#i was just ..... thinking about how edna admitted in one of the skits that she's literally waited on r.ayfalke the whole time

[ednaeflowers]

she sits and rereads one of her brother's letters again, and again.

[sormikhell]

Why do I dislike Tales of Zestiria the X?

Recently I’ve been asked one question numerous times: “Why do you think the anime is shit? You only hate it because it doesn’t focus on SorMik, right?”

Now guys, I think it’s vital for me to answer this. Because let’s face it, we will never see face to face if we don’t discuss the matter. And look, here I am, typing this out because I feel this is important. So if you’re curious and want to understand why a lot of us dislike the anime then please bear with me because this will be long (6 pages in Word, 6!)

To make this a little bit easier for me, I’ll assume that you haven’t played the game or watched its walkthrough yet and that you like the anime. But of course if you did either of them it’s good, bc at least you’ll know what I am talking about.

And so, I shall do a character analysis in this post, comparing the game and anime selves to each other while I name some other issues as well. I won’t list all the inconsistency and plot holes the anime has for I’d be here even after my death.

I’m going to try to make you guys understand that while the SorMik fandom is not happy, there are more pressing issues with the anime than that.

For the sake of completeness, I’m going to refer to sever other people here and if you want to get the whole picture, I advise you to check them out yourself too.

What I’ll try to do here is answer this from my point of view, bringing up my emotions about certain facts and details while trying to justify my opinions about this matter. This post isn’t about trying to change your viewpoint and admitting something you might not agree with, it’s about trying to make everyone understand why most of the fandom is quite cross with the anime.

But for you to really understand my point I think I’ll start with how I even get into this fandom. If you don’t want to read that, skip to the first horizontal line.

Around in mid-September last year I saw on my multifandom dashboard a meta about Epilogue 2. I can’t really recall what it was about, all I remember is that there was a picture of Epileo the very minute he realises he’s been reunited with Sorey (you know, when he looks up, expression all soft, eyes twinkling with delight and smiling like he has never seen the sun?). I kind of stared at the picture for a solid 5 minutes (I’m a sucker for light haired characters, sorry) before I decided that it’s crucial for me to know this beauty and love him (yepp, I’m that typical “Came for Mikleo and stayed for SorMik” person). So, I searched for the source and found the video of Epilogue 2. I didn’t understand a single thing but the look of utter love in Mikleo’s eyes made me really care for him and for his whole story too (looks like the first thing I did in this fandom was to spoiler myself. Not that I regret it or anything XD).

So I dived head first into the fandom and eventually I came across the anime. Mind you, at that time I only know of the existence of the game, I didn’t even watch the walkthrough or anything.

After seeing the 0th episode I was a little bit surprised and lost. Because I didn’t understand a anything about that episode XD I was basically like “I thought this was about two boys? Who the fuck is that girl? What the hell was that little funny mascot thing? Why couldn’t she see that? What the hell have just happened? …. At least the animation was awesome.”

As someone who didn’t know a single thing about the Zestiria universe it was quite confusing. So I decided to drop this but it kept bothering me that I didn’t even see Mikleo and after a week or so I was like “well, let’s watch the next episode. If that isn’t better, then I’ll really drop this”.

And lo and behold, I saw the first episode and with the explanations and all the 0th episode clicked into place. I caught up with the anime when the 7th episode came out. I quickly became too interested in this and searched for the community on Tumblr, making my new page there.  

Around the 11th or 12th episode the fandom community on Tumblr convinced me to watch a walkthrough even play the game sometime, though I didn’t consider myself as a gamer girl but I was quite curious you know?

When the final episode of the first season came out I was somewhere around Tintagel Ruins in my YouTube walkthrough and we all know that that was the episode things started to go sour in the fandom.

On Christmas I got the game and by the time my new semester started in February I’ve finished the game, only the post-game dungeon, Hexen Isle was left.

Of course, after you’ve invested more than 80 hours (that was my first playthrough, I was slow I know) in a game you became quite familiar with the universe, its laws and the characters.

