Tears to Tiara

[Buffalobiian]

[SPOILER FOR THE FIRST 2 EPS]
From the visual novel company Leaf.

In a world resembling the middle-age. A girl, Riannon, is set to be sacrificed to appease a resurrected demon lord, Arawn. As her brother Arthur attempts to rescue her, Arawn defies those who resurrected him and frees Riannon from her captors, which leads to Riannon admiring him.

This eventually leads to a party of companions being assembled for adventure, with Arawn acting as the leader. ~MyAnimeList

[SPOILERS END HERE]

Genres: adventure, fantasy
Themes: Bishounen

Official Website: http://tearstotiara.jp/
ANN: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/ency...me.php?id=9035
AnimeNfo: http://www.animenfo.com/animetitle,4..._to_tiara.html
AniDB: http://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl...anime&aid=5596
MyAnimeList: http://myanimelist.net/anime/3594/Tears_to_Tiara

Episode 1: [CoalGuys] Tears to Tiara - 01 [50C739FB].mkv

[MFauli]

wow, instead of one female lead, you make the whole cast female. sigh
where are my male leads :-/

[shinta|hikari]

Wha? The main character, Arawn, is male. Arthur is male.

[Kraco]

Doesn't look bad so far. I did think this beginning was a bit hurried, not really creating too ominous an atmosphere for the summoning nor did the high priest have enough chances to make himself look too monstrous, but I suppose they can't spend too much time in preparation of making the main character appear. The technical side of the summoning, when it actually happened, was quite neat. Nothing's better than to make clear right away the dude's nobody to trifle with. I hope he kills the high priest in the beginning of the second ep just to make a point.

I hope this series delivers. I like the idea a lot, as simple as it is.

[KitKat]

Yeah, I'm a fan of ye olde medieval sword and sorcery type stories. Despite the killing and summoning of the demon king and such, I can't quite take this show seriously yet. It hasn't done anything to make the 'evil' or the violence real for the viewers. I'm definitely in for a few more episodes at least.

[animus]

The premise reminds me a bit of Shina Dark for those that have read it, though quite a bits different too.

I was a little aggravated by the first episode, the punch line didn't come yet, which it usually does. By punch line I meant the revelation from the synopsis animated and into action. A lot of nothing happened in this episode, that's for sure.

[Ryllharu]

Comparing it to Utawawerumono is inevitable. Same company (leaf) made both games.

Not too much happened in the first episode, other than some pretty nice action and the basic setup. It seems pretty similar though. From the OP, it also looks like Riannon doesn't really have much in the way of combat ability, just like Eruru in Utawa, and all the other girls are well accomplished in either magic or combat. Hopefully I am wrong and she will show something impressive a little bit later.

I like the animation too...but not as much as I liked the scene in the OP shot from above with that dude wielding the HUGE sword and just chucking the guy/girl off of it. Can't wait to see him smashify some poor bastards, no matter who's side he is on.

I agree with animus though, there was no "catch" to the first episode.

[shinta|hikari]

They could have extended it 10 seconds more and show how Arawn destroys the fool who summoned him. That would have been much better for practically no change.

[Kraco]

I think they ended it purposefully right there so that people would be left to think the demon will devour the poor girl as the first thing in the next episode. Of course we know that's not going to happen, and instead he will kick the priest into the cauldron in the middle of the room and take the girl to his bedchamber for some nightly favours.

[shinta|hikari]

Then it was the show summary that is at fault, since we do know what is going to happen.

Still, for a pilot episode, I think it would catch more attention if they already show the story twist from ep 1, much like how Lelouch killed the soldiers in ep 1 of CG.

[Buffalobiian]

Hmm, well sorry about that guys. I only just realised now (first watching the ep, then coming back to read this thread, starting with my post) that the summary gave away pretty much the first ep and then some

Ah well, editing with spoiler tags is the best I can do now. When I saw Arawn's human form, I remembered the OP and thought "wait....isn't he a good guy?"

I never watched Utawawerumono, so this is pretty fresh for me. I think I like medieval/magic genres, at least in books anyway, but I don't feel hooked into this like I did for a few other shows this season. Most likely it's to do with the "punch line" you guys mentioned, aka where this show is going.

