Uknighted Manganime Life is too short to watch bad anime

I wasn’t going to bother writing a summary, but seeing as i can’t find any other blog posts about this (or even a synopsis) here goes a brief version:

Orika is a Revatail (different from humans in that they can perform ‘magic’) however she has never been able to sing/cast spells properly, and is scorned by the other Revatails. She sees a falling object in the distance, which turns out to be Lynar and his fighter air craft which crashes nearby, on the edge of a cliff. While Orika is attempting to help Lynar, the plane falls off the cliff, taking the two with them. Some time later they crash for the 2nd time, on a town. When trying to fix the aircraft, a dragon shows up and starts blasting things with its ‘pepper breath attack’ (for those of you that got that reference, here’s a cookie:) ). The two + the mechanic attempt to draw the dragon away, by taking off in the now-working Aircraft. Followed by the dragon in hot pursuit, they reach ‘the roof of the world’ (or something like that). After dodging the dragon’s flames, Lynar, aided by Orika’s magic manages to defeat the dragon. Just as they’re feeling relieved, the ship breaks and it looks like they’re going to crash again….

Ar Tonelico (AT) reminds me a lot of Erementar Gerald. You have similar characters, a male hero and a female ’spell caster’, who explore their wolf together, with other members of the party. My overall impression of EG was interesting and brilliant in some places (for example Ren and Cou’s relationship was dealt with maturely), however throughout, i got the impression that not enough effort had been put into making it original. In other words, it fell short of it’s full potential. AT feels to have the same problem.

The characters are interesting (while replying on the stereotypical RPG characteristics) but lack depth. the universe that AT takes place seems fascinating, however flaws of believability and plot devices mar the experience.

Things like:

“We need to need to go to TOWN.
Oh no, the plane is falling…
Oh look, we’ve ended up at that town i said we needed to go too..

could have worked if they had explained why “Down” is a distance you can travel in to reach your destination, however in the context it’s represented in, it comes off looking like a cheap (think $0.01) plot device.

Also let us not forget 1) Orika straddling Lynar’s arm as the plane falls (pantsu flash) 2) Orika straddling Lynar’s head after they crash landed (pantsu flash) 3) Orika slapping Lynar, for 2), which was hardly his fault… 4) The only wound they suffered from falling about 90 stories in an open hatch plane, appears to be a scratch on Orika’s finger.

Then there’s the dragon thing. I love how they always manage to just miss the dragon’s flamethower attack, and i love how the dragon waits for them to clamber out of the ship and wander around before he attacks them again. A very considerate animal there. Also, It was extremely absurd to have someone standing on top of something like a jet fighter, attacking a dragon with a sword (a long range sword). Finally, having the ship instantly repaired, able to outfly a dragon and then breaking the instant the dragon dies? Please people, can you at least pretend that you think we have a few cells of intelligence and make an *effort* to have a plot that doesn’t depend on coincidences ??? The animation sucks as well. Beautiful scenes, characters and world design looking blurry and with minimized detail like something out of Canvas2.

It’s not all bad. The character designs are cute, the music is ok, and the scene where Lynar is saying “Look look look i’m FINE FINE! AWWWW my SHOULDER” really cracked me up :D.

Ar Tonelico is a definitely average show, which might be worth checking out if you like RPG, have some time to kill, liked the game (yes there is a game) or want to have a look at something similar to Erementar Gerad. Unfortunately (for those that wanted to watch the rest of it) the subber had this to say:

Started subbing this when I was still doing .hack//roots episode 2, but the OVA was such a disappointment, I couldn’t find the motivation to finish it…

Played the game a while ago, really liked it. The OVA on the other hand… well… it’s a nice quick watch none the less. But the story was altered, and my favorite character Misya barely got to show up…

/me wishes he hadn’t spent so much time writing this review.