FILM REVIEW

Claiming to have no other motive than being irritated by the demons, Add joins the El Search Party, with Elesis’ suspicion leading her to keep a close eye on him and stick close to Eve. The plot carries out with this tension present in the background, with the El Search Party discovering that the demons are kidnapping the priestesses and using their power to create unbalance and destruction. Upon progressing to Lanox Village, they meet the fire priestess Ignia who asks for their help to save her friends - the other priestesses. They arrive at the fire temple and are betrayed by Ignia, who then reveals that she has agreed to assist the demons in exchange for the safety of her friends.

What happens next? Elsword spends the next six episodes trying to talk her into coming back to them and fighting the demon general Scar together. Yeah, cliche anime protagonist move right there! Sure, she is still a good person with good intentions, but did he really think that simply talking to her would change something she feels so strongly about? The level of cliche only increases as after all of Elsword’s talking, and a ridiculous amount of scenes involving Ignia dramatically dropping her spear, she agrees to rejoin them and fight against the demons. Come on, really?

Aside from the overall plot itself, there were other aspects to the series that disappointed many viewers. Specifically, the relationships between the characters and how little they were allowed to progress, including themes that were started and forgotten somewhere along the series. There were three character relationships in particular that were quite disappointing in their depictions in the anime. Firstly, the relationship between Elsword and Aisha. If when you think of an anime relationship you think of a tsundere (mean to their crush to hide their feelings) girl and a dense boy who unintentionally ignores her, I am disappointed to say that this is exactly the case in the anime depiction.

We have Aisha, the renowned elemental mage who likes Elsword but won’t admit it. There’s the typical anime-esque insults directed to Elsword from her, and the constant denial of how much she cares about Elsword. And speaking of Elsword, here is the typical bland protagonist who is somehow completely oblivious to the fact that someone likes him despite her horribly unsuccessful attempts of hiding it. Fast forward a few episodes when Elsword’s sister is presumed dead and he is injured, we have the scene that every tsundere love story must have for some reason.

Firstly, let’s start with the plot. Sure, it was bland and stretched out during the anime, but there’s a good reason for that. The Elsword animation only feature a fraction of the original plot. To give you a better idea of how little we’re talking, I’ll put it this way: the Elsword anime features the plot in Hamel and Lanox, whereas in game, the regions in order are: Ruben, Elder, Bethma, Altera, Feita, Velder, Hamel, Sander, Lanox, Elysion, Elrianode, and Varnimyr. Notice how the anime plot starts towards the middle, skips a region, and then ends at the next? And with 12 episodes each at a length of 15 minutes (on average), such a small part of the plot would be stretched out for far too long in order to reach runtime. So for this aspect of the comparison, yeah, the anime still isn’t that great.

But let’s move on to the characters. In the game, there are 12 different playable characters to choose from (technically 13, as two characters are played in a duo style in which the player switches between the two at will). These characters are: Elsword (swordsman), Aisha (mage), Rena (archer), Raven (blade and nasod arm), Eve (nasod queen), Chung (paladin/crusader), Ara (martial artist aided by an ancient fox), Elesis (swordswoman), Add (use of a unique weapon called dynamos - made from nasod pieces), LuCiel (a demon duo featuring Luciella, the ex demon queen who was overthrown and Ciel, who is a half-demon by contract with Lu), Rose (guest character from the online game Dungeon Fighter Online), and Ain (an angel sent by the goddess Ishmael to aid the El Search Party). Of these characters, all except for Ain and Rose are present in the anime, with Ain being an irregularity that cannot be seen by the El Search Party and Rose being from a different game. In the anime, each character’s personality has been maintained and kept true to the game - an impressive achievement for a film based on a game. In addition, the voice actors (who much to my relief and joy are the same as the voice actors used in the game) have done an incredible job in maintaining the personality of the characters without sounding cheesy or awfully scripted. Take that, Mortal Kombat!!!

The final comparison I will make between the anime and the game regards the post-credit scene at the end of the season. In this short scene, it shows Solace - the master of the sun. Before I explain this, I’ll give some information about the goddess and the important characters relevant to her. The goddess in Elsword is named Ishmael, and she chooses who becomes the El Lady. When someone is chosen to become the El Lady, they have no choice and will become a celestial being and will lose all mortal memories. In addition to the El Lady, there are the masters who protect the El, which is the source of all power and balance (it’s a giant rock located in Elrianode). These masters include the master of wind (Ventus), master of water (Denif), master of fire (Rosso), and several others including Solace, the master of the sun. He was originally a hero like the other masters, however a woman named Hernia who is implied to be his love interest is chosen by Ishmael to become the El Lady. Solace is enraged at the loss of Hernia, and becomes an antagonist. This is the game plot in the later half of the Elysion region. But now that this has been explained, we can go back to the anime again. The short scene at the end of episode 12 not only implies a second season (which has been somewhat confirmed but not completely), but also shows that the anime has the potential to depict a much more complex plot (Elysion, Elrianode, and Varnimyr).