Nishi No Yoki Majo (Good Witch of the West - Astraea Testament)

[tun]

Originally Posted by Siegel Clyne

Nishi no Yoki Majo Drama CD Cover

Haha, classic.

[Cyz]

Poor Firiel. She looks like she's too confused on her feelings. Oh! and hooray for that creepy guy to die He deserves it! Adale is too adorable

[Blablabla]

Rouxboux X'D
Only 5 more eps to.
It's a pity that, like Jyu Oh Sei, they didn't plan more episodes. The story is going too, too fast.

[Leo_Otaku]

I'm debating to click on spoilers XD ahahaha..... Man the evil me is so not cool u_u buuu.

Yay Roux in next eps ^-^

[Cyz]

Watched ep. 9. Some scenes that I remembered:

+ Firiel and Ingraine travelling together. I mistook Ingraine for a man before
+ Adale is not very good @ horse riding.
+ Adale and Leandra's mother is just a princess (I thought she was a queen or something)
+ Eusis getting dumped by the unicorn many times.
+ Firiel found a baby unicorn. Baby unicorn getting attached to Firiel.
+ Eusis almost shot Firiel w/ an arrow.

--> Not many things happen but it's still a nice episode.

[miaka]

Originally Posted by Cyz

Watched ep. 9. Some scenes that I remembered:

+ Adale and Leandra's mother is just a princess (I thought she was a queen or something)

--> Not many things happen but it's still a nice episode.

The queen is Adale and Leandra's grandmother (mother side). Firiel's mother, Elilin is the second princess and also Princess Augusta's sister.

[Cyz]

Ah yes yes! I remember Lot saying that You know, the unicorns on their world are only 2 leggeds. Hm, and I thought they were four. They look like chickens now

[aixchel]

Couple of story questions:

Spoiler for Who the heck was she pointing at?:

At the end of episode 8 Leandra was talking with Ru (I assume that is short for the Japanese pronunciation of RUmplestiltskin) and first said the Duke prefers boys and then pointed oddly and said, "like you know who". Ok, who was she talking about? Surely not Eusis?

I assume Adale wants Firiel to marry her brother so Firiel stays in the family and they can be close always as 'sisters' and therefore have the object of her adoration close by? And she's upset about Eusis leaving because if he dies, he can't marry Firiel?

And I assume Eusis has plans of his own since we've been given a 'warning' evil glance when he caught Firiel in the garden with the Duke?

This series is really a guilty pleasure

[Cyz]

About the Leandra pointing, she's referring to Roux I think. Because the Duke put a mark on Roux when he was captured and he says that he belongs to him.

Eusis wants to marry Firiel because.....I think he fell in love to Firiel (exactly what Lot predicted - despite how Eusis denied it). As for Adale, she's a little jealous that her brother found a love but she's also happy because it was Firiel.

[MissDeth]

As short as this series was, I really enjoyed it. I would like to get my hands on the manga to see where and if it differed....! I've looked all over the web trying to find scans of Adele (especially in her military outfit from episode 12!) and from the manga. If anyone has any help on finding these, or the existence of an artbook to buy, I would greatly appreciate it!

[Cyz]

So the anime is finally finished huh? I still need to watch the last 2 eps. I really enjoyed this series - I just wished they could've extended it a little longer no?

[Guardian Enzo]

I'm a little surprised there wasn't more buzz with this one. It was a highly original work, IMO - ironically because it so faithfully followed the European fairy-tale format, faithfully right to the end. There were several genuinely sharply drawn and interesting characters (especially Roux) and a plot that was generally cohesive and logically drawn. Just not flashy enough for everyone, I suppose.

[Mangaka-chan]

Just watched the whole thing (plus all 4 manga avalible in Chinese thus far) and I have to say I really like this show. Having read the manga and saw the anime as well I have to say the manga is better in terms of art, pacing, and character development. But the anime does have very nice music (love the OP song), and I honestly don't mind the difference in design all that much. It's just that 13 episodes isn't enough to develop all the things that goes on in the manga, which I believe is based much more closely to the novels. I have to concur with the wide spread opinion in this forum that the show would've benefited from a few more episodes to flesh things out a bit more. *sigh*

Still, for all the people who enjoyed this anime, I'd highly recomment reading the manga (first volume's avalible from Tokyopop). It's darker than the anime but much more interesting IMO.

