The typical harem opening starts up with our protagonist, Yuuto, a teenager who was adopted by the Takamine family after his parents died. Later, his adopted parents died, leaving him to raise his non blood related little sister. After the initial angst is dealt with, it moves into more haremy territory with the introduction of Kaori, Kotori and Kyouko, who all seem to have crushes on Yuuto. Later, he has a strange meeting with a mysterious miko.
It's all advancing nice and well, looks to be a nice dating sim... and then Yuuto and Kaori are dramatically dropped into another world, where he is stabbed by a girl with wings and saved by another girl. Following this, he's nursed back to health by a gentle young woman whose language he does not even recognize and eventually turned into a slave soldier, forced to wield the sentient eternity sword 'Desire' which tries to force him to kill, maim and rape in its quest to destroy its enemy, 'Oath'. Yuuto is then put in charge of the national army with his sister being held hostage. Seems the king has some expansionary ambitions and thinks with Etranger Yuuto on his side that he is unstoppable. And he seems to be right.
Eien no Aselia is an RPG/Visual Novel hybrid of sorts featuring the hero Yuuto trapped in another world, forced to fight using a vicious sword called Desire. How will Yuuto keep his sanity, survive and manage to return home?
A Fan Translation was released for the all-ages version of the game by Dakkodango Translations, and the same all-ages version was officially localized by JAST USA in November 2011.
See also Seinarukana, the first sequel.
This game provides examples of:
- Aliens Speaking English: Averted when Yuuto is transported to "Phantasmagoria". Both the text and voice acting are presented in the native language (of course the text is transliterated into Japanese characters), leaving both Yuuto and the player to guess what people are saying. It takes weeks for Yuuto to grasp the language (or about an hour of reading time for the player). The text gradually includes more Japanese words and less foreign words until Yuuto has a firm grasp of the language and the text fully returns to Japanese, though he never manages to learn the written language. The voice acting does not return to Japanese for several more hours.
- Anthropomorphic Personification: The last non Eternal enemies you fight are their minions, which actually aren't spirits but lower ranked Eternity swords given bodies.
- Apathy Killed the Cat: Yuuto can accept that ether technology doesn’t really make any sense to him. After all, it’s completely different from any kind of science he’s ever heard of. What weirds him out is that only a few specialists like Youtia seem to get it at all and nobody cares. Shouldn’t more people want to know how their entire society works?
- Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Eternals are those who have discarded their humanity by removing themselves from the axis of time by taking up a rank two or three Eternity Sword. There are two factions, law and chaos Eternals.
- Call a Rabbit a "Smeerp": More than one example, but a point is made in Lesteena's route about Yuuto's refusal to refer to 'yofwals' as anything but a waffle. Also the vegetables that look exactly like the Earth ones but have different names.
- Child Soldiers: Spirits are raised from 'birth' to fight as shown with examples like Nelie, Shiah, Orpha and in Esperia's flashbacks.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience: In battle, Blue spirits are the primary attackers, Green Spirits can defend and heal, Red spirits are magic users, and Black Spirits are more of a quirky jack-of-all-trades type.
- Curtains Match the Window: This is what actually differentiates spirits from humans. Their hair and eye color are the same, and the color they are (Green,Red,Blue,Black) indicate what color spirit they are.
- Departure Means Death: In Aselia's route, she quickly gets sick and nearly dies when she and Yuuto get sent to Earth. Turns out spirits require a certain amount of mana in the air to live.
- Dual Wielding:
- Surprisingly enough, it's actually almost unheard of due to how Eternity swords work. However, one of the final enemies in the game wields an Eternity sword that is split in two and Tokimi uses a magic fan with her Eternity sword. Although she has at least two rank 3 Eternity swords and likely more.
- Aselia does it briefly during her route with Desire and Existence.
- Empathic Weapon: Eternity swords
- The Empire: Sargios. Rakios has a king and later a queen instead but doesn't qualify.
- Evil Plan: The whole plot is orchestrated by Temuorin in order to form the Rank 2 sword World and destroy Phantasmorgia. The entire war comes about simply so that the four Rank 4 Eternity Sword wielders will fight and destroy each other.
- Fantastic Racism: Against spirits and to a slightly lesser extent Etrangers.
Strawman Has a Point, though, because they're all fantastically powerful and some are quite capable of destroying cities. - Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Instory, it's acknowledged that Rakios is rather European while Malorigan is compared to the Middle East.
- The Federation: Malorigan, which is a neutral example and just happens to become your enemy later on.
- Full-Contact Magic: The red spirit melee skills appear to work like this.
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: There is a lot of this. Oftentimes, that boss who is completely hyped up by the story turns out to be a complete cakewalk in-game. The best example of this is Soma's spirit corp, who, on their first meeting with Yuuto in the story nearly kill him. However, gameplay-wise, they are actually weaker than the average spirits that you will face.
