AC Staff DimensionSlip's coverage of Tales of Festival 2018 outside of the major announcements. NAMASTE OSU!
Originally posted by DimensionSlip here and here.
Day 1 (June 16, 2018)
Today was mostly mobile game news, plus announcements for the next Tales of Orchestra, Tales of Tour, as well as some sort of kimono collaboration. We also got to see the Tales of Homeroom short anime, which will be included as part of the Asobi Store’s premium service. Also, Kratos was today’s surprise guest and he got some Festival merchandise. It was displayed in the lobby on the way out, and the crowd trying to take a picture of them was quite huge.
Some highlights of the day are as follows:
- “Hoo hah, knead this!” - Senel, making bread
- Senel fell asleep in the middle of the stage (like literally) and Shirley and Chloe tried to get the audience to wake him up by shouting his name, but he wouldn’t wake up until his name was called out in a sexy manner. Said sexy people were thanked after the fact.
- We got casual Mikleo again, also seasick Edna, who still managed to chase around Sorey with her umbrella. On high heels.
- Zelos broke the fourth wall sorta by calling Jay’s voice actor a cute girl, and Jay’s voice actor gave him the best stink-eye ever before continuing like nothing happened.
- There was a lot of messing with the audience’s penlight colors here, complete with Edna doing some faux begging on behalf of the cast. Some of the key points in the show involved the audience having to either change their penlight colors or switch them off. It was a pretty neat thing.
- People might be interested to know that Sorey and Mikleo got assigned as leaders of their respective teams and started to treat their treasure hunt as a match when everyone split up.
- (Not-so) Surprise Asch! And of course, Aschtalia. Asch comes in to save Natalia, but leaves after doing his MA. Though not without Chihiro Suzuki doing his own version of “warukunee”.
- My favorite part of the skit was Kratos reading Quppo’s letter. Jay complained midway through his rendition, saying that Quppo does not sound like that at all, and he’s way cuter. Kratos then puts on a very obnoxiously cute voice that is completely out of place with the character he’s voicing both ways.
- Though seeing Anise and Luke talk between themselves in hushed tones about Natalia’s cooking after Natalia was invited to help make bread (for Asch too) was admittedly a nice ending to the skit (Natalia wa warukuneee).
- There was a lot of good-hearted shade (kinda) being thrown towards Legendia during the talk show portion, especially during the cast introductions. They would put in “Legendia” in all their greetings even if they are out of place (i.e. Arigatou-Legendia, Konnichi-Legendia), though “Sayonara Legendia” was met with some protest because they did not want anyone forgetting them.
- The talk show portion’s theme for the most part was looking back at some famous scenes in each game present (Symphonia, Legendia, Abyss, Zestiria), but poor Senel couldn’t catch a break, given how each game is introduced by listing all its adaptations and ports.The worst of it is Senel freaking out at Zestiria having two cours for its anime adaptation, contrasting with Legendia’s rather sad introduction screen, which only has its release date (the other mentioned games had ports and anime adaptations listed alongside that).
- With regard to the minigame for the mobile game prizes, the seiyuus cheated again with the Ota-Ota game this time around, with Lloyd’s voice actor lowering the Ota-Ota basket for Luke and Edna’s voice actor to place all the balls in and for everyone playing Asteria, The Rays, and anCast to get all named price tiers.
- The Go Shiina concert was great, and reminded me of why Legendia’s soundtrack is so great.
- Also, having Kenichi Suzumura (Senel’s voice actor) as a co-host was a good idea. Somehow, I feel that he wasn’t being overpowered by Onosaka that much, which is refreshing. I mean, Onosaka is a good host, but it’s nice to see other faces do their thing too.
Day 2 (June 17, 2018)
The variety show (the team battle event) with the voice actors is one of the best talk show events I’ve seen in TalesFes, even if the scoring system was rigged as heck. The winners were going to get some accessories based on their characters, and the Berseria/Zestiria team won, despite the Symphonia/Abyss team doing quite well.
