After facing a rough defeat, the heroes must pull themselves back together and fight off depression in order to save the world.
What They Say:
Humans, fairies, and other mythical creatures live in peace on the continent of Yggdra until a mysterious group called the Black Army appears. To protect their home, the citizens of Yggdra join forces to form a Volunteer Army led by a young man named Yuri, who possesses the power of light.
In a surprising turn of events, the Volunteer Army is taken down, and Yuri and his team of would-be heroes return home defeated. Instead of coming home to praise and celebration, they’re met with harsh criticism and are seen as failures. Furthermore, crops and animals are dying, and a strange mist falls over the towns as the continent fades into darkness. Distraught by his failure, Yuri loses all hope until he encounters a headstrong young boy who may be exactly what he needs.
The Review:
Audio:
The audio presentation for this release brings us the original Japanese language track in stereo while the English language dub gets a 5.1 boost, both of which are encoded using the Dolby TrueHD lossless codec. The series has a really good mix of action and dialogue scenes that are pretty balanced in most of the episodes. The action scenes don’t go big in a lot of ways that you might expect but it has some strong scenes throughout and knows when to go for those bigger moments. And this works fine because it’s done as a lot of intense smaller fights that do have some sprawling elements to them. The way it moves across the soundstage is engaging and the dub gets some good additional impact with the 5.1 mix and its bass. Dialogue is pretty straightforward throughout with some good interactions that have some placement and depth to them when there are positionings that require it. Mostly it’s standard center channel stuff though but it comes across in a good way. Both tracks are clean and clear throughout and we didn’t have any problems with dropouts or distortions during regular playback.
Video:
Originally airing in 2017, the transfer for this TV series is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1 in 1080p using the AVC codec. The twelve episodes are spread across two discs in a nine/three format that gives it plenty of room to breathe. The third disc has the two films while the fourth disc has the third and final one. Animated by Graphicina with Telecom Animation Film, the series has a really strong look to it with its designs both in character animation and with the backgrounds and settings that it becomes a very immersive experience. The character designs feature a lot of really good details to them that work well for me even if it does feel like some of the color design leans into “app game” mode at times. But because it’s consistent and has a strong overall design to it, it works well. The character animation is very fluid where it counts and the violence doesn’t shy from the blood or messiness of it all, though it doesn’t go into it in a way that makes you feel like it’s enjoyable. The colors throughout are solid with great black levels and we didn’t see anything with breakup or noticeable noise during regular playback.
Packaging:
The packaging for this release comes in a thicker than usual Blu-ray case that holds the four discs on hinges while coming with a slipcover that replicates the case artwork. The front frames it well with that kind of classic approach to fantasy with the deep faux leather blue and gold bits to it while the interior is the main key visual for the series. It gives us a look at the leads, the flashes of power, and the familiar logo to draw you into it. The back cover goes for a blue background in a similar style to the front cover with the summary of the premise covering a small bit of what to expect. The extras are clearly listed and we get a few shows from the show just above it that are a little murkier than helpful. The technical grid is laid out in a clean and easily readable way with an accurate breakdown of both formats. While there are no show-related inserts included with it we do get artwork on the reverse side with a little bit of light symbolism there.
Extras:
The extras for this release come with the clean opening and closing sequences but also a little more. We get a nice selection of promos for the show but also the cute Academy pieces that plays light and silly with the show for a bit.
Chain Chronicle originally began as a game back in 2013 as an app but eventually got the nod to move to the PS Vita as well. It did well enough that a manga series complemented it for a couple of years and there was a brief run of shorts back in 2014 as well. It was in the winter 2017 season that we get this series, Chain Chronicle ~Light of Haecceitas~, which gave us a full-length twelve-episode run that was also reworked into three feature films that played out alongside it, which was weird but made a certain kind of sense. The films have some additional bridging material and it’s like getting a marathon play version so it’s really up to you as to which way you want to watch this. I stuck with the TV run simply because that felt like it made the most sense.
