English Dub Season Review: Chain Chronicle: Light of Haecceittas

In a world slowly decaying into darkness, a thief filled with hope joins an epic war for salvation.

Spoilers Below

A continuation of the mobile game Chain Chronicle, the series Light of Haecceittas was originally released as a movie trilogy. Afterward, it was converted into a twelve-episode series, with each movie becoming four episodes. Unlike many continuations or adaptations of video games, this one begins with the heroes losing the game’s final battle, and having to pick up the pieces of their world afterward. Helping them in their battle is a hopeful young lad by the name of Aram. He is a thief a useful ability to steal and donate mana to his allies. Working against them are the forces of the Black Army and an infection of dark mana that corrupts the soul as it kills the body. Those that give in to the corruption are sheathed in an armor of dark mana, and become enthralled to the Black King’s apocalyptic agenda. The heroes must fight the forces of darkness, rescue the missing embodiment of reality in the form of a fairy, and keep the mystical Chain Chronicle out of the wrong hands.

The show takes us across the continent of Yggdra, meeting some of the most popular characters of the game, and revisiting the old battle site. Along the way, they discover a colossal, golden sword inscribed with a magic, evil-rending song and a tiny white critter that is tied to light mana in a way reminiscent of the Guardian Dragon of the Desert. Midway through the journey, Yuri, the leader of the good guys, gives in to his dark infection and becomes a black knight. It is up to Aram to not only break through the shield protecting the Imperial Capital but to defeat and rescue Yuri from himself before taking down the Black King and saving the world from a slow decay into heat death.

The series is filled with unique characters, each with their own motivations for entering into the war. It’s just a shame that none of them stick around long. This is primarily because this story is a continuation and not an adaptation. Fans of the game will be familiar with all of the characters and their back plots, some of them even being recruited into the player’s team. The problem with this is that the game is no longer available to play, and it is now impossible to see these stories. This makes it difficult to connect to characters that you feel like you should have already known. People who felt like they should have been fully fleshed out fell completely flat. Those characters that are not so flat are the three or four who have the most screen time.

That being said, the decision to create a brand new character for the movie was a good one. Aram serves as a viewpoint for those viewers who have no clue as to what is going on. He jumps into the story but has no prior knowledge of his comrades or their stories. This gives us an in to learn about stuff we’ve missed, and his connections become our own. His journey also introduces us to many of the game mechanics that are fundamental to the universe, such as Bonds and Chain Attacks. He becomes the holder of the Light of Haecceities, the same power behind the giant sword and his companion critter/dragon Furball. It is the light that rends the darkness, and is equally infectious as the dark mana.

Visually, this series is stunning. It uses an intricate blend of traditional and CG animation, blurring from one to another as is needed. This allowed them to have quickly moving characters do all sorts of acrobatic moves without losing the soul of the art to the computer. They use the CG very carefully, only for those movements where they need it, and for large numbers of identical soldiers with no personality. If you read my reviews of the episodes, I couldn’t sing the praises of their visual direction enough, and I really want to see more of the same. The art style used for the traditional animation is solid. I’m rather impressed, actually. When you look at the original character designs created for the game, many of them were done in different styles, and all of them by a wide array of artists with different aesthetics. The team for this movie synthesized these styles into one and put work into making it stand the test of movie quality.

The voice acting for the English dub isn’t anything to write home about, but it isn’t shabby either. Really, there isn’t much to voice acting for the battlefield. Nuance isn’t a high priority when giant golems are raining down meteors and succubi are shoving their hands into your stomach. There really isn’t anything that I have to complain about though, except a couple of female characters with high-pitched voices that grated my ears. I truly enjoyed this series, and wish I could get my hands on the game, but I guess that just isn’t in the cards. I give it eight points out of ten.