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While many fans hope a Fire Emblem game will get an anime adaptation, it would be better if a potential series told an original story.
Ever since Fire Emblem Heroes teased the existence of an anime on Brave Lucina’s spear back in 2017, fans have been patiently awaiting an adaptation of Intelligent Systems’ tactical franchise. While there’s still no sign of such a project, the question of how the series could be adapted is still worth considering. Plenty of other RPGs, from Persona 5 to Nintendo’s own Pokémon games, have been successfully translated to the small screen, so there’s no obvious reason why Fire Emblem should be any different.
However, there’s a strong case to be made that such a series shouldn’t adapt any of the existing games, and instead create a whole new story. A lot can go wrong while translating a story to another medium, and Fire Emblem has a lot of game mechanics that might not be particularly engaging to watch. As such, instead of trying to be faithful to a game, a hypothetical anime would be wise to carve out its own identity with an original story and characters.
The biggest hurdle to faithfully adapting any Fire Emblem game is, ironically, the series’ greatest strength: the diverse cast of each game. Animated shows often revolve around a small band of protagonists, occasionally delving into a few side-characters for filler episodes. Larger stories may have the luxury of being able to explore more characters, but it’s hard to develop a large cast while keeping the story well-paced. With most Fire Emblem titles being full of heroes well-defined enough to be the stars of any other game, it would be hard for any studio to cram so much detail and development into just a few seasons of television.
There’s also the problem of deciding which game to adapt in the first place. Archanea titles are typically heroic fantasy, with noble leads fighting wicked foes, while the systemic abuse and sexual exploitation depicted throughout the Jugdral duology puts them squarely in the dark fantasy camp. This is to say nothing of the various political and philosophical themes each game’s plot espouses. The Tellius titles generally advocate a kind of royalist conservatism, while Three Houses argues in favor of egalitarianism and dismantling the status quo. Each entry has its fans, but their ideas and rhetoric are so wildly different that it’s hard to call any of them the “definitive” Fire Emblem experience.
However, there’s an argument to be made that Fire Emblem is defined more by its iconography than any of its themes or stories. The franchise has a number of recurring elements — from its iconic cavalier duos to knightly villains and even the titular relic itself — that collectively form the foundation that each game builds upon. These typically comprise the series’ most important elements, and the best thing is that they’re flexible enough to be adapted for so many different titles. As a series of archetypes, they’re more likely to make the jump from console to television intact than any one game’s script could.
That said, an original story need not necessarily cut all ties to the games. There are many moments in the series’ canon that have yet to be fully explained. From the Scouring of the Elibe games to Awakening‘s First Exalt, and even the original lore hero Anri, there’s no shortage of stories set so far back in time that they could be explored without tripping over established canon. On the other hand, an entirely unique world could be a great testing ground for new franchise settings or unit types. Perhaps such a tale could even break the tradition of staying in the realms of European fantasy and explore cultures beyond the West.
There’s no way to tell if or when Fire Emblem will ever attempt an anime adaptation but, if it does, an original project would be an incredibly exciting prospect. With so much that could go wrong with a straightforward adaptation, it seems not only to be a safer option, but potentially a more innovative one. Anime has no shortage of fantastic directors who would relish the opportunity to put their own inventive spin on such a classic franchise, and those creative minds at the helm should have all the fuel they need to help their creative fires burn bright.
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