Tears to Tiara

[Ryllharu]

Good lord Arthur is annoying. Morgan is too, but at least she's good comedy relief. It seems like the only thing Arthur ever says is somebody's name, ad nauseum.

This episode was okay, it is nice to see a villain introduced early on who is capable of matching the protagonists. Gaius is a great antagonist. He's an ass to basically everyone (like where he called that city run down and crappy) but he anticipated their plans from before he even knew how close they were and laid a trap. If not for Arawn and his allies keen senses, the Gael would have led the Empire right to their gates.

I guess I'm looking forward to next episode more than I care to continue commenting on this one. Looks like a little comedy relief and some good combat, plus the introduction of the blond (and apparently Empire) girl. She seems like a Touka character, but maybe a little less uptight.

[Penner]

Aye, Arthur really is annoying, and i agree that Gaius seems to be totally badass, plus he has a huge fucking sword... and i do love bigass weapons!

I'm also interested in seeing that tiny girl with the massive warhammer fight (the one in the first post) :P

Huge weapons ftw!

[shinta|hikari]

I am personally hoping the new girl is very much Touka-like. I loved Touka from both the Utawarerumono game and anime, and is hands down my favorite character in that franchise. In order for her to be Touka-like though, she needs to be significantly more powerful than the rest of team, and is on par with the strongest fighters in the story.

[Ryllharu]

You sure you're not thinking of Karura when you say more powerful than the rest of the team?

At least in the anime, Touka was highly skilled moreso than almost everyone else, but she didn't hold a candle to Karura (my favorite by the way). She might have had the skill to match Karura when the latter didn't care what she was doing, but as soon as Karura stopped fooling around she was unstoppable.

Here Arthur is like that two-swords idiot from Utawarerumono (Oboro?), while Morgan is a lot more like the twins (boys in the game, girls in the anime). Riannon is probably comparable to Urutori, but maybe with a little less power. If the OP is correct, this new girl rising from the sea is probably more appropriate for that comparison.

[shinta|hikari]

Karura is indeed very powerful, but they never went head to head, so I still think that Karura isn't stronger than Touka by a large margin. I'm pretty sure Benawi is the strongest warrior in the team, and serious Karura seemed to be at his level (though just a bit behind). Touka probably closely follows Karura in the same manner. What I meant by the "rest of the team" are the other fighters excluding these 3. These 3 are among the "strongest fighters in the story."

I like serious tsundere characters with extreme loyalty and conviction, and the skills to back it up. I'm hoping the new girl here is something like that.

[Kraco]

Good lord Arthur is annoying.

Yeah. I was already thinking Arawn should ask Arthur if he's also trying to become one of his wives. He's certainly nagging already enough to be one.

[Ryllharu]

I'm pretty sure Benawi is the strongest warrior in the team, and serious Karura seemed to be at his level (though just a bit behind).

Your clarifications aside, I really question this. I have not played the game, so I don't know if it pans out differently, but the only reason Karura "lost" to Benawi during her test in the anime was because she was poorly equipped. She broke her weapons against his polearm twice, but the anime definitely showed that she cracked his weapon in her first strike alone. She destroys the weapon when he deflects her into the ground, and the look on his face as she passes him by with an all too swift follow up shows she would have killed him, and he knew it. I've no doubt he is stronger than she is when mounted, but on foot I think she's got him by a large margin. (The reaction is a 18:17 in eps 10, the crack at 18:06).

Upon further review, he does deflect her easily, so it really could have gone either way. He still underestimated her speed considerably, as many of her opponents in the series do.

Here, I indeed hope the blond (names would be spoilers, so in my head I've been calling her Sophitia) is the tsundere type with extreme loyalty and conviction...but all too easily seduced by Arawn, just like Morgan was.

I think that here it is considerably harder to tell how the scale goes. Tears has a lot more magic involved, and it is still early on. Utawarerumono largely only had Urutori and the other winged folk. Urutori's gravity spells were devastating, but this series has already shown spells of close to the same level. Ignoring Arawn and Master Asia (clearly the top two in their respective skill sets), Epona has to be very high near the top. She's elven, so she has magic which we saw work very well on Arawn and Arthur, and she must be very strong to wield that enormous hammer. Morgan is very good at range, and her number of shots into eye holes proves that, but she's not very observant of her surroundings. Riannon could be anywhere. She's weak for the most part, but we really don't know how far her magical abilities extend. Her defensive spell alone was lethal. Even Limwris may be no slouch, we have no idea what spells she has.

[Yukimura]

Still completely off topic but very important nonethelss: Karura's win function is on the order of epic win^epic win. The differences in win factor between the other characters including epic win Touka and Beniwa and fail Oboro only seem significant when leaving out the glory that is Karura.

Anyway on the subject of ToT, nice job on the Imperial guy's side in calling the theft but I'm forced to wonder how he got intel that they would be in need of supplies right then so he could set that up. He shouldn't know where they are or what circumstances they are under (like having need to steal supplies).

Morgan is starting to get on my nerves to a noticeable degree but for now she's still more funny than annoying. Arthur has long since passed into annoying oblivion though.

[Buffalobiian]

The blond is the sole reason I'm watching this. I like EVERYTHING about her character design. What's this, she's a Tsundere? All the better

Otherwise, okay episode.

[narutosharingan]

How are the Solstice subs?

[Buffalobiian]

How are the Solstice subs?

Nothing out of place from my experience.

