Stoi84

I'm not writing reviews because english is not my native language, but for this one, I had to.

This anime is an affront to the game story and the characters.

Yes, I played to the game before watching the anime, thus it's difficult for me to be completely objective. So this is a small review based on how good (or bad in this case) is the anime, compared to the game, based mainly on the story and the characters. I'll not enter into the details because I could speak about this for hours. I'll only use 1 example for each case in order to spoil the less possible.

Let's start with the positive points, since it's the fastest part to explain. The only good things are the things they took as is from the game. This includes some of the musics, and the artwork. You'll definitely hear something you'll like at a time or another, the sound is overall pretty good, especially during action phases. It really matches what happens. Also, they tried to reproduce the sketch style of the game, at least sometimes, which gives the art a real stamping. This is also a good point. And I have to admit this is all I liked from the anime. The rest was bad or terrible in my opinion, compared to the game.

The first thing to know is that this anime is definitely an adaptation of the game, not a side story or a new story. It uses the same universe, the same plot, it follows the same path with the same characters and the same main events, at least until the end. No doubt about it, it's the same story. The main difference is that the story from the game is wonderful from the end to the beginning, in the way it's told, in the topics, in how events affect both the characters and you and relates to real events. The anime fails in all these points. Moreover, it's like they didn't understand the purpose of the events in the game, but tried to re-use them in their own way in order to match to the game as much as possible. The result is awful.

The next paragraphs contains spoilers.

One the of the best examples is the raid on Fouzen. In the anime, the refugees seems pretty organized, they have weapons, hideouts. However, it ends with most of the refugees being killed while trying to run away because of the Empire's bombs launched after the Squad 1 (Faldio's Squad) decided to attack. Squad 7 members feel guilty about this. This is how Rosie starts to change his mind about Darcsens. In the game, the refugees are only shown as workers living crowded in small houses, which is also explained in the anime by Zaka. In the game, the Squad 7 meet these people, they see how they live, and Zaka lives with them. And when they thinks they finally saved them, they hear that the Empire caught them in the house and burned it. Rosie finds the doll of the small girl she met before in the ashes of the house. This is how Rosie starts to change his mind about Darcsens. And this is the same doll as the doll Isara will give her later, both in the anime and the game. But the anime could not make the link between the 2 events. On one side you have a "don't move or I shoot, oh, then let's move", and on the other side you have a situation you can't control with the horrors of war, relating a terrible event from the real WW2. The impact is different. The anime is full of changes like this one, making it difficult to understand why the characters change and it's sometimes difficult to match with the upcoming events, so they modify again and again the story.

The same is true for the characters, they changed their personality to animes standards, and the result is woeful, it's bland characters with classic personalities. There's no love triangle in the game, Alicia is not a tsundere, in fact she's probably what' is the closest to an Angel, for a human, Welkin is not a stupid lumpish, he's really smart and knows what he wants and do, Faldio is not that arrogant, he's a minor but important secondary character, Rosie is not the bitch you see in almost all the anime, some characters are missing and the events are changed to compensate this. Let's take the end, in example. In the anime, they simply escape from the Marmota, nothing more, and it's the end. They move out from the fire for unexplained reasons. In the game, they can't escape, it's burning, and they try to gain height. When everything seems lost, an airplane comes to help them. What ? an airplane ? Yes. In the game, you learn that Isara is working on an airplane, because it's Welkin dream to fly. It's a secret project. She cannot finish to work on this because she died too early, but her mechanic friend (who does not exists in the anime because he's replaced by Ramal, from Faldio's Squad, to create a bad one-sided love story.) will finish this for her, to honor her memory. Isara's goal is achieved, Welkin can fly with the airplane she was making for him. The anime is full of this. They traded all the interesting background for the love triangle and Faldio's screen time/Faldio's Squad, and thus they were not able to totally use the potential from the game.

And to conclude, they totally changed the end into something terrible. I think it was the best way to end this masquerade.

These are 2 examples taken amongst A LOT. This is why I really recommend to everyone who is interested in Valkyria Chronicles to play to the game. It's now available on Steam at a cheap price. The game is long (40+ hours), but you'll see the real story behind Valkyria Chronicles. And if you already watched the anime, you'll probably be really impressed by the story and the characters of the game.