So after all this work to beat the game the anime’s second season got me really angry. And if I still have your attention, then please bear with me for a little while, because now I’m really answering the question.

The anime up until the first season’s final was quite decent and good. We got little alternations like when Sorey purifies human malevolence he has to live through it and all, and that made his job even more dangerous and exciting. I loved the concept personally as it’s not a thing in the game (although, game!Sorey’s job is at least 10000x harder than Anime!Sorey’s but oh well…).

The problems started with the final and here’s why (I can’t stress this enough, this is my opinion and my experience) while comparing the game and the anime:

In the game, the war in Glaveind Basin in a really important event. This is the first time you meet with Heldalf and he magnificently kicks your ass. He kicks your ass so bad Sorey temporarily loses his ability to perceive seraphim. He realises after this that he cannot win against Heldalf and that he needs to get stronger. (Mikleo is so shaken by the whole thing that in a skit Edna even teases him because he apparently cried when Sorey couldn’t see him.)

But in the anime Sorey wins. Which is kind of the breakpoint in the game. The sole reason of the second part of the game was because of Sorey’s first lost in battle. Those who love the game obviously weren’t fine with it.

Not to mention that there was a scene when Sorey nearly killed and succumbed to malevolence just because of Alisha. Which is kind of ridiculous. Let me explain why:

There is a quest in the game where you still have Alisha in the party as your squire and you have to fight with a …plant. After the fight, it becomes obvious to everyone that Alisha being Sorey’s squire is quite dangerous as Sorey is going blind on his right eye. Why, you ask? Because Alisha doesn’t have the necessary amount of resonance to perceive seraphim and Sorey’s power had to compensate that somehow. Hence why he went blind.

So when Sorey didn’t realise in time that the plant is still alive and was rapidly coming so Mikleo and Alisha jumped in front of him to save him (I’ll talk more about this later on…). Someone even said that both Alisha and Mikleo could have easily died. Sorey’s reaction was more of concern than absolute rage. Hell he didn’t become tainted even when he and Mikleo had to kill Gramps. And we all know Gramps is far more important to the two boys than Alisha. Alisha may be a good friend, but she’s not their family.

So all in all, Sorey becoming tainted under Mikleo’s watchful eyes is unexplainable. This skit here explains everything I think, starts at 24:00.

Oh and about Sorey’s dream becoming true in the anime… the seraphim was sitting in one corner, the humans in the other. No one talked to the other. That’s what you call your dream becoming a reality, Sorey? They were literally there because they had to. That’s not coexistence!

Now that we have mentioned Mikleo… he’s deuteragonist. In other words, the secondary main character. Why? Because Mikleo is always there. Mikleo is Sorey’s moral support, his pillar, his everything. Mikleo protects him as much as Sorey protects Mikleo. They know each other inside-out so knowing this, Mikleo being the deuteragonist won’t come as a surprise.

Mikleo is a special case, we all agree on that. He’s a little cold and sarcastic in the game but always happy and ready to argue about ruins with Sorey. Rose even mentions that Mikleo can only be really worried by Sorey, meaning he may act like he is angry about Edna’s teasing or Lailah’s terrible puns, but in the end, he only gets really worked up if Sorey is in danger. He never leaves his side in the game excluding their break-up scene when Sorey shouts at him and Mikleo feels like a liability to Sorey (he doesn’t even leave his side when Sorey is asleep for 3 days after he became the Shepherd. He stays in his room quietly reading, not even talking to Lailah about crucial things).

You can easily say that to Mikleo, Sorey is the top priority. He’d gladly die for him, sacrifice for him everything. Hell, even wait who knows how many centuries just to be with Sorey again. And as those who played the game or watched the walkthrough know, Mikleo takes upon himself to continue their shared dream while Sorey sleeps away the centuries purifying Maotelous. (Sorey’s One and Only, huh..)

