Tales of Symphonia: The Animation (テイルズ オブ シンフォニア THE ANIMATION, Teiruzu obu Shinfonia The Animation) is a four-episode anime series (OVA) based on the video game of the same name. The first episode became available to own in June 2007; the remaining episodes were released at two-month intervals, with the last one going on sale in December of the same year. In July 2008, the Japanese television station BS11 began airing the series, with one episode being shown each week.[1] During the Tales of Festival 2008, the second series of the OVA was announced.[2]
Plot
Two worlds exist, Sylvarant and Tethe'alla, each unaware of the existence of the other. In order for one world to flourish, the other must deteriorate. From each world, a Chosen is sent on a journey to restore that world's mana by awakening the spirits and becoming an angel for the sake of the goddess Martel.
Colette Brunel, the Chosen of Sylvarant, sets out on her journey accompanied by her best friends Lloyd Irving and Genis Sage. As they travel, they meet new friends and enemies, while they learn more about the truth behind the World Regeneration.[3]
Lloyd gives Colette a pendant at the very beginning of the OVA as a birthday present. In the game, he does not finish the pendant in time, so he gives it to her at a much later point.
Colette is already at the Martel Temple prior to the Oracle. In the game, Colette is in the Iselia schoolhouse before she sneaks out to the temple with Lloyd and Genis.
Raine allows Genis and Lloyd to go with her to the temple to check up on Colette, but in the game, she orders everyone to stay in the classroom.
In the game, Botta makes an appearance at Iselia's Temple of Martel. The OVA suggests that he does not appear at the building. Botta makes his initial appearance in episode 4, although he does not make a contribution to the storyline.
Kratos is presumably hired by the priests before the beginning of the OVA to assist in Colette's journey. In the game, Kratos is just a wandering mercenary who was hastily hired to compensate the deaths of Colette's original consort.
In the OVA, Genis does not get spanked by Raine in Martel Temple, nor does Lloyd get kicked by her.
In the animation, it is shown that Kratos does not have an Exsphere equipped, whereas in the game he does.
There is no mention of Marble in the OVA.
Unlike in the game, the angel Remiel does not purport to be Colette's true father. This is one of the many subplots that were omitted from the OVA to significantly cut down time.
A Desian soldier, spying on the Martel Temple skirmish, sees Lloyd using his Exsphere, which causes the Desians to attack Iselia. In the game, the attack is provoked when Genis and Lloyd violate the non-aggression treaty between Iselia and the Desians by trespassing at the Iselia Human Ranch.
The non-aggression treaty is mentioned in the OVA by Genis, though only once.
Dirk joins the battle after Iselia is set ablaze in the OVA. Lloyd battles Forcystus instead of the mutated Marble, while Dirk fights the Desian forces. In the game, Dirk made no known contribution to the prevention of Iselia's attack.
Forcystus is severely wounded, if not killed, by a ray of light that bursts forth from Lloyd's Exsphere. In the game, he is injured by Marble's self-sacrifice. Lloyd also does not battle Forcystus until a later point in the plot.
In the game, Lloyd and Genis are banished from Iselia, following the incident with Forcystus. There is no evidence of such a banishment in the OVA.
Lloyd's pet, Noishe, makes a minor appearance in a stable at Dirk's house in the OVA. In the game, Noishe plays a more important role, allowing the player to ride him across the world.
The Exsphere is only used in times of desperation; it is treated like a terrible power that shouldn't be used. In the game, the Exsphere is active as long as it is equipped; it is treated as a power-enhancer (though only for this episode, in the next ones it's treated as a power enhancer).
In the OVA Dirk, Lloyd, and the others act as if they don't know what an Exsphere is, merely calling it a gem, in the game Dirk, Lloyd, and the others know exactly what an exsphere is.
Phaidra, Colette's grandmother, is never mentioned in the animation, nor is she seen at Martel Temple. She can be seen, however, in the crowd of villagers during the razing of Iselia.
Episode 2
It can be implied that some desert village was destroyed before Colette and the others arrived there.
Lloyd and Genis manage to catch up with the Chosen's party. In the game, Lloyd is captured and taken to the Renegade base. Lloyd is eventually rescued and reunited with the rest of the party.
Yuan has not appeared in the animation yet, whereas in the game, Lloyd encounters him in the Renegade base before being reunited with the rest of the party.
