Final Fantasy: Unlimited

Final Fantasy: Unlimited (FF:U ～ファイナルファンタジー:アンリミテッド～) is an animated Japanese television series based on Square Enix's popular Final Fantasy role-playing game franchise.

Final Fantasy: Unlimited also incorporates both 2D animation and 3D graphics, and takes elements from the Final Fantasy games with quite a few easter eggs, some obvious, others obscure. It was licensed for North America and the United Kingdom by ADV Films, and 7 volumes of videos were released on DVD. In 2003, the series soundtrack Final Fantasy: Unlimited After 2 was released. The continuation of the story has also been released in a variety of other media.

Story
The story begins with a strange black tower of energy, which would later come to be known as the "Pillar of Darkness", appearing in the Sea of Japan off the coast of Sadogashima. The tower's appearance causes seismic fluctuations that confound geologist Joe Hayakawa and his team. Returning home, Joe finds his pregnant wife Marie outside setting up equipment with which to study the phenomenon. Suddenly, a large crimson dragon-like creature with what looks like a gun barrel for a head emerges from the Pillar, and proceeds to lay to waste the military forces that try to attack it. When all seems lost, another dragon appears from the Pillar; this one silver-white and serpentine in appearance, with what looks like a blade for a head. The two creatures proceed to destroy each other, causing a reaction in the Pillar of Darkness.

Twelve years later, fraternal twins Ai and Yu Hayakawa find and board an interdimensional train to Wonderland, a strange world connected to Earth by the Pillar of Darkness, to find their parents, Joe and Marie, who have not returned from their latest of many trips there. On the train they meet Lisa Pacifist, a woman with special powers known as Kigen Arts.

When the trio arrive in Wonderland, they find out just how different it is from Earth, meeting a number of allies and enemies. Allies include Chobi, a chocobo who quickly takes a mutual liking to Yu and joins the group on their journey, and Kaze, a mysterious amnesiac gunman with a grudge against a sword-wielding warrior clad in white who he believes was responsible for the destruction of his homeworld. Kaze wields the Magun, a gun powered by bullets filled with "Soil" which summons a variety of great creatures to destroy his enemies.

Enemies include Earl Tyrant, a spoiled brat of a child living in the floating fortress palace of Gaudium as well as the ruler of Wonderland. Tyrant has four underlings referred to collectively as the Lords of Gaudium: Fungus, a humanoid mushroom man with super strength and regenerative powers; Herba, a humanoid plant woman with a shallow, self-centred attitude; Pist Shaz XI, a humanoid shark creature made of water who takes pride in analyzing the data of his opponents; and Oscha, a mysterious black humanoid figure whose face is always hidden behind a mask and Tyrant's closest servant. Also in service of the Earl is Makenshi, a sword-wielding warrior clad in white, though he prefers to be alone, staying away from the antics in the throne room, and seems to have his own agenda.

Lisa and the twins also find allies in the Comodeen, a rebel army group seeking to overthrow the Earl and establish true and fair order in Wonderland. Led by Knave, a strong man with a romantic nature, the Comodeen is made up entirely of volunteer members whose homeworlds were destroyed by Chaos. Despite the strength of their opponents, the Comodeen are a force to be reckoned with thanks to battle plans formulated by Miles, a tomboyish woman and second-in-command, and equipment and other supplies created by Cid, the resident mechanical mastermind who feels a little too strongly for his creations.

Early on in their journey, the group are accosted by a part of Omega, a mysterious being that destroys everything in its path simply by existing. Omega was defeated at some point prior to the beginning of the series, its body shattered into component pieces and forced into dormancy, during which it takes the form of a translucent pink crystal, referred to as an Omega Crystal. Though many pieces are still dormant during the series, three have awakened and attack the Interdimensional Train. As explained by Ru, a lycanthrope girl the group meet on the train who travels with the group for a while, developing a major crush on Kaze, once a part of Omega awakens, it constantly searches for its "siblings", other Omega Crystals, to eventually reform into the full creature. Eventually, one of the parts of Omega succeeds in destroying the Train, revealing the reason it was attacking it: the Interdimensional Train is powered by an Omega Crystal.

At one point, the group stops in an endless grassy field, where a large herd of chocobos, led by Chocoimo, an elderly lady and younger sister of Chocobaba who Lisa and the twins met earlier on, are seeking refuge from monster attacks. Chobi meets a female chocobo and, with Yu's permission, leaves the group to be with the herd, leaving Yu upset. Chocoimo and the herd soon find the Ciel Monolith, a pillar built to honour the Ciel Chocobo, a great chocobo with the ability to fly, and who has one descendant per generation who can receive his power: Chobi activates the monolith, receiving the power of the Ciel Chocobo just in time to save Yu's life from an attack on the Train by Omega. With this new power, Chobi rejoins the group.