Animation's good and all, though it's giving off a real "mediocre" feel right now. I'll give it a few more eps to see if that changes.

[animus]

No, that's fine. It's just a good synopsis on what the series will be about. Disregarding if we knew that, there really was no punchline to this episode. Absolutely nothing happened other than Riannon getting captured, and Arawn gets semi-resurrected with random scenes of killing and blood splatter for filler.

[Kraco]

One thing I didn't quite catch during this first episode is exactly why Riannon was alone (or was supposed to be) in the village. She seemed to be readying herself for something, but I didn't get the impression it was for the ceremony this particular high priest had in mind, because she objected until the stupid brats got caught. However, obviously the villagers knew something is going on, because nobody was supposed to be home (picking up mushrooms in the middle of the night - sure, I won't buy that any more than the priest did). So, what exactly was going on, before the priest appeared? Obviously nothing overly bad since Arthur wasn't guarding Riannon, but still enough to empty the village. Unless evacuating was just a standard method when they hear any troops are nearby.

Edit: You are forced to watch this series till the end, Bill. You created the thread, after all.
Edit2: Meaning altering typo fixed.

[Buffalobiian]

Considering they're elves, perhaps they've got no problem seeing at night (they hinted this), and thus, take advantage of hunting/gathering by night to take advantage of sleeping animals and the lower temperature. I agree that it doesn't make sense now there wasn't anyone present besides Riannon though. Whatever happened to the children and elderly?

You are forced to watch this series till the end, Bill. You created the thread, after all.

Haha. I'll certainly try.

[KitKat]

If I remember correctly, the priest made reference to some sort of power that she had, and I think that somehow she has some sort of powers of divination by virtue of her bloodline. What I got out of this episode, is that she had a premonition of some sort of danger or some kind of trial that was approaching her which may have been dangerous to the villagers, so she sent them away for the night to be out of harm's way. I don't think she knew what type of danger or trial this would be, but only that it was meant for her alone.

[Ryllharu]

Considering they're elves...

The priest only mentioned that Riannon's family line (including her brother Arthur) is descended from elves. They are a lineage that comes from survivors of the long-extinct Age of Elves. The opening sequence showed that a force (presumably Arwan) destroyed each Age, Golden, Silver, Bronze, Giants, Elves, leaving us now in the Iron Age. She and Arthur are not exactly elves, but they are related to that lost civilization. The others in their village are 100% human.

@Kraco:

They never explicitly stated it, but it seemed like Riannon was left alone in the village because someone, probably her since they called her an Oracle, predicted that the priest would be coming. They sent all the women (additional potential sacrifices) out of the village along with the children and elders, while the men went off to hunt, getting them out of the way as well. She was ensuring that no one else could be harmed. She kept the arrowhead with her to kill herself and foil their plan, but sadly the children were not informed and ruined the plan for her.

[Kraco]

That indeed seems like the most obvious case. However, her reaction to the priest's words didn't quite indicate she was expecting her fate to be like that, in my opinion. Moreover, Arthur would never have left her alone had he known she was waiting for such a fate. So, you see a small clash here, don't you? Since everybody was evacuated, it was clear everybody knew something was going to happen. So, why did Arthur still go hunting? One small possibility, of course, is that the men left to hunt a lot earlier and after that Riannon was able to convince all the women, kids, and elders to leave as well. However, you'd think some of the women would have alerted Arthur at that point.

[shinta|hikari]

She may have simply asked the villagers to leave without explaining in detail, or she may have come back after leading them somewhere. The villagers may have evacuated somewhere and did not have time to inform the men, They may not even know where the men are hunting. There are a number of possible scenarios where it does not have to clash unless you force it to.

And the small possibility you mentioned is what likely happened, I think. Arthur obviously did not know about it.

[Nadouku]

I liked this episode, slow and detailed. I knew that the Demon King would humanize to look pretty "normal", and now I want him to kill that douche priest instead of Riannon.

[EpyonNext]

*hackcough* [CoalGuys] Tears to Tiara - 02 [FBB6BB64].mkv *hackcough*