I went into The Legend of Mana: The Teardrop Crystal anime with a very patchwork understanding of the original game. I have never played the original title from 1999 nor had a chance to play the recent remaster released in 2021. I do have some familiarity with the Mana series (originally Seiken Densetsu in Japan) in general, though, having played Secret of Mana on the original SNES when I was a kid and recently working through the 2020 Trials of Mana remake on Switch. And while I’m not hugely deep into the lore of any of the titles, I know that, like the Final Fantasy series, some common threads and themes run throughout each entry. That was the extent of my background before going in. With this passing knowledge and a general feeling of enjoyment towards the larger series – which I imagine is not uncommon here in the US – I gave The Teardrop Crystal a watch.
The results…