Tyrant orders the Lords of Gaudium to destroy Kaze numerous times, all of which fail. After finding out about Omega, Tyrant instead orders them to focus on finding the Omega Crystals; Herba, Pist and Makenshi succeed in this respect, with Makenshi finding rather large crystal and getting "promoted" to one of the now five Lords of Gaudium. However, Fungus fails to find an Omega Crystal and Tyrant, upset with his constant failure, as well as other weaknesses, conspires with Oscha to kill him. Oscha meets with Fungus and reveals to him the remnants of his homeworld, a vast forest of mushrooms, which was destroyed by Chaos.

The protagonists eventually reach the remains of Fungus' world, where Fungus himself awaits to defeat Kaze (and the others). With his control over the area, as well as his regenerative abilities, he makes himself practically invulnerable to Kaze's attacks, including multiple summoned creatures. Fungus actually comes close to defeating Kaze when Crux appears, spilling mould over Fungus and the landscape, decreasing his power and allowing Kaze to finally defeat Fungus once and for all.

After the Interdimensional Train is destroyed, the group are saved by the prophet Fabula, who met with Ai earlier on and gave her Poshepocket, a creature shaped like a bag that can summon any item. The group meet with the Comodeen again, and set off in Cid's new submarine, Jane. However, Pist has been busy and surprises them with his new creation: the Ocean Puzzle, a Rubik's Cube-like construction with the remnants of a world destroyed by Chaos in each cube, and a certain challenge to be completed there. Success in a challenge will move the group up toward freedom, but failure will move the group down toward Chaos.

Challenges include Wonderland trivia posed by Somosan, a giant mermaid; a battle between Makenshi and his brother Madoushi who died in Chaos' attack on their homeworld, but was revived by Oscha to feed Makenshi's ensuing negative emotions to Chaos, and a village which evokes happy memories in its visitors to trap them there forever. In the latter challenge the twins (the only ones not yet affected by the memory evocation) meet Moogle, a moogle who has been living in the village (his pompom makes him immune to the memory effect) and is revealed to be Kaze's partner. He has the ability to repair the Magun (though not fully) and power up Kaze's summons.

Ai and Yu also face their own challenges: Ai falls into a monster-infested wasteland and meets Clear, a boy dressed in a full suit made of Flying Water to suppress his powers; he is revealed to be a piece of Omega and as such is constantly pursued by Gaudium. Later, Yu manages to infiltrate Gaudium and meets with the Earl himself. Yu also finds his parents, who have been brainwashed into serving the Earl as his chefs, creating food from the negative emotions of the people of Wonderland. Furthermore, they do not recognize Yu at all. Yu returns to the submarine traumatized.

The protagonists eventually make it to Teros, where they try to harvest Flight Water, a strange floating bubble-like material, to be used as the power source for Cid's ultimate invention: his airship, Silvia. However, Pist interferes and corrupts one of Kaze's summons to destroy all the Flight Water. Yu and Ai are also reunited with Lou, who travels with the group for a while longer.

Eventually, the protagonists reach Gaudium, with Cid programming the defence systems to destroy each other, and Makenshi reveals his true intentions: he had only posed as being in service of the Earl to obtain information on Chaos. Now, with all that he needs, he defects to the side of the protagonists. Makenshi kills Pist by transforming him into Mist and summoning him as a Mist Dragon to destroy the Ocean Puzzle. With this, events start drawing to a close. The Earl reveals that he is Chaos, and transforms into a form similar to a phoenix in dark purple and black. Chaos declares that he will "eat" the protagonists, and attacks Jane.

Ai, Yu, Lisa, Kaze and Makenshi awaken in Gaudium's Chaos Chamber, trapped with all their powers deactivated through various means. Chaos, who has reverted to his "Earl Tyrant" form, reveals that Jane was destroyed, along with everyone on it. Oscha then reveals some shocking truths: not only are Yu and Ai not Joe and Marie's biological children, but they aren't even human. They were created as the most powerful catalysts to evolve the Inner World, and found by Joe and Marie on their first trip into the Inner World, which was caused by them being sucked into the Pillar of Darkness directly (and causing Marie to have a miscarriage). The Hayakawas took them home and raised them as their own children. Furthermore, Oscha stole the "Inner World Watch" worn by Chobi as a timetable for the Interdimensional Train, and added a tracking feature to follow the group's movements. Oscha had planned the twins' journey through Wonderland from the very beginning. This causes Ai and Yu to break down.

Makenshi attempts to summon his sword to attack Chaos, but Chaos catches it in one of his tentacles and impales Makenshi with it, almost killing him.

Furthermore, all the Omega Crystals have been gathered, including Kuria, who gets fused with his Flight Water suit to form the Crystal of Omega's heart. Finally, it is revealed that Ai and Yu, as well as all the Omega Crystals, are to be fused with Chaos to form a complete Chaos-Omega hybrid which will destroy all the "Outer Worlds" (worlds linked to the Inner World through the Pillars of Darkness) and rule over the completed Inner World as a god. Just as this process is started, Lisa implores the Hayakawas to snap out of their trance and save their children, which they manage to do.