[Buffalobiian]

Solstice - Tears to Tiara - 06

[Ryllharu]

I feel kind of stupid for not catching the naming theme earlier:

Gaius, now Octavia (a most excellent new waifu for Arawn ) --> Roman Empire

Riannon, Arthur, Morgan, Epona, now Llyr ---> Gaelic names (hence Gael tribe) of the British Isles.

The whole story is a play on the Roman Empire's attempt to conquer Britain.


I liked the contrast between the introductions of the completely airheaded Llyr and the more collected Octavia. It was nice to breeze through Llyr's more shallow introduction (her stolen clothes and not being able to return home is related to the myths about Merrow), so they could get at more of the depth in Octavia's backstory. It looks like they might spend quite a few episodes on her, all the better. Still though, against the crabs, Llyr proved she is a very competent fighter with her trident, if nothing else. I can't deny her description about falling asleep and being washed away again made me smile. One thing though, apparently there is an 's' at the beginning of Llyr's name. What is the opposite of a silent letter that doesn't exist? An audible non-existent?

I did find it a little sad that leaf (game's developer) ended up making a Touka character like Octavia (cast with Rie Tanaka no less), and they even do the damn rope bridge setup again! There was a little variation to it, but it was still way too familiar.

Now that we've gotten another combat scene, there's no question. Arthur is annoying as hell, but he's a damn good fighter. We saw it in the first episode, and he effortlessly slices through crowds of Empire troops here as well. Arawn is still better, and even Morgan's short range is pretty good. Octavia packs quite the punch herself, swatting down arrows while occupied with other matters. I'm also liking the way that they are handling action scenes. The animation goes into a stylistic switch, where action is a little simpler drawn, almost brush strokes, but it makes up for it by being fast and incredibly fluid.

Can't wait for more Octavia. She has not disappointed in any way.

[shinta|hikari]

I love Octavia, as I expected. What makes her really good is that she does not only possess impressive martial prowess, but also a tactical mind that cares for her subordinates. Her character design is awesome as well. It is actually the first wardrobe set that I really like in this series, since most of the others seem a little to flashy/colourful, or just uncool.

I wonder how they will get Octavia to Arawn's side though. She does not seem as naive as Touka was, and maybe actually sees a purpose in what Gaius' side is doing.

[Yukimura]

So far I haven't noticed the Empire give any particularly good reasons for why they are relentlessly hounding the Gaels. That combined with Arawans dashing good looks and the Gaels overall less assholish than the Imperials demeanor should be plenty of rope to hang the loyalty of any heroine starting out on the opposing team.

From the sound of it at least two of you have already planned your weddings but Octavia's intro didn't do as much for me this ep. Her character type seems so familiar already; strong, confident female with a strong sense of justice trying to prove herself in a corrupt, male dominated military setting. When I look at her and I see Touka or Emma Sheen or Lucretzia Noein and I become less excited because I don't expect any surprises from her, just the same sort of personality and backstories those other characters had. Normally that wouldn't get in the way of me oogling but my reaction to her was overshadowed by something that I actually was surprised by. I spent most of the episode lamenting for Llyr's skin and marveling at how well she was taking being permanently separated from her people as well as half of her identity.

I once read a rather sad story about a Roane who's skin had been burned and thus he was trapped forever on land. The story made quite an effort to convey the sense of loss and longing he felt for the sea and the other half of his identity and how he struggled with the pain of it every day. Roane are creatures of the sea and to be cut off from it like that would be akin to a human having their legs or arms chopped off, it should be devastating and miserable. Of course here they just wrapped all the emotional underpinnings up in a single EAAAH! for the sake of giving Arawn another cute waifu to ignore. That's still cool and all but the shallowness of her reactions compared to the deeper emotional story her situation reminded me of drew more of my attention towards her. I can't help but feel for her what she ought to be feeling for herself which makes her more sympathetic to me than she might otherwise be. I think the trident might have helped some too...

In any case I do look forward to Octavia's defection, the Gaels seem like they could use a serious minded military type personality as a sub-commander/drill instructor if they hope to fight larger scale battles later on. Plus she's no trouble at all to look at.

[Ryllharu]

I think they will probably go back to most of the girls' stories a few times, and some of them might even get whole arcs, just like Utawawerumono. But where that series had to take a long time to introduce the full harem, Tears is taking a faster approach because they can. This is just Octavia getting her arc started now.

With Llyr getting such a short intro, same for Morgan or Epona, they are bound to go back to it. Aside from a little with Riannon, Octavia is the first of the girls to get any character development at all. They simply showed the reason why the others stay on with Arawn.

Thanks for correcting me on the Roane/Merrow/Siren(the not Greek kind). I knew the myth involved water spirits, I just couldn't remember the exact name and went with the first I could remember.

[shinta|hikari]

This is 26 episodes right? Otherwise, they would have to either rush through back stories or skip it entirely in order to finish it in a half season.

[Kraco]

CoalGuys finally got their feet off the tar and made a double release:

Episode 5 - CoalGuys
Episode 6 - CoalGuys

[Buffalobiian]

It seems no matter how used Octavia-like characters are, they work on me every time .

Can't wait for her gladiator appearance.

[Nadouku]

I finally got around to watching episode 5 and 6. They were good, showing how smart Arawn is. I like how another douche commander has been introduced, only on the enemy's side and a sturn character has to make up to his lack of retreating. I really hope Octavia joins Arawn's side too.