The stone couple; The Legend Of Mana; The teardrop crystal episode 12 [END] impression
Synopsis
Ruri instantly knew that he was Sandra and he changed his form into Sandra. Seeing her able to switch between different person made Shiloh sad because his naivety for trusting Serafina endangered his friends live and she really worked together with Sandra all this time. Ruri asked why there was no presence of Lady BlackPearl. Sandra told them that she asked for Serafina's help to defeat Lady BlackPearl. Off course Ruri couldn't believe that because lady BlackPearl was the strongest Jumi. Once again Ruri asked why did Sandra tried to vanquished their fellow tribe and Sandra explained that the Jumi themselves started their own demise and revenge is just a part of her motive. Before long she introduced her master, the lord of Jewel; the mermanoid like creature that they encountered on the Mekiv cave.
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| Serafina > BlackPearl > Sandra (in term of power level) > Shiloh (the weakest ) |
The lord of Jewel explained that everything he ate would fuse together inside his stomach. Sandra then said that in order to create another teardrop stone, they need to gather a large quantities of Jumi's core and feed them to her master. Shiloh suddenly realized the horror as it's mean he had shallow Jumi's cores. Ruri told her to released all of the Jumi's core from the lord of Jewel's belly and he explained how Hotaru-hime never considered herself as a sacrifice. In addition, she even asked them to stop Sandra's (Alexandrite) rampage on gathering Jumi's core. Alas Sandra would not change her mind and she summoned two jewel beasts while taunting them that she would personally deal with them after they managed to finish the Monsters off.
Ruri charged on and try to fight one monster while Shiloh tried to fight the other. After Shiloh fell due to the beast attack, Ruri threw the sword of Fate to
Shiloh and let him finished the monster using the sword. Suddenly Serafina came into the room with a black jewel in her hand. She had defeated lady BlackPearl and Ruri just couldn't hide his disbelief that the strongest Jumi fighter lose to her. Shiloh shocked and a flashback just started in his mind. He remembered back at Gato Grotto, Serafina suddenly looked excited after he told her about his Jumi friends. He remembered the time when she saved him from Sandra's stab and when she suddenly came to his house after missing for a while. He could not believe that Serafina really used him as a way to get closer to Ruri and Shinju-hime as well as to be able to pinpoint Diana's location.
Sandra asked Serafina to give the BlackPearl core to the Lord of Jewel. He then proceed to eat the Black Jumi core which making Ruri angry and charge headlong to the Lord of Jewel. However, Serafina interfered and try to hold his attack. Meanwhile Sandra kept Shiloh busy and use her spell to make him got on his knee. Back to Serafina, using her jumping attack, she managed to knock out Ruri. The lord of Jewel's body turned brightly yet he said that he need one more jewel. The injured Ruri said to Serafina that it was ok to sacrifice his core so that he could safe Hotaru-hime at least. Sandra suddenly said that it was not needed. She then took her own core and give it to the Jewel Lord. Serafina shocked and instantly went to dying Sandra. She hold her tears asking why did she had to do the sacrifice as it was not even part of their deal. Sandra reminiscence the time when she took an orphan and raised it as her own daughter who was in fact; Serafina. Serafina could only bit her lips and tried her best not to cry while Sandra body dissapeared in the light.
Ruri was badly injured which meant only Shiloh remained to fight Serafina. Serafina mentioned that Ruri's core already cracked yet she wanted him to live and continue as Hotaru-hime knight. Shiloh couldn't accept her offer, saying that he was Shinju-hime knight. Therefore, he shouted and asked Serafina to give back the Jumi Cores and tried to fight her. However, with Serafina already beat even BlackPearl, it didn't take long until Shiloh got several injuries in the battle. For the last time, Serafina asked him to protect Ruri but he insisted that no matter what he would not let any Jumi got sacrificed for the teardrop crystal. Serafina could not wait any longer and stabbed Shiloh right through his chest using her spear; leaving him in a semi comatose condition. After the scene, there was a shrieked from the lord of Jewel and the bright light illuminated the room. It seemed like he was taking so many jewels more than what he could handle.