So, when in the anime Mikleo is basically shoved back into the closet and treated like an object by Sorey to only be relied on is quite frustrating (why is that they had to intentionally or unintentionally include this Berseria element in the anime? Sorey would never ever treat anyone, especially not Mikleo, like an object).  

Soymilkheaven had a really good answer for Mikleo’s character problem, so go check it out if you want!

Now onto Rose… Rose the Pure Assassin. The person who teaches Sorey that there’s nothing wrong with killing if it saves the person. Game!Rose is confident, a true and very loyal friend who won’t hesitate to take Sorey’s burdens of the Shepherd and kill someone even if Sorey won’t agree with her. She protects Sorey in her own way while makes sure that Sorey won’t just see killing in a bad light. After all, not everybody can be saved.

And yeah, Rose may be a little bit childish in the game, but she lightens up the conversations and she’s funny.

Anime!Rose on the other hand… she is like a shell. She’s not confident, she doubts herself and her job (even though both Roses have similar backgrounds so I can’t wrap my head around why this Rose had to turn out the way she turned out…).

Plus as women-books-coffee said perfectly her lack of confidence results in Sorey not having that kind of character development.

Game!Rose helped Sorey understand the upside of killing so if Anime!Rose doubts her game counterpart’s very creed then how the hell is Anime!Sorey supposed to learn this life hack lesson? How will this Sorey understand that there’s no way that no one will die?

Answer: Quite simply, he won’t. Because why the hell should the protagonist struggle through hardships when he can just be ignorant and skip through the most of it?

That would be baaaaaaaad… now wouldn’t it? But that’s exactly what ufotable did.

Dezel, you’re the next!  Our beloved blind wind seraph. Yupp you read it right.

Blind.

Quite a surprise, isn’t it? Ufotable may or may not have left out this … quite crucial detail about him. Which is fucking ridiculous if you think about it. How can you forget that somebody is fucking blind, Ufotable?! (You guys remember in the anime when Dezel is on the top of a wagon in the fog and he says: “I can’t see shit”. Well, of course you can’t see shit Dezel. You’re fucking blind)

Oh, and the reason he’s blind? Symonne.

Yeah, that purple girl who somehow become a dragon in the anime (don’t let me get started on her too… but in short, for Symonne Heldalf was everything in the game. That’s why I’ll never accept that she became a dragon because she didn’t agree with Heldalf).

Whom he by the way died to bring back. And you could all say “But Sormikhell, Dezel isn’t blind in the anime! Then of course he’d want to help her!”

Well yeah, I see your point. But let’s not forget that Dezel is there because of Rose.

You see, Dezel and Rose are supposed to be a parallel example of Sorey and Mikleo as Dezel watched over Rose for quite some years. He died for her in the game, so he can save her. So it didn’t make any sense to me that he would just randomly die. For nothing, basically. Dezel in the anime doesn’t know Symonne, then why should he die for her? (And let’s not forget the fact that Anime!Sorey knew very well what Anime!Dezel was about to do. Which means we can say that Anime!Sorey let one of his comrades die. Game!Sorey tried frantically to find another solution but Game!Dezel was already dying by that time, so he asked Sorey to grant his final wish. Sorey would have never allowed this any other way. Another blow for Sorey’s character.)

Next one is… Edna! A delicate flower and a surprisingly thorny one. In the game, Edna is like a snarky older sister, looking out for everyone in her own sadistic way. She likes making fun of Meebo and is hellbent about learning how to cook decently. She wants to save Eizen, sure, but she doesn’t let it plague her mind 24/7. She is a lovely character with funny attachment to Normins. She lives her own life, she is really intelligent and has an excessive knowledge about any kind of plant or mineral.

And if you’re still reading this, then you already know what I’ll say next.

Anime!Edna can only sigh and be depressed. I can count in my two hands how many times I’ve seen her smile or laugh in the anime. She’s always like “Oh, Eizen… “even if she doesn’t voice these thoughts. You can practically feel her sadness through the screen. Which I understand as I have a brother too but every damn time she appears on screen (which isn’t that much) she either doesn’t care about what is happening or just moping around. A great loss in my opinion as I was really looking forward to her snarky comments being thrown left and right.

