Geekatana Anime Review: Tears to Tiara

Tears to Tiara is one of those anime I watched back in 2009. It's based on a tactical adult game entitled Tears to Tiara: Garland of the Earth which is the PS3 port of the original tactics game of 2005 which is just titled as Tears to Tiara. Much of the characters and story scenarios added to the PS3 port are used in the anime itself. Of course back then I didn't know any of these stuff and just enjoyed the series for what it is.

Tears to Tiara also is the fastest anime aired outside Japan with the english dub releasing on the same day the japanese dub is released. The english version airing in Animax Asia.

Being an anime based an a tactics game the plot isn't much to look at however as Tears to Tiara suffers from cliche characters and a predictable plot of an Empire rising to power and a band of warrior tribes opposing it. Those familiar with Suikoden or Arthurian literature and the likes will easily find similarities to Tears to Tiara.

The references in Tears to Tiara to historical, mythological mostly Arthurian and Welch would sound chaotic and boring but this is where this anime shines. In fact the references give it a unique personality of its own. It's certainly isn't as brain inducing as anime like Evangelion would have been in fact far from it.

Sure there's still the usual harem trope and the friendnemy angle but its tastefully done that you won't mind it at all. Tears to Tiara has a way of doing these themes without really going through it. You know it's there but the anime don't shove it in your face as often as most anime's these days do. My favorite will probably be the banter between Morgan and Octavia as the series progresses.

Sure the names of the characters takes inspiration from mythology like Arawn, Ogam and many others. Yet despite the number of stuff they try to put together from different sources the overall flow of the story and the plot remains fluid and none confusing at all.

Tears to Tiara also have a decent degree of character development for an anime based an a tactical game. Arthurs development from a bratty kid to Octavia's tragic back story is all presented beautifully that its bound to pull at the heart string of a lot of viewers. Heck, even the little side characters have their time to shine.

The mix of animation and CGI elements is one of the best this anime has to offer. Not to mention the great character design and fluid action sequences highlight each characters specialty distinctively from Morgans expert use of the bow to Octavia's skill with the sword and how these play off each others strength and weaknesses.

The music fits the anime perfectly much like a catchy battle theme to a video game. Sadly I feel the english version doesn't give this anime justice compared to the japanese one so I'd suggest watching it with english subs if you can.

For an anime series based on a tactics game that's supposed to be a Medieval inspired genre this series has more plot building than actual action for my taste but when you get to the action part its nothing short but awesomeness. It also has more sword fights than actual magic but makes up for it in world building and plot.

A lot of folks give this anime a lot of fire cause of lack of originality. And yes being based on a game which runs on references isn't going to win you any awards in that department yet despite what this anime is based upon it still managed to give a decent story with enough character development to run the entire 20 plus-ish episode that it had. So I do feel a lot of the anime critics gave this series way of a hard rating than it probably could.

A little fun fact about this is that the studio that animated this anime will go on created anime ver. of Steins Gate, Akame ga kill, Hataraku Maou-sama, and recently RE:Zero. So yeah you can easily tell by the artstyle and the way its animated.

Overall Tears to Tiara is a decent anime with enough action, character development and visual to please most fans of the genre. The action scenes are impressive and will still probably hold up even to this day. If you're a fan of swords, magic or the fantasy genre then I'd suggest you give this anime a chance if you can.