[David Johnston]

I've watched a few episodes of this...and it's really science fiction, isn't it? These guys colonised some earthlike world and then imposed peasant ignorance on the bulk of the population right? I'm not sure how effective fairy tales would be as a method of manipulating people's psychology, though, if you don't let people hear them.

[Skyfall]

Just finished this little piece of work, and it was a fairly good watch. Pretty interesting and somewhat original, considering its fairy tale

Characters lacked any real development, but bleh - i can live with it. Roux is one strange animal though - i can't recall ever seeing something as ... unique as him He certainly looked like a complete bookworm when i first saw him, and i thought his personality would be matching that... boy, was that wrong

Still can't figure out what the hell was that star, and especially - Bard 0_o

And of course, as a proper fairy tale we have a happily ever after for every one. Cheeziness over the top with them forgiving the major villains and all seemed on the "bleh" side though ... but hey - only evil dragons get killed in fairy tales mostly, right ?

Animation was fairly nice, but they did overuse the "blush" effect. Overall a pretty decent watch. 7/10

[Guardian Enzo]

I liked this one a lot, though it didn't get much attention. Your reaction to Roux seems to be the common one - he didn't fit neatly into any stereotype, and as such was easily the breakout character of the series.

Check out the manga - first two volumes are out. It's very good.

[SinsI]

Did anyone read the novels? How different are they, and how far does the anime go?

[LKK]

Originally Posted by SinsI

Did anyone read the novels? How different are they, and how far does the anime go?

I'm a little late in responding, but a friend pointed me here since she knew I'd read the first novel. (Tokyopop's version.) The novel is much more complex than the anime was. The anime skimmed the surface of the novel for plot details. But the novel is deeper as to why things happen and gives greater insight into who the characters are and why they do what they do. The first novel was extremely well-written when compared to other novels that Tokyopop has translated. It felt like a novel and not merely a translated story. As for how far does the anime go? I can't answer that question yet though. Novel 1 stops fairly early into the anime.

Spoiler for where novel 1 ends:

Firiel has agreed to go to the girls' school at the end of novel 1.

(I believe there are 6 novels total.) Why does the novel stop so early? Because the story is much more thorough in detailing things like the heresy of fairy tales and the characters' motivations. Most of the basic plot has been the same as the anime so far although there have been some differences. However, the novel's version of each plot point is deeper and more nuanced. I found novel 1 extremely engaging. I hated to stop reading it when real life interrupted me. I really recommend that if you're interested in the series, you should find a copy of the novel and give it a try.

[SinsI]

Quite a surprising answer.
My thoughts after episode 12 were "well, that was a good introduction, now let's start the real epic 100+ episodes story", I expected the anime to cover only a volume or two...

[Aquillion]

I just finished watching this myself.

Are the novels finished with the story? It really felt like the anime started strong, then went completely off the rails eventually -- specifically, somewhere around the time:

Spoiler:

when they go off to fight the dragons and everything -- suddenly people are rushing everywhere for barely-explained reasons, being teleported -- keeping in mind that only the very vaguest hints of magic had been introduced so far -- and so on. It felt like it was hastily thrown together.

Although the first signs of this were the end of the school arc -- it was suddenly "bam, deux-ex-mechanica and it's done". They hadn't even bothered to explain why it was problematic for outside influences to be present in the school -- I'm guessing that that's something they cut from the novel / manga without realizing it.

Also, I hated the ending. After all that talk of responsibility and improving the world, she chooses love over her responsibility to the kingdom, and leaves the hard work to other people? Fairy tails and Roux's studies are still heretical, and she's not going to do anything about it? Bleh, terrible. I assumed she would go after the position of the queen to try and change things; instead, she decides to accept what she has (presumably Roux can escape summary execution for heresy because she's a queen candidate) and screw everyone else. All her talk about helping others was, apparently, tripe as long as she and Roux are safe.

My assumption was that the anime's writers had to just suddenly start inventing things eventually; it seems like there's a pretty clear dividing line beyond which the plot and characterization suddenly and sharply decline in quality (around when people start teleporting everywhere, although it was starting to feel rushed and hectic a bit before that.)

If that's what happened, I can at least say one good thing about this show: it made me grateful for the fact that Twelve Kingdoms stopped where the novels did, and didn't try to continue without them.