I recently watched the 11 episodes of the Ys Legacy anime collection based on the video games Ys 1 and Ys 2 by Falcom. I first got to see it at MAGfest last year when I caught two episodes. A legendary hero was heading for a shrine up on a mountain, while battling monsters along the way. He makes it into the shrine, finds a secret passage, and finds a girl imprisoned in the boss room, where he fights a large worm. Defeating the worm, the girl is set free and he obtains the reward for the dungeon, a Book of Ys. Being a big Legend of Zelda a fan, Ys reminded me of it, and I imagine a Zelda anime would be like this.
Ys is about an ancient land called Ys that was ruled by two goddesses and six priests. Then monsters appeared and the land of Ys was sealed away from the rest of the world, the goddesses disappeared and the six priests passed down Books of Ys to their descendants. 700 years later the monsters are back, and the land where Ys stood, now called Esteria, is in danger. Adol Christin, the brave soul, appears and barely manages to make it to Esteria despite the storm barrier surrounding the island, and sets out to find the source of the monsters and retrieve the 6 Books of Ys.
What I liked about the Ys anime is that it had the same kind of story and setting that I liked about the earlier Zelda games, like Zelda: A Link to the Past. Seeing how the Ys anime and games are older than Zelda: A Link to the Past, I wonder if it was any kind of influence. There is an ancient kingdom of Ys (Ys), and there’s an ancient kingdom of the Hylia (Zelda). Two goddesses bestow the black pearl to man giving them magic and power that led to greed, while the three goddesses of Hyrule left the Triforce that will grant the wish of anyone that leads to greed. The land of Ys gets sealed away in the sky to remove the evil, and the King of Evil, Ganon, is sealed away by the 7 Sages after obtaining the Triforce. There’s even a scene where, to get to Esteria, Adol crosses the sea in a small sailing boat and is caught up in a storm, and then washes ashore, and if it weren’t for it being older, I would have said it was ripped straight out of Zelda: Link’s Awakening. So I have to wonder if there wasn’t a little bit of inspiration there from Ys in Zelda, or if it came from a similar source.
The first Ys series is 7 episodes long and was made in the late 80s, so it has that detailed older style anime look that I like. The animation starts out good for the first 2 episodes, with a lot of animation on the boss fight, but takes a fall from episode 3 and onwards. The character designs are still good, but the amount of animated frames is lessened, such as boss fights, and most scenes don’t look as well drawn. It’s still enjoyable, and the story moves at a good pace with only 7 episodes. The music is great too, all of it arrangements of the music from the games, and most of the episodes ending with a wonderful vocal song, Endless History (The Morning Glow), leading into the credits.
Ys 2 was made a few years later is 4 episodes long and while it boasts a consistant amount of animation, the character design and art style has changed to be more simpler and rough. Its quite a contrast to the previous episodes, with returning characters looking a bit off, Adol looks a little too generic, and some of the character designs seem to be based on more recent versions of Ys at the time. The story continues from Ys 1 and has good continuity, with references to the previous episodes and the same voice actors returning. I did not like it as much as Ys 1, as it was much darker with the land of Ys overrun with monsters, and Adol admitting he could not save anyone. It didn’t seem to like what I think “Ys” is like that the first Ys series did, so I wonder how much the anime differs from the Ys 2 game. Also, Adol used magic way too much, and barely touches a sword, even when he gets his usual red and silver armor.
The story of Ys 2 was interesting in that Adol’s situation was reversed from the first Ys. Before, he came to the island of Esteria where monsters had begun appearing and was generally welcomed as a hero. Arriving on the floating island of Ys, he comes to a land where monsters have been requiring human sacrifices for 700 years. No one realizes they are on a island floating above the earth, believing they bound by the edges of their world and that the end of the world is near. Adol is treated like a heretic, and journey’s to the “edge of the world” to prove there is land below.
The DVD menus are modeled after the old games, with a map and menu selections, and even fake load times for transitions. The best extra on the discs were the dub outtakes, with Adol replying to Reah’s (Lea) reward with “A song? Next time get your own damn harmonica!”. Disc 2′s outtakes were hidden, and are accessed by tapping down on the extras menu past “main menu”.
Not having played any of the games, I really enjoyed watching the Ys anime, with it being based on a video game with a hero going on an adventure, and I feel like watching it again. Afterwards, I did a little browsing through some Ys related sites and found a free demo for the PC remake of Ys 1 and started playing…
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