Animation Spotlight: Valkyria Chronicles

Time for another Animation Spotlight, and like the previous one, I’ll be focusing on another animation that’s related to a game.

Valkyria Chronicles, or Senjou no Valkyria (Battlefield Valkyria) if you prefer, is one of my favourite new game series of this generation and has already spawned sequel games as well as two manga and an anime TV series of the same name. I absolutely loved the first game and was naturally excited when they announced the anime quite awhile back… though, to be honest when I started watching the anime when it was initially being released, I kind of gave up on it and stopped just before the half way mark.

But, I did give the Valkyria Chronicles anime another chance and have finally watched the entire series…

When I first tried to watch the anime, I still had the original game fresh in my mind and with that were a lot of expectations of how the anime should play out… so naturally, when things didn’t go the way I wanted them to go, I felt pretty pissed off with the anime and just stopped watching it altogether.

I realise that I was pretty harsh on the anime when I first watched it, but there are plenty of reasons why I was justified in my initial view… I mean, just take a look at the comparison shot below of the anime on the left and the PS3 game on the right.

It’s pretty obvious to see the differences in the art style, Alicia’s enhanced bust size, her shinier anime eyes, as well as the fountain of youth her two companions seemed to have discovered that have changed them from being men in their late 20s or early 30s to teenagers… this is pretty much carried out throughout the anime in many forms. Basically, they took the basic plot of the game and threw in a lot of anime clichés into the mix… just because that’s kind of the thing to do I guess.

Of course, it’s not like the game was without its own cliché moments as well… there a few face palm inducing scenes, though the difference is that there were very few and far between the awesome gameplay.

Despite all of the negatives it presented, I soldiered on and discovered that it really isn’t all that bad as I had initially thought it to be. I mean, it’s different and there are some things about it that really annoy me, but it definitely wasn’t anywhere amongst the most terrible anime I have ever seen.

I think what really drove my enjoyment of the anime was the sense of nostalgia I felt while watching it. It’s actually been quite a long time since I last played the original Valkyria Chronicles and seeing all of the characters in action again felt good. Though it kinda sucked to see Vyse die… at least I think he did… how could they kill Vyse? Vyse is awesome!

On a different note, the first opening and closing songs in the VC anime are pretty awesome. I didn’t much like the second opening and closing songs though… Speaking of music, I felt even more nostalgic every time the background music would come on since they used the tracks for the game soundtrack in the anime itself… even going as far as to use the game over music when one of the characters died.

It’s not terrible and it’s not great… it’s good. Now that I’ve watched it once over, I don’t think there’s really much chance I’ll ever watch it again to be honest… I figure, if you’re a fan of Valkyria Chronicles and are thinking about watching this anime… do it at a time when you haven’t played any VC games for a long time… that way you’ll be at least somewhat thankful for more… at least when it comes to this anime.