nellie69 - 2015-01-18 00:58:26

Ancient books of Ys is an old anime OVA series. Many people will find its voice acting, animation, sound and other effects of low quality compared to most modern anime nowadays, yet for its time, this series is really good, and the story, well, it is classical in what it gives. Based on the critically acclaimed JRPG game Ys: Ancient Ys Vanished, it tells more or less the same story as the game, though with several changes to it, so it feels more natural rather than just a full on adaption of a video game.

I will tell you that if you haven't played the games which the first one came out in 1987 in Japan, then you absolutely must play it if you're a hardcore RPG player, and JRPG at that. Ys is perhaps the second biggest RPG series, second to final fantasy of course. It is a hack'n'slash RPG, but the story is its best part imo. It is indeed groundbreaking in the use of demons in a more or less medievalish setting with magic. And the classical Tower of evil (reminds me of LoTR almost) with the boss on top, almost makes me wanna live in the 80s just to experience it in all its originality. And trust me, I'm no RPG player, I hate MMORPG, and believe I've almost never played a single proper RPG, especially not JRPG, but for some reason when this was on steam sale, I was interested and gave it a shot, and the major reason for it is the music in the game, which was absolutely awesome, but I will come back to that later.

But enough about the game, if you do not play video games or just don't like old RPGs, or simply haven't played it or don't wanna spend money on it, the series alone is still quite good.

Story: If we look at the story, it tells the typical tale of a person who's destiny is to save the land of somewhere, where evil has come to existence. We've heard similar stories before, but I dare say this game canonizes it. The hero who travels the land, kills the bad guys, saves the girl, and defeats the evil in the end. But why is it still good if it's nothing new? Well because this isn't new, this is old. But this is something that was new, something few other anime had at the time, few games that existed like this, and anything new in existence more or less is a copy or has taken one or more ideas from this story. Especially one element of the story which is quite prominent is the human and demon relationship. How these demons came to existence, and the evil circle that exists because we humans seek to grow more and progress. In this case, use of magic for mankinds progress has its ups and downs. I will not say more, as too much would be spoiled, but I can say that same elements can be found in anime like Puella Magi Madoka Magica, and many other series who use this "irony circle" or "evil circle" theme as I like to call it. I'd give the story a 9/10.

Animation: The animation is from 1989, I mean what can one expect except some weird 80's drawings. I can say that the character designs on some of the girls especially Feena and Sarah for instance look like those in the original manga in Ghost in the Shell. If you've read it, you can see the similarities since both are made around the same time (late 80's, early 90's). I'd give the animation a 7/10.

Sound: This goes mainly to the BGM and also the decent ED. As you know early anime and even movies didn't have as much constant BGM playing than it does now, even ambience sound that we often hear in modern anime and movies were 20 or more years ago almost never in use. So most of the time it's just dialog between characters, and just empty sound. But when the BGM kicks in, and boy does it do that in the proper moments, it's nothing short of pure genius. The music used in this series is directly taken from the game itself. Though of course re-arranged and played in many of them with other instruments and non-electronic (acoustic) unlike the original 1988 game. But seriously, if you listen to some of the well known themes like this: 

I mean just imagine playing with this in the background, running around and slashing evil demons? Either way, Ys is well known for its music, and having this in the anime gives it no less than 10/10.

Character: Besides the fodder characters, the only ones that really do seem to have some depth is perhaps the antagonist rather than the protagonist Adol. I must say in the anime he can seem quite childish and just overly clichéd... But ignoring him as anything but your a-typical hero, the side-characters are decent enough, and add value to the group rather than being dead-weight like many other series... Would still give 7/10.

Enjoyment: Well this is a hit or miss really, either you may enjoy this if you watch it after having played the games, and you just can't get enough of Ys. Or you enjoy it because it's all new, and the mystery element and the history of Ys adds flavour to the story. But you may also dislike it for its perhaps rushed scenes in many places and rapidly progressing story (one book for each episode and a prologue as the first). Also some scenes might just be repeat often, since the "bosses" in the anime have several of them taken from the original game, and many of them appear as guards for the books. Either way, you may enjoy the BGM, or other parts if you know of the Ys world in beforehand. It is refreshing to see a somewhat different take on the story than from the original game, though I personally prefer the game's story than the anime. I give it 7/10 for enjoyment.

Overall: It may just be my bias, but I do believe this series deserves a somewhat higher overall score. it's definitely not bad, but it's not the best either of course, but as someone who has played the games, I still like this series alot, and surely others who've also played the game would agree. But overall I'll give it a 8/10, this could be even better if it was remade today with good animation, voice-acting and adding of more BGM. Do give this a try if you're a sucker for typical fantasy stories. ;D