- Glass Cannon: Red spirits, especially Orpha. Blue spirits edge into this.
- Green Aesop: About non renewable resources. Throw in some disapproval of nuclear power as well.
- Half-Human Hybrid: During Aselia's route, she expresses a desire to bear a child for Yuuto, but neither is sure it's even possible. However, in the ending, it turns out that not only can spirits bear children, but they can even do so when both parents are Eternals./
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: The game CGs often depict Yuuto like this with whatever girl he's pictured with. For example, Kaori appears to reach no more than a few inches above his waist and the thickness of his leg. Since Yuuto is never claimed to be eight feel tall, the depiction is probably not to an accurate scale.
- Humans Are Flawed: Spirits seem to be uniformly kinder and more moral than humans, who vary along the spectrum from saints like Lesteena, Rask and Yuuto to average people like Kouin to monsters and worse like Soma and Shun. It's also a very warlike world because humans don't do the fighting, so they're free to be as expansionist as they please.
- I Did What I Had to Do: Kouin is willing to kill in order to save Kyouko
- Ignored Expert: A famous scientist from history proved that not only was mana finite, but a tiny amount disappeared during the conversion process to ether and back.
- Immortal Procreation Clause: In Aselia's ending she and Yuuto a daughter named Euphoria to their surprise. Said daughter is also an Eternal, only she ages on occasion, being a hundred or so years old yet seeming like a six year old. They're not sure how they're going to explain it to the other Eternals.
- Immortality Begins at Twenty: Euphoria, though it only really becomes clear in the sequel.
- Insistent Terminology: It's not a waffle, it's a yofwal!
- Lightning Bruiser: Certain Etrangers and definitely Eternals.
- Limited Move Arsenal: Type 2. Even though most characters in the game learn moves from a pool shared with their class, the same move may be completely different from one character to another, varying in power, number of per-encounter uses, total uses, target, side effects, and the combat phase in which the move comes into play, meaning that characters who nominally have all the same moves in their arsenal may function entirely differently in battle.
- Love Triangle: Kouin loves Kyouko loves Kouin but also Yuuto, and more than she likes Kouin. But Yuuto never shows any interest or shows any awareness. It turns out surprisingly well even without the amnesia factor. Kotori also feels jealous of how close Kaori and Yuuto are since despite her rather blatant hinting he still hasn't caught on yet.
- No Body Left Behind: Everyone who fights is made of mana, and upon death their soul no longer binds their body together, so they dissolve back into mana.
- Not Blood Related: Kaori and Yuuto, though any attraction is one sided.
- Omnicidal Maniac: Law Eternals
- One-Gender Race: There are no male spirits. Instead, spirits come from the Sword of Rebirth, or so the stories say. But in any case, the spirits just appear on occasion rather than being born.
- One-Man Army: Etrangers are supposedly this but Gameplay and Story Segregation make it such that they generally function as stronger versions of spirits. Eternals, which is actually expressed in gameplay by letting them fulfill all three combat modes (attack, defense and support) all by themselves.
- Order Versus Chaos: Law vs Chaos Eternals. Law Eternals want to reunite the Eternity swords through any means necessary while Chaos Eternals want to allow worlds to grow in their own way. Basically, order is full of omnicidal maniacs.
- Our Dragons Are Different: They're portrayed multiple ways throughout, actually. The first one you see is pretty nice, and the rest... are less so. Either beasts or evil.
- Out-Gambitted: By the end, Temuorin is shocked to realize that not only has she been beaten, in the process she lost three expendable Eternals, has failed to destroy Phantasmorgia and sees the rise of at least one extremely powerful opposing Eternal in Yuuto. And that's before Shun and The World are destroyed. Nice one, Tokimi. Temuorin herself escapes essentially unharmed, along with Takios, though both are weakened.
- Personality Powers: Evident to an extent. Kyouko fits the volatile lightning part, Halion tries to be a big sister, red spirits are noted for being passionate and Uruka has the ninja thing down pretty well, though she talks like a samurai.
- Person of Mass Destruction: Etrangers absolutely terrify everyone due to the power they wield, though they're not actually at this level. Eternals, on the other hand, are nearly godlike.
- Pet the Dog: To Desire's bewilderment, he finds himself aiding Aselia and at the end Yuuto for no compensation. Before there is any indication that Lesteena is a kind person (apart from being a pretty girl in a game like this) she sets herself apart from her father by taking custody of Kaori and making sure she's treated well.
- Physical God: Eternals are immortal Persons Of Mass Destruction who do not die even if they are killed unless they get careless. Instead most Eternals are merely diminished or inconvenienced.
