Anime: Log Horizon

THis is only for Season 1

Graphics: OK.

Sound: OK. I actually like the intro song.

Characters: I like the characters more, as while they are kind of stereotypical, they are all usefull in some way, even the big boob bimbos. The fights are team efforts and noone wins only by themselves, especially not the main character. Noone is overpowered. There is no Kirito here. My main complaint is the ninja loli. It would have been better, if they made her look a few years older. That would have gone a great way to show more "maturity". There is fanservice but at least the main character doesn't gather a harem, as his big boobs bimbo friends are not really romantically interrested in him, except for the ninja loli and maybe someone else later on. Not much character development, except for the younger players and surprisingly for the NPCs. While players always seem to stay players, NPCs are the ones who seem to gain independent life and soul and have to get along with these "invaders". They are the ones who really develop and change, even when it is only occasionally shown in the anime. The interaction of players with NPCs changes the NPCs.

The story and plot: People are stuck in an MMORPG, but don't know why or how nor does anyone know how to get out. They are simply stuck and have to make the best of it. They group in guilds and player parties, that they are familiar with and ... don't know what to do. They defeat monsters because what else is there to do? Death isn't permanent (may cause some minor memory loss) and money and items are plenty. Some get so bored, that they spice their life up with Player killing and such and over time, when it seems that everyone is stuck for god knows how long, other tendencies appear, like starting to exploit newbies and lower level players, harrassing NPC even going so far as killing them, even when it turns out that NPCs do NOT respawn like players. (I dunno if this is true for NPCs getting killed by players, but NPCs can get permanently killed by monsters. At least untill the game resets, I believe, and since everyone is stuck, that might be never.) Some even try to create their own private "kingdoms".

Finally some people (under the lead of the main character of course) get their shit together and try to create some sort of order and law system. To facility actual civilisation and not only fighting clans and guilds, they even integrate with the NPCs and their civilisations. They decide to live their live as best as possible with rules that help out everyone, so everyone can help out untill they get a clue as to how to log out again. I'm pretty sure some players don't want to log out anymore, especially after finding out how the job-professions have a real impact on everything and their real life knowledge actually works in the fantasy world. They invent, they develop, they change.This also has a profound impact on the NPCs to the point, where NPCs can gain abilities like players - with the right skills applied (Rundel House).

However, we never learn why or how the players are stuck in the game. This probably comes, together with lots of political intrigue between the different player/server regions.

Value: medium Not the best, but definitely not the worst out there.

Enjoyment factor: depends. It is not as serious or bleak as my plot/story description seems to make it. It is for the most part actually pretty fun to watch and easy to digest. I like it and watch certain episodes again on occasion. IMO, it is not an outstanding anime, but an entertaining one, if you are into MMORPGs or RPGs in general. It is, imo, definitely better than SAO. ... Maybe I say that because I am an adult female RPG player and SOA is an affront to to me.

I have never been good at writing a proper review so I will keep this short. This type of story has really gotten popular lately, recently we had Sword Art Online, Accel World and No Game No Life (kind of applicable here though they are transported to another world, not inside a game). Out of these anime I am happy to say that each of them are unique and different. It doesn't feel like one has copied from the other, so to speak.

The characters are fantastic, every relevant character has their own personality. The best one is Shiroe. The main character is NOT a sword wielding goody two shoes, it is a brilliant scheming Enchanter who guides and supports others. I liked that it is has no fan service too.

The game world is breath taking and you feel that the scale to that world is very large and there is a lot left to explore. The ending makes you realize that there is still a lot of the world that we have not seen yet. It was great idea to portray the NPCs as the humans of that game world who have their own souls. All and all its definitely worth your time.

Note: This review covers only the first season of Log Horizon.

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Review
Log Horizon, at first glance, seems just an anime trying to ride the “stuck in a video game” trend that was bumped by Sword Art Online a few years ago. The first set of episodes are filled with your typical nerdgasm, with plenty of MMO terms, ingame menus popping around characters, references to classes, skills, mechanics, and everything else you would expect from an anime that desperately tries to please a growing audience.

