Log Horizon

In the blink of an eye, thirty thousand bewildered Japanese gamers are whisked from their everyday lives into the world of the popular MMORPG, Elder Tale, after the game's latest update—unable to log out. Among them is the socially awkward college student Shiroe, whose confusion and shock lasts only a moment as, a veteran of the game, he immediately sets out to explore the limits of his new reality.

Shiroe must learn to live in this new world, leading others and negotiating with the NPC "natives" in order to bring stability to the virtual city of Akihabara. He is joined by his unfortunate friend Naotsugu, having logged in for the first time in years only to find himself trapped, and Akatsuki, a petite but fierce assassin who labels Shiroe as her master. A tale of fantasy, adventure, and politics, Log Horizon explores the elements of gaming through the eyes of a master strategist who attempts to make the best of a puzzling situation.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

Shiroe Main

Terashima, Takuma Japanese

Akatsuki Main

Katou, Emiri Japanese

Naotsugu Main

Maeno, Tomoaki Japanese

Nyanta Supporting

Nakata, Jouji Japanese

Krusty Supporting

Sakurai, Takahiro Japanese

Kode, Rundellhous Supporting

Kakihara, Tetsuya Japanese

Corwen, Rayneshia El-Arte Supporting

Ise, Mariya Japanese

Kanami Supporting

Inoue, Marina Japanese

Serara Supporting

Kuno, Misaki Japanese

Seta, Soujirou Supporting

Shimono, Hiro Japanese

Miyamoto, Hideaki Producer

Naeshiro, Kenichirou Producer

Ishihira, Shinji Director, Storyboard

Hata, Shouji Sound Director

Reviews

Mar 24, 2014

yahzee

Recommended

What started off as what seemed to be a bland-version of Sword Art Online turned out to be one of the hidden gems of anime shows. Log Horizon starts off slow with the usual setup of a "no-faults" main character, but with a slight difference. That difference is how the main character, Shiroe, strategically approaches each situation that makes Log Horizon an exciting show to watch. Shiroe isn’t the typical shounen main character that powers up throughout the story and then overpowers his enemies. Rather, he’s the guy in the background, the “villain in glasses” who controls the flow and direction of battle. Overall, Log ... Horizon is a genuinely fun show without all the pitfalls that we've come to expect from a shounen-type series.

The story begins by introducing a set of typical MMORPG rules/restrictions that many viewers are familiar with. But what's not so familiar are the way these rules are manipulated, opening paths to feats that were previously impossible. When one thinks of rules and boundaries, one would assume that it would limit whatever it governs. Ironically, these strict rules expand Log Horizon's story from a generic show to a well thought-out strategic adventure. It's an extremely appealing story given the relatability to many of its viewers. Having played games like World of Warcraft, I and many other viewers understand how the core mechanics of questing, leveling, raiding and more work. That’s why when other possibilities that greatly affect these game mechanics are discovered, Log Horizon truly becomes special. It also feels completely plausible. It is NOT a “power of friendship defeating the boss that was previously kicking your ass.” It’s fundamentally sound and really becomes an intriguing show.

Although some may disagree, I really thought that one of the show’s biggest strength is how the characters all have defined, unique roles. Where Shiroe is the leader in the shadows, Crusty is the leader in the spotlight. Where Akatsuki is loyal, quiet and small, Naotsugu is the loud, pervy and funny big guy. And you also have... Rundelhaus, who's in a category of his own when it comes to goofiness. These kinds of distinctions allow Log Horizon to have all kinds of interactions between characters and the possibilities become endless. To me, the characters are one of the biggest strengths of the show.

The story is what makes Log Horizon quite different from a typical shounen show. It has heavy political/economical themes that tie well into one of the show’s biggest points: building a world. In fact, there are a few episodes where the dialogue gets quite heavy and may not be everyone’s cup of tea. With that being said, I genuinely enjoyed the dialogue and found the story to be engaging. Log Horizon also executes its' story quite well. I found the pacing and structure of the arcs to be satisfactory and enjoyable.

Art is decent, it's not UFOtable amazing, but not terrible either. It's consistently pretty decent and not "inconsistent" like some other shows. Nothing else to be said here.

Sound is decent as well, the opening and ending songs are quite good but take time to get used to. The background music, while not bad, is overused. You'll know what I mean when you get halfway through the season.

With all that being said, Log Horizon is not a perfect show. For example, why does no one care about what's happening to their bodies in the real world? You'll find yourself asking this question as you watch the show. It's almost as if the topic of what's going on in the real world is completely forgotten. Also, some people may find that the interactions between the characters become quite repetitive, especially with Henrietta, who has a loli fetish for Akatsuki. Her interactions with Akatsuki are always of the same manner and it gets boring very quickly. It seems that Akatsuki's character is reduced to mere loli humor later in the show.