- Power Born of Madness: A spirit that has been devoured by their sword gains immense power, but they have no real identity anymore.
- Power Trio: Kyouko as id, Kouin as superego and Yuuto as ego.
- Pragmatic Villainy: It wasn’t a coincidence that Yuuto was sent to a friendly, warm environment like the house of Aselia, Esperia and Orpha. Making proper use of Yuuto requires that he remain sane and possible to direct, so he was placed somewhere where there were people who would help protect his heart. It’s not for his own good, it’s for the good of the king’s ambitions, though considering how short sighted the king is Lesteena may have used her own authority instead.
- Prolonged Prologue: Bought this because you heard it was an RPG? Hope you can make it through multiple hours of straight, unbranching dialog before you finally hit the the first battle. Not an exaggeration.
- Pyrrhic Victory: The world is saved, but spirits will die out. After the entire story focusing on them was basically about gaining acceptance, it kind of crushes that development.
- Red String of Fate: A story common to both worlds, to Yuuto's surprise. Lemuria is a big fan of fate.
- Ret-Gone: When a person takes the trial to become an Eternal, everything that proves they existed is erased from the world; from memories to pictures to events.
- Sanity Meter: Mind. There's not much affect on the story apart from a few events like recruiting Kyouko and Kouin but it does play a part in how much damage your skills can do. For example, some ranks of Explode or Frenzy require a very low mind score and several Eternal attack skills require 90+ mind. It can also be difficult to get full usage out of Orpha since her two best skills (Apocalypse and Stardust) require her to be at a relatively low score that is rather tricky to obtain if you're actually doing well.
- Self-Censored Release: The fan translated version only works with the Special Package version of Seinarukana, which included a backport of the Playstation 2 version of Eien no Aselia... which means they had to cut out any sex scenes. (Likewise, the official translation from Jast will be based on this version.) However, it's pretty easy to tell when they occurred and occasional reference is made to them, especially Tokimi's.
- Star-Crossed Lovers: Lesteena and Yuuto. Even before the whole becoming an Eternal thing they recognize the relationship as being basically impossible due to him being a slave soldier and her a princess. Yuuto even thinks to himself that to be on equal status with her he'd have to be the hero who saved the country. Convenient. Or not.
- Starfish Aliens: Not all worlds evolved human inhabitants, which is shown with one of the enemy Eternals, a giant eyeball with fire powers.
- Staying Alive: Justified in advance with a scene involving Tokimi that shows that Eternals rarely truly die even when killed (yes, really, not a metaphor this time) due to the abilities of their swords. Temuorin's three underling Eternals don't appear to have been doing such, but Temuorin, Takios, and Shun (Word of God confirmed) all basically retreated from the battlefield upon defeat. And if they were to reappear again, it would be justified since they're not really confirmed to be dead dead.
- Superboss: You can destroy the guardian dragons around the continent for a bit of bonus mana. They’re fairly tough on earlier files and grant you quite a bit of mana. In terms of story it’s probably not the brightest idea since their job is to keep people from using the gates, as in the ones Temuorin and Takios use to invade, and they're said to be as strong as Eternals. On higher difficulties, they actually become rather trivial, but then the reward for beating them is also nearly worthless. What good is fifty thousand mana when it costs four times that to level someone once?
- Utsuge: Though most of the time you'll be crying for your own character rather than the female cast for a change.....
- Visual Novel: Mixed heavily with RPG in a fashion similar to Sengoku Rance or Utawarerumono.
- Wistful Amnesia: When someone becomes an Eternal, those who were especially close to them will have strange emotional reactions upon seeing them again. Kaori, Kyouko and Kouin all display it. Fridge logic makes you wonder why Esperia and the others never show any signs of it.
- With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: The more power you draw from your sword, the greater the damage done to your mind.
- Xanatos Gambit: In fact, once the villain's plot is set up properly it would be difficult for it to fail. First, set the four swords in the hands of people who know each other, and make sure there's enmity between at least two of them and a reason to fight. If Yuuto doesn't want to fight, too bad, Shun will kidnap his sister. Kyouko and Kouin also don't want to fight? Too bad, Kyouko isn't strong enough to resist Void and Kouin has to save her by fighting. Shun isn't really evil enough to just want to kill everyone? Too bad, he's not really strong enough to resist his sword. Once all four are fighting, it doesn't matter who wins so long as only one sword remains, because that sword will become The World, a rank two sword, and a sword of that strength can easily devour its wielder and then join Temuorin's side. At no point is there a reasonable exit strategy. This plan only fails because Tokimi was specifically working to block it since she knew how the entire plan was structured and it was still damn close. Even then, Temuorin did still get Shun and his rank 2 Sword, The World.
