It's a fairly new anime(only one episode out), and I'm not completely certain on the length of the manga, because I'm not reading that to spoil this anime. If you watch the first episode, it becomes completely clear that the series is illustrated by Hiromu Arakawa, the author of Fullmetal Alchemist. Hero Tales takes place in China(I don't know the time period, I'm not using any references for this post), and its storyline is based off of Chinese folklore. At least check out the first episode, I thought it was pretty cool.
AnimeTube has the first episode there, if you can't find it on Youtube.