If there is any video game series that deserves to be a TV series it’sFinal Fantasy. With memorable characters, epic storylines, and the potential for multi-season arcs, one of the bigger mysteries in the anime community is why Square-Enix rarely adapts their properties into anime. There was the two-episodeFinal FantasyOVA that was based onFinal Fantasy Vas well as the truly weird promotional OVA forChrono Trigger.However, these rare projects aside, most of theFinal Fantasyvideo games have no anime adaptation.
One year Squaresoft (as they were known at the time) decided this needed to change, and announced plans to bringFinal Fantasyto TV screens with a new anime. The series would not be an adaptation of any previously existing games, but rather a completely original story. The series was planned to have multiple seasons, be the source of new merchandise, and would ultimately be a newFinal Fantasyfranchise in its own right. The series was calledFinal Fantasy Unlimited, so named for the unlimited potential the series had. While things started out good, it wouldn’t stay that way.
Final Fantasy Unlimited Starts Out Strong
When the series premiered on TV Tokyo the premier episode garnered strong ratings and lots of praise. As with mostFinal Fantasyproperties,Final Fantasy Unlimitedhinted at an epic story that was about to unfold. Franchise veteranNobuo Uematsu returned to scorethe series along with Shirō Hamaguchi and Akifumi Tada to help. Making matters better, the show was licensed by ADV almost immediately, asFinal Fantasyhad grown in popularity in America over the past several years, and the company felt it would be a good seller in the US market (maybe even with TV airing potential).
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Ratings Drop Fast
Although everything started out great, a few episodes into the series things took a bad turn very fast. While the series certainly HINTED at an epic story in the first episode, after a few episodes viewers seemed to agree that nothing epic was actuallyhappening! While the video games had some of the greatest characters of all time, many viewers felt the characters in the anime were shallow and uninteresting. Far from telling a mature storylinethat the games were known for,Final Fantasy Unlimitedwas more family friendly (and really seemed more geared towards children for the most part).
Due to the underwhelming nature of the show, ratings dropped fast. Viewers started tuning out in shockingly high numbers, and there was little demand for merchandise. What’s more, over in America Squaresoft releasedFinal Fantasy: The Spirits Within, which ultimately bombed and lost the game company a LOT of money! While they would have liked to keep making the show, with advertisers fleeing the show and a movie bombing, Squaresoft had to make some tough financial choices.
The Series Gets Canceled Mid-Season
WhileFinal Fantasy Unlimitedwas planned to have 52 for the first season, it was cut short at 25 episodes due to the lack of interest from viewers and financial hardships of the company overall. The series would end without any resolution to the stories in the show. While not asbig of a bomb as the movie was, it did ultimately lose Squaresoft money, and any hopes of turning it into a new franchise within theFinal Fantasyuniverse were dashed.
While this is normally where the story would end, the sad reality is that the failure of these projects were so huge that Squaresoft was on the verge of filing for bankruptcy. While this wasn’t exactly a new situation for the video game company, this time it was looking very real that things could go under. Instead, Sony bailed them out by buying 2% of the company to give them somemuch-needed cash. The company then decided to have talks with their main competitor Enix, the creators of theDragon Questseries who were also struggling financially.
The two companies merged into Square-Enix, restructured, and ultimately came out stronger than ever. At some point, the storyline forFinal Fantasy Unlimitedwas completed with light novels, radio dramas, and manga. In a way, it DID become a multi-media franchise down the road! That said, while the story ultimately was concluded,Final Fantasy Unlimitednever became the huge hit Square-Enix wanted it to be. Going forward they would dip their toes in anime again with OVA’s based onFinal Fantasy VIIandFinal Fantasy XV, and the company would even invest in a couple of direct-to-video CGI films (based on the same properties).
However, the sting of the failure ofFinal Fantasy Unlimitedmade the company weary of trying to create another weekly anime series, and to date there are no plans to adapt any of their series into anime again. There are rumors thatFinal Fantasy IXwill receive a TV seriesin partnership with a French company, but fans hoping for moreFinal Fantasyanime series are just simply out of luck to the failure ofFinal Fantasy Unlimited.
