Deltora Quest

Anyone remember this really good book series? And is the anime worth checking out?

Yes!

It still has some of the most memorable bizarre monsters in any fantasy series out there.

The anime was really underwhelming to me, though.

edited 31st Aug '15 2:06:10 AM by editerguy

I loved this series when I was younger. I still own all of the books, and I must have read them at least 5-6 times.

For some reason I always pictured Doom as the image on the front of Shadowgate. Hilariously I'd never heard of the other Doom until quite a while after reading the books.

Ah yes. My fantasy gateway books. I bought these books from those Scholastic book magazines they handed around at primary school.

I read the entire series from the local library and I still marvel at the depth of which the lore goes and at the fantastic backstories for the various terrifying monsters.

Wait, there's an anime? O.o

Also, I read some of these too when I was younger xD

Yeah, there's an anime, and a DS game, and the author has sold the movie rights to 'a particular Hollywood company' and has been very adamant that any adaptation be extremely faithful to the books.

I remember reading them when I was younger, I think I still have them.

I remember these books.

I've only read the first series of books as a child and started the next one as a teen a couple years ago, but got bored halfway though. Quite good, but not what I'd really pick up to read right now. I remember the anime very fondly, even if reading the books now and watching it back-to-back I have to frown in disbelief.

Me and my friend are going to start watching the anime in batches every Thursday, and I'm going to write about our observations and her opinions. I've read the books (albeit many years ago as a child), but she hasn't.

I was going to try watching the anime and re-reading the books at the same time to compare them, but from reviews I've read, the anime is extremely faithful to the books, so that idea doesn't sound worth it.

One thing that surprised me when doing research was how long the anime is. It's like 52 episodes long (even though it's only adapting 8 books? that's a rate of 6.5 episodes per book!), with 13 more episodes of filler afterward, since apparently it was so popular in Japan that they went on longer. Well, if it was so popular, why hasn't it gotten a season 2 and 3 based on Deltora Shadowlands and Dragons of Deltora, huh? Answer me that!

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Feb 14th 2023 at 3:42:58 AM

Probably because the production committee broke up (as is normal) and the international partners weren't as interested in a continuation.

Dang, the "sobering reality" answer.

I watched the anime before I read the books, and they stretched things out by adding a couple mini-arcs with a revived Thaegan and her kids, and a couple of episodes with a fire mage. I can't remember what else they added, and I didn't watch the post-finale episodes.

Episodes 1-2: Pretty good. I'm remembering all of the little details in the books more vividly. I'm impressed with how much material each episode gets through, it really doesn't drag at all. The dub is okay, better than I was expecting.

My friend is already liking the creature designs, and she's interested in the lore and Guardians. She predicted that Lief was the heir instantly, it's such an obvious plot twist.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Mar 15th 2023 at 9:55:18 AM

Meant to post this last week, but illness fucked my life up.

Episodes 3-5: I always remembered the Golden Knight being weaker than the other Guardians, but he was better than I remembered. They sure stretched out the riddle segment into an episode, though. I remember reading the song about Taegan's kids as more ominous and creepy than it was in the show. All the little details tying into each other are cool, these books hold up better than I remember.

No idea when we'll watch the next few episodes since again, illness is fucking my life up.

Hope you enjoyed the Thaegan and kids song, it's their Leitmotif.

Episodes 6-8: Again, the writing holds up better than I remembered. It's a series with a lot of thought and detail packed into an otherwise straightforward "good vs evil" narrative.

My friend is enjoying the painted backgrounds, and was impressed by how much better Saldeen fit in the Lake of Tears than the Golden Knight did in The Dark.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Mar 12th 2023 at 8:22:35 AM

Episodes 9-13: I love how intricate the story gets, with every little detail coming back later. Noradz seems like a weird little side-city, until it ties back to the Shadowlord, then to Tom, then to the City of Rats. I'm glad the anime did eventually adapt the intro of Book 1, even if it took until episode 13 to get around to it. It was odd to me that Reeah was gender-swapped, he's a she in the books, right?

My friend really likes how complex the series is despite still being very simple morally. The Shadow Lord is evil, it's very black and white, but the story and plot itself is very complex. She also really loves Tom for being a very well-written True Neutral character.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 10th 2023 at 6:38:56 AM

Episodes 14-15: I liked how they adapted the first half of Book 1, framing it as a story allowed Barda to get a bit of development in the present-day from it. And the start of the Shifting Sands begins, with our heroes revealing a scam artist and entering a tournament, but they can't leave.

My friend is convinced that Jasmine is Endon's child, though she's worried about the mysterious green-haired guy with a scar, and she's theorizing that the tournament is a set-up to sacrifice the champion for some reason.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 10th 2023 at 7:08:33 AM

Episodes 16-18: They half-assed the animation of the tournament prelims so they could go FULL-ASS for the finals, my god! The animation was so stiff during the prelims that I was worried, but then the animation was genuinely impressive for Barda vs Doom, Lief vs Merida, and Jasmine vs Doom. Those fights were super fluid, with easily the best fight choreography in the anime so far, I was very impressed.