Serving as a continuation to the game itself – which was shut down some time ago I believe, the series is one that’s almost a hard one to get into from the start even though it plays an old trick that can sometimes work. Similar to Record of Lodoss War, the series starts off with what feels more like a mid-season recap of events and goes big and full of action. It’s not really intended to get you familiar with the characters but rather get you into the groove of the style and delight you with strong animation for all the action and character designs. It’s certainly a high-budget-looking project with some great details, strong choreography to it, and a good sense of world design. This doesn’t feel like a cheap fly-by-night project in the slightest and that really should make it easier to put in the effort to connect with it better when you get past this opening montage-like piece.
With that episode essentially tossing onto the garbage pile so much of what happened in the game, we get the situation where the Alliance is no more and the cast has gone back to their own thing, nursing their wounds and individual issues after it all went to hell against the Black King. It’s a brutal piece when you get down to it, right to the book being torn apart, but it sets everything up so that they can all come back together eventually having faced such a tough loss and do better. It’s not something that comes together quickly as they have to cope with some of their own issues but it doesn’t take long overall within the series for Yuri, working through his depression over the loss, to start getting the journey going again because they can’t believe that the Black King is right and that everything should be reduced to a wasteland.
So, what this sets up is a fairly standard fantasy-adventure gaming party storyline. One that, going by what I’ve found looking at some thoughts on the show after watching it, essentially replicates the game itself. The idea being that they’re doing what they did before but with a renewed push to take down the Black King after suffering such a hard loss. That just makes this a kind of weirdly reworked remake of the game, which is fine, but they wanted the quirky contrivance of it taking place after the game and having to essentially do everything over again. I imagine this is more problematic for game players to some degree since it’s familiar but for new viewers, it has a weird feeling to it because, especially in the early episodes, there’s this level of depression hanging over nearly every character after how badly the fight went. That’s actually a neat twist to me compared to the usual way it’s all upbeat or just intense revenge that turns noble, and I liked how the characters weren’t just the usual spunky go-getter types that we often see.
But therein lies the problem overall. I really like a lot of the design elements to the series, the mood actually works in my favor as it takes time for everyone to come back together, and the general concept is a solid one. But at the same time, it’s also all very generic and you can figure out how so much of it will flow easily from the start. It’s also one that leans very male-centric with Yuri as the “player character” from the app that we see things through but ends up mostly working alongside women who are just kind of there for a lot of it. Phoena’s got a great design but it’s so completely a support role you expect her to have an armband that says “moral support” on it and just rushing to Yuri’s side regularly – when she’s not becoming the damsel in distress trope, that is.
In Summary:
The only sin that Chain Chronicle has here is that it’s a by the numbers job. That may be a problem for someone like me who has seen a few dozen types of these shows but even with that in mind there were things that were appealing here. I liked the slower pacing, I liked the way the core group is kind of depressed for a while and it takes time to get really moving. And I liked the designs and animation for it a good bit as well. But at the same time, it’s the pure distillation of so many projects of this nature, whether manga, novel, or app game, that there’s no real surprise or shock here. This is a storyline that felt fresh and new the first time I played it in Dungeons & Dragons back in the early 1980s. Now, it’s just a freshly painted version of it that may appeal in a big way to fans of the game or those that haven’t cut their teeth on fantasy projects yet. Which is why I’m glad Funimation not only gave it a good solid dub but that the release includes the movie versions as well so fans get all of the experience in a high-quality format.
Features:
Japanese Dolby TrueHD 2.0 Language, English Dolby TrueHD 5.1 Language, English Subtitles, Clean Opening, Clean Closing, Chain Crown-icle!! Chain Chronicle Academy, Promo Videos
Content Grade: B
Audio Grade: B+
Video Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: B+
Menu Grade: B
Extras Grade: B
Released By: Funimation
Release Date: December 3rd, 2019
MSRP: $64.98
Running Time: 300 Minutes
Video Encoding: 1080p AVC
Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1 Widescreen
Review Equipment:
Sony KDL70R550A 70″ LED 1080P HDTV, Sony PlayStation3 Blu-ray player via HDMI set to 1080p, Onkyo TX-SR605 Receiver and Panasonic SB-TP20S Multi-Channel Speaker System With 100-Watt Subwoofer.