Our next character is… Lailah! The mother hen, the fire mum with terrible puns, you name it. She’s like a mother and an older sister at the same time. She’s diligent, a great friend and cares about everyone a lot. She has a very vivid personality, likes to randomly talk about something else and annoy everyone to hell with her horrible puns. Even though she can’t tell everything about what she knows to the party, she guides them carefully to the right answer. She wouldn’t “spoil” things to us in the game which made us more and more curious about her past.

Also she is there to make sure that everyone is safe, healthy and knows the consequences of certain… things.

In the anime, I started to mourn even Lailah when it turned out that she didn’t tell Sorey and effectively us, the audience that if the Shepherd dies so does his squires (which is a thing that does not exist in the game, FYI).

I think that was a pretty vital information, Lailah.

Her guidance failed spectacularly in the anime.

Oh, and about ruining Pendrago. What happened to not meddling with humans’ petty affairs and ruining entire cities without a care. No can tell me her giant fire ball didn’t make half of the wall disappear into nothing. But oh well, not that the people will complain or anything…

And the last seraph for today is… Zaveid! A real womanizer, the one friend who can turn any conservation into something dirty. Our absolute class clown who likes walking around half naked, sneaking around hot springs so he can get a peek of the women. A really great guy who has a tragic past and despite all of that smiles and makes pervert jokes all the time, but can give you some seriously good and mature advices when you need it the most. After all he’s not the type of guy to view everything as a win or lose situation.

At least they didn’t change him that much in the anime… although maybe they could have made him a little bit more carefree but given the circumstances he was introduced in the anime… but then again, Zaveid still cracked some jokes when you were about to face with Heldalf at the end of the game.

And finally, as for Alisha, I’m just going to say this: She didn’t need that armatization. At all. She proved in the game again and again and again that she is more than capable of handling things on her own while standing proud and tall next to Sorey, if theyhave to. Alisha is the last in the line and that’s exactly why she chose to be a knight. She is a strong, independent woman who can fight her own battles. Her dream was to make Hyland and Rolance live peacefully next to each other. Which of course had little to do with Sorey and his dream and duty. That’s why she was never meant to be the heroine.  

Anime!Alisha on the other hand… when I heard that her father is the king in the anime, I kid you not went back to my game and double checked whether that’s true or not because I was pretty sure that she was not the next in line. She was important enough in the game even though she was just the last… then why do this? Clearly this wasn’t necessary.

Ufotable must have really wanted to give Alisha more significance in Sorey’s story so bad somewhere along the line they forgot that this was supposed to be about Sorey and not about Alisha.  

TL;DR: Every character was robbed of their personality, Sorey’s dream holds no significance, who cares about seraphim?, let’s change anything and everything until we cannot say that this is about Zestiria, but let’s give Alisha more screen time because apparently she is our main protagonist.

And if you read the whole thing, then you’re a fucking champion! And if I maybe, maybe made you at least understand our point then I consider my job done.

And cookies for you if you got my references :*

[carnelianwings]

On Edna and Her Portrayal in Zestiria the X

You know, this latest Tales of Link event reminded me how amazing Edna was in the game.  Like, yes, she had a lot of biting remarks, and snarked at everything, and didn’t like humans at all.  (Although she clearly thinks Sorey’s okay.  Rose, too.  And Alisha too.  For a bunch of humans, anyway.)

(Behind a cut for length and Zestiria spoilers, especially the Eizen side quest, as this is my long overdue Wall of Text for Edna and her writing in Zestiria X.)

But here’s the thing - she did all that, despite grieving for Eizen and keeping a small amount of hope alive that there was a way to reverse his one-way trip to dragon-dom.  She never let the grief completely consume her, she found friends (of a sort, as it’s clear she knew Lailah and Zaveid before the game started), and even made some new ones.  She traveled the world, found something worth fighting for, and fought for that tooth and nail.

