Bandai Namco held another Tales of stream on July 5, most notably revealing the OP anime for Tales of Arise, animated by Ufotable. Several cool tidbits were shared during the stream as well, including more gameplay. Moreover, Tales of Arise will actually have another theme song, to be revealed soon.
The stream revealed Kankaku Piero is the group handling the Tales of Arise OP theme song, titled Hibana. There’s a version with English lyrics, and one with Japanese lyrics. I don’t think I need to tell you which one I prefer.
- TALES OF ARISE CHARACTERS – Profiles for Dohalim and Kisara translated
TALES OF ARISE – Official Opening Animation
(Tales of Arise OP Japanese version)
This July 5 Tales of stream featured:
- Tales of series producer Yusuke Tomizawa
- The seiyuu Takuya Sato (Alphen) and Shino Shimoji (Shionne)
- Yasuhiro Ikeno from Bandai Namco
- Toy-kun, the manager of the Tales of series official YouTube channel.
The stream was MC’ed by Chiaki Matsuzawa. The second half of the stream also focused on Tales of Crestoria, celebrating its 1st anniversary.
- PARTY MEMBERS – Profiles for Law and Rinwell translated
Who is Kankaku Piero? Fans react to the Tales of Arise OP
Kankaku Piero is a four man band from Osaka, started in 2013. The members are Daiki Takiguchi (Bassist), Takuto Akizuki (Guitar), Achilles Kenta (Drums), and Naohiro Yokoyama (Vocals&Guitar). The group is pretty popular outside Japan as it did in 2017 the first OP of the Black Clover anime, Haruka Mirai. Kankaku Piero also did Black Clover OP6, Rakugaki Page.
It’s interesting to note that during the previous stream on June 18, TomizawaP, teased that a “four man band is doing the OP for Tales of Arise“. So I’ve seen a lot of Japanese Tales of fans on Twitter fantasizing about Bump of Chicken coming back. Tales of the Abyss’ Karma is one of the most popular Tales of OP ever. The actual reveal was slightly underwhelming, with all due respect to Kankaku Piero. A lot of fans were disillusioned, myself included.
Be sure to watch the segment of the stream with Kankaku Piero in full to learn more about them. It starts at the 40:00 timestamp:
- MULTIPLAYER CO-OP – What happened with multiplayer in Tales of Arise?
Analyzing the Tales of Arise opening by Ufotable
Personally speaking, I thought the opening was really good. It’s simple, and Ufotable went for a very classic OP storyboard and direction. You know what I mean if you’ve been watching anime for or a little while. The Kankaku Piero song rally fits too.
The characters also look gorgeous in the opening. I might even say Ufotable made Shionne and the party members look actually better than the Iwamoto 2D artworks we’ve seen so far.
Next, It’s interesting to see that on one hand, Bandai Namco is clearly “westernizing” the Tales of series with Arise. TomizawaP said multiple times in the past the game’s promotion is mainly aimed at the US and Europe market rather than Japan. Like how Arise was at first supposed to be an open world, before Bandai Namco scrapped the idea. But on the other hand, the studio still realizes what it needs to do to please most Japanese games fans, and did not “westernize” the OP.
I personally feel it’s weird to see a series as Japanese as Tales of going this route. Especially considering how huge in Japan the series used to be during the PS2 era with Tales of Destiny and its Director’s Cut remake.
- MORE TALES OF ARISE – Initial story, staff and cast comments translated
Tales of Arise will include a second theme song
The Japanese press release from Bandai Namco also teased that besides Hibana by Kankaku Piero, Tales of Arise will feature another tie-up song with another artist. This might be an ED theme song. Further details will be shared at a later date.
New demo gameplay
First, TomizawaP quickly reintroduced Tales of Arise‘s battle system at the 1:02:30 mark of the stream. Be sure to check that out if you don’t know how the game works yet. The battle system is definitely one of the strongest looking points of Arise. Then, we got to see Takuya Sato (Alphen) and Shino Shimoji (Shionne) play. You can watch that at the 1:08:12 timestamp linked below. Note that it’s the same demo we’ve already seen these past weeks.
Tales of Arise will launch on September 9 in Japan, and September 10 worldwide on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC (Steam).
The post Tales of Arise Anime OP by Kankaku Piero, Ufotable, Gameplay Revealed – Extra Theme Song Teased by Iyane Agossah appeared first on DualShockers.