Categories

Friday, May 18, 2012

Posted by IceCreamNinja in News Articles November 06, 2009 at 05:18:44 AM

Tears to Tiara first found its start on the PC as a Japanese eroge game back in 2005. Naturally, as with any artistic enterprise that bravely and boldly tries to portray the age-old struggle to seek out and acquire titillating sequences of pixelated nudity, one would think the creators undoubtedly chose to first focus their efforts on all the ancillary elements—gameplay, story, the creation of a believable world and characters—that would distinguish their work from their competitors. Imagine the surprise and betrayal then that players must have felt to discover that the game was really nothing more than a knockoff; a work which simply imitated the elements of other mainstream titles while copying common story tropes from anything that seemed even remotely relevant to fill in all the important parts between the videos of animated sex.

Shocking, I know. What sort of age do we live in where XXX titles don’t even have decent stories anymore?


Tears to Tiara is not a hentai, but that doesn’t stop it from acting like the lobotomized, scaled down version of one as far as its story is concerned. Based loosely on the Arthurian legend, the work tells the tale of the Gael tribe, a group of people, led by the resurrected Demon King Arawn, that has decided to rebel against the Empire of which they were once a part. The story opens with Riannon, the daughter of the late chieftain and sister of Arthur, the tribe’s First Warrior, being kidnapped by renegade priests who have decided to reawaken the Demon King with an offering of Riannon’s blood. Arthur catches wind of this and, with the assistance of the story’s Merlin equivalent Ogam, rushes to her rescue; but not before the Demon King is partially resurrected.

As an interesting aside, here’s a quick quiz you can use the next time you decide to start watching a new series: Is the main character, the first character or any prominent character introduced within the space of the first three episodes wearing a ridiculous hat for which they should feel ashamed of? If yes, then congratulations! You’ve just determined that this series is a complete waste of your time and can safely and immediately avoid it without any of the shame you might feel later for wasting all of your precious time waiting to see if it will improve.

Having stopped the evil priests, Arthur turns his attention to the newly awakened Demon King, unaware that in actual fact it was he who broke Riannon’s mind control and freed her of the priests. Yes, it seems old evil Lord Arawn has something of a soft spot for maidens in distress, and, after being made chieftain of the Gael tribe on the spot by the girl with the ridiculous hat that looks like it belongs on the head of the ineffectual Sultan from Aladdin, joins with Arthur and leads the people into war with the Empire. For some reason.

It is at this point that the failings of Tears to Tiara’s origins can be felt. Because the story was undoubtedly never a primary focus in the original game, there’s really not that much more of it to be found in the anime. The characters are by and large dull, one-sided hybridized versions of their toned-down XXX roles in the game and character classes from Final Fantasy. Almost every female character in the series with the exception of perhaps one is either hopelessly clumsy, ingratiating or subservient, dresses like a maid or a prostitute and ultimately ends up becoming one of Arawn’s many wives that he acquired (to his credit unwillingly) in innumerably inexplicable and ridiculous ways. Saves your life? You’re his wife. Spares your life? You’re his wife. Burns some seal skin that for whatever reason you wear to travel between his castle and your unseen magical fairy land on the other side of the sea? You’re his wife. It’s as if the Demon King has some sort of magical aura of unholy charisma about him that just makes every woman in the series want to take him home and introduce him to the family. That premise alone would make for one hell of an amazing Look Whose Coming to Dinner parody, but unfortunately the show fails to exploit the opportunity.

The Final Fantasy reference is also relevant, particularly when one considers that it was Final Fantasy that undoubtedly provided the template to the original game’s structure and gameplay elements. This is inherently reflected in the anime as well, most notably in the roles of the characters, but also to some extent in the nature and direction of the larger story. Final Fantasy games are typified by class-based combat, in that the various characters that a player controls in their party carry traits and specialties unique to each individual. For example, there is always a fighter of some sort—usually a whiny, naïve boy of indeterminate age between 12 and 22 with an unrequited love interest and a penchant for dressing in half-shirts that only cover the top of his chest. There’s almost always a healer—a white mage, usually a woman, responsible for protecting the party, as well as a thief, an offensive-based magic user, a spear wielder and so on. The characters from Tears to Tiara mimic these classes to an uncanny degree, to the point where one can almost put them side-by-side with characters from games in the Final Fantasy series.

The story too shares many similarities with the typical Final Fantasy tale: “Magic exists. There’s an Empire out there that’s bad. If we don’t do something, the world could end somehow. We’re not really sure how yet, but we’ll probably figure that out along the way. We’ve got to stop them for some reason, but not before we spend a ridiculous amount of time grinding away at random enemies to improve our skills and acquire additional party members to help us in our fight.”

That ultimately was the most damning thing about the show: the fact that for whatever reason the creators decided to faithfully represent the act of grinding levels in an anime. There’s actually a space of about three episodes where the only thing of note that the characters actually do is fight giant crabs on a beach. Then they eat them. The rest of the time is usually also spent in the acquisition of food. Up until episode 13, which is where I finally managed to wrench myself away from this abomination, the people of the Gael tribe still hadn’t actually done anything of note outside of fighting for the ultimate purpose of acquiring and summarily consuming supplies. When the barbarian hordes declared war on the Roman Empire, they cut a swath of destruction throughout Europe, drove the wealthy lakeside community of Venice out into a swamp through fear alone, and ultimately burned Rome to the ground. In comparison, when the people of the Gael tribe declared war on the Empire, they instead burned their village to the ground, fled in the opposite direction of the Empire’s capital, and subsequently spent the rest of their time holed up in a castle with fairy maids waiting on them hand and foot; killing and eating anything they could get their hands on.

While wearing ridiculous hats.

You must be logged in to submit a comment.

Recent News

Recent Reviews

Recent Articles