Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky The Animation

About 2 years ago Right stuff had The Legend of Heroes anime on sale for like... 5 bucks.
even though at this point there was very little hope of it actually coming out... still i needed to bump up my order past the Min for international free shipping... and i seem to be determined to have all the Falcom Anime.

So i got it and i looked at it and said "no... i will not watch this until SC is out and i've beaten it." even if that meant never watching it.

Well yesterday morning i beat the game and i was going to watch it right away but i started running a fever and i figured... watch it later when i'm feeling better.

So this morning i woke up and felt worse and said Screw it... i've owned the dvd for 2 years... i'm watching it fever be damned.

So i look at the back.
81 minutes.
....
First chapter took me around 40 hours
Second Chapter took me just under 61 hours.
how do you cram 100+ hours of story into just over an hour.

Short answer... you don't.

The anime starts at the very end of First chapter (which is fine other then the fact that if you know nothing about this series then you have no idea who those characters are doing what they are doing and why it matters) and ends about halfways through Second chapter.

[major spoiler character] doesn't even show up... never even mentioned.
the best character (in my opinion) from the game... never seen.
[final conflict] never even hinted at...
yet the image on the disk and the main menu image... well lets just say it happens later.

Normally for anime adaptations of games you do need to be a fan.... for this adaptation i would argue that you need to have played both games to enjoy it... cause it will make no sense otherwise.

You know what would have been amazing? if this was a 2 cour show where there first 13 episodes were First chapter (or at least the first 8-10) and then the rest was second chapter. it would have worked really well and shown more of the lore.... and more of the major characters.

and yeah i was looking forward to this because the other falcom anime are really good.
granted.... Ys 1 anime is as long (if not longer) then a playthrough of the game.... and Ys 2 anime is probably the best use of showing the source myth in the series...

so i guess... the shorter the game the longer the anime?

Did i enjoy the anime? yeah.... the music was great and it made me laugh a lot but it's just going at breakneck speed to try and cram in the 30 hours it depicts.

But again... you can't enjoy it (hell i would argue you wouldn't understand anything) if you haven't played the games... so if you are curious first get these

Trails in the Sky First Chapter
Trails in the Sky Second Chapter

then you can look at getting the anime.
In fact just get those games anyways... they are good.

Ok time to pump myself full of cold medicine and sleep until i feel better.... Or try playing Gurumin... whichever my feverish brain lets me accomplish.