So, what the heck happened over at the Tales of Festival? Here's a summary of the reports from various reliable sources we have! WThe links in the whole article lead to photos of the event.
~ Tales of Symphonia the Animation: Tethe'alla Arc announced to now be under development!
~ Two new trailers for Tales of Hearts shown, one anime and one CG version!
~ Tales of the Abyss anime advanced screening~
~ Live performance by DEEN featuring the game size of Eien no Ashita and the full Yume de Aru Youni!
That was only an outline. Here's the detailed report:
There were at least 1,800 people who attented the event yesterday. At the lobby, you could see the various merchandise to be for sale, like as those released just yesterday, the Leon action figure. It was opened up by Onosaka Masaya (Zelos' VA), the main emcee of the event. Other "surprise" guests were Katsuyuki Konishi (Lloyd Irving's VA) and (Veigue Lungberg's VA). [For a list of other participating VAs, please refer here] A skit with the voice actors playing the characters (whose skit faces were on the big screen) was played out for the viewers. To view the skit summary, please click the Full Story link.
The skit was basically about the Tales of the Abyss anime advanced screening tape getting stolen. Harold and Mao play the role of the detectives here. There's a scene of them bullying Luke too. They raised a point that since the tape was in a closed room, only a 2D character (ahaha) could've done it! But Harold and Mao themselves are 2D characters, so the others become doubtful...
And seriously, from here on out things get wacky. Luke is mistaken for a girl because of his long hair, Zelos enters talking about reselling in online auctions, Norma comes in with a stolen lunch, Emil catches her, and Yuri comes in. Emil complains on ToS-R not being a mothership title, and Luke bullies him about it. However, there's still no concrete evidence on who the criminal is...
AND finally, it's found out who the thief is. Lloyd suddenly enters the scene with the tape in hand. It turns out, he took it to push producers to make the "Tethe'alla Arc" of the ToS OVA. Quoting him "They only made up until the Sylvarant Arc! At this rate, I won't get Colette back to normal, and ToS the Animation will eventually be forgotten!" At this, the cast livens up the viewers by telling everyone that INDEED, the Tethe'alla Arc of the OVA is now under development.
The other skit, which was shown during event intervals, was a skit by Arche's and Chester's VAs, a couple comedy skit.
Also, it seems the ToS OVA (Sylvarant Arc) DVD box will be limited in the future, and that the Blu-ray Disc Box release has been moved to the 26th. It includes a bonus skit with Zelos and Lloyd (and their VAs), as well as the comeback of Kratos' Private Lesson!
Afterwards was the advanced screening of the Tales of the Abyss anime. They showed the airing times in the various Japanese channels, plus Chihiro Suzuki (Luke's VA) and Yoshito Higuchi stepped up to talk about the anime.
Up next came Tales of Hearts. Masaya Matsukaze (Hisui Hearts) and Marina Inoue (Kohak Hearts) came up together with Brand Manager Hideo Baba. They pretty much talked about the stuff we already know, like the characters and the system, the use of a 2-gigabit ROM, plus the two game versions. At the time, they also featured the first public trailers for Tales of Hearts, one anime version, and one CG version. And since Kakihara Tetsuya (Shing Meteoryte) couldn't make it, a video of him was shown instead.
ANND as a finale, a special live performance was given by DEEN. They performed the game size version Tales of Hearts' opening, Eien no Ashita, for everyone (they said that the full single is still not done in recording), followed by Yume de Aru Youni, Tales of Destiny's theme song. During their performance, the screen behind them showed footage from the two games, respective of their theme songs.
To end the event, a special raffle was done for those who attended. A few lucky attendees got themselves a Tales of Festival 2008 poster with autographs of all the cast present, as well as the scipt for Tales of Innocence, also signed by the cast.
All images of the event uploaded to the gallery!
Sources: Famitsu | Degenki Online