When both Serafina and Shiloh opened their eyes, they found themselves in an unknown space with many Jumi's core floating and circling them. Both Hotaru-hime and Ruri's Core also left their body and joined the rest of the stones. An image of the Jumi was shown to them. The first image was about Esmeralda talking to the other Hime that she wanted to help Hotaru-hime. However, since she was unable to shed tears, she tried to smile in order to cheer Hotaru-hime instead. Another image showed the part where Marina was injured and Sapphor was nearby. He felt down because he was the Hime but he was unable to heal her. Marina tried to ease his sadness by saying that his presence was enough for her. The last image showed the part where lady BlackPearl personally asked alexandrite to hurt her if she didn't manage to find the sword of mana. Pearl wanted to shed tears in order to replace Hotaru-hime. Alexandrite said that he didn't want to hurt her but he promised that if thing didn't go well, he would fulfilled her wish.
The images gone and both Shiloh and Serafina realized that all of the Jumis care for each other. The space image diminished and all of the cores was dropped to the floor. Shiloh was on verge of tears seeing that all jumi person's were pure and basically innocent (including Sandra). Serafina told Shiloh not to cry for Jumi. Unbeknownst to her, she was also on the verge of crying. Shiloh tried to wipe Serafina's tear but his hand fell..he realized that his lower body started to become stone. Just before he was completely stoned, Serafina confessed that she felt really guilty for betraying them. Shiloh tried to calm her by reminiscing about their time when they journey together. He even complemented her cooking. As he turned into stone completely, Serafina couldn't hold her tears anymore and soft tears poured down to her cheek. Soon after she also turned into a stone.
By miracle, their tears turned into a teardrop crystal and as the crystal dropped to the floor it revived every Jumis in the room back to their human form. Both of Shiloh's and Serafina's love to the Jumi had transcended the racial boundaries and created the legendary teardrop crystal; reviving everyone that had been killed (including Sandra who immediately tried to take her leave). Esmeralda was relieved to see everyone (presumably she was seeing her sisters). Meanwhile Ruri reunited with Shinju hime and saw Shiloh and Serafina had already turned into stones. Shinju-hime asked every Jumi in that place to give a bit of their life force to create more tear stones. The last scene showed Bud and Corona who was looking through Shiloh's home windows. They saw a big rainy storm in the horizon and remarked that maybe the Jumis were crying at the moment. After the storm subsided, the sky was clear and the sun shined throughout the land. At the very end they noticed someone was coming home.
Review
Finally the Teardrop Crystal had finished with a bittersweet ending or maybe in the edge of a downer ending. I am glad that at the very least they give an explanation about the reason why Serafina helped Sandra too much. The emotion when Sandra found the abandoned Serafina and raised her, taught her how to fight was a spot on. Serafina was torn apart because Sandra was her parental figure while she also started to bond with Shiloh and his friends. I guessed it was good in term of giving us a reason for her conflicted behavior.
The anime didn't animate something crucial in this episode like what really happened to the Lord of Jewel..it just showed that he screamed and then a white light just fill the room. Leaving us wondering what really happened to him and make us had to search thoroughly for his fate. They didn't changed him into the last boss like in the game which really disappoint me.. Even the last battle between Serafina and Shiloh was cut short as if they just wanted to censor the bloody part although it could be a great last battle if they animated it well.
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| They didn't show Shiloh live or not..everything is vague |
As for the ending I was quite dissapointed because they tried to leave it hanging.. The Jumi tribes(especially Shinju-hime and Ruri) don't feel sad seeing Shiloh's sacrifice for them. Did they know that it was curable so they didn't feel anguished seeing Shiloh's and Serafina's fate? Did they somehow cured the petrification through the teardrop crystal like the one in the game? The anime didn't show anything about it...it was a shame that the episode had to suffer important details. Alas it had it own charm though with how well they played our emotion through the somewhat downer-like ending. There was a scene in the ending title with Shiloh and Serafina stood in front of Shiloh's home yet the picture didn't clear and we got no part where they were healed .it seemed that the writer wanted us to interpret the ending by ourselves.
Final verdict
Well I tried to sum the entire series into the final mark up..what is it strengths and weaknesses will be summarized here.
Pros
+ Cute designed characters
+ Didn't stray too far from the original story
+ Decent soundtracks
+ The ending part made a good twist since it's deviate from the source material
Cons
- Very predictable scenario especially for those who played the game (expect for the last episode)
- Some parts didn't animate well..mising lots of good details. The battle/action part was stale
- Lack of supporting characters' development due to the abundance casts and their limited importance to the plot.
Final score is 5 out of 10. I can't give much more due to how uninteresting some event/ episode of the series..Such a shame since I had a big hope for this one.
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