Fire Emblem

This OVA tells the story of the very first Fire Emblem game, and features Marth (Mars in the OVA) as the main character. From Super Smash Bros. fame, Marth's game was not released outside of Japan, that was until 2008/9, where a remake was made for DS, which saw international release. This OVA, strangely, was dubbed into English before Math made his maiden appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Ironically, his name was translated as "Mars" in this release. The final thing to note, before I start fully reviewing the OVA, is that it only lasts 2 episodes. It was cancelled before any additional episodeswere made, as such the story only just reaches the introductory stages before the series ends. The actual OVA is quite old, and the animation style is very indicative of the era. This aside, it is quite well done. The sound also leaves a lot to be desired, old compression technology means most copies of this OVA still in existence are distorted with VHS-encoded sound. Expect a few drops in pitch and tone while watching this OVA. Encoding aside, the sound is very noticeable, with the Fire Emblem Main Theme having an excellent rendition in the OVA. As mentioned before, being only 2 episodes long, the story is nothing more than introduction. There is no "middle" or "end" to the OVA, only a "beginning". But the bits that are there are well done, they give a good impression of the setting, and many of the characters are given more story than they are in the game, which is a nice feature. The characters are likeable, and each have their own traits. They differ from the game slightly, as some are stronger than their in-game appearances would imply. Overall, it's a must-see for Marth fans, since it gives a few glimpses to his role in the Fire Emblem franchise. This OVA does more in 2 episodes than most of the dialogue in his game, thanks to his game being a NES-era game (with only bare-minimum amounts of text). But aside from fans of the series(or people who just want to know a bit about fire emblem), the OVA is too short to be considered a full plot.

Not bad at all. Go watch it together with your friends that also happen to be fans of the Fire Emblem video game series! ===Pros=== Great '90s style artwork and very nice orchestrated music based on the music from the game. The animation itself looked fairly smooth at times as well. I personally really enjoyed the voice acting, but I can see where people may think otherwise. It is delightfully cheesy. ===Cons=== While the story sets up a solid premise that follows the video game, it doesn't get to go very far due to this series never surpassing two episodes of length. The same issue can be saidfor the characters. The voice of characters were often out of sync with their mouth animations, which becomes slightly annoying. However, the fact that this is only two episodes long, could be a pro to those who didn't find this OVA to be particularly enjoyable. If you really did not like it, at least you didn't waste much time. Don't watch if you don't care about Fire Emblem and Marth or you are expecting something to be of quality of a Ghibli film. ===Final Thoughts=== It is a shame that this show didn't continue to be longer. I could really see the potential in this show. It had a lot of room to develop and grow. The style and story of the Fire Emblem series is just the right recipe for an anime adaptation. Cheers to Nintendo and Intelligent Systems if they ever let an anime studio try again to make another OVA out of one of the newer games (or older ones) in the franchise. For what this OVA is, it is a must see if you are a fan of the Fire Emblem video game series and/or you main Marth in Super Smash Bros. Get together with some friends and embrace the cheesiness. You are bound to have some good laughs. Gordon the archer especially has some real laugh out loud moments. It has some rather epic moments too. You don't have much to lose. I low-key loved this OVA, but realistically it is probably a 5 out of 10, because of its incompleteness. Had the show continued, it could've been an 8 or 9 out of 10, because it was on a solid path to be something bigger and better. Nonetheless, it was quite enjoyable and I would totally watch it again for fun. So for me, it is a 7/10.

(Check out my profile for a link to my site containing more up-to-date reviews and bonus media!) I admit it, I was pleasantly surprised at how much better the Fire Emblem anime was than what I was expecting. Short OVA adaptations of existing franchises usually tend to be heavily abridged and amount to little more than a special trailer for the source material. And when the source material comes from Fire Emblem, specifically one of the earliest, simplest games in a series where the storylines are just amusing at best, you would naturally expect no different. But in a twist, that's not the case. This OVA's creatorsactually did honor to their source material, adhering to the original storyline while using the new format to flesh out the game's scenarios and characters more than the game itself did. Player characters are given more personality and dialogue than they did in the game and are seen interacting with each other and contributing to the anime's adaptations of some of the game's earlier chapters. There are even parts of this OVA that seem as if they were somehow made for future fans of the series. All characters featured in the OVA are at the very least given brief moments for their own cool stunts and maybe a tough line or two, and we even get to see a fight between Ogma and Nabarl, the first instance of the series's natural rivalry between the Mercenary and Myrmidon classes. In addition, most of the score contains new orchestral renditions of music from the game, and it sounds just as good as it did on the consoles, if not better. I know for a fact I've never been as much of a fan of the Fire Emblem theme as I was while watching this OVA. The original scores are quite nice as well, and I especially like the tune that plays during each episode's introduction to Akaneia before the Fire Emblem logo appears. Now, before Fire Emblem fans get too excited, let me clarify that I'm only saying this OVA is good for what it is. It goes above the call of duty for a videogame adaptation, but it's still an adaptation of a fairly generic plot and character archetypes. This isn't a particularly good anime in any general sense, and if it satisfied at all that's entirely due to the fact that it's just mildly appeasing fanservice at its best moments. The OVA also ends far before the game's storyline does, although this does mean we avoid the awkward breakneck pace a lot of videogame adaptations have. The animation and art are completely average for its time, though the framerate is quite nice and Shiida is classic anime cute. With all that said, the Fire Emblem OVA does an admirable enough job for a videogame adaptation, and it deserves proper credit for doing the fans a service by expanding upon a storyline and its characters when the game itself didn't give much attention to them.