She might not have gotten the happy ending that she’d been hoping for - Eizen still had to be Mercy Killed in the end, but she saw how he must be suffering too, and recognized that it was time for her to let go of him.  That it was time to let him rest, be freed from his suffering, even if not having him in her life (in some way) was the last thing she’d ever wanted.

That she still found the strength to let go and make peace with that, even knowing she’s never see him as himself again even before the end and then helping Sorey, Rose, and Zaveid in the end to lay Eizen to rest, resonated with me so strongly.  And to see her be able to smile, tease and joke with the others, to still find the strength to love her (found) family, to get attached to people, despite what happened to Eizen and how much it must hurt . . .

And to see the anime and see her reduced to this mopey shadow of herself, who occasionally makes a snappy remark but otherwise just flopping on random objects like decoration, to see her just sit and mope over Eizen the whole time, to see an Edna that seems to be consumed by her grief over Eizen . . . it makes me disappointed.  Frustrated.  Furious even.  She’s so much more than Mopey Earth Seraph Who Wishes to Save Her Brother.

I can’t remember the last time she poked/prodded/bopped someone over the head with her parasol.  I can’t remember the last time she grabbed the Normin charm on her parasol and squeezed it to death because she was frustrated/irritated at someone/thing.  I can’t remember the last time she called Mikleo “Meebo” outside of an episode preview skit.  I can’t remember the last time she gleefully smirked while teasing Mikleo, got him all flustered, and had him going Tsunleo on everybody.  I can’t even remember the last time she went all Lady Edna on the party.  Or better yet, tried to tease Sorey just to have him take everything exactly as she says and she ends up having the tables turned on her.  These are all the things I remember her for from the game.

This is all absent from anime-Edna.  She looks like game-Edna, sounds like game-Edna, but she is not the Edna I fondly remember and love and laughed with while pitying Mikleo in all those skits and game events.  This is not the Teasing Big Sis Edna who will make sure to visit her Little Brother Mikleo frequently (by Seraphim standards) to make sure he doesn’t despair and turn into a dragon while Sorey sleeps.  Because while she’d never admit it out loud, she cares about him as a member of her family and never wants to see someone she cares about turn into a hellion/dragon again.  Ever.

Hell, if this was all that was on her mind, there should be 2 dragons at Rayfalke Spiritcrest.  After all, anime-Edna looks consumed by her grief, and it’s been established (in the game, anyway) that that’s one way to fall to malevolence and turn into a hellion/dragon.

[pengiesama]

every time we vore i get the feeling, every time we vore i touch the vore

that’s the new single from my studio album where i replace most of the words in songs with the word “vore”

anyway, it’s that time, before i go to a convention, to slack on packing and play some berseria

REALLY SEVERE SPOILER TERRITORY BELOW. i’d say i’m approaching game-end at this point

the real lord of calamity was the friends we made along the way

introducing medissa, because we really needed another female character whose design is solely based around her tits

literally two seconds after appearing on screen kamoana starts in with her fucking. shrieking. i want to meet whoever designed this walking pedo fap bait and donkey kick them into a coma

oh good, honkers mcgee and the repulsive goblin child like each other. maybe they'll now disappear from the story entirely and then all we'll have to worry about is finding a shark to feed bienfu to. we'll finally be free

the real grand poobah of calamity was the friends we made along the way

i like to imagine all this mother talk is going to work up to a reference to Muse and Mikleo but i never get what i want

"natural" malakhim are born from untainted mana from an earthpulse, and don't have blood family ties. eizen and edna were born from the same earthpulse on a mountain, and felt a sibling connection they didn't with other malakhim. they lived together for a while but eizen's curse kept putting edna in danger so he left (only coming back once, upon which edna was immediately attacked by a hoard of malevolence-induced humans). upon parting, they exchanged pendants; edna wears hers around her neck and the one she gave eizen has a self-portrait inside.

