Tales of Phantasia: The Animation

The Tales of Phantasia OVA is a four-part anime series based around the events that take place in Tales of Phantasia. Published by Geneon Entertainment, the episodes were released on DVD in Japan one at a time within the space of two years. They were later translated by Geneon Entertainment USA and released as a single disc known as "The Heroes of Space and Time".

Episode One
The first episode opens in the Catacombs where Mars Udole and his army of knights are attempting harness the power of two stolen pendants and awaken the Evil King Dhaos. Cress Albane, Mint Adenade, Chester Burklight and Trinicus are trying to stop them however but find themselves overpowered. Mars rushes up to Dhaos's tomb and uses the pendants to free him from a mysterious seal. The Evil King awakens slowly and kills Mars, then starts attacking everybody else. Trinicus, now wounded, uses his last bit of magic to create a rift in time through which he can send Cress, Chester and Mint. Chester would ratyer stay and fight Dhaos though and so he gets left behind whilst Cress and Mint are sent into the rift...

The plot then skips ahead to the Valhalla War. Cress Albane is now a foot soldier who attacks monsters on the plains with his sword. He has two new companions named Arche Klein and Claus F. Lester whom defend Midgard from atop the castle wall. Mint Adenade is usually with them but today she's asked for a meeting with the king where she can tell the higher-ups about mana and how it's impossible to kill Dhaos without it. However, the scientists lead by Reisen already know about mana it seems and have prepared a special weapon that will harness it's energy.

Known as the MysTek Cannon, it fires huge blasts of energy in return for a lot of mana. Reisen uses it for the first time and wipes an entire squadron of monsters out of the sky. Cress is at first amazed by it's tremendous strength, but both Arche and Claus seem scared of it and it's ability to eat up huge chunks of the world's mana.

Reisen doesn't realise what he's doing however and so he attempts to fire the cannon again. Unfortunately for him, the whole process doesn't run as smoothly as it did before and the whole cannon explodes.

The episode ends with Mint looking up at the sky and seeing the image of a giant tree in her head. A woman's voice calls out to her, asking for help and telling her not to hurt the tree.

EpisodeTwo
The war has ended following the destruction of the MysTek Cannon and Dhaos has disappeared into the future. Unfortunately, the cannon's explosion has destroyed a huge chunk of the city of Midgard and quite a number of people have lost their homes. As Reisen looks upon the wreckage, he is spotted by Cress and his group, who manage to get him to reveal why he built the MysTek cannon.

It seems that a few years ago he was an outcast, hated by society for being a half-elf. Because of this, he strived to reach a high place in the government whom people would look up to. However, the means by which he was to go about doing this were frowned upon by a mysterious stranger named Dhaos. Not yet the Evil King who attacks the city of Midgard relentlessly, the man simply told him that what he was doing was wrong. He predicted that the MysTek Cannon would doom him and the people of the city because of it's reliance on mana. Reisen didn't listen though and so he set about working on his weapon.

Now of course, Dhaos' prediction has proven true and Reisen wishes only to atone for his sins. Claus smiles and offers to give him a second chance so long as he can find a way for the group to return to the present. Reisen agrees to his terms and the two of them search through relics brought back from Thor for something that might help.

In the meantime, the rest of the group head overseas to the Forest of Spirits where Mint must find the giant tree she saw in her vision. The journey proves to be a long one, but they do eventually find the tree in the middle of a great glade. However, it seems as though it's dying. Mint tries to save it with her healing powers but she doesn't have enough strength and so the tree tries to kill her. Cress and Arche make attempts at saving her but they find themselves cut off from her by an invisible barrier. At the very last minute, Dhaos appears before the group and walks up to the tree, placing his hand on it. To everyone's surprise, he is actually trying to help them by giving some of his own life to the tree, regenerating it and saving Mint in the process.

Their job done, the group returns toMidgard where Claus and Reisen have finished their Time-Space transfer gate. Now, Cress and Mint can finally return to their own time and save Chester.

They head into the machine and arrive at the catacombs where Dhaos is facing off againast Chester.

Episode 3
Cless, Mint, Claus and Arche fight relentlessly against Dhaos in the hopes of finally defeating him and saving Chester. Unfortunately, his defences prove too strong for them and he's able to block all of their attacks.

Cast

 * Cress Albane: Takeshi Kusao, Johnny Yong Bosch
 * Mint Adenade: Junko Iwao, Mia Bradly
 * Chester Burklight: Kentaro Ito, David Vincent
 * Claus F. Lester: Kazuhiko Inoue, Jack Bauer
 * Arche Klein: Mika Kanai, Jennifer Sekiguchi
 * Suzu Fujibayashi: Taeko Kawada,
 * Mars: Tessho Genda, Michael McConnohie
 * Reisen: Bin Shimada, Kim Strauss
 * Martel: Rie Tanaka, Michelle Ruff
 * Dhaos: Toshiyuki Morikawa, Patrick Seitz
 * Trinicus D. Morrison, Narration: Unsho Ishizuka, Taylor Henry
 * Merill Adnade: Maria Kawamura, Tara Platt

Staff

 * Directors: Takuo Tominaga (episodes 1-3), Shinjiro Mogi (episode 4)
 * Scenario: Ryunosuke Kingetsu
 * Music: Kimio Nomura
 * Original Character Design: Kosuke Fujishima
 * Character Design, Animation Director: Noriyuki Matsutake