How ufotable Changed the Tales Opening
Since 2011, the first thing a Tales player sees is a ufotable film in miniature, and the openings became events of their own.
Animated openings were a Tales signature before they were an industry habit: the PlayStation remake of Phantasia (1998) opened with a fully animated sequence that players of the cartridge era had never seen in an RPG. The studio that would define the modern version of that signature, ufotable, entered the series through a side door.
BEFORE UFOTABLE
The signature formsThe 1998 landmark
Phantasia’s PlayStation remake added what the Super Famicom could not hold: a full anime opening, new voiced scenes, a sung theme. From then on, a Tales game announced itself with animation before it let you play it.
The Production I.G years
Through the PS2 era the openings and cutscenes were prestige television work commissioned per game, beautiful, and anonymous. The studio’s name was not yet part of the product.
The side door: Symphonia’s OVA
ufotable’s first Tales work was the Symphonia OVA (2007–2012), three arcs retelling the game across eleven episodes. The adaptation’s polish made the studio’s case better than any pitch: the next mothership opening was theirs.
THE UFOTABLE ERA
2011 onwardXillia and “progress”
Xillia (2011) paired ufotable’s opening with Ayumi Hamasaki’s “progress”, a J-pop single as the game’s front door. Hamasaki returned for Xillia 2’s “Song 4 U.” The opening reveal became a marketing beat of its own, trailed and televised before launch.
From openings to the whole anime
The relationship widened: ufotable made the Zestiria pre-launch special Dawn of the Shepherd (2014), then the full television series Tales of Zestiria the X (2016–17), the games’ opening studio graduating to the franchise’s screen studio.
Arise’s cold open
Arise (2021) opens with ufotable’s burning-city sequence, cut like a film trailer and scored as one. By the 30th anniversary the pattern is fixed: a Tales launch is now two premieres, the game’s and the opening’s.