is a Japanese

adult An adult is a human or other animal that has reached full growth. In human context, the term ''adult'' has meanings associated with social and legal concepts. In contrast to a " minor", a legal adult is a person who has attained the age of maj ...

tactical role-playing game Tactical role-playing games (abbreviated TRPGs), also known as strategy role-playing games and in Japan as (both abbreviated SRPGs), are a video game genre that combines core elements of role-playing video games with those of tactical (Turn-bas ...

developed by

Leaf A leaf ( : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", while the leaves, ...

. It was first released for

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for se ...

on April 28, 2005 in Japan. Then it was followed by a 12-years-old-and-up version called released for the

PlayStation 3 The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is a home video game console developed by Sony Interactive Entertainment, Sony Computer Entertainment. The successor to the PlayStation 2, it is part of the PlayStation brand of consoles. It was first released on Novemb ...

platform on July 17, 2008 in Japan,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a List of cities in China, city and Special administrative regions of China, special ...

, and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the no ...

in which the adult content was removed. This port also contained several enhancements and additional scenarios including new character designs and changed the original 2D gameplay to 3D. A side story for the PlayStation 3 port titled was released on September 17, 2009 and a sequel titled was released on October 31, 2013.

Plot

The game draws heavily from

Welsh Welsh may refer to: Related to Wales * Welsh, referring or related to Wales * Welsh language, a Brittonic Celtic language spoken in Wales * Welsh people People * Welsh (surname) * Sometimes used as a synonym for the ancient Britons (Celtic peopl ...

Celt The Celts (, see pronunciation for different usages) or Celtic peoples () are. "CELTS location: Greater Europe time period: Second millennium B.C.E. to present ancestry: Celtic a collection of Indo-European peoples. "The Celts, an ancient ...

Christian Christians () are people who follow or adhere to Christianity, a monotheistic Abrahamic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. The words ''Christ'' and ''Christian'' derive from the Koine Greek title ''Christós'' (Χρι� ...

and

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: * Rome, the capital city of Italy * Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of ancient Rome *''Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lett ...

mythology, with characters named

Arawn In Welsh mythology, Arawn (; ) was the king of the otherworld realm of Annwn who appears prominently in the first branch of the Mabinogi, and alluded to in the fourth. In later tradition, the role of the king of Annwn was largely attributed to ...

Arthur Arthur is a common male given name of Brythonic origin. Its popularity derives from it being the name of the legendary hero King Arthur. The etymology is disputed. It may derive from the Celtic ''Artos'' meaning “Bear”. Another theory, more wi ...

Epona In Gallo-Roman religion, Epona was a protector of horses, ponies, donkeys, and mules. She was particularly a goddess of fertility, as shown by her attributes of a patera, cornucopia, ears of grain and the presence of foals in some sculptures ...

Llŷr Llŷr ( cy, Llŷr Llediaith (); ''Lleddiaith'' meaning "half-speech" or "half-language") is a figure in Welsh mythology, probably originally a deity, probably derived from Irish Ler ("the Sea"), father of '' Manannán mac Lir''. Other than his p ...

Morgan Morgan may refer to: People and fictional characters * Morgan (given name), including a list of people and fictional characters * Morgan le Fay, a powerful witch in Arthurian legend * Morgan (surname), a surname of Welsh origin * Morgan (singer ...

Pwyll Pwyll Pen Annwn () is a prominent figure in Welsh mythology and literature, the lord of Dyfed, husband of Rhiannon and father of the hero Pryderi. Meaning ''wisdom" he is the eponymous hero of Pwyll Pendefig Dyfed, the first branch of the F ...

Rhiannon Rhiannon is a major figure in the Mabinogi, the medieval Welsh story collection. She appears mainly in the First Branch of the Mabinogi, and again in the Third Branch. She is a strong-minded Otherworld woman, who chooses Pwyll, prince of Dyfe ...

, and

Taliesin Taliesin ( , ; 6th century AD) was an early Brittonic poet of Sub-Roman Britain whose work has possibly survived in a Middle Welsh manuscript, the ''Book of Taliesin''. Taliesin was a renowned bard who is believed to have sung at the court ...

. Set in a

Late Antiquity Late antiquity is the time of transition from classical antiquity to the Middle Ages, generally spanning the 3rd–7th century in Europe and adjacent areas bordering the Mediterranean Basin. The popularization of this periodization in English h ...