It’s hard to stick around after this kind of start, but Log Horizon manages to bring topics and developments to its story that succeed in putting it above mediocrity. It does that by mainly remaining honest with itself, never ever trying to make this show a grand debate about life, romance, or the concept of friendship, but also because it explores some other interesting paths that could only be approached by a show based on video game concepts.

This tale starts as Shiroe, our protagonist, suddenly finds himself stuck in the world of Elder Tale, a long-running MMORPG that had just received a new update. Along with him, plenty of other gamers are imprisoned in this new world, which uses a replica of our world map in a half-sized scale and has the hub-city of Akihabara as the main gathering place for players and non-players characters alike. Well... what happens next?

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1. It could go anywhere
   Unlike what Sword Art Online tried a few years ago, Log Horizon doesn’t kickstart with a villain declaring a horrible experiment or with a run for life about people dying in the game and an immediate need to get out. Instead, in this world of Elder Tale, the players can revive indefinitely, they remain incredibly strong, can communicate with each other normally, and so on. The only drawbacks are the removal of the fast-travel mechanics and the fact that people have to control their characters differently, now that they actually have to move their bodies.
   
   It could go anywhere from here. It could try dramatic events, a thrilling run for life, or anything else where thousands of young-adults and teenagers are banded together with superpowers and monsters to fight. What it does, however, is wildly… different.
   
   Not exactly what it is
   It’s weird that people have no urge to get back to reality, that comments about missing their parents, siblings, and real-life friends are almost nonexistent. In fact, it can get frustrating to see how superficial every character is in this show. It seems that they are completely detached from their real-life forms, as they meet thousands of others and we have no dialogue where they speak about what they do, where they live, or how they are outside of the game.
   
   Log Horizon, instead, takes an approach that basically removes the “stuck” part of a “stuck in a MMO” subgenre. Well, you get the rare mention to the game being a “game” and one or two lines about someone’s job in real life, but that’s it. Log Horizon is, in reality, a generic medieval fantasy tale with MMO elements tucked everywhere. It just mentions about people getting stuck in a game to attract an already existing fanbase of hyped individuals, a boring trick, nothing more.
   
   The People of the Land
   However, as it starts developing itself as a generic medieval fantasy show with colorful knights and adventurers, Log Horizon manages to achieve an interesting idea: in this world of Elder Tale, the adventurers are just some weird-ass immortal alien forces. The real inhabitants of this world are the NPCs, those random people walking in towns giving quests and the like.
   
   When whatever happened… happened, the players got stuck in the game, but the NPCs became like real people, with their own politics, nobility, way of life, etc. Now these bunch of young-adults and teenagers need to interact with real people, with kings, nobles, ancient sages, and other entities that have their own agenda and objective.
   
   It does so decently
   That’s the core of Log Horizon. Instead of being about the protagonist being an overpowerful asshole beating a game, it is about how this horde of new players will interact with the new world and the people that live in it. Shiroe may be a powerful player, but he is just an ordinary player that knows the game lore really well and is up to the challenge.
   
   When Log Horizon takes this path, even the one-dimensional characters become more interesting, as you will see them interacting the world in ways other than just killing monsters. The adventurers must form alliances amongst themselves, establish some form of government to keep things from going astray, and ultimately learn about this new world and where they fit. It’s an interesting approach that can keep us engaged far more than cheesy romance and cheater players killing everything with ass-pulled new powers.
   
   It’s still Japan though...
   Sadly. The first episodes already make this clear: we have lolis, we have dumb big-breasted girls, with have instant crushes over our “unorthodox” protagonist, and we have plenty of other problems.
   
   The most problematic of them all is the group of new players that is introduced around the middle part of the show. While one would expect the story to kick in heavier by that time, instead we are thrown to this side-group of youngsters learning about the game... and gods, we waste too much time hearing about basic MMO terms, strategies, and cheesy talks about “we need to get stronger to stand on our own”. It’s a torture, especially because there are much more interesting things already happening in the story by the time these suckes take the spotlight.
   
   Add that to a romantic triangle with underage girls and there’s a very high potential of things getting out of hand.
   
