Moving Pictures: Final Fantasy: Unlimited

I’ve been making it my goal to watch all the Final Fantasy adaptations, so the next one on my list had to be Final Fantasy: Unlimited. While it was not Square’s first foray into anime — the first was the OVA (Original Video Animation) series Final Fantasy: Legend of the Crystals — it was one that I hadn’t known much about until one of my colleagues at GameGrin told me about it.

When I discovered it, I naturally went to buy the DVD box set of all 25 episodes because my curiosity needed to be sated. While I was looking into Final Fantasy: Spirits Within, I found out that Unlimited initially was set for a 52-episode run. I think you could see with the first half of the anime that they clearly had that in mind when watching through those episodes.

Some critics had already decided those were the stronger episodes, but I’d have to disagree. Looking at the anime from the perspective of someone who would have been around the age group intended for it when it was first released in 2001. And I can’t say that I would have been that impressed as a kid, much less as an adult.

See, Final Fantasy: Unlimited tells the story of twin 12-year-olds, Ai and Yu Hayakawa, who are searching for their parents, the professors Mary and Joe Hayakawa (as someone who went to a Church of England primary school, I was having some flashbacks when I watched the first episode), so I knew that there was something going on with the twins. Their parents had gone to Wonderland, a mysterious world that appeared 12 years earlier, and they’d been researching it ever since.

The only way to get to Wonderland is through the use of the Ghost Train, and Ai and Yu go to board it and are joined by Lisa Pacifist, a mysterious woman who is reporting to someone and who takes on the role of a guardian of the twins. She’s arguably the most qualified at this point, having been trained in the spiritual Kigen Arts, which puts her at an advantage as the twins have absolutely no combat ability.

As they travel through Wonderland, they meet a mysterious gunman: Kaze, who I’ll admit, I loved when I first met, but by the end of the series, I did want to slap him for being so enigmatic. He travels separately from the twins, but somehow, he keeps saving them from Earl Tyrant’s henchmen.

Who’s Earl Tyrant, and why does he have henchmen? Well, Earl Tyrant is the self-proclaimed ruler of Wonderland, and he appears as a spoiled child. He leads his henchmen: Fungus, Herba, Oscha, and Makenshi, eventually joined by Lord Pist. Frankly, the relationship between the Lords of Gaudiam (as they like to call themselves) and Earl Tyrant gave me some strong Power Rangers vibes. Even Wonderland itself reminded me of the Digital World from the Digimon Adventure series, so I don’t think I would have been that delighted if I watched it dubbed as a kid.

Each episode of the first half had the same formula: the trio goes to a new place in Wonderland, where they are attacked by one of the Lords of Gaudiam. They are then saved by Kaze, who keeps running into them and uses Soil from the planet to call forth a different Summon each episode with his Magun (I am disappointed that Ifrit and Shiva didn’t look like them, and in fact, they looked… oddly triangular). The trio then separates from Kaze and goes to chase after the Ghost Train before it leaves again, with the help of their great Chocobo: Chobi.

Because of this format, I was actually bored until they started changing it up a bit. It helped that they’d eliminated the Ghost Train by incorporating bits of Omega, a powerful creature the Lords of Gaudiam are looking for and who wants to absorb the power of the Ghost Train. Instead, the twins and Lisa (plus Kaze), go to head to the Edge of the Sea of Wonderland, where they are helped by Cid, who developed a ship called Jane to travel there.

Cid is a part of the Rebellion to defeat Earl Tyrant and restore Wonderland, with many of the characters, such as Kaze and Makenshi, having lost their worlds due to Chaos. The fact that there were several lost worlds and a group of people fighting against what’s destroying the worlds also gave me a bit of proto-Kingdom Hearts vibes.

With the latter episodes focusing on Pist’s Ocean Puzzle, I actually found it a lot more interesting. It also helped that we could get less formulaic (while I like a victory tone, it drained on me after a few episodes) and actually enter a considerably darker stage. Unfortunately, while I liked the second half, especially the development between Kaze and Makenshi — the two mortal enemies who have been fighting for so many years that even Lisa had borne witness to one of their fights as a child — and how they were impacted by the loss of their worlds, and how they’ve been manipulated by the Earl.

Personally, I think if they had been able to stick to their 52-episode run, it would have been a lot better. They were only able to find their footing in the second half of the series, and I just wish we could have seen what they had planned if they didn’t have to cut it down so drastically. Considering so much information was dumped on us in the last episode, and the fact that it turned out Yu and Ai’s parents were right under their noses, I felt a bit cheated.

Of course, the anime has been carried on in different formats, but that will have to be an article for another time, as I’ll need to look for them. While the fights and animation weren’t exactly top-notch, and the series itself wasn’t the most original, it still had a warmth to its characters that I appreciated. Although, I think having an episode about a flower manifesting into a young boy to reunite with Lisa was a bit ridiculous.

But in no other anime would I have seen a Chocobo having a magical girl transformation. While the episode reminded me of Goodbye Butterfree in the Pokémon anime, without the emotional resonance, it showed that it could have been so much more.

Was it unjustly cancelled? Probably not. The dub had some of its own issues, including moments where there were episodes where the sound went kind of… echo-y? Tinny? But this was only on one disc, so I’m willing to give it the benefit of the doubt. The stronger parts were all down to the adult voice actors, with Yu and Ai both voiced by children and unfortunately, it did kind of feel like they were presented as even younger in the script than they were.

With that in mind, Final Fantasy: Unlimited wasn’t the worst, and I think if I watched this as a kid, I might have tuned in. However, it wouldn’t have held a candle to the other shows I was watching at the time. But, looking back at it now? I think I can appreciate what they were trying to do, and while it wasn’t aligned with any specific Final Fantasy storyline, it definitely held its own pretty well.

Plus, Oscha and his CGI eyes and his ominous little wiggle dance was disturbing. So, that definitely made it unique, even if it would have probably haunted my nightmares.