–inspired fantasy setting, story starts on an island, Erin (or Hibernia, as shown on an in-game map), on the west border of the Holy Empire. The prologue is centered around the precognition-gifted priestess of the Gael tribe, Rhiannon. She is kidnapped by a rogue priest of the Holy Empire, Drwc, to be used as a sacrifice in a ritual meant to resurrect the Demon King Arawn and put Drwc in his favor. As a response the Gael people burn their village and swear to bring Rhiannon back or exact revenge on the Empire. In the middle of the ritual, as the Gael people attack Drwc's soldiers, Arawn is resurrected and offered Rhiannon. At this point, he kills Drwc, frees Rhiannon, and proclaims no intention of wreaking the havoc which the legends attributed to him. Instead, he shows interest in Rhinannon's brother Arthur, the First Warrior of his tribe. Rhiannon, on the other hand, falls in love with Arawn, and by declaring her decision to marry him, makes him the chieftain of the Gael tribe (her and Arthur's father was the previous chieftain, but Arthur could not assume the title due to being the First Warrior). As the prologue ends, the point of view is switched from Rhiannon to Arawn, revealing him to be the protagonist of the game, and the story continues with the exodus of Gael tribe to the neighboring island of Albion (or Insula Britannica, as shown on an in-game map) in hope of eluding the Empire.

Media

Games

''Tears to Tiara'' was first released as an adult game on April 28, 2005 by Aquaplus’ adult game division

for the

platform. Its opening theme is ''Tears to Tiara'' by Arisa Nakayama, insert song by D-Terada while the ending theme is "Until", also by Arisa Nakayama. The title was later remade and released as a B rated game, titled for the

on July 17, 2008 with two different editions, a limited edition and a regular edition. It has additional scenarios, 3D gameplay and the change of character designs if compared to the Windows version. The limited edition of the release contains a booklet titled as ''Tears to Tiara - Visual Works'' that features the character designs and storyboards as well as the game's original soundtrack. There was also a pre-order campaign that also includes special extras for the game such as a sticker poster set and a character voice CD that contains system voice and that features Tōru Ōkawa, Yūko Gotō and Makoto Ishii. The game also has a new character, Lidia, voiced by

Miyuki Sawashiro is a Japanese actress, voice actress and narrator. She has played voice roles in a number of Japanese anime including ''Beelzebub'', Bishamon in '' Noragami'', Petit Charat/Puchiko in '' Di Gi Charat'', Mint in ''Galaxy Angel'', Sinon in ''Swor ...

. The titles of the opening and ending theme are "haunting melody" and "memory", both sung by

Suara (born August 3, 1979, in Osaka) is a female Japanese singer working under the FIX Records label, distributed by King Records. Her two singles ''"Musōka"'' and ''"Hikari no Kisetsu"'' were both used as opening themes for the anime ''Utaware ...

. An insert titled "Until" sung by

Rena Uehara is a female Japanese singer-songwriter originally from Hyogo, Japan and now residing in Osaka. She is known for performing theme songs for OVAs of ''Utawarerumono'' and ''To Heart 2''. She has also done the opening for ''White Album 2 ...

was also used. Furthermore, it was first announced in the staff blog that there will also be a side story game for the PlayStation 3 port, titled . ''The Secret of Avalon'' also has a new character called Decimus, voiced by

Wataru Hatano is a Japanese voice actor and singer affiliated with 81 Produce. At the 2nd Seiyu Awards in 2008, Hatano won the Best Male Rookie Award for his roles as Sam Houston in ''Toward the Terra'' and Tenshi Yuri in ''Saint Beast: Kouin Jojishi Tenshit ...

. ''Tears to Tiara Anecdotes'' was released on September 17, 2009 and like the enhanced port, it is for the PlayStation 3 platform. The release is in two editions, a limited edition and a regular edition. Both the enhanced port and ''Anecdotes'' were also ported for

PlayStation Portable The PlayStation Portable (PSP) is a handheld game console developed and marketed by Sony Computer Entertainment. It was first released in Japan on December 12, 2004, in North America on March 24, 2005, and in PAL regions on September 1, 200 ...

