Tales of Zestiria the Cross

The Celestial Records speak of the existence of the "Seraphim," a race of divine beings who give blessings to humanity and are offered prayers by them in return. Those who are anointed with the ability to interact with these spirits are known as "Shepherds." Hailed as heroes for their prompt appearances in times of crisis, while also being feared for their power, the Shepherds are imprinted in common folklore along with the Seraphim.

Sorey is a young human who has spent his entire life living in harmony alongside the Seraphim in the village of Elysia. Fascinated by the myths of the Celestial Records, he explores some nearby ruins with Mikleo—his childhood Seraphim companion—hoping to enlighten himself about the Seraphims' history with mankind.

Unfortunately, they become trapped in the depths of the historical site during their investigation. While searching for an exit, they come across a mysterious girl who desperately seeks the help of a Shepherd to save the world, which is on the brink of being consumed by darkness. Despite Mikleo's warning about making contact with other humans, Sorey decides to help the stranger, which unknowingly leads him closer to the dream of peaceful coexistence between man and Seraphim.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Sorey Main

Kimura, Ryouhei Japanese

Mikleo Main

Oosaka, Ryouta Japanese

Diphda, Alisha Main

Kayano, Ai Japanese

Edna Main

Fukuen, Misato Japanese

Lailah Main

Shitaya, Noriko Japanese

Crowe, Velvet Supporting

Satou, Rina Japanese

Magilou Supporting

Satou, Satomi Japanese

Rose Supporting

Komatsu, Mikako Japanese

Eizen Supporting

Morikawa, Toshiyuki Japanese

Zaveid Supporting

Tsuda, Kenjirou Japanese

Cook, Justin Producer

Kondou, Hikaru Producer, Sound Director, Storyboard, Planning

Kisara, Youhei Producer

Tomita, Kouichirou Producer

Reviews

Jan 13, 2019

LegendAqua

Recommended

Why the name Zestiria?, because it's the Passion that "Zest" Lighting the World of RPG's. YUP that sums it up perfectly.

Mild Spoilers Ahead

Tales of Zestiria the X is an anime adaptation of the video anime with the same name and done by ufotable no less and follows Sorey voiced by Ryohei Kimura a human able to see seraphim, a kind of spiritual beings taken human form, until one day him and his seraphim friend Mikleo voiced by Ryota Osaka stumbles upon a human named Alisha Diphda voiced by Ai Kayano, treats her wounds but Sorey and Mikelo gets embroiled in a huge incident once they ... venture out into the human world and Sorey in named the Shepherd, the saviour to purify the hellions of the world so that Sorey can reach his dream of both humans and seraphim able to live together.

LA will say this as a person who has never touched a Tales game and this is LA's diving board into the franchise through Tales of Zestiria the X and through LA watching the anime, LA gets the basic gist of what a Tales game entails at the very least and the anime is easily digestible especially with how theatrical everything looks thanks to ufotable. But LA has the good and the bad, let's start with the good.

Well again, the animation done by ufotable makes everything look like an action packed movie quality and with how crisp, fluid and just how polished and detailed everything looks was awe inspiring to say the least and even better when it comes to the battles and choreography of the anime, it just blows LA's mind how consistent ufotable's animation standard is and this for a video game adaptation no less, character designs, background work, battle and choreography were all done to the ufotable standard and once again ufotable KNOWS how to incorporate CGI excellently to enhance the action not make it more noticeable. Tales of Zestiria the X's plot though at first seems simple, like the chosen one aka. Sorey meant to be the savior of the world he's in, gathering party members and defeating the big bad, but where the anime is interesting with it's plot and characters are with in the details, like how Alisha is fiercely loyal to her beliefs of not wanting war even for her to be semi-pacifist nature as a result, but the thought of war even having ramifications to the supernatural, as in the birth of hellions as a result, so literally Alisha's beliefs is the manifestation and her want of not wanting war means she in turn follows the path Sorey goes through, defeating hellions. This in turn, makes the world building actually VERY good, we know in great detail the lore of the world, the political struggles Alisha has to go through and how all of this affects the hellion crisis and we get to see how hellions work and functions. If anything Tales of Zestiria the X's best strength in it's plot is it's world building, fleshing out the world to not only interweave it's multiple plotlines but it's characters too, while subtlety adding lore to the world as well. Tales of Zestiria the X's character chemistry isn't that bad either as even though there are characters personality that are plentiful and clash at times, the motley crew that Sorey has gathered is decent, LA's favorite characters being Alisha from the human side, as she's not only badass but how pure her beliefs of wanting to stop the war by any means is and Edna voiced by Misato Fukuen, an earth seraphim, who's a bit of a deadpan snarker. Finally well, the voice work throughout the entire anime was AMAZING, from Ai Kayano, Misato Fukuen, Ryohei Kimura, Ryota Osaka, Mikako Komatsu, Noriko Shitaya and Rina Sato was all amazing, LA can't say much but sing the praises of this voice cast. LA REALLY liked this voice cast.

Right so Tales of Zestiria the X isn't perfect, as much as LA wanted it to be but hey everything can't be perfect.

