Wellber no Monogatari : review
Because I'll be erasing my account on MyAnimeList, I thought I might save this review I don't quite remember writing. I watched this back in 2008 when crunchyroll is still my first choice to watch animu.
Wellber no Monogatari : Season 1 and 2, the review.
Wellber no Monogatari is bit of your average Princess-on-the-run-tagged-along-a-bodyguard. Yet this series stood out from the rest of similarly plotted anime by being feminine-centric. Perhaps I can safely say this anime is targeted towards the female audiences rather than the males.
The story up until the end of the first season is mainly the little journey Princess Rita Sior in her way to deliver a peace offer to an ally kingdom of Greedom in an attempt to avoid the big war between her country, Wellber, and Sangatras, whom Prince was betrothed to her. Sangatras' Prince's sadistic persona and Rita stabbing him in defense was the main cause for the whole story to progress.
Rita was accompanied by a female thief, Tina Lothar, for this quest to Greedom. Tina herself has a hidden agenda herself - to find the man responsible for the death of her parents that left her orphaned. The only thing she remembered of the murderer was the killer wasp tattoo on his chest, and a lullaby-like whistling he did as he killed her mother. This search fueled the continuation of the series to the second installment.
As the story goes on, Rita and Tina, along with a talking tank and a fairy managed to reach Greedom, only to discover Wellber's own ally decided to betray the peace agreement. Added by the shocking discovery that the man Tina was looking for turned out to be Rita's own brother, Roden. The kingdom of Wellber had no other choice but to face the offending force amidst the drama.
In a nutshell, one might say there's nothing interesting of this series as the lack of generic charm such as 'moe' characters and catchy themes. I myself thought of dropping it on the early episodes but I was glad I gave it a second chance. The beauty of this anime might be the relationship between Rita and Tina, the two of the most headstrong female characters I've known. Together they made up a mighty team in a mission to stop the upcoming war.
Another reason I liked this anime would be the use of English. Not the usual random/meaningless English pasted together just so it would make sense somehow, Wellber no Monogatari used proper terms and phrases that made me think they may actually have an English speaking personnel in the production team. Even the name of the talking tank is based on a real person, and a word play of the famous artist/inventor for his creator, Renaldo Vinci.
The animation is really pleasing to the eye, added by the CG scenes for Borgerac and the warships, all I can say is that it is an impressively well done. Perhaps aided by a pretty huge support such as avex entertainment and I.G enabled this series to stood out with its quality.
Overall, I enjoyed the anime but the last episode might be the worst ending in all animes I've seen. The story killed the two leading males that should serve as an eye-candy for most of the female viewers. Because I am all for happy endings, I can say the series ended rather flat from all the oohs and aahs it managed to milked out of me. It made me think how pointless for all the romantic progress between Galahad and Rita if he is killed off in the end.
Oh well, I really did enjoyed this series despite the bad end. I wouldn't want to give it a re-watch, but it did leave me with a good impression for political anime, which I never interested in at first. Recommended to those who could manage to watch something without cute/girly characters and cheery plot.
7.5/10 for both seasons from me.