Another RPG turned anime is born with Tales of the Abyss. This is purportedly a part of the "Tales of..." franchise which would include such titles as Tales of Symphonia, Tales of Eternia... and then some. All of these are taken from role-playing games, and accordingly, the Tales of franchise is really not too bad as both of the above mentioned have gotten praise and Tales of the Abyss is causing lots of hype among fans.
The story starts out with the introduciton of Luke, a red-haired, hot-headed young spoiled prince who hates that he's being locked away in his own mansion. When he was a child he'd been kidnapped and returned with memories lost of his previous years before the kidnapping. He is friends with a servant named Guy, engaged to Princess Natalia, and is being trained in the art of the sword by his Van Sensei.
While practicing out in the court, Tear, a sorceress type girl enters the mansion and proclaims vengeance against Vandesdelca, Luke's Van Sensei, as she puts the rest of the people of the court into a sleep with her powers. Upon attacking Van, Luke intervenes and somehow a 7th Fonon reacts and the two are transported away from the mansion. From then, though having tried to take his Van Sensei's life, Tear turns out to be quite a generous and kind young girl who makes herself responsible for making sure Luke returns to his home safely.
The episode actually starts off with some form of prophecy which more than likely involves Luke and his being a 7th Fonon. The storyline sounds kind of complicated what with Yulia the creator who had learned the 7th Fonon arts, the planet called Outerlands which was made from the 7 Fonons which ended up divided, and the two factions divided Kimlasca and Malkuth. There is also the Lorelei religion which protects the Fonons and Yulia the creator.
The central theme of this series, I can surmise, is about the score created by Yulia and how our heroes will adventure in relation to it.
The first episode was a very mashed up debacle of events occuring one right after another. While I understand that sometimes jumping right into the point is good, I don't like it when too many things are narrated within five minutes and expected of the viewer to know what is going on. Of course, for others, maybe you already know what's happening in the storyline since your a fan of the Tales of franchise and have played every single game to death.
Me, I'm not too certain I can grasp the storyline since I haven't played the game. After all, it took me quite some time to understand what was going on with Final Fantasy VII's storyline. And I'm a proud squealing fangirl who worships Cloud-sama. Advent Children is thus far my favorite RPG turned animation adaptation. Even World Destruction has lost it's appeal for me, but I will devote myself to finishing it.
Back to Tales of the Abyss, I think I'll give it a shot. After all, I like action, adventure, and fantasy, and the Tales of franchise often boasts good adventure and fantasy with a slice of romance. We'll just see how this works out.
Except I know for a fact that I already don't like Luke, the spoiled brat from the Kingdom of Kimlasca who's supposedly part of the prophecy at the beginning and is the main protagonist of the series. He sounds like a spoiled brat and acts like one too. I don't know it that's to do with the character or the seiyuu of which I'm unfamiliar. I look foward to seeing more of Tear who seems like the cool and collected woman warrior-- she almost reminds me Morute except a lot nicer and a lot more competent, less hot-headed; she would make quite the nice foil for Luke as his counter personality.
If at all possible, I've come to like Yukana, the seiyuu of Tear who has also done the likes of Meiling Li from Cardcaptor Sakura, and Tenko-sama from Wagaya no Oinari-sama.
All-in-all, there is always the possibility that I will drop this series before it's over. It is scheduled for 26 episodes, much longer than any of the other Tales of series out in animation. This may be a long and bumpy ride.
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