Suddenly, Ru and Moogle arrive. Ru destroys the fusion machine, freeing Ai and Yu, as well as Lisa and Kaze, but gets impaled on one of Chaos' tentacles as punishment. She dies in Lisa's arms, wondering if the way she feels about Kaze is mutual.

Crux, who had disposed of all of Kaze's Soil bullets and Makenshi's Mist bottles, saved one empty bottle for Makenshi, which she gives to him. Revealing himself to be alive, Makenshi uses the empty bottle to perform one last summon, transforming himself into Mist to summon the ultimate Mist Dragon, and sacrificing himself to stall Chaos and give Kaze an opportunity to attack. Despite having no Soil bullets, Kaze remarks that "[he] didn't have any bullets the last time, but [he] was still able to reach Chaos"; Kaze has regained his memory. Ru speaks to Kaze and tells him that he can "use [her]". Fueled by Kaze's tears, Ru's body dissipates into a Soil bullet, and the truth about Soil is revealed: it is a magical substance, made of the crystallized souls of those who died fighting Chaos. Moogle decides to sacrifice himself to provide Kaze with a second Soil bullet. Finally Kaze sacrifices himself to become the third Soil bullet, leaving Lisa to fire the Magun and summon Bahamut. The two serpents fly into the sky and clash.

The epilogue plays over the credits: Chobi and the Comodeen survived the attack on Jane, with Ciel-Chobi flying through the sky, and the Comodeen follow closely behind in the airship, Silvia. Ai, Yu, Lisa, Joe and Marie are unconscious, but alive, on a floating piece of the remains of Gaudium. One of Kaze's earrings lies next to Lisa as a tear rolls down her cheek. Fabula leaves a cryptic message that the adventures of the "intrepid travellers" are not yet over, and will possibly be revealed "when we meet again".

Boxset
The North American complete FF:U boxset re-arranges the series into five discs of five episodes each. The English complete FF:U boxset retains the seven disks as released singularly.

Audio
The theme songs of the series are:

Opening theme
 * "Over the FANTASY"
 * Lyrics: Yuko Ebine
 * Composition: Nobuo Uematsu
 * Arrangement: Takahiro Ando
 * Vocals: Kana Ueda

Ending themes
 * "VIVID" (Episodes 1-12)
 * Lyrics and composition by: Takashi Genouzono
 * Arrangement by: FAIRY FORE & Masao Akashi
 * Song by: FAIRY FORE


 * "Romancing Train" (Episodes 13-24)
 * Lyrics: motsu
 * Composition and arrangement: t-kimura
 * Vocals: move


 * "Over the FANTASY" (Episode 25)
 * Lyrics by: Yuko Ebine
 * Composition by: Nobuo Uematsu
 * Arrangement by: Takahiro Ando
 * Song by: Kana Ueda

Final Fantasy: Unlimited Music Adventure Verse 1 was composed by Nobuo Uematsu and Shirō Hamaguchi. It was released on December 19, 2001 on the label Geneon. Final Fantasy: Unlimited Music Adventure Verse 2 was composed by Uematsu, Hamaguchi, and Akifumi Tada. It was released on April 17, 2002.

Sequels
The story of Final Fantasy: Unlimited, left incomplete by the television series, was continued in several other media and released only in Japan. These are listed below, ordered by the chronology of the events they cover.


 * The Bonds of Two (双の絆) is a novel. It explores a side-story that is set in the time of the television series (somewhere before episode 12).
 * Final Fantasy: Unlimited Before is a drama CD that features a flashback to the destruction of Kaze and Makenshi's worlds. FF:U Before was awarded to competition winners in Japan.
 * Final Fantasy: Unlimited After is a book containing a 32 page manga and 120 page script. It was released in 2002 by DigiCube. It covers the twins' return to their own world, revelation of Lisa's past and introduces a new villain under Gaudium: Soljashy.
 * The After Spiral is a series of web novels published on the official Japanese FF:U website (which has been taken down). The first of these short stories takes a quick plunge into Makenshi's past, while the rest describe an encounter between the show's heroes and Soljashy on the twins' childhood home of Sado Island, where Ai and Yu are briefly reunited with their old friend Touya Satomi.
 * Final Fantasy: Unlimited After 2 is another radio drama. It deals with Comodeen's final attack on Gaudium and brings a conclusion to the conflict between Lisa and Soljashy, however it leaves many questions yet unanswered.

Video games

 * Final Fantasy: Unlimited with U is a mobile phone game set in the Final Fantasy: Unlimited universe. It was released in August 2002.


 * Final Fantasy: Unlimited on PC Adventure - Labyrinth is a personal computer game set in the Final Fantasy: Unlimited universe. Published by Amada Printing, it was released May 16, 2003.