There are flashes of something great in "Legend of the Crystals." The art is very vibrant, with lots of bold colors and neo-retro character designs. There are times where it looks incredibly well animated, reminiscent of a lower-budget version of all-time anime classic Akira.
But too often, that vibrancy works against it, as many characters are flatly colored. That low budget also drops out quite often, leading to some larger scenes that look and move incredibly poorly. Somebody on this project seemed to be very ambitious with certain scenes, but apparently ran in to constraints that end up spoiling the overall quality of the picture. For every moment I thought this anime looked pretty, there were three times I thought it looked ugly.
Story-wise, anything cool about these characters, their world, or the narrative itself is almost always killed by this anime's insistence on being a comedy. The game it's based on, Final Fantasy V, had some humor, but it wasn't exactly a laugh-riot. Legend of the Crystals goes hard on trying to be funny, but it's all typical low-brow anime gags about sex, underwear and bodily functions. I dunno about you, but I grew out of that stuff a long time ago.
It also doesn't help that much of its humor involves Prettz, one of the protagonists. Prettz is often portrayed as being aggressively stupid, to the point where it began making me angry. Like most of the cast, he's a pretty generic anime archetype, but his personality in particular has been amped up to 11. He jumps head first in to every problem, often with the wrong answer, and nobody ever bats an eyelash at his infuriating idiocy. Beyond acting like a clown, he spends most of the movie yelling at and berating everyone else, making him incredibly unendearing.
The story does try and get serious every now and then, which is where most of the callbacks to Final Fantasy V reside, but it's never enough to save it from how much groan-worthy comedy there is. Teehee! Her butt is glowing! I said "butt"!
Mostly, Legend of the Crystals is a disappointment. Its connections to Final Fantasy V feel sort of tangential, and it's a lot of generic 90's anime fluff. Even ardent fans of the games can safely skip this.
But too often, that vibrancy works against it, as many characters are flatly colored. That low budget also drops out quite often, leading to some larger scenes that look and move incredibly poorly. Somebody on this project seemed to be very ambitious with certain scenes, but apparently ran in to constraints that end up spoiling the overall quality of the picture. For every moment I thought this anime looked pretty, there were three times I thought it looked ugly.
Story-wise, anything cool about these characters, their world, or the narrative itself is almost always killed by this anime's insistence on being a comedy. The game it's based on, Final Fantasy V, had some humor, but it wasn't exactly a laugh-riot. Legend of the Crystals goes hard on trying to be funny, but it's all typical low-brow anime gags about sex, underwear and bodily functions. I dunno about you, but I grew out of that stuff a long time ago.
It also doesn't help that much of its humor involves Prettz, one of the protagonists. Prettz is often portrayed as being aggressively stupid, to the point where it began making me angry. Like most of the cast, he's a pretty generic anime archetype, but his personality in particular has been amped up to 11. He jumps head first in to every problem, often with the wrong answer, and nobody ever bats an eyelash at his infuriating idiocy. Beyond acting like a clown, he spends most of the movie yelling at and berating everyone else, making him incredibly unendearing.
The story does try and get serious every now and then, which is where most of the callbacks to Final Fantasy V reside, but it's never enough to save it from how much groan-worthy comedy there is. Teehee! Her butt is glowing! I said "butt"!
Mostly, Legend of the Crystals is a disappointment. Its connections to Final Fantasy V feel sort of tangential, and it's a lot of generic 90's anime fluff. Even ardent fans of the games can safely skip this.