On a side note, I really feel that it's important to point out that Log Horizon is not a combat-heavy show. That in itself already distinguishes itself from other shounen shows. But what's really important is how the show focuses on actual strategy and manipulating the rules within the game world that the characters live in. If Log Horizon's story didn't have these elements, I really believe that Log Horizon would not be an exciting show to watch, it would just be another okay show.

Log Horizon is not your typical show. It has firm grounded roots of realism in a world of fantasy that is genuinely exciting to watch. From diverse characters, to bending the rules in a world most of us are accustomed to, Log Horizon is a good show and is worth your time. With that being said, it is by no means a perfect show. It's a rather simple show in terms of concepts, as well as having plot holes in the overall story. But Log Horizon more than makes up for it in terms of its pure enjoyability (isn't that why we watch anime in the first place?) and execution of its story.

Reviewer’s Rating: 9

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Mar 26, 2014

GonzyChan

Mixed Feelings

A demographic of people love to dabble in the virtual world of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMO) to achieve escapism from stress and other struggles that plague their nature. Recently, there has been somewhat of a resurgence of interest for anime fans to watch shows that detail the life of gamers who play these sorts of games, with Sword Art Online being at the forefront of it. These shows detail whether the virtual world could become more real to us than what we initially thought of as real from when we were born should be the central theme for these shows to explore and bring ... a fresh new take on it. It’s just too bad that none of these shows in question ever bothered to in the first place and become generic as a result.

A year later, we have Log Horizon, an MMO-inspired anime with the same scenario as Sword Art Online above, with only a few minor iterations here and there. Before I begin, this won’t be a piece where I start to compare or contrast Sword Art Online and Log Horizon, as many people, unfortunately, seem to be inclined to do so. Whether I think Sword Art Online was good or bad should not be a factor in how I feel about Log Horizon. Judging a show by its own merits without any outside influence of another show should be the number one key in critiquing any work. With that said, does Log Horizon hold out on its own?

One thing to realize about the plot is the tone of the setting and how it feels very lighthearted despite the dire situation that all of the characters are in. As far as the characters know, they have no way of getting out of the game. Many have criticized this aspect as being somewhat unrealistic in how real people would react to something of this magnitude. It might be an understandable critique to offer at first. However, as the show goes on, it feels fitting based on how the characters think about how they live and survive in the virtual environment. For however long they’ve been trapped in the game for years, at least based on their confusing logic, that virtual world becomes their world, and they get used to it by then. It also helps the show’s credit that they don’t ever show us the real world at all and keep it a mystery as to how things will make the situation from the characters’ perspective feel more apparent to the audience.

While this might be one of the more significant points of the show, the story itself, in how it is paced and told, isn’t nail-bitingly intuitive or well thought out. The premise isn’t that complicated, to begin with, as we’ve been shown before, but Log Horizon seems to think that if they throw in multiple subplots into the mix to make it sound complex, it’ll succeed. Unfortunately, those sub-plots I’d mentioned don’t amount to anything special in the long run and aren’t even that memorable because of it. Not only that, but that lack of memorability stems from the fact that all of these political and social constructs that Log Horizon’s world possesses aren’t written clear enough, other than the fact that they’re there to establish some basis for our protagonists to go somewhere. These aspects come into perspective with how many characters there are to follow in Log Horizon, but I’ll get to that later. The problems with world-building might be more apparent after knowing that the original creator, Mamare Touno, was responsible for creating Maoyuu Maou Yuusha, which also had the same problems in its adaptation. These sorts of issues are prevalent in adaptations on this type of scale, but that can’t be an excuse.

Though the massive cast of characters might seem like a huge negative, the way I put it, that shouldn’t mean that all of them are mediocre. The main cast of prominent characters throughout the show is exceptionally likable and hilarious to watch due to their numerous escapades with each other. It helps tremendously how they all have unique characteristics that improve the nature of every one of them, rather than making them all generic and uninteresting. The same thing can’t be said for the side characters. With our main cast being Shiroe, Nyanta-nyan, Akatsuki, and Naotsugu, there’s this decent sense of chemistry between these four characters that are ultimately lacking for our side/supporting cast. Their archetypes mainly consist of a trait that tries to make them distinct, such as Henrietta having an obsession with cute things like Akatsuki, and Serara, who has a habit of wanting to clean things to calm down. At first, it’s humorous, but after a while, it becomes redundant, and it doesn’t make them any more meaningful.

