Log Horizon Season 1

Part 1 - Anime Review

Ever since Sword Art Online made its worldwide anime debut in 2012, there seems to be an increased interest in fictional series based around advanced virtual worlds. It was a level of popularity which older and more established franchises such as .hack don’t seem to have achieved. But personally, I was not taken in by many of the approaches used throughout the first two Sword Art Online arcs. While there was a satisfactory storyline, too much time was spent showcasing different elements and systems of an MMORPG through content which had little relevance to the overarching plot – ultimately leading to predictable conclusions. While there are likely many comparisons being made between Sword Art Online and the recently released anime adaptation of Log Horizon, these are two very different series despite them sharing a handful of fundamental concepts.

Log Horizon takes place in an online game known as Elder Tale, the worlds largest online game which ambitiously replicated Earth’s land mass on a half-scale. Millions of players across the globe play on various interlinked servers, with each local server primarily taking up its respective country – so the Japan server is in Japan and the Australian server would be in Australia. An event later described as the “Catastrophe” occurs when the game’s twelfth expansion pack “Homesteading the Noosphere” goes live, trapping 30,000 Japanese players and potentially several hundred thousand others worldwide in the game. Formerly a game that required no direct interaction with the world, players now find themselves alone in in the game, without any indication of why they are trapped there. With the AI becoming sentient, there being no sign of any nefarious force holding them hostage and death not being the end of ones life… the players are given free reign to adapt to this new world.

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Log Horizon primarily follows Shiroe, a veteran player of Elder Tale for many years. When you usually think of a traditional MMORPG anime protagonist (or even an RPG protagonist in general), you would usually expect the person to be of a physical class who can take the front-lines in battle. Differing from the norm, Shiroe is of a mage class – in particular the “Enchanter” class which is known for having limited offensive capabilities and serves as more of a support class. He is instead renown as an intellectual player who is affiliated with no guild and being incredibly skilled strategist. Aligning himself with his long-time friend Naotsugu (Guardian) and former acquaintance Akatsuki (Assassin) when the “Catastrophe” occurs, the trio begin their journey undertaking important quests and discovering some of the secrets behind this new world.

This collection features the first half of Log Horizon season one, which consists of approximately two and a half arcs – both of which involve the main characters and other acquaintances rescuing novice players from some form of captivity, highlighting the darker side of a world without any laws. Given how the game works, the approach to rescuing these players don’t simply involve drawing swords and barging in. Instead, the solution invoked by Shiroe usually requires a bit more creativity given the game’s limits, as it is not possible to simply barge into a guild hall to rescue captive players for example..

When these arcs play out, some interesting concepts and ideas are continually introduced, as the characters work to overcome limitations such as food tasting like cardboard and the lack of law in general. You don’t feel as if the characters are just acting towards some sort of clear end-goal, but instead must work towards an unknown future where they may have to reside in the world indefinately. In doing so, it manages to tread into a route different from Sword Art Online where the characters are trapped in the game and the emphasis is on them working towards an eventual escape.

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As Elder Tale was originally (or at least gave the impression of being) a traditional keyboard/mouse game, the transition into a completely virtual world did justify some time spent on highlighting how the different elements of an online game have been adapted. Time is spent describing the Guild system, the character class system and how the basic mechanics of the game work. However these quickly are overshadowed by the overarching storyline and the characters building their own society. While there is a good amount of action, most issues faced by Shiroe and everyone else generally involved a more logistical approach rather than watching characters swing a sword around every episode. In many ways this was much more satisfying to watch, and seemed to open a lot more pathways for the writers to work with in future episodes.

With a small cast of main characters and a much larger secondary character cast to work with, there is a lot of character development potential available for this series. As the present time, most development focused on the original trio of protagonists, with further main and secondary characters being lightly touched upon as the episodes progressed. I am satisfied with the character development so far, especially with a second season of 25 episodes about to finish its run and a third season quite likely. While not completely free of relationships and romantic elements, there is a good gender balance of characters as well. Therefore, those who dislike the “Male Protagonist with a party of mostly infatuated females”approach taken in quite a few anime nowadays should not be too disappointed.

Delivering a more intellectually stimulating plot based in a virtual world than many of its counterparts, Log Horizon’s storyline was very appealing, and has left me personally looking forward to Part 2 being released next month. Don’t go considering Log Horizon to be a knock-off of other series, as aside from the “MMORPG” setting, it brings many unique ideas to the table.

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While there is a shift of animation studios between seasons one and two, this set of episodes has been produced by the team at Satelight, a studio who has worked on anime series including Bodacious Space Birates, Croisee in a Foreign Labyrinth and AKB0048. The quality was high enough to justify a Blu-ray release internationally, and in my opinion was deserving of the multi-format release. While there are certainly better designed anime on the market, the approach to design helped get across the fantasy-MMO environment the series was clearly aiming for rather than something excessively elaborate and modern. Character designs are overall of a high standard as well, with even the minor characters receiving at least a slightly distinct appearance. The various different races and character classes available for players to choose from certainly helped improve diversity – even if some were more prominent than others.

One of the most notable tracks in Log Horizon is its opening theme: “database”, an intense and attention-grabbing song coupled with some decent animation. The ending theme, “Your Song” is a less prominent song and one that is pretty easy to justify skipping after your first run-through. The remainder of Log Horizon’s soundtrack complements each individual event well, however there aren’t many tracks which I would consider particularly memorable.

While Sentai Filmworks seems to be delivering more of a balance between their Hybrid Dub and Japanese Dub only releases, Log Horizon did have an English dub commissioned for it by the company. The English dub in my opinion is of a high quality, with Mike Yager and Jad Saxton in particular nailing their roles as Shiroe and Akatsuki respectively. Other highlights include Shelley Calene-Black as Henrietta, Andrew Love as Naotsugu, Jovan Jackson as Nyanta and Jay Hickman as Crusty.

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Unfortunately, Log Horizon Part 1 is lacking in terms of bonus on-disc content. Aside from a handful of trailers, the only additional content included are clean opening and ending sequences. Given how big this series is, I would have thought Sentai Filmworks could have scrounged something more significant together.

Overall, Log Horizon Part 1 proved to be a strong start to what has the potential to be a long and memorable series. It is a series that doesn’t come close to being a “clone” of Sword Art Online, taking a direction which is more about the intellectual and strategic characters looking to build an indefinite society in the world than simply fighting. That being said, things could easily change as the episodes progress. I genuinely look forward to future instalments, with the latter half of Season One set to hit store shelves in Australia next month.

While it is available as a stream through international sites such as CrunchyRoll, Log Horizon is not available to view through Madman Entertainment’s AnimeLab service.

Images: © Mamare Touno, KADOKAWA / NHK, NEP

Acknowledgement: Blu-ray Review copy provided by Madman Entertainment

Sam
Sam
Founder of The Otaku's Study. I have been exploring this labyrinth of fandom these last fifteen years, and still nowhere close to the exit yet. Probably searching for a long time to come.

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