Wait, there was a Fire Emblem anime?!

(Originally written January 2024)

Table of contents:
Since when?! - Okay, but is it any good? - Episode one - Episode two - That's it?

Is this not (un)common knowledge? Well, it's true.

As of 2024, it's safe to say Fire Emblem has become one of Nintendo's sacred cow franchises alongside Pokemon, Mario, The Legend of Zelda, Splatoon, etc. But as we know, this was a pretty recent development overseas. (Did I just say something circa 2012 is recent? It is, but also isn't... Jesus.) Fire Emblem was a "staple" in Japan, but in the west it was obscure until the early 2000s, when Marth and Roy appeared in Super Smash Bros Melee. Both lords were going to be removed in the international release, but kept in after being well-received by players during the localization process. This led to more interest in future games being brought overseas, starting with Blazing Blade, it's seventh game.

You know happens next. Fire Emblem had a positive critical reception, but wasn't commercially successful. It was so close to going down the route poor F-Zero did... AKA, flopping and being one of those weird series featured in Smash that's really hard and only a certain kind of person likes. (I want to like F-Zero so bad, but I suck at it!) Awakening was planned to be the last game - if at least 250,000 copies weren't sold, the plug will be pulled. Despite intending to be a proper farewell to the series, it sold much more than that and ended up greenlighting the IP again!

Okay, that's nice, but let's back up a bit. Did you know Melee actually wasn't Fire Emblem's first western appearance? It wasn't in 2001 with Melee's release, it was in... 1998?! What? This was a surprise to me too. So in 1996, KSS and Studio Fantasia produced an OVA anime adaption (for the 1% chance a non-weeb is reading this, OVAs are anime specifically made for home video releases) for the first few chapters of Mystery of the Emblem. Who cares, right? Japan loves Mystery of the Emblem, but I don't think many others would be interested. That's what you'd think, but ADV Films ended up licensing and dubbing this.

No.

I mean... It's not bad, but it's also not long enough to be actually good either. I can only imagine how confusing this was to watch for the random weeaboo who picked up a VHS in the late 90s. The box art says "based on the hit video game!" - I'm sure the average westerner's response to seeing this is "WHAT hit video game?!" 1998 in America was all about Pokemon, Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye 007, Metal Gear Solid, and Gran Turismo. Unless you were one of those elite super nerds who was importing SNES games, then you probably hit the jackpot. But I doubt that was very many people... This isn't impossible, by the way. I found an English Geocities fansite for Geneology of the Holy War from 1998.

It's honestly boggling to me that this was picked up, ADV Films is now defunct (RIP), so I don't even know if there's any information online why it was. As expected, since ADV Films knew nothing about the source material, the romanized names were kept. Here's a list of them:

Marth → Mars

Caeda → Sheeda

Draug → Doga

Ogma → Oguma

Navarre → Nabal

Archanea → Akaneia

Altea → Aritia

Talys → Talis

Dolhr → Durrhurr Durhua

Aurelis → Orleans

They look and sound awful, but I get it. It's not too different from how a lot of early fansubs or fan translations kept the official romanizations as a way to look as accurate as possible. (To be fair, "Mars" and "Marth" are equally valid ways to read マルス.) For the sake of consistency, I'm using the offical names.

Aesthetically, I'm a big fan. It's a shame it only lasted two episodes, because an animated adaption of Mystery of the Emblem in this style would be amazing. As of writing this, I still haven't finished the Archanea games... I just know what happens since it's been in the nerd osmosis for 30 years. I tried playing Mystery of the Emblem several years ago, and it was pretty fun! ...But the fan translation was awful. What little I played of that and the remakes (Shadow Dragon and New Mystery of the Emblem) aren't too bad either, but reviews say the former really shows how dated the story is in modern standards. (New Mystery, on the other hand, introduces the franchise original sins of adding a casual mode and My Unit. Whether this is a good or bad thing is up to you.) I don't think anything could properly capture the original game's story and why it was so successful but an adaption made during the same decade.

The OVAs are supposed to be an adaption of the first few chapters of the game, but it jumps around too much. First we have a flashback of when Gharnef attacks Altea and Elice teleports Marth and Jagen to escape. Then we go to the present with Marth's exiled life in Talys with Caeda. It jumps again to wartime where Marth's soldiers get news that Gra betrayed Altea to side with Dolhr. Then Talys gets attacked by Gazzak's pirates (when Ogma is shortly introduced), and Marth decides to return back to Altea while Caeda follows him last minute.

_{We also get this flashback of Marth getting his ass beat by Cornelius for not killing a deer while hunting. Weird OVA-exclusive lore, since he's not like this in the game...}

That sounds like a lot to pack into 23 minutes, isn't it? My thoughts when watching this is that it feels more like a commercial for Mystery of the Emblem than an anime adaption. With a real budget that clearly wasn't given here, what happens in the first OVA alone could stretch to at least 4 episodes by itself. That said, there are some interesting moments with Caeda, Elice (as brief as they are), Jagen, and Ogma. I also liked the peek at how living in Talys is like. There's not really much to say otherise. If you're not already a fan, there won't be anything here for you.

If you like Navarre, you'll probably love this one. Navarre gets recruited by bandits and initially refuses, until he notices they abducted Lena. Meanwhile, Marth's troops infiltrate a village that was taken over by bandits. Navarre notices Julian among the bandits, who has been secretly delivering food to Lena behind everyone's backs. You'd think Navarre is going to kill Julian, but he kills some guards instead. Julian runs into Marth's army when escaping and begs them to rescue Lena. Once Marth reaches the bandit's lair, hell breaks loose. Navarre and Ogma have a duel, but Caeda convinces Navarre to join Marth's army just like in the game. Episode two ends with Marth's army advancing towards Aurelis.

Episode two is in the same boat as the first where it could've been spread out a few episodes instead of rushing things so quickly. In fact, it feels like this OVA wanted to be a continued series with how Macedonia is mentioned and the cliffhanger ending about leaving to Aurelis. There were some more scenes I liked added in; At the beginning there's a part where Marth lectures Gordin to not shoot at enemies fleeing, and both Navarre and Ogma get very brief flashback scenes. Also, shout out to this scene that was clearly meant to be dramatic but came off as humorous instead. I've already watched this OVA once, in 2015... and this was the only scene I remembered!

_{They look pretty clean to me, but okay.}

Yep. As you can see, it's not terrible, but it's not a substitute for playing the game. (Damn it! Now I really do have to restart my files and play them for real...) Kind of disappointing, but it is what it is. No other anime adaption for Fire Emblem has happened since, which is kind of a surprise since you'd think most of the games would work well as a TV series. Interesingly enough, this weird OVA is more than just a weird collector's item or piece of history. Most of the Japanese voice actors have reprised their roles in later games (notably Ogma, and Marth's appearance in Smash).

The dub is also apparently a goldmine for memes, but I'm forever a sub snob and didn't watch it. Here's a compilation of some secenes from it, though. On that note, you can find both the sub and dub on Archive.org, but keep circulating the digital tapes in case anything happens to that. (Check out these rips from the laserdisk release for better quality.) Who knows how much a copy for this sells now... Maybe the "based on the hit video game" on the cover was a premotion to where this series will be in the west 26 years later. I'm sure the older crowd are kicking themselves now for not grabbing a copy when it was in stores, huh?