In an action anime centered around the MMO systems, it would make sense to make the anime feel like you’re really in an MMO game from the gritty details of cool-downs, being a tank, healing your party members equally, and conjuring status effects at the right time. I, myself, am one of these people who enjoy these types of games, and, to me, Log Horizon is probably the only one that gets it right. Usually, something like this would steer off into brainless shounen show cliches, and there are a few here and there. Amazingly, Log Horizon gets the idea of taking its time for the characters to strategize their movements and actions rather than just blindly fighting off monsters without any thought in the world. That might make it seem too slow or methodical to enjoy watching, but in reality, they do an excellent job of pacing these fight scenes and keeping the action flowing seamlessly to give us a clear picture of what’s going on.

The art style can be construed as good, just not excellent in quality. The character designs themselves are plain and ordinary enough for me to consider them a triumphant success in artistic merit. Still, we expect that, and for what it’s worth, it handles it decently to where they don’t seem to cut any visible corners in the later episodes. As I’ve mentioned about the action being fast and flawlessly executed, the animation is a big part of why those are the case. The fluid character movements feel nice and kinetic to the cast spells and look pretty good as a result.

Voice talents range from relatively unknown voice actors to the familiar ones we’ve grown fans of, giving their artistic liberties to full effect with Log Horizon. Emiri Kato as Akatsuki is devilishly cute, and her being a fellow MMO fan sort of gives her performance an exciting spin. Even though Henrietta wasn’t that special as a character, Ayahi Takabaki manages to pull off the mature woman voice well and gives her voice some new territory for her to explore for her vocal talents rather than a more boyish female character. Takuma Terashima proves himself worthy of being the main protagonist of a show, and I hope to see him do more shortly. Not to mention, I could listen to Jouji Nakata say anything with the word “nyaa” at the end of his sentences and never get tired of it.

For some of us fans of the MMO genre, Log Horizon should be the one show to be doing it right, and while it handles the actual MMO aspects brilliantly, the real narrative and storytelling sets itself down from being great. I appreciate the amount of depth it tries to convey that wants us to feel attached to the world, yet I can’t help but wonder if that could’ve been done to better effect had it made the narrative more tightly constructive and less cluttered. The saying, “Too many cooks spoil the broth,” sums up Log Horizon perfectly. Only when the eventual sequel comes out will we know if the journey will be worthwhile enough to experience its next climax.

Grade: B-

Reviewer’s Rating: 6

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Apr 23, 2014

sours

Not Recommended

Where do I even start with this anime... First of all i am not the most well versed in anime but i do have a long history of playing MMORPG games like the game "Elder Tale" depicted in this anime and most of my issues with this are directed at the game deign because the anime is really just bland and not very good.

THE UI:
Imagine somebody watched a futureistic movie or something of the sort where holographic menus pop up that you control with your fingers. Now imagine one where everything is the same bland green color and pops up randomly and moves all ... over the screen like mad. Honestly an eyesore almost everytime it is animated and rather saddened me as a viewer.

THE CLASS/SKILL SYSTEM:
In the show very few classes are shown to the viewer and even though most of the characters for each class are shown at the Max in game level (90) only like 2 or 3 skills are used by any of them at any given point. However at one point there is another painful to look at menu for some body they are fighting skills and he has many more and refuses to do anything with them instead he just uses the same 3 cool downs. Our MC has a CC spell that does 5x1k damage and binds a target and the main tank for him only has 13k hp meaning there is absolutely no balance in this game and all skills just should be ignored for the most part.

THE GUILD/FACTION/PVP:
What are the factions in this game you might be wondering? FFA always 24/7 even in towns even on your own party members. None of it makes any sense and should honestly just be ignored because it will hurt you too much as anybody who has played any MMORPG or like game before. Not to mention that healers can heal people while they are dueling and all duels are literally to the death.

THE PARTYS:
I really don't even want to talk about the party system in the show/LN/game because it makes me so mad. A party in an actual MMORPG style game has these components
TANK | DEEPS (x2/x3) | HEALZ
This game has
OPERATOR | FIELD MONITOR | PATROL FILE
I honestly cant even begin to start to describe my frustration watching the party play in this game/show whatever you want to call it. If any single person in this show was in a party of mine in any game instant kick, instant guild removal, muted, banned from vent. Honestly this is really more like LARP the show then a depiction of what an actual game is like and that made me feel physically ill.

THE STORY:
sucks, read more about what other people had to say I really did not care for it and at no point did it surprise me or have me empathizing with any of the characters.

MY CONCLUSION:
If you have ever played a MMORPG do not watch this show you will hate yourself for it. If you have ever LARP'd watch this show you will love it. Approach with caution. Do not expect intelligence.

Reviewer’s Rating: 3

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