. Characters from ''Tears to Tiara'' are also playable in '' Aquapazza: Aquaplus Dream Match'', a fighting game developed by Aquaplus with characters from various Leaf games.

Gameplay

The gameplay between the two versions are very different. The Windows game has the combat segments occurring in real-time while the PlayStation 3 version has been altered it to be turn based combat. In any of its version, the player and enemy AI control multiple characters of different classes such as magic user, archer, and soldier. Outside of battle the story is told through 2-D cutscenes, with gameplay proceeding much like a typical

visual novel A , often abbreviated as VN, is a form of digital semi-interactive fiction. Visual novels are often associated with and used in the medium of video games, but are not always labeled as such themselves. They combine a textual narrative with sta ...

Manga

A manga adaptation of the PlayStation 3 port was serialized in

Media Factory , formerly is a Japanese publisher and brand company of Kadokawa Future Publishing. History It was founded on December 1, 1986, and its headquarters are situated in Shibuya, Tokyo. It is a subsidiary of Recruit Co., Ltd. Media Factory was possi ...

's monthly

seinen is an editorial category of Japanese comics marketed toward young adult men. In Japanese, the word ''seinen'' literally means "youth", but the term "''seinen'' manga" is also used to describe the target audience of magazines like '' Weekly Ma ...

manga Manga ( Japanese: 漫画 ) are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long prehistory in earlier Japanese art. The term ''manga'' is ...

magazine, ''

Monthly Comic Alive is a Japanese seinen manga magazine published by Media Factory. The first issue was released on June 27, 2006. Serialized titles *'' Absolute Duo'' *'' Alice or Alice'' (until 2015, part of the supplement magazine '' Comic Cune'') *'' Ano Ko ni ...

'' in 2009 and 2010. This adaptation was done by Shirometsukusa, who had previously done a part in

Fate/stay night ''Fate/stay night'' is a Japanese visual novel developed by Type-Moon and originally released as an adult game for Windows on January 30, 2004. A version of ''Fate/stay night'' rated for ages 15 and up titled ''Fate/stay night Réalta ...

's manga anthology. It has started its serialization in the magazine's 2nd issue in 2009. The first volume has been released on June 23, 2009 under Media Factory's ''MF Comics Alive Series'' label as well as bearing the number .

Anime

An anime adaptation aired based also on the PlayStation 3 port. The anime is directed by

Tomoki Kobayashi is a Japanese anime director. Anime involved with *''Akame ga Kill!'': Director, Storyboard (eps 1, 24), Episode Director (eps 1, 24) *'' Amagami SS+ plus'': Director, Storyboard (ep 3) *''Futakoi Alternative'': Episode Director (ep 4) *''Galaxy ...

and its series composition done by Tōko Machida. The animation is done by

White Fox , is a Japanese animation studio founded in April 2007 by Gaku Iwasa. The studio's most successful productions include adaptations of ''Steins;Gate'', and '' Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World'', and '' Akame ga Kill!''. History The stu ...

and T3Works is the series' production committee. The series began airing on April 6, 2009, incorporating the additional scenario and characters in the PlayStation 3 release. In addition to its Japanese premiere, the anime has been

simulcast Simulcast (a portmanteau of simultaneous broadcast) is the broadcasting of programmes/programs or events across more than one resolution, bitrate or medium, or more than one service on the same medium, at exactly the same time (that is, simul ...

and received its

English language English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the ...

premiere on

Animax Asia Animax is the pay television channel in Asia owned by KC Global Media Asia which broadcasts Japanese language anime and Simulcast anime, anime programming through English-language feeds in Southeast Asia (formerly including Brunei), South Asia (e ...

on the same day at 12:35 am across its networks on

Southeast Asia Southeast Asia, also spelled South East Asia and South-East Asia, and also known as Southeastern Asia, South-eastern Asia or SEA, is the geographical south-eastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of mainland ...

, the same time the series will receive its Japanese premiere at 01:35 am Japanese Standard Time. This would be the fastest premiere of an anime outside Japan. On March 20, 2009, it was further confirmed that the series would indeed be simulcast with Japanese audio and English subtitles with Malay subtitles for

Malaysia Malaysia ( ; ) is a country in Southeast Asia. The federal constitutional monarchy consists of thirteen states and three federal territories, separated by the South China Sea into two regions: Peninsular Malaysia and Borneo's East Mal ...

