Shoot, pose, wink, repeat. ^_~

I don’t really have a witty introduction for this rant, but here’s what I have to say about the Valkyria Chronicles anime. It’s kind of long-ish though, so you’ve been warned.

The Good:

One of the few things the anime has over the game is greater depth of characterization, and all the major characters are fleshed out significantly more than their game counterparts, though this applies predominantly to Faldio as he’s taken a significant role in the anime compared to the game where he was a seldom seen, recurring character that initiated a few plot points as needed. Compared to the original game, Faldio’s anime counterpart is very relevant to the story, and his presence actually adds some much needed drama to the otherwise boring and predictable Welkin-Alicia relationship. All love stories worth their salt are obligated to include a love triangle or two to keep things fresh.

Faldio’s greater role in the anime also sets him up much better for his inevitable falling out with Welkin and Alicia later in the story, because we the audience actually get adequate time to know and identify with him, learn his motivations, what makes him tick. The anime has actually set up his fall as the tragic hero perfectly.

Alicia, and to a lesser extent, the other members of Squad 7 also benefitted from the anime. Originally, Alicia didn’t have much personality to speak of aside from being a Mary Sue heroine, but the anime makes her a much more believable character. Sure some fans will cry foul for consequently turning her into a tsundere, but she became much more vibrant in the anime and shows a certain spark to her personality that was missing in the game, partly due to the greater role of Faldio who knows how to push all her buttons. And how can you not love the full range of her priceless expressions? The Alicia facefault is worth the price of admission.

Even the Imperials have been humanized much more from the big generals all the way down to the grunts. Jaeger is actually a pretty interesting guy, and seeing him get a boost in screen time has made him more than just some enemy general you fight a couple times in the game. Selvaria is still little more than Maximillian’s puppet, but at least she has more personality than “Hay guyz I’m a Valkyria and I’m gonna tear you a new one lolol”. It’s also kind of nice to see the rank and file soldiers actually have faces now, because it reminds us that although they’re the enemy they’re still humans… Though to be fair the game probably had to dehumanize the enemy soldiers for morality issues since you end up shooting a lot of them, mostly in the head.

The inclusion of the anime exclusive, Ramal, adds some depth to Isara and gives an otherwise shafted character a much needed love interest that was missing from the game… Some among us may have shipped Welkin-Isara (I know I sure did), but there was no way that would ever feasibly happen in such a mainstream game… Ramal started off as Faldio’s annoying sidekick, but I’ve grown to like the guy lately, partly because he’s interesting and partly because Isara needs a love interest while Welkin is off being an idiot. Speaking of which…

The Bad:

I lauded the script for making Faldio a relevant character, but at what expense? There’s almost been too much Faldio at Welkin’s expense. It’s not completely his fault for making Welkin look like a friggin moron, but Faldio’s competence on the battlefields of both war and love makes the real protagonist look like an ignoramus. While Welkin’s personality is more or less intact, as he is supposed to be oblivious to social interactions, at least he was an awesome strategist. Faldio has basically usurped Welkin’s original role in the story as the brilliant (if unorthodox) strategist that wins against stacked odds, and he’s sweeping Alicia off her feet while Welkin stands on the sideline being a doofus.

By now we should all know Welkin-Alicia is the canon relationship, but it’s hard not to make the real relationship look contrived with Faldio’s overbearing hand in the love triangle. Any way I look at it, Faldio is such a front runner that having Alicia settle for Welkin looks like settling for second place.

My other major nitpick, and this is a big one, is that all the battles have been lackluster and just plain missing. Epic battles were a staple of the game. Welkin and company would run through the streets of abandoned towns and vast fields engaging in guerilla warfare with ruthless Imperial troops. The Edelweiss would advance as scouts, shock troopers and engineers followed suit taking care to stay out of the enemy’s line of fire. Meanwhile the snipers would find a perch, waiting for the perfect headshot to present itself. None of that has been present in the anime, which has liberally skipped some of the game’s best battles. This is a show about war, so where’s the fighting? I didn’t expect the VC anime to be totally action packed, but the total lack of action is just ridiculous.

The anime has been sorely missing two of the game’s biggest symbols, the Edelweiss, and by association the Lion’s Paw, are the symbols of Squad 7 — one a resilient tank epitomizing Gallia’s sole hope against the vastly superior Empire, and the Lion’s Paw a resilient flower that overcomes adversity to bloom in even the harshest of conditions.

A lesser nitpick is how much the Squad 7 generics like Edy, Susie and Marina have been shafted. I never expected them to be more than minor characters, but they desperately need just a little more screen time since they’re actually quite engaging when they do get to talk, and by giving them lines the squad feels like it’s more than just Welkin, Alicia, Largo, Rosie, and a bunch of expendable background characters to fill out the roster. I want to see more of Edy’s one sided rivalry with Rosie, more Jann being a complete fruit, more Homer being a hilarious masochist, and moar Marina Wulfstan being a friggin awesome sniper. These guys are interesting, and they need more lines. It’s looking increasingly unlikely we’ll see the Edy Detachment at this rate.

I think I covered the things I’ve liked and disliked about the VC anime. Unlike most of the people watching it, I don’t think it outright sucks, but it has been a letdown in certain areas. The characterization is much improved at the expense of some story aspects here and there. The small liberties with the story I can live with like Alicia getting kidnapped along with Princess Cordelia. It didn’t happen in the game but it’s fine. I’m not the kind of guy that complains about lack of action, like when shounen have to insert story episodes between fights to set up the plot, but the VC anime’s disparate story/action ratio is alarming. This little rant ended up being far longer than originally intended, so let’s end it here.

tl;dr: VC anime needs more action and more Squad 7 side character development. Maybe some more jokes about Selvaria’s huge tracts of land too. Yeah! I want that too.

This entry was posted on Friday, July 24th, 2009 at 8:57 pm and is filed under Anime, Rants, Valkyria Chronicles.You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.