There is no evidence of events that take place in Izoold and Palmacosta in the game occurring in the animation.
The party's first encounter with Sheena is not at the Ossa Trail, but at the Balacruf Mausoleum. In the game, this is actually their second encounter, and this encounter may also occur outside of the Tower of Mana or on Thoda island, depending on the path the player had chosen.
Zelos meets with Sheena by a lake in Tethe'alla to discuss her mission of assassinating Colette, but he does not attempt to intervene. He is later seen at Meltokio Castle, proclaiming that he knew Sheena didn't have the guts to kill Sylvarant's Chosen.
Sheena's initial appearance was at Palmacosta to assassinate Colette in her sleep. Unlike the OVA, she first appeared as a clumsy assassin at the Ossa Trail in the game.
The party apparently heads straight to the Balacruf Mausoleum without visiting Asgard and defeating the false Summon Spirit of Wind. In the game, this was necessary in order to enter the mausoleum.
Magnius is confronted in the Balacruf Mausoleum. In the game, he is confronted long before this in the first initial visits to Palmacosta, where he invades the town because the Governor-General has been reluctant to send him tribute. The Desians are never encountered in the Balacruf Mausoleum, and possibly not in any other of the Seals.
Magnius is not confronted and killed, like in the game; instead, he is defeated when he surrounds the Balacruf Mausoleum with Desians. At this point, Colette sings a mysterious angel song that weakens (or perhaps kills) Magnius' soldiers. As such, the party never meets him in battle.
Sheena guides the party out through an underground sewer beneath Balacruf Mausoleum. She subsequently attacks the party in a more secluded area of the sewer. This sewer does not exist in the game.
One detail included in the animation is that Colette does not fight the Seal guardians (she is protected by Raine instead). In the game, Colette is required to be in the party during these battles.
The animation begins taking the so-called "hard path" in the game, which is the route that has Balacruf Mausoleum before the Palmacosta region events.
In the animation, Magnius is shown in the Asgard region, outside the Balacruf Mausoleum. In the game, however, he appears in the Palmacosta region.
Episode 3
In the OVA, Lloyd finds out that Colette has lost her senses when she is holding the cup and singing; in the game, Lloyd tricks Colette with a hot cup of coffee to find out that she cannot feel things.
In the game, the party decides to steal Desian uniforms in order to sneak into the Asgard Human Ranch. This does not occur in the OVA.
Lloyd duels Kvar in a hall at the Asgard Human Ranch in which prisoners are getting their Exspheres harvested. In the game, this hall does not exist; instead, the humans are processed through assembly lines and machines, ending in box-like containers.
Kratos kills Kvar by stabbing him; in the game, Lloyd and Kratos fight together to defeat the Grand Cardinal. In addition, Kratos merely stabs Kvar once; in the game, he strikes Kvar no fewer than three times.
There is no mention of the Tower of Mana, for it says in the episode that the Seal of Water is the final seal.
Lloyd finds out about Colette losing her voice when they are alone. In the game, the party finds out immediately after leaving the Tower of Mana.
Sheena's Shikigami (Guardian) transported Lloyd and the group away from the Human Ranch in the game, whereas it slaughtered the Desians when they were caught in the courtyard in the animation.
Sheena did not remain with the party in the animation.
Lloyd had his Exsphere to battle the Water Seal's guardian in the game; due to an internal conflict about whether using his Exsphere was ethical, Lloyd did not use it to battle the Seal's guardian in the animation.
In the animation, there is a boat at the dock of Thoda Geyser. There is no mention of the washtubs that appear in the game.
Episode 4
In the animation, the party acquires money from the local church to pay for the dragon ride to the Tower of Salvation; in the game, the dragon ride is free.
Lloyd takes back the pendant he gave to Colette before their journey began. This does not happen in the game, as Lloyd gives her the pendant much later.
Lloyd does not know of the existence of Tethe'alla before the Tower of Salvation in the animation. Even so, he chooses Colette's life over the Regeneration. In the game, he cannot bear to lose Colette and initially attempts to convince her not to complete the regeneration.
In the game, Lloyd meets Yuan in the Renegades' Base; in the animation, Lloyd, Raine, and Genis meet him in a forest near the Tower of Salvation, disguised as a Renegade soldier.
In the OVA, Kratos and Colette leave the night before to go to the Tower of Salvation without telling Lloyd or the others. In the game, everyone leaves at the same time, although Kratos and Colette arrive first.