; being the first of its kind. The anime uses the same voice actors from the PlayStation 3 game, with

Tōru Ōkawa is a Japanese actor, voice actor and narrator. While he went to a College of Art, Nihon University, he started his career as a stage actor, but after he moved to Mausu Promotion, his current agency, he came to focus on voice acting. Filmograp ...

Yūko Gotō is a Japanese actress, voice actress and singer who was contracted to Production Baobab and is now signed to Axlone. In direct contrast to her cute-and-vulnerable moé typecasting, Yūko in real life is a devotee of biker culture who dresses an ...

and

Makoto Ishii is a Japanese voice actor from Chiba Prefecture. He is currently affiliated with Rimax. Filmography Television animation * 2003: '' Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex'' as Tsujisaki Yū, Hotel man * 2004: ''Futakoi'' as Yūya Hiyama ...

voicing Arawn, Riannon and Arthur respectively. The series' opening and ending theme are "Free and Dream" and "True Sky, Blue Sky" which are sung by

and

Aira Yūki is a female Japanese singer signed to the record label Lantis. She began her career in 2007 and since then has primarily sung songs that were used for theme music in anime. She released her debut album ''Reflection'' on July 2, 2008. Her second ...

respectively. Both singles were released on April 22, 2009 by King Records and

Bandai Visual was a Japanese anime, film production, and distribution enterprise, established by Bandai and a subsidiary of Bandai Namco Holdings. They focused mainly in international distribution of anime properties in North America. Most of the anime and f ...

respectively. While there was also an insert song titled "Until", used in episode 17. It was sung by

. An original soundtrack for the series done by

Takayuki Hattori is a Japanese film, television, video game and non-soundtrack music composer, arranger and conductor. He is the son of the composer Katsuhisa Hattori and grandson of composer Ryoichi Hattori. He has won three Japan Academy Prize awards in t ...

was released on June 24, 2009. It mainly contains background music along with the TV size ending theme. The CD bears the catalog number LACA-5925. The first volume of both DVD and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of st ...

went on sale on June 17, 2009 and subsequent volumes will be released every month by

Pony Canyon , also known by the shorthand form , is a Japanese mass media publishing company founded on October 1, 1966. The company publishes mainly physical home media on compact discs, including music, films and TV shows and video games. It is affi ...

. The first volume's cover features Arawn and Riannon while the second features Arthur and Morgan. Both first and second volumes of the limited edition includes a 20-page full-color booklet as well as having a sticker poster and a one piece type casing. The first volume also feature separate interviews with Tomoki Kobayashi, Tōru Ōkawa and Tōko Machida. The anime has been picked up for release in North America by Sentai Filmworks, distributed by the new company,

Section23 Films SXION 23 LLC, doing business as Section23 Films is an American multimedia distributor based in Houston, Texas specializing in releasing anime and Japanese films. Established in 2009, Section23 is one of five successors to ADV Films; alongside Se ...

. Part 1 of the series was released on November 24, 2009. Part 2 was then released on January 26, 2010. Sentai Filmworks re-released ''Tears to Tiara'' with an English dub in 2010. Sentai Filmworks and

released ''Tears to Tiara'' on DVD and

with the English dub on October 19, 2010.

Internet radio

There was an Internet radio broadcast before the start of the current radio and the title for the radio changes for every episode. There were a total of 8 episodes before it was renewed to the current title, . There were no guests for all the 8 episodes except for a public recording on February 14, 2009 at One Hobby 9. Before ''Shin Tears to Tiaradio'' began, the untitled internet radio started broadcasting on November 29, 2008 at the official site and later started broadcasting with a fixed title on April 13, 2009. New episodes will be broadcast on every Friday at Nico Nico Anime Channel. It has also started broadcasting in

Onsen In Japan, are the country's hot springs and the bathing facilities and traditional inns around them. As a volcanically active country, Japan has many onsens scattered throughout all of its major islands. There are approximately 25,000 hot ...

every Monday. The personalities for the show are Riannon and Arthur's voice actors, Yūko Gotō and Makoto Ishii. Guests for ''Shin Tears to Tiaradio'' are Tōru Ōkawa for episode 3 and 4, Ami Koshimizu and Ai Shimizu for episode 5 and 6, Kaori Nazuka for episode 7 and 8, Suara for episode 9,

Ryōko Ono is a Japanese voice actress from Yokohama, Japan. She is also known as or . Filmography Anime ;2004 *'' Kurau: Phantom Memory'' as Washima *''Otogi Zoshi'' as Daughter 2 (ep 2) *'' Black Jack'' as Wato ;2005 *''Honey and Clover'' as Female St ...

and Ema Kogure from the ''

To Heart ''To Heart'' is a Japanese adult visual novel developed by Leaf and released on May 23, 1997 for Windows. It was later ported to the PlayStation and given voice acting. A second PC version, titled ''To Heart PSE'' was released containing ...