So the anime for one has some pacing issues and LA really does mean this, as the anime, well the first season of this anyways, is essentially getting our setting and characters setup and everything sure, but the anime is at first slow, then it almost felt like it rushed the "gathering party members' part as we get like an introduction episode for each of the party members in quick succession, it just kinda spun LA for a loop was all and because of this, trying to get invested in the expanded party becomes HARD to say the least, the only reason Edna got into LA's favorites was because she had at least a bit of development through her episode and her goal anyways appears at the same time unlike say Zaveid voiced by Kenjirou Tsuda. These problems also kinda hinders the anime as a whole all due to Velvet Crowe voiced by Rina Sato, a character from Tales of Berseria who gets her own three episode arc shoved quite early on and we, well LA at least, has NO IDEA what her story is connected to Sorey and Alisha is and remember LA didn't play the games so LA is completely in the dark for all this, all LA wanted from Velvet Crowe's side plotline was a bit of clarity to how her story was connected was all and here's the thing, LA LIKES Velvet Crowe as a character, being quite the opposite to Sorey in almost every single way, Sorey is a human wanting peace between both humans and seraphim by killing hellions, while Velvet is out for revenge against Artorius, the man who killed her little brother for the sake of the world and has a demon hand that EATS other hellions. The last flaw LA will say is that yeah..as much as the entire main cast's backstory and the plot at large has, what with war and hellions being involved, the character department, mainly in the personality department is rather lacking, expected from an anime adapting what is classic RPG formula. Sorey is always the budding main protagonist who fights for justice, Alisha is the badass pure princess..well the "Zestiria" in the title makes alot more sense with Sorey and Alisha at least, Mikleo is the best friend, Laliah is the calm, voice of reason character, Edna the aforementioned deadpan snarker and all the Hyland higher ups are all assholes *cough* typical *cough*, and of course the Lord of Calamity is obviously the Big Bad of the entire anime.

Now as much as Tales of Zestiria the X has some outweighed negatives compared to the positives LA layed out, LA still liked the anime overall, ufotable's animation is the expected high quality is gives out, the great world building element to it and it's good character chemistry. Yes Tales of Zestiria the X has it's problems but LA can look past that and LA can see potential in this anime and this being it's first season. Tales of Zestiria the X is a fine video to anime adaptation akin for LA at least to another of ufotable's work, God Eater's adaptation right down it's strengths and flaws it had. LA can see Tales of Zestiria the X doing more or at least learn from it's flaws. It's first season is essentially Sorey getting his party together, hope it's second season gets to it's big climax and maybe defeat the big bad?. LA is hoping.

Tales of Zestiria the X needs more Vitamin C, not enough ZEST.

Reviewer’s Rating: 8

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Nov 7, 2023

ArchangelEST

Mixed Feelings

Tales of Zestiria the Cross, a video game adaptation that doesn't quite nail what is needed to being a good anime.


Animation / Art / General Visuals - 9/10
-----------------------------------------------

If there's a high point for the show, it's the high production values. Ufotable is known for their high quality art and animations, and this show is no different. The show looks beautiful. The action scenes flashy. Though it is a little dragged down by sub-par build ups and resolutions. Though I'll put that on the weak videogame foundation.


Sound / Music / Voice Acting - 9/10
... ------------------------------------------

Again, high production values across the board. I don't know if the sound-track is adapted from the game, but it's top notch stuff with powerful tunes of all kinds for all situations. Definitely some serious bangers to add to any playlist.


Story - 5/10
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And this is where the good stuff ends.

The story is weak. You can almost imagine the moments where you're supposed to have a bunch of gameplay to carry the experience, because the story does not stand on its own anywhere near well enough.

It's pretty much a cliche across the board. A somewhat special kid gets to become this generation's magical knight or what have you, in order to save the world from... human malice, I guess. The kid gets tangled up with a nice princess who supports him and makes him able to avoid all the nonsense you might otherwise get with nobody believing him to be special. In addition, he gets to see and interact with a bunch of otherwise invisible spirit people who seem to be able to affect the world just fine, but somehow nobody ever questions floating cups or swords, or any such. Those spirits help him fight because... I don't know, apparently spirits just like to support the "good guy".

The story doesn't really explain much anything. Who the spirit people are, who is this special "Shephard" aka. magical knight that's supposed to fight for the side of good. What is the malice and why is it destroying the world all of a sudden. It's all a mess. Powers and abilities are similarly unexplained. Apparently all spirits can use some type of basic elemental magic, but there are also regular magic users. And our "hero", gets additional powers from... somewhere, I guess.

I don't know if the video game explains things more, but watching this anime definitely leaves you with a bunch of questions.


Characters - 5/10
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Boring. Shallow. This is how you can describe most of them. The MC has a bit of depth at first, along with his spirit friend. Youthful energy and desire to explore ancient ruins, sounds like the foundations for a good character combo. Alas, ultimately it's all brushed aside for the absolutely most boring of character traits.

The MC becomes the most goodest goody good person in the world, willing to pretty much instantly suicide himself to save some random stranger.

His friend similarly turns into someone willing to die for his buddy on a dime.

The princess is also goodest of the good. Also ready to suicide if it can save the life of even a single person.

It honestly makes me throw up in my mouth a little. The characters are so ridiculously one dimensional and unbelievable.

Villains are hardly better. All we ever see is the usual - either evil to the bone for no reason than to be evil, or powerhungry political creatures willing to sell their mother if it means staying in power. It's weak writing across the board.


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Total - 7/10

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Tales of Zestiria the Cross is carried almost entirely by its high production values, and on that front it's not a bad show to watch. But don't go expecting deep characterization or exciting story with cool twists. There's none of that. Only one dimensional characters, and a cliche story of a hero fighting evil.

Reviewer’s Rating: 7

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Mar 19, 2022

catz4lifez

Not Recommended

Heres one of the shortest reviews you’ll read, I wanna make it easy for you to understand.

The whole entire plot line made no sense and I was completely lost. Especially when they tried to tell me about the powers and stuff? Yeah I caught none of that. You’ve gotta be smart to seriously understand what the heck they actually said

Overall enjoyment- 4

Hoped this helped <3 (9/10 chance it didn’t)


The only good thing that I understood is that there are hotties :) Now to be honest, I haven’t watched this show or even finished it for at least a year so my memory of it ... sucks i just know that I’ve tried re-watching and holy hell it made no sense. I was so lost

Reviewer’s Rating: 1

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