   It’s a decent production too
   It’s been a while since Satelight produced something as good as this. Of course it still pales in comparison with what Macross Frontier achieved nearly a decade ago, and there is much less demanding action and movement here, but Log Horizon looks mostly sharp, with some stunning background scenery and cute close-ups to our characters, even though they look like any generic medieval fantasy guys and girls with far too much bright colors in their garments and hair. The soundtrack also manages to be quite decent, with some epic themes popping at some points, but none of them really manage to bring forth an aura of MMORPGs, or at least none that I’ve played.
   

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Comments
Log Horizon could do better. It may not be really about people being stuck in a MMO, but the show itself is stuck on boring tropes and erratic pace. Whenever it offers interesting events, it hammers us with explanations about MMO terms, whenever someone learns some secret, it bursts with new players learning how to fight and form a functional party.

It never gets thrilling, tense, or otherwise emotive, but Log Horizon still manages to get interesting. Its idea of exploring the NPCs of a game as real people and throwing players as super-power invaders can get really fun, and the story makes decent effort to put people together and explore the political aspects that are implied by the idea. It’s also very important that very little about the world is shown beforehand to us, and thus we learn about it alongside its characters, giving a much needed sense of mystery to what would be otherwise a simple generic medieval fantasy fare.

Not superb, yes, but Log Horizon may be the best modern incarnation of this genre that somehow got re-hyped by the terrible Sword Art Online.

This series is the most intriguing virtual world show since the /hack series (which, in my opinion, popularized the genre) followed by Sword Art Online which reinvigorated it. Though this new show delves into a new angle in the virtual genre: Politics, coping mechanisms (more deeply emphasized ) and economics. I get a similar vibe from watching The walking dead and Falling Skies (both shows about people trying to survive the world and finding out the cause but in virtual reality) I was at the edge of my seat and brain in anticipation on what the main character was going to plot next (an uncommon move, using a brainy character instead of the reckless action-oriented one, but it works.) In short the Story Plot and Settings are the best part of the show.

My negative side to this review is, aside from the story and setting, everything else feels out of place. The character classes are a mix bag from various virtual game themes: Middle ages (knights, Bard, Sorcerer, dwarfs), Feudal Age (Assassin and Samurai, Shinto priest), Early European (swashbuckler), and others i cant fully categorize (Monks, Druids, enchanters, Animal heads, barbarians) It feels like a mix bag with no clear theme, which would make more sense if they were in a specific area to fit their themes. This is a minor gripe though, as what gives me more gripe is that some classes are not balanced. Most classes allows one some skills for solo play, support or frontliners; but these characters seems to allow only enchanters to be support class or shinto priest to have only heal or defense spells but no offense spells shown so far.Each class is very one-sided. Also, why can't a merchant be a main class (thats classical RPG class) This, to me, would prevent more diverse character development and would make them one-dimensional. Another thing that surprises me is the character relationship, which closely borders on pedophilia (middle-school girl in love with a college guy? or a college girl that looks like a loli loves that same college guy) that's kinda uncomfortable. Lastly, for an anime that does have hot looking women, they don't provide any fan service (cleavages were a missed opportunity)

Notice: This review covers both seasons.

Many say that a show should be judged based only on its own merits and not how it compares with others of its kind. Nothing can be more far away from this concept that Log Horizon, which will forever be compared to Sword Art Online. And rightfully so, since it came out so close to it, just to cash in on its fame and get money out of the starving for more SAOtards who couldn’t wait for another sequel full of harem, deus ex machinas, and super perfect anti-social gamers.

At the same time, it is also considered to be the anti-SAO series, for focusing on completely different aspects. Yeah, the premise where people are trapped in a videogame is the same, but that doesn’t mean much. Right now Overlord is a show with that happening all over again, and yet it’s just a comedy. SAO is fantasy empowerment, and LG is more about world building. Since death is not permanent, there is nothing of grave importance, as SAO pretended to have before throwing in tentacle fan service. The conflict is as light as it gets, with the trapped players simply trying to get along. This is what makes the show to be slice of life instead of action / survival.