Instead of battling Lloyd, Genis, Raine, and Sheena (as he does in the game), Kratos duels with Yuan outside of the Tower of Salvation.
In the animation, the interior of the Tower of Salvation is a giant pillar with a transparent blue staircase circling it, leading up to the main altar. In the game, a narrow pass suspended in endless, luminescent space leads the way to a teleporter directly to the altar.
In the game, Raine realizes that the hundreds of floating coffins around them contain the corpses of every Chosen before Colette. There is no mention of this in the animation, despite the coffins being present.
When Colette loses her spirit in the game, her angel wings are visible, her Cruxis Crystal turns grey, and her eyes are red. When she loses her spirit in the OVA, she is floating in midair, her eyes become cloudy, and her Cruxis Crystal is still red.
The fight with Remiel begins when he is attacked by Genis and Raine; in the game, Lloyd provokes the fight.
Yuan kills Remiel in the OVA after Lloyd is knocked unconscious by falling debris; in the game, Remiel dies from the wounds Lloyd's party inflicted during their battle.
In the game, a spiteful Kratos lets Remiel die from his wounds. In the animation, he expresses his displeasure when he discovers that Yuan has killed him.
In the game, Lloyd is knocked unconscious by Mithos Yggdrasill; in the animation he is hit by falling debris while attempting to save Colette.
In the game Lloyd is sent flying into a pillar, knocking it down, which leads to a stunning revelation later on; this doesn't happen in the animation.
In the animation, Sheena mysteriously vanishes after the destruction of the Asgard Human Ranch; she only reunites with Lloyd's group in the Renegades' Base. This does not happen in the game, as Sheena is already with the party.
While preparing the Rheairds for transportation, Sheena reveals Tethe'alla's existence. The game reveals this fact much earlier, before the group reaches Luin.
At the end of the episode, Regal Bryant is shown looking up at the sky near some mountains. In the game, Regal would have still been in prison at this point.
At the end of the episode, Presea is shown without a Key Crest. Although she has one in the game, it is not made from the correct material.
In the game, Yuan is very discreet about ever being seen by Kratos, instead using Botta to indirectly act as he switches the mana flows in the Desians' Human Ranches; in the OVA, Botta is never seen to leave the Renegade Base, and Yuan openly shows his face and fights directly with Cruxis.
Because Yuan is very clearly defined as an anti-Cruxis element in the OVA, it is presumable that he has already publicly betrayed Mithos.
Releases
Currently, four volumes have been released:
Volume 1: June 8, 2007
Volume 2: August 10, 2007
Volume 3: October 24, 2007
Volume 4: December 21, 2007
The DVDs are released with three editions each: the regular DVD release, and two special editions known as the Collector's Edition and Exsphere Edition.
Both special editions feature a collection of 6 bonuses, as detailed below:
Collector's Edition
Exsphere Edition
Packaging
DVD Box, featuring the same illustration as the regular DVD release.
"Special Packaging", with patterns to match the Exspheres in the game.
Bonus Disc
A DVD containing the bonus anime Kratos-sensei's Private Lessons for the first volume, and CDs containing portions of the original soundtrack for volumes two till four.
A DVD containing seiyū interviews (Lloyd, Colette, Kratos) for the first volume, and CDs featuring tracks from Tales Ring - Symphonia for volumes two till four.
Audio Commentaries Track
(included in the main DVD)
Volume 1 - Katsuyuki Konishi and Nana Mizuki (Lloyd and Colette)
Volume 2 - Katsuyuki Konishi and Masaya Onosaka (Lloyd and Zelos)
Volume 3 - Katsuyuki Konishi and Fumihiko Tachiki (Lloyd and Kratos)
Volume 4 -Katsuyuki Konishi and Nana Mizuki (Lloyd and Colette)
(same as in Collector's Edition)
Booklet
Features scenes from the anime (stills)
Features scripts from selected scenes from the anime
Pencil Board
Features the DVD cover for that volume
(same as in Collector's Edition)
Raffle Entry Card
Features the DVD cover for the next volume
Features a still of the clay versions of the main characters
A Blu-Ray Disc Box containing all four episodes is scheduled to be released on September 26, 2008. It will have a bonus called 帰ってきたクラトス先生のプライベートレッスン (The Return of Kratos-sensei's Private Lessons).
