Shelf Life

Student Bodies

This prequel film is a significant improvement over the Tales of the Abyss TV series. However, the lack of game knowledge still held me back a little. Thankfully, this is no Unlimited Blade Works in terms of confusion to newcomers. And although Tales of Vesperia is also a lot better animated than Tales of the Abyss, it's no Unlimited Blade Works in the animation department, either. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The pseudo-science of this particular fantasy world involves “aer,” a mysterious substance that the characters crystallize into “blastia” and use to boost their magical abilities. Unfortunately, something has gone wrong with the aer outside of the city of Shizotania, and it's attracting monsters and causing the regular animals to attack. Fortunately, the city is protected by a magic force field, as well as troops of the Niren Corps.

Not content to sit on their laurels while the monster attacks get closer and closer to the city gate (and seriously disrupt shipping routes) the knights venture out into the forest several times to find the cause of the mysterious aer-gone-bad. Our protagonists' troop consists of Flynn and Yuri, childhood friends reunited; Chastel and Hisca, a pair of sisters identical in every way except breast size (why, Japan, why?!); Niren, a grizzled older general everyone loves; and team mascot Repede, who is a puppy in this prequel and an adult dog in the game.

110 minutes doesn't seem like enough time to explore that many characters. I mean, this is no Robert Altman ensemble film. A lot of the characters are new, so even if you've played the games, there are a lot of people to introduce. Or perhaps a better movie could've gotten to the heart of all those characters if it used its time more wisely. Like the Abyss TV series, Vesperia contains a lot of standing around and talking, which is too bad after the strong opening action sequences.

The film throws around some themes about what it means to follow orders versus doing what your gut tells you is the right thing. According to my friends, this theme is further explored in the game. While I appreciated that the film asked serious questions, I think they could've dug a little deeper with it, instead of relying so heavily on the game to give context.

A lot of the movie builds up to forming a fighting party to attack a fortress on a lake, the presumed source of the bad aer. It sounds appealingly like a traditional Dungeons & Dragons-style dungeon hack, but the movie wastes so much time on talking that the actual raid on the fortress is disappointingly short. Even the final climactic castle attack scenes in King of Thorn were more exciting (and that wasn't such a great movie, either).

The film is easy enough on the eyes; the magic effects look nice on BD, and the traditional animation is handled well. The dub is adequate, too. Does J. Michael Tatum always play villains? What is up with that?

This was a fine movie for a lazy Sunday afternoon whether or not you're familiar with the games. It's just not that memorable. Of the two friends we watched it with, one had completely forgotten she'd seen it. Even having watched it only six days ago, I found I'd forgotten chunks of the plot by the time I wrote this review.[TOP]

Because I don't play the kind of games that The World God Only Knows parodies, I am forever getting the terminology wrong. Galge? Dating sim? Visual novel? No matter what the term, protagonist Keima is a master of that kind of game (he calls them “dating sims” several times, in my defense). One day he accidentally makes a contract with a real life demon to help hunt lost souls on Earth by making girls fall in love with him. The trouble is that Keima thinks, in the language of 4chan, that “3D is pig disgusting.” The translation being that Keima has no interest in real life girls, he only likes the virtual kind.

Usually, when romance games are adapted into anime I complain that the characters aren't “real” enough. TWGOK skirts the problem, as Keima himself is a real character. I like that he blatantly plays games in class, much to the dismay of his teachers. His sedentary lifestyle has left him humorously bad at sports. He's a huge jerk to Elysia, his demon sidekick. The girls that Keima seduces seem to be to be parodies of girls in romance games. The first episode features an athletic girl, the second a poor little rich girl with a bad personality, and later episodes focus on a pop star and a bookworm.

The crux of the show's humor is that in real life, under normal circumstances, Keima could never (nor would he want to) seduce a lady. In TWGOK, Keima exclusively encounters girls who behave as girls in games do. Keima acts impassively in front of them, as if he is still playing a game, yet the girls react in an emotionally favorable way. I found the lack of an emotional connection between Keima and his women funny every single time.

I laughed more than once per episode, which sometimes is enough to make a comedy Shelf Worthy for me. That said, I can't really see recommending TWGOK to people the way I would Cat Planet Cuties. I would conceivably watch Cat Planet Cuties again, but not TWGOK. Particularly the three episode arc featuring library girl Shiori started to try my patience. Although Shirori is an interesting character, I think that should've taken one or two episodes, tops. That said, I did like the final episode of the season, wherein Keima catches up on games by playing six dating sims at once.

I suspect that fans of this sort of game have already eagerly consumed this title, and in that case, there's no need for me to call their attention to it. In fact, if you're a gamer like Keima, I'm interested in hearing what you thought of it. I assume that TWGOK closely parodies the dating sim genre with an expert hand, but I could be wrong, and nothing is more irritating than a half-assed parody of a genre that the makers weren't in love with (which is why I loved Megas XLR and hated Perfect Hair Forever).

TWGOK even has a nice dub. I enjoyed Chris Patton as a believably jerky Keima. As usual, Luci Christian delivers a terrifyingly believable non-human performance as Elysia. The songs go entirely un-dubbed, even if the characters are only singing a line or two, which I appreciated but simultaneously found a little jarring. (I guess they could've sung the shorter phrases… or there's just no pleasing me.)

I recognize TWGOK is a quality show, but I can't bring myself to give more than a half-hearted recommendation for it. It's more like, I understand why people like this show, but I don't think everyone needs to own it.[TOP]