Trails in the Sky OVA Anime Also Needs a Remake

Released divided up into two episodes in 2011 and 2012, respectively, the Trails in the Sky OVA was short-lived. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if even some dedicated The Legend of Heroes fans hadn’t heard of it. The Trails in the Sky OVA anime is an intriguing relic of the series’ past, one worth its own remake from scratch at some point.

With the recent surprise announcement of one of my favorite JRPGs receiving a remake with Trails in the Sky the 1st, it also feels like the right time to revisit the game’s OVA anime. Despite being well over a decade old at this point, the OVA’s two episodes feel like a lengthy and thrilling movie. The animation is surprisingly detailed and holds up quite well even now.

However, there are some issues if you look beneath the surface. For one, the Trails in the Sky OVA anime has a strange way of adapting the original games. It picks up its story essential with the second game, SC. The anime follows up after the first game’s surprising twist and adapts much of the second JRPG. But even then, it doesn’t do a complete job and leaves viewers hanging in the story.

The Trails in the Sky OVA anime has such a strange situation. It doesn’t start from the beginning nor does it even tell the whole story. In this way, it is highly inaccessible for newcomers. To make matters worse, it makes some awkward changes from the game’s original plot, switching around certain events and when they happen.

But perhaps the gravest error of them all with the OVA anime is its lack of access anywhere today. There is no way to legally stream this anime, so you have to resort to alternative means. It is a shame since they even went so far as to have an official English dub. Rather than make it more accessible today, though, I think a full Trails in the Sky OVA anime remake is necessary.

I have long thought The Legend of Heroes franchise would make for some excellent anime series. The story, world-building, and characters are more than enough to carry on their own without gameplay. It only makes the recent Northern War anime all the more frustrating. Rather than directly adapting Trails of Cold Steel, it opts for a side story set between the games.

The animation is honestly sub-par for today’s standards and the storytelling is meh. In fact, it doesn’t even quite give fan-favorite characters like Rean and Altina the full attention they deserve. Nihon Falcom can fix this situation by starting over from scratch. What better way to do that than to see a full anime series adaptation of Trails in the Sky?

Doing this randomly out of nowhere would’ve felt somewhat awkward in recent years, but now is the perfect time. With the upcoming release of Trails in the Sky the 1st, this is the chance to give a true anime adaptation a try. This would open up the series to new audiences, reward long-term fans, and perhaps even further the growing success of the JRPG franchise.

The Zemuria Saga can’t go on forever. In fact, I presume the back-to-back, almost annual schedule of releases has to slow down at some point. One of the best ways to offset this potential shift would be with continuous anime adaptations of the different arcs. I just hope that Nihon Falcom uses this prime chance to give fans what they deserve: a true anime adaptation of Trails in the Sky and all other games.

The Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky the 1st releases for Nintendo Switch in 2025.