Introduction
The Kingdoms of Dolhr, Grust, and Gra band together to wage war on the rest of the continent Archanea and defeat the Kingdom of Altea. King Cornelius is slain in battle but his son Prince Marth is able to escape the invasion thanks to the sacrifice of his older sister Elice. He and a small group of retainers find refuge on the island nation of Talys, where they spend the next three years in hiding under the royal family's protection.
Marth lives a peaceful life in Talys, enjoying the beauty of the island and the friendship of its pegasus-riding princess, Caeda. But he is uneasy, knowing soon the day will come that he must take up arms. That day arrives when Caeda comes to Marth and his retainers in a panic, telling him that the castle town has been attacked. After some close calls, they manage to defeat the assailants and save the city.
Realizing that his presence may bring further danger to his new home, Marth decides that now is the time to set off. He journeys to raise an army with which to reclaim his kingdom.
[Written by MAL Rewrite]
Audience reviews
11 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
FrogishBird
This was surprisingly really good!
The animation I was not expecting to go that hard and they added more depth to the characters than the game.
(Except for Ceada, fuck anime Ceada. Biggest character downgrade in all of fiction.) In the game she used to fight alongside everyone and was one of the strongest units. In the ova she’s a damsel who loves Marth and that’s IT.
Marth’s character was good but compared to the absolute giga chad he was in the game, he’s not as entertaining.
Navarre was incredible, easily my favorite character adapted. They captured his coolness perfectly and badass is an understatement.
Some of it was rushed and there are some unintentionally funny moments (like “SISTER!” and Navarre’s scream), but overall I really wish this would’ve kept going.
Edit: One more th…
Read at the sourceSwordlocked
Fire Emblem earns a 10 from me from sheer enjoyment alone.
This show is primarily for people who are already fans of the series. It's far too short to form as an actual introduction to the series, only being 2 episodes long.
For existing fans however, this OVA is a meme gold mine. The English dub in particular is arguably the most quotable anime ever made, up there with Ghost Stories and the likes. Gordin carries this show on his back.
Even ignoring the memes, the animation is actually really nice.
This OVA only makes me wish what could've happened with a full adaptation of Shadow Dragon.
Read at the sourceSpiceOrange
The Fire Emblem OVAs consist of 2 episodes each around 25 minutes in length going over the story of Marth (who was referred to as 'Mars' in this series) as he is motivated to lead a group of warriors to fight for his homeland.
This series, being only 2 episodes in length, obviously ends abruptly. Its also very clear that the second episode was not really meant to be the finale. They hint at "more adventures ahead" but as we can all see now, no more adventures were released. This fact makes it hard to really give the series as a whole a proper review, but alas there are some points to mention.
I did have fun watching this, I'd imagine someone who was not a fan of the video game series being kind of bored for the most part. However, as a quick hour of my time I enjoyed seeing some refere…
Read at the sourceLegendAqua
But MAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARS
As an avid player of Fire Emblem Heroes and that mobile game being the gateway for LA into the Fire Emblem franchise, LA was curious if there was any Fire Emblem animes out there to satiate LA's curiosity of the Fire Emblem franchise and this anime.....isn't the best foray into the games out there.
Fire Emblem's OVA tells the prologue and one isolated event of the Mystery of the Emblem game for what this adaptation is trying to do and by all intents this OVA is nothing but exposition and setting the game proper with a bit of characterization towards one or two characters but the problem and defense in all this is that the OVA are too short going at 40 minutes trying cram as much as it can.
The animation done by Studio Fantasia is pretty decent for it's time…
Read at the sourceSolidBren
Not bad at all. Go watch it together with your friends that also happen to be fans of the Fire Emblem video game series!
===Pros===
Great '90s style artwork and very nice orchestrated music based on the music from the game. The animation itself looked fairly smooth at times as well. I personally really enjoyed the voice acting, but I can see where people may think otherwise. It is delightfully cheesy.
