Tales of Luminaria: The Fateful Crossroad is an anime adaptation series based on the mobile game Tales of Luminaria developed by Colopl. It tells a story of childhood friends who question their meaning of justice and whose side they are on. Leo Fourcade (Ryohei Arai, Aaron Dismuke) and Celia Arvier (Miho Okasaki, Cristina Vee) are Jerle Federation knights whose mission is to use the key to shut down the Pilier. Hugo Simon (Kaito Takeda, Eric Vale) and Alexandra von Sonne (Saori Onishi, Caitlin Glass) are imperial soldiers whose mission is to go after the key.
Episode 1 introduces strife between Hugo and Leo. Hugo and Alexandra ambush Leo, Celia, and Lisette Regnier (Yu Shimamura, Colleen Clinkenbeard), Leo and Celia’s instructor. Lisette fights against Alexandra, and Leo and Celia fight against Alexander’s partner. Nicola (Shintarou Asanuma), a researcher who modifies the device to shut down the Pilier stays behind and guards the key.
Leo and Celia don’t know who they are fighting against until Alexandra’s partner gets knocked down. It’s Hugo, their childhood friend, whom they haven’t seen for a long time. A split-second flashback of their childhood events and close-ups to extreme close-ups deepen their emotions.
Hugo isn’t surprised to see them. His face and dialogue show no emotion, especially when the screen fades to black as he says their names. It’s like his childhood friendships ended when he joined the Empire. His point of view of who’s right and wrong is different from his childhood friends or from the Federation. Leo believes that the Pilier needs to be stopped. It’s destroying towns and villages. Hugo, on the other hand, believes that his reason still doesn’t give him the right to destroy Lunne’s citizens.
The contradiction between their point of view and emotions is also shown in their actions. Leo doesn’t really want to fight Hugo. He blocks him with his sword, but Hugo keeps coming at him with his sword. Alexandra and Lisette fight until Nicola makes a move for the elevator. Alexandra attacks him without Lissette going after her or Celia targeting her with an arrow. It just seems that they let her take the case with the key in it and take off with Hugo as Leo shouts for his name.
The screen fades to white, followed by a flashback of Celia, Hugo, and Leo in the woods. They’re looking out for each other in case of a sudden attack. Hugo tells them that he’ll recoup the weapons and goes off by himself. In the woods, he sees a sword with a red symbol on it and bends down to take a closer look at it. Suddenly, he hears the utter voice of a man. He turns to see who he is. A ground-level shot of a hand that tries to pick up his sword without showing his face to build suspense for a moment. It then shows a wounded knight targeting him in full force. Hugo freezes with his eyes wide from a full shot, close-up to an extreme close-up.
As the wounded knight is about to strike, Leo kills him with his sword. He asks Hugo if he’s alright. Hugo pauses for a second, as if he’s confused about the meaning of justice as well as Leo. He asks him whether they’re doing the right thing. Leo doesn’t know. All he knows is that his meaning of justice is to protect the ones he treasures, which is based on subjective and not objective. What about the ones who do evil deeds? What about confronting evil and making things right after being wrong?
Leo gives him a hand as the scene cuts back to the present. Hugo feels the inner struggle between his mission and friendship. He doesn’t want to fight his childhood friend. He still treasures his friendship with Leo and Celia, but he also has an obligation to complete the mission. He says sorry to Alexandra, who comes down the stairs with a box in her hand. Alexandra understands where he’s coming from and hangs him a bottle from the box, and he gives her the key. She examines it to make sure the key works. It does. Now, they can stabilize the Pilier. Alexandra then returns her concern to Hugo, asking whether he could fight Leo with all his mind.
The next scene shows that Leo and Hugo share a characteristic trait. They know how to suppress their feelings in order to complete their mission. Celia is concerned about whether Leo can bring himself to fight against Hugo. Leo replies that it’s his mission as he slowly extends his fingers and clenches them into his palm and sighs. The same goes for Hugo, as the scene cuts back to focus on his dialogue with Alexandra. He’s determined to fight against Leo if it comes down to it.
The following scenes reveal the turning point that neither the audience nor the character knew about. A device releases smoke in front of the entrance of the Pilier. The knights quickly investigate any potential dangers in the smoky area.Abruptly, the sound of laser swords appears in the smoky area, killing knights. Lissette is guarding herself and others from harm and tells Celia to search for Hugo and Alexandra. She knows they’re there. Celia searches for him using her Embleo in her left eye, a jade gem that gives her the ability to see a long distance. She sees Hugo, who’s standing on top of the castle, ready to jump to where the Pilier is. Celia is ready to target him with an arrow to stop him, but she stops. She sees the distance between where he’s standing and the Pilier. It’s too far for him to jump, but she’s wrong. Hugo uses Embleo and the technique to help him reach the Pilier.
Lissette and Alexandra face off in one-on-one warfare, and neither one is backing down. They know where they stand, given the circumstances. Lissette doesn’t want the key to fall into the wrong hand. Alexandra seems to put her trust in August Wallenstein (Yuichiro Umehara, J. Michael Tatum), the chancellor of the Gildllan Empire, until she questions his plan later in the episode. The same goes for Hugo. He lands on where the Pilier is. He is ready to place the key into it when Leo comes up behind him to stop him. He refuses to back down, as well as Leo. The combat and the dialogue between them reveal when they stand. Hugo thinks he’s doing justice and blindly follows August’s order.
Leo and Hugo have their swords crossed, blocking, grabbing, and knocking each other down. Leo has him for a second, but he hesitates to kill him. He just wants to restrain him. Hugo knocks him on the head and uses his legs to push him away. Leo falls to the ground. He tries to tell him to wait, but Hugo isn’t listening. He places the key into the Pilier, which immediately operates in full mode. Then, a hologram shows one of the compartments turning yellow. Hugo looks down at the Pilier and sees one of the compartments open, and the reactor absorbs all the energy. Alexandra sees the Pilier in full mode with the neon light flickering. She is upset about what’s happening and questions whether this was August’s plan all along. She then walks off without settling a duel for next time or showing Lissette’s expression or why Lissette doesn’t pursue her. The scene just cuts back to focus on Hugo and Leo.
Hugo witnesses the destruction of the land outside the city gate. The wide shot of the scene shows that everything is burning. Two unknown people see everything from a distance and teleport to the land. It then cuts to ground-level shots of a person’s movement to build suspense about the person. It’s August who’s shown on the scene for the first time. Not only that, but his soliloquy shows his motive behind the order he assigned to Alexandra and Hugo. His goal is to use the pilier to further his desire, not to stabilize it. He just lets Alexandra and Hugo do his dirty work. The question is how he knew that the key wouldn’t stabilize the Pilier and not Nicola.
Hugo looks horrified and confused. Leo is angry, questions his definition of justice, and attacks him with his sword at full strength. Hugo fights back as their swords cross.
Episode 1 starts off fast, and there’s a lot of action. There are some questions and muddled scenes. The episode explains the good and bad about the Pilier. However, it doesn’t explain why a hordes of beasts attack the city gate or how the needle reactor gets into one of the beasts’ necks.
Rating: 6/10
