Record of Lodoss War TV Genre: Action Drama Kalax DG's Overall Score:  4.0

Reviewer: Kalax DG
Type of Review: General

Anime. Known by many as "that crazy violent porn cartoon stuff." Known by fans as "the medium through which any story can be told." Written and drawn in and around 1990, this anime was one of the first few on the large-scale scene (after the mecha explosion of the 80s), the creators of this anime, Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight, certainly attempted to harness this malleability for one of the less-written genres of anime. And they did just that. Attempted. Miserably.

This series, consisting of 26 poorly written and poorly animated episodes, starts off following a group of travelers who live on the Accursed Island of Lodoss; the usual deck of fantasy-adventure cards: a human knight, the beautiful and ageless elf, a mysterious berserker, and a strong female mercenary. Together, they embark on a quest (typical of the genre) to retrieve a powerful artifact capable of wreaking havoc on the world, lest it fall into the wrong hands - i.e., Ashram, general and king of the Marmo, the enemy of Kashue, the just mercenary king.

The anime rolls along nicely, simulating a proper D&D adventure until about episode eight when this anime takes a plot twist. the only one in this whole series. I won't spoil anything for you, as this is the highlight of the anime in my opinion. But, as with anime such as this, plot continuity is sometimes forgotten, and this is seen when the main character, generally thought of as the focal point of stories, shifts completely to two new characters; Spark, an young knight eager for glory, and Neese, priestess of Marfa. Spark sets out on his own quest to save the world from the growing evil of Marmo. Neese is the meek but brave victim child of the story, and both are clichéd characters. Moreover, the real problem with these two characters is that they show no emotional depth; they are unaware of each other for half of the series, and then all of a sudden meet and fall in love.

I have heard arguments in the past that ROLW is supposed to be an RPG-en-anime, but this argument does not hold up when faced with the fact that RPGs themselves generally develop much more in terms of story and character detail (think Final Fantasy). This, I won't go so far as to call it a rip-off, involves, gods and goddesses, magic and sorcery, chivalry and battle, good and evil, but neglects to explain its 'universe' for the most part. It focuses more on advancing the basic plot of good vs. evil than any sort of explanation.

The character development is, well, lacking to say the least, as I have already stated. I would say that the characters are simply molds taken from a D&D textbook, given cheesy dialogue and a mission to save Lodoss. However, there are some interesting characters to balance out the incredible lack of originality in the main characters. A character of notable mention is Ashram, Black Knight of Marmo, who tries to balance ruthlessness and honour, in his quest to gain glory for his nation. The other character I find intriguing is Karla, the mysterious sorceress who is said to be the controller and instigator of all wars on Lodoss, because of her desolate past. Aside from that, Spark, Neese, Parn, Deedlit, and all the other characters in this splendid anime should be executed on account of being as clichéd as Inuyasha (although definitely not a rip-off of the Takahashi series).

Overall, this anime seems to be a cheap design to make money off the pour souls who expect this to be a true anime-RPG hybrid. With no real thought put into the fantasy mold to make the story anything more than typical, Record of Lodoss War can easily be classified as one of the most tedious and poorly crafted animes in my library.