eizen was so cagey about even admitting he had a sister but now that the whole party knows he just corners them at every opportunity, silently unfurls a wallet full of pictures of her, and starts telling every story that comes to mind

when human malevolence reaches a certain peak, innominat awakens and ends the world. because we need an end of the world scenario to push the plot forward i guess. we can't run this train on velvet's throbbing revenge boner forever

i am pleased to learn that there is a Grimoirh fan club among malakhim; they find her composed, elegant, and love attending dinner shows where she reads literature. Grimoirh for best NPC, even though there's vanishingly little competition. a classy old scholar lady normin vs a constantly-screaming pedophile fantasy, what a race

the skit and NPC dialogue translation quality is just getting worse and worse. some exchanges are completely incomprehensible due to what i'm ASSUMING is someone trying to translate the original Japanese literally, without actually checking to make sure the result is like...not a word salad of gibberish. editors are important :')

hyland is currently underwater; it sank ages ago due to pissing off a dragon. so elysia used to be quite a bit more remote instead of being a day or two’s walk away from the kingdom capital lol

putting the Sorey accessory on Laphi's head creates the ultimate sweet baby and is the best decision i have ever made, barring making everyone else wear several hats clipping into each other

the obviously fake Aball subplot was pretty screwed up but i could appreciate shadow-niko's aggressive attempts to seduce velvet into submission

there are malakhim artes that read regrets and trap you in happy dreams, like the Black Mercy from the DC universe. good fanfic fuel i suppose

don't you fucking dare give away Laphi's compass. he is the sweet baby and the other one is just some prequel ripoff splenda child.

hi teresa and oscar, bye teresa and oscar, you're still religious fundie incestuous racists i see. nice killing you let's do this again sometime

good armatus lore tho. armatization was derived from the power of that stupid gun macguffin that i still think is way too vague with its actual powerset, and before it was perfected (or at least when they tried to let a bunch of losers try to do it with enslaved malakhim), it basically made the user melt lol. that's what you get when you try to make a bunch of scrubs armatize with wal-mart knockoffs of the holy artifacts

not everyone can rock the armatus battlefield in stiletto heels like sorey does

so bienfu is the traitor; how incredibly surprising. can we gut him now

oh fuck off laphicet 1.0; you're just fucking pissed that laphicet 2.0 is ten times cuter than your pretentious nihilistic ass will ever be. you don't deserve the name so i'm gonna call you Fuckface McGetsStabbed from now on. and your hair sucks, god i’m gonna love kicking your ass.

the real lord of calamity was the rush of murdering shitheads like the incest siblings, c'mon Velvet chin up your brother ain't shit

yeah whatever i don't need to see the earthpulse's recordings of artorius fucking velvet's sister thanks

was it supposed to be a shock that celica = seres? i thought it was meant to be obvious from the moment velvet ate her. not rly surprised that Better Laphicet was the unborn child either

can someone please give velvet like a stress doll or something i'm getting a little concerned

the zestiria/berseria universe hates children so much; i don't think i've seen a game with a higher child bodycount, barring Drakengard 1 and Nier (where you murder an entire platoon of forced child soldiers and a nursery of helpless infants, respectively). it's kinda impressive, even most "hardcore grimdark" games don't have the guts to kill kids on-screen. zestiria alone had baby mikleo get burned and stabbed to death, not to mention that whole sidequest with the bandit kids that ends with only one survivor.

the earthpulse and earthen historia is explained a little bit better in this game as well: the earthpulse flows through the whole planet, and any event that happens on the planet gets shadowed onto the earthpulse's flow. recordings of events can be called up by those with the power to manipulate the earthpulse (like Fuckface McGetsStabbed, who has currently hijacked it by using the earth as his vessel), or can be found piecemeal in iris gems, like in Zestiria.

the real lord of calamity was me going to a convention tomorrow and taking a break on this game before this upcoming very obvious bossfight arena