My friend was also really impressed with the animation, and she genuinely bought Mother Brightly's facade. She knew there had to be something else going on with the Champions always going missing, but she thought Mother Brightly was oblivious to it. She really liked the Jasmine vs Doom fight, all the little moments in it.

And this is a representation of me during that fight, knowing the rest of the series and trying desperately not to spoil her accidentally:

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 20th 2023 at 6:35:17 AM

Episodes 19-21: I forgot about some stuff with the Shifting Sands, most of my memories of this book were of the tournament arc. I like how much the Hive puts Lief through the emotional wringer. They feel like much more of a mental threat than a physical one, especially compared to the previous Guardians.

My friend is interested in learning more about the Resistance. She thinks Doom is pretty anti-social despite being the leader, clearly he doesn't want to replace the Shadowlord as king, so their king replacement is probably another member of the Resistance. She thinks Dain is a bit of a doormat, apologizing too much. She also noticed that the Hive was the first Guardian they straight-up killed with Jasmine's Blister. The trees killed the Golden Knight, Saldeen is living a happy life as a human, and Reeah killed herself.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Apr 28th 2023 at 6:23:46 AM

Episodes 22-27: The Theagan Filler was pretty disappointing. Episode 22 was a total waste, it could have been covered in 3 minutes, and it made Lief and Barda into total idiots. The whole encounter was just a copy of Jin and Jod's encounter, but without any thought or cleverness put into it, and the characters falling for it without even thinking to use the Belt to check if there was any issue was so stupid. I was kinda interested to see more of Theagan and her kids, but I'm looking forward to the rest of the Theagan Filler a lot less now.

The Theagan Filler did help me appreciate all the writing in the regular story a lot more, though. The characters are actually clever and think things through. There are a lot more riddles and clues, and the writing has a lot more intentionality to it. The designs of the Kin were a little off-putting, I always imagined them a lot cooler, and my friend was really bothered by how round and cutesy they were. Gellick is my favorite Guardian, so I'm looking forward to next episode where they fight him.

My friend really likes the art direction of the anime, praising the use of color and shading for the sake of mood. She's also REALLY interested in the Doom mystery, and she's trying to piece it together based on the clues we've been given so far.

By the way, does anyone have a complete image of Theagan's children from the Deltora Book of Monsters? I can't find it, and I remember it being one of my favorite spreads from that book, so I really want to show it to my friend.

Episodes 28-33: Gellick is my favorite Guardian because he's just Smaug Frog, he's great. I could have sworn the Vraal on Dread Mountain was connected to Doom escaping the Shadow Arena, but they didn't really question it, did I imagine that? Or will it be explained when we learn Doom's backstory?

Now for the Maze of the Beast, I don't remember this book very much so some bits are surprising to me. We meet the Ols, so that's fun. I like how they're animated in the show. My friend really appreciates the designs and textures of the CGI monsters on their own merits, even if they're not blended in with the 2D characters much. The pointless recap episode before it was pointless.

The plotting in this book seems kinda all-over-the-place, though. First, the gang is saved from some Ols by Dain, then they take him back to the Resistance base and get captured. Dain breaks them out, Jasmine splits off, and they travel with Dain to Tora while fighting river pirates on the way. Then they take a ferry that gets hijacked by pirates, Jasmine rejoins while Dain is kidnapped, and Barda obviously gets replaced by an Ol. I dunno, the story here seems kinda random and meandering, maybe that's why I don't remember this book much.

My friend is sure that Barda is an Ol, she figured it out really fast. She thinks Steven is interesting, there's something he's hiding. She thinks Dain can die for all she cares because he's getting in the way of her Lief/Jasmine ship. It hurt SO BAD to restrain myself from saying anything on that last point.

34-42 (over two days): Glus was handled pretty well, though me and my friend had a brief moment joking about him just being a human named Gus, so that kinda killed the tension a bit.

This Theagan filler was better than the last one, the plot wasn't annoying and tedious. Theagan did not deserve a happy ending, though.

Tora was very well-realized, and Fardeep's voice acting was great. The riddles revealing his name as Endon were annoying, though, since they pass by on screen so fast there's no way the viewer can solve them.

My friend was absolutely convinced that Doom was a Level 4 Ol, so she was a bit disappointed when he passed through the Tora barrier with little trouble. Also, during the final episode, she wanted to look up what Endon looked like just to check his eye color, and I had to really scramble to insist that I look him up in order to avoid spoiling her on the big Endon-Jarred swap twist.

Edited by PushoverMediaCritic on Jun 2nd 2023 at 1:39:49 AM