===Cons===
While the story sets up a solid premise that follows the video game, it doesn't get to go very far due to this series never surpassing two episodes of length. The same issue can be said for the characters. The voice of characters were often out of sync with their mouth animations, which becomes slightly annoying. However, the fact that this is only two episodes long, could be a…
Read at the sourcefluff_punkz
Now, since this is my first review, it will be rather brief and of poor quality, so I apologize in advance. I will do my best to be as unbiased as possible because I am a big fan of the Fire Emblem series.
STORY: 7/10
At the moment I am writing this, I have not played the original game of Fire Emblem or it's remakes, so I'm going to assume that the plot of the OVA closely follows the plot of the actual games, or at least the beginning of them. I personally find the deep lore surrounding the world quite intriguing. It's just a shame that they kept it extremely vague and barely explained any of it. I also find the use of the names of real locations in the world throughout history (Examples being the lands of Orleans and Macedonia) adds a bit of familiarity to a rather new world to the view…
Read at the sourceHolyBritianian
im a big fan of the SRPG Nintendo series;Honestly though it was quite enjoyable in my opinion; sure the story is about as generic as you can get, but that's fire emblem in a nutshell a story of a Medieval Young Lord-ling that must take back the land the was either conquered from his father,and goes around the country building up his army while having skirmishes with the opposing army. I am not very fond of Marth as it is; hence he really is the most bland of The Lords in the fire emblem series;coupled with the fact this series has fodder villains in it's two episodes, and really the only thing memorable is the fire surrounding the buildings, and nameless Warriors going at each other with Swords. i did enjoy this two part episode,but it left me wanting for more as this series came into an a…
Read at the sourceFAKEANIMEGIRL
(Check out my profile for a link to my site containing more up-to-date reviews and bonus media!)
I admit it, I was pleasantly surprised at how much better the Fire Emblem anime was than what I was expecting. Short OVA adaptations of existing franchises usually tend to be heavily abridged and amount to little more than a special trailer for the source material. And when the source material comes from Fire Emblem, specifically one of the earliest, simplest games in a series where the storylines are just amusing at best, you would naturally expect no different.
But in a twist, that's not the case. This OVA's creators actually did honor to their source material, adhering to the original storyline while using the new format to flesh out the game's scenarios and characters more than the game i…
Read at the sourcektulu007
Fire Emblem was a game franchise virtually unknown outside of Japan until Super Smash Brothers Melee came out. That game featured two Fire Emblem characters, Marth and Roy, as playable fighters. Creating an interest in the franchise that was great enough to get the seventh title, Blazing Sword, and most subsequent titles released internationally.
So, why was the franchise only released outside of Japan at that point? My theory is that the games were simply considered too difficult. Yes, Nintendo had a lot of really hard games, some unfairly so. But Fire Emblem is the most difficult franchise developed by Nintendo itself. The games feature permanent death for party members. That's right, no phoenix downs, revives, Yggdrasil leaves or anything like that. Except for one single use item that…
Read at the sourcesylvanelite
This OVA tells the story of the very first Fire Emblem game, and features Marth (Mars in the OVA) as the main character. From Super Smash Bros. fame, Marth's game was not released outside of Japan, that was until 2008/9, where a remake was made for DS, which saw international release. This OVA, strangely, was dubbed into English before Math made his maiden appearance in Super Smash Bros. Melee. Ironically, his name was translated as "Mars" in this release. The final thing to note, before I start fully reviewing the OVA, is that it only lasts 2 episodes. It was cancelled before any additional episodes were made, as such the story only just reaches the introductory stages before the series ends.
The actual OVA is quite old, and the animation style is very indicative of the era. This aside,…
Read at the sourceAnomalous
With the recent release of Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon in English, this OVA is perhaps more relevant than it has been in over a decade. Some quick backstory: in 1990, the first Fire Emblem game was released for the Famicom (and was remade for the Super Famicom in 1994). Since games back then had simpler stories and characters, extra care was taken by Fire Emblem’s creators to make supplemental media to flesh out the game. This OVA wasn’t meant to stand alone or take the place of the game, but to help players understand a little more about what was going on. I’m sure it helped them at least somewhat in the 90s, and hopefully it can help new players of the DS remake as well.
Still, it would be a lie to say that this OVA has many memorable qualities. While the plot is more detailed than that…
Read at the source