It’s not like there aren’t any battles in this show; it’s just that with the penalty of death removed, and no apparent way to escape, people don’t do something out of necessity, as they do it out of boredom. Stuff like looting and pseudo-killing are done just to break the monotony. As for our main heroes, they want to stop all that, because… um, they are good people. Yeah, that is what the conflict is all about. Later on they try to make it seem more intriguing by mentioning how you lose some of your memories every time you respawn, or how the NPCs actually have personality and are not drones. Despite those attempts, the whole thing remains a light comical adventure about the micromanagement of a society within an MMO.

Coming from the same guy who made Maoyuu Maou Yuusa, everything is about economy, and a satire of fantasy tropes. Some would go as far as calling it a subversion, but that would be incorrect, since the plot is way too easy-going and doesn’t do much with what it makes fun of. Even if it’s decent in the characterization of the cast and in the immersion to its setting, it doesn’t do a particularly good job with the material at hand. To the most part it feels like a slapstick comedy with harem flavor, the two things that ruin all good ideas, any light novel ever had.

Of course very few anime fans will notice that, since they will be too preoccupied with laughing at said humor and shenanigans, as well as fangasming over the MMO terminologies. Even though the battles are meaningless, if you are a gamer the familiar concepts will shut off your suspension of disbelief. You probably won’t even notice how sloppy the exposition is, such as many of the players not knowing very fundamental powers, even if they are at maximum level, and have been part of this world for years. Everything is explained when it happens for the first time in the series, which means we get the classic case of someone standing still and explaining what he just did in the middle of a heated battle, even if it’s supposed to be something the characters should already know of.

It is cheaply manipulative when the show attempts to pass as strategic by explaining skills and spells that are used for the first time. We, as the audience, never knew a character could do all that up until that moment, essentially making every strategy to be an asspull. It does make sense after they explain it to you but it is by no stretch of the word smart; the author is making up stuff as he goes along, based on the demands of the plot.

The characters are not deep or complex in any way; they are easily defined by a few quirks and a simple mentality, which is usually there just for laughs. Thus we have the assassin chick acting like a slave to a bookworm mage, who is friends with a pervert paladin (talk about acting out-of-character). They are fairly cartoony and goofy, defined by very familiar archetypes and fetishes, so you never feel like they are real people, even when they are supposed to be. Which is another proof of why the show is not a subversion. It also feels out of character when some act scared if a bad guy is looting or killing them. Such acts means absolutely nothing if you can’t really die or you just lose a few trinkets.

With all that said, the first season looks ok and has a very catchy opening song. It is a decent job coming from an average in budgets studio like Satelight. The second season on the other hand is inferior in almost everything, so it’s no surprise that very few liked it. DEEN is notorious for its terrible budgets and bad animation, so it made everything to look run down. Plus, the already simple storyline was further simplified by becoming nothing but minor missions and meaningless training sessions. None of its interesting concepts were developed in any way, leaving the viewer with nothing of interest to look forward to. Plus, the pacing became a snail, because they had to adapt far less novels with the exact same number of episodes as the first season. Plus the focus moved away, from the interesting characters, to some minor unimportant ones, some of which were annoying kids doing nothing but talking on a wagon. And as if the in-series problems weren’t enough, the second season of SAO began airing along with the second season of LG. With a worn off novelty, and the content being crap, it lost its reputation as the SAO killer.

It is fun if you want to see online communities working in an easy going way, and how social skills and strategies are more important than grinding monsters out of screen, and then having time skips every 20 minutes just for the heck of it. Log Horizon is honest about what it is. It doesn’t promise you to be a scary action survival before soon turning to a harem with tentacles, rape, and incest. It is also not exciting because there is no tension, and loses steam as it goes on. Unless you are in for the comedy and the gaming terminology, you will get bored of it very fast.

In other news, the best “trapped in a videogame” anime, is still Hack//sign for NOT being about videogames but rather about isolation and a critique on escapism through a fake persona. It might not have been funny or exciting, but it was serious and moody throughout its run.