Team C (Berseria/Zestiria) was actually short one member (with so much protesting), until Mikleo’s VA came along and got introduced as the day’s surprise guest.
Telephone game lines and how they got transformed down the road:
Team A (Symphonia/Abyss):
- Guy: Guy-sama karei ni sanjou (“Enter the amazing Guy!”, one of his most notable lines)
- Luke: Guy-sama karei ni sanjou (he got this in one try as I recall)
- Genis: Kami-sama karei ni sanjou (Genis’s VA was repeating this to Lloyd complete with actions, and it was so cute)
- Lloyd: Ore-sama karei ni sanjou (Zelos was so not amused about this)
Guy started introducing himself as “Ore kami-sama” and the audience had a laugh at that.
Team B (Vesperia/Xillia 2):
- Rita: Ancient Catastrophe! Kore ga atashi no kenkyuu sekai yo! (Her signature Mystic Arte–she was reading this so fast that Yuri could not quite get what she was saying, and you can clearly see it in Toriumi’s expression. Even when told to slow down by Zelos, she couldn’t quite make it clear.)
- Yuri & Raven & Ludger: Estelle wa kono ore ga mamoru (“I will protect Estelle”, aka Yuri bullshitting his way to attempted victory. Didn’t work)
Team C (Zestiria/Berseria):
- Velvet: Yousha shinai! Ichigeki ja mama nurui! Zeppa! Messhougeki! (Annihilating Crash, one of Velvet’s Mystic Artes. She was complaining about how no one from the group was from her game, but no one took mercy on her and she had to roll with the quote)
- Zaveid: Shoucha inai! Kiki! Zeppan namaste… osu! (This is nonsense lol, and apparently Zaveid just added the “osu” part for the lols when asked about it)
- Mikleo & Sorey: Yousha shinai! Higi! Zeppa! Namaste. Osu. (Everyone was cheering when Mikleo got the first part correctly even with Zaveid mangling the phrase. Sorey also got the phrase from Mikleo in one go, if I recall correctly.)
Mikleo and Sorey were so into it when they were doing their signature fistbump too towards the end when they repeated the phrase together. Poor Velvet was left repeating her Mystic Arte in such a dismayed manner, probably in light of how botched it came out.
And so, thanks to Zaveid, we have a new Tales of Festival meme, NAMASTE OSU. I’m admittedly not entirely sure what “namaste” is, but it seems like some sort of greeting in India and Nepal, while “osu”, in a similar vein, is a similar exclamation, though usually shared among men.
But yeah, the skit was fun. Laphicet and Genis being boy detectives was the cutest thing ever, and seeing short-haired Luke instead of long-haired Luke was a pretty refreshing change. Like, literally. Instead of having people scream “ore wa warukunee” with him, Chihiro Suzuki just settled for saying that he’s changed.
Zelos, Raven, Zaveid failing so hard at wooing Presa and taking a Dragoness Sneaker to the face was also pretty amusing to watch.
The misono concert was also great. My personal favorite was when she did a medley of various Tales openings (Tao, Good Night, progress, Song 4 u, Mamoritai), but her Symphonia stuff were pretty solid too. Back-on being a special guest for the RM3 opening theme was also a pretty nice surprise.
I still remember the new game announcement like it was yesterday though. People were already preparing to go since the confetti already fell, the cast already said their goodbyes, but a good number of people were staying on anyway, and it paid off. The venue went dark and they flashed a few seconds of video saying that they are working on a new game, much to cheers all over the venue.
Overall, I think it was a pretty fulfilling TalesFes! The last minute announcement, short as it is, didn’t leave me feeling like I left the venue empty-handed, which is a huge plus in my book. Halfway through the misono concert, I remember getting really worried about the future of the franchise, but I’m really glad they pulled through with a small heads up that they’re working on something new.
I’m definitely looking forward to anything they might announce in the future with regard to it, but in the meantime, I’m happy with what we have to chew on (Vesperia 10th anniversary, Tales of Orchestra, Tales of the Stage–especially the lattermost).
Thank you for reading, and see you in the next event report! Viva Tales Of!
