background music, except for one theme that played for like 10 seconds and was never heard again (in the paladin's battle near the beginning of the OVA.). In resume: good sound effects; far from brilliant OST; and a questionable choice for the main character voice

Value and Enjoyment: Not much rewatch value. Don't know if i'll ever watch it again, it wasn't bad, but it left me little sentimental value. And as for enjoyment(and this is the thing that matters mostly for me, but comes as reprecursion of the rest), I guess you did take some from it, but far from what I wanted.


Conclusion: In conclusion, it could be a good anime if it had i'd say 3 more episodes at least, that way the story could be rebuilt, and more "juice" could be taken from the characters. I will not recommend it to anyone. But if you fantasy anime fans and/or fans of the game want to give it a shot, do it(yet dont raise your expectations). As for the others, don't bother. If you don't enjoy the fantasy/adventure type, this anime is not gonna make you change your mind.

There aren't many things I can say about this. I haven't played the game, nor have I heard about it before translating it. I did my basic research on Google, but all it did was bring up some very basic plot synopsis. Undaunted, I pressed on.

Animation? Well, yes and no. Some of the CGs were rendered beautifully. Some, however, didn't look so great. That scene with the demon at the very end looked positively hideous. However, Laina's ship looks absolutely bad ass. The character designs were nice, too. I especially liked that fluttering scene near the end when Orica was about to save Laina from a horrible demon flamed-induced death.

The music was top stuff. I'm a sucker for tribal chanting coupled up with heavy drums and strings. Those kick ass. Coupled up with insert songs galore which are in another language that I completely do not understand, I'm hooked. Sound effects were also done well, but seriously, I don't think I have ever seen a show where sound effects are actually horrible. My ears are probably too lenient.

The story, however, completely confuses me. This part may be biased, but I have no way or intention to play the game. I don't have a modded PS2, I am not a "l33t m0dd3r" of any kind. Anyways, there's this thing about songs, or Hymns, as I've heard them correctly called, that can heal people. Like most grandeur RPGs, there's the obligatory trip through a bustling town, airships zooming around, and a journey into space (in this case, the Brastline, pardon my spelling). At its bare bones, I guess I can call this a hero's journey, except the journey was shorter than that chicken kabob you get at Safeway's. I probably would like the story a lot better if I somehow can become fluent in Japanese very fast, earn some fast dough, and buy this game along with a Japanese PS2. But alas, dreams are dreams.

You'll either hate or love the characters. I couldn't stop laughing at the number one dweebiest male lead voice in all of anime, and that is Laina. Orica was a damn good bishoujo, and I forgot what the mechanic was called. Not a good sign. Well, these characters were quite interesting, to say the least, but I would like to see them fleshed out more. In a 25 min OAV, that's not really possible, is it?

All in all, it's a fun ride, even if it was a bit baffling to a lousy translator like me. I did enjoy it, despite all its flaws, and I hope you will too. Direct all hate talk and translation mistakes to me if you want. I'll be sure to learn from these positive suggestions. Or not so positive, whichever side you think on.