'' series for episode 10 while Kiyomi Asai for episode 11 and 12. Here are the following episode titles for the previous radio broadcast before ''Shin Tears to Tiaradio'':

Merchandise

There were PVC figures of Riannon, Octavia and Ermin made by Kotobukiya for ''Tears to Tiara: Garland of the Earth''. Furthermore, it was first announced at the official site that there was a

Nendoroid The series is a brand of plastic figures created by the Japanese Good Smile Company in 2006. They typically depict characters from anime, manga or video games and are designed with a large head and smaller body to give them a cute appearance. T ...

figure for Riannon and Arawn being made by

Good Smile Company is a Japanese manufacturer of hobby products such as the Nendoroid and figma product lines, as well as scale figures. In addition to production and manufacturing, its business includes design, marketing and distribution. Its products are usual ...

. The Riannon figure is to be released in August 2009, while Arawn is released one month after. It was announced in the staff blog that they are now available for pre-orders. Both are priced at 3,500 yen each. Kazuyoshi Udono sculpted Riannon's figure. While Arawn's figure is sculpted by Reiichi Itō, both with sculpting assistance provided by Nendoron. There is also a trading card game of the anime in the works. The title of the card game has yet to be announced.

Sequel

A sequel, titled , was announced by Aquaplus in January 2011 for the PlayStation 3. It is set in the same world as its predecessor, but features new main characters designed by dōjinshi artist Tatami Honjō. It was released on October 31, 2013. Atlus USA released ''Tears to Tiara II'' in the west in fall 2014.

Source code release

''Tears to Tiara'' was one of four games (along with ''Aruruu to Asobo!!'', ''

Kusari is an eroge visual novel by Leaf. It is a suspense adventure game dealing with psychological warfare as players are pitted against a cunning and powerful criminal while trapped in the open sea on a cruise ship. Although this game produced Leaf, ...

'', and '' ToHeart2 XRATED'') for which Leaf was forced to release the

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the ...

to the public due to having used the

Xvid Xvid (formerly "XviD") is a video codec library following the MPEG-4 video coding standard, specifically MPEG-4 Part 2 Advanced Simple Profile (ASP). It uses ASP features such as b-frames, global and quarter pixel motion compensation, lumi m ...

video codec A video codec is software or hardware that compresses and decompresses digital video. In the context of video compression, '' codec'' is a portmanteau of ''encoder'' and ''decoder'', while a device that only compresses is typically called an ...

in the game. Xvid is licensed under the

GNU GNU () is an extensive collection of free software (383 packages as of January 2022), which can be used as an operating system or can be used in parts with other operating systems. The use of the completed GNU tools led to the family of operat ...

Public License, which requires that programs using the codec to make their source code available to program users. A source code repository is hosted on

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, cont ...

.aquaplus-sources
on

github.com GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continuou ...

References

External links

;Official websites
Tears to Tiara
at Leaf
Tears to Tiara: Garland of the Earth Official PS3 Site

Tears to Tiara: Garland of the Earth Official PSP Site

Tears to Tiara Anecdotes: The Secret of Avalon Official PS3 Site

Tears to Tiara Anecdotes: The Secret of Avalon Official PSP Site

Tears to Tiara II Official Site

Official Anime Site
;Others

* {{White Fox 2005 video games 2008 video games 2009 video games 2010 video games 2013 video games Anime television series based on video games Commercial video games with freely available source code Harem anime and manga Japan-exclusive video games Manga based on video games Seinen manga Sentai Filmworks Tactical role-playing video games Video games based on Celtic mythology Video games developed in Japan Windows games PlayStation 3 games PlayStation Portable games White Fox Leaf (Japanese company) games Aquaplus games