Log Horizon

Log Horizon is an enormous failure of a show from both an analytical and an MMO-lover’s standpoint. It is so incredibly juvenile, yet unfitting for children due to its jokes on perversion, lolis, and whatnot. Before you stop reading, know at least that I used to love MMOs, and I really wanted to like this show. Alas, Log Horizon is simply too plain, too banal, and too full of itself for any serious anime-viewer to not have their intelligence insulted by it.

Log Horizon is about a group of adventurers trapped inside Elder Tale, a massively multiplayer online role playing game (henceforth simplified as MMO) ... world.

First and foremost, the intentions for using an MMO setting is extremely dubious. The entrapment’s impact on the characters is diminutive – they seem almost impassive to their predicament. Such unnatural behavior is visibly a deliberate attempt by the author to ignore the existence of and any connections to the real world. The choice of integrating of MMO elements with a fantasy world, rather than setting the story in a traditional one, is naught more than pandering to its audience. The lack of any sexual fanservice is completely made up for by the fact that the entire show is fanservice to people who blindly enjoy seeing gaming elements in their anime, no matter the quality. The MMO-integration is not used as a device to set up or advance the plot – it is the plot that is blatantly abused for its MMO-fanservice. As a show that lets its gimmicky premise unnaturally dictate the entire narrative rather than using the premise as a means to set up the desired story, Log Horizon was bound to failure from the very beginning.

For being a fanservice show, Log Horizon seems to not know its audience. It is not correctly aimed at MMO-players as it goes to great lengths to explain the most rudimentary mechanics as if they are great revelations. It might have been somewhat forgivable if such moments were limited in occurrence or length, but they seem to be half the point of the entire series. It would take half an episode to bestow upon its viewers the great insight that is the teamwork between two people which encompassed almost an entire five abilities. Another half episode would then be used to drop the indescribably eye-opening revelation that different members of a team could fill different roles in a team (!!!!). I cannot imagine anyone that has played a MMO for a more than a couple of hours deriving any sort of pleasure from such juvenilities. If on the other hand Log Horizon’s aim is to show people unfamiliar with MMO games the beauty of such games, however unlikely that is, it is nonetheless painting an erroneous and simplified picture of them.

The characters in Log Horizon are unbearably bland; each one of them are derived from overused stereotypes, and little effort is spared to develop them beyond their archetypes. There is the scheming bespectacled guy(with a self-insertion quality of kindness), the tiny loli girl, the perverted best friend, the seductive gentleman, the scheming glasses woman(who in a brilliant display of creativity was gifted with a love for abusing lolis) and so on, the characters show no depth or any signs of subtle development throughout the series. The loli assassin Akatsuki is the epitome of Log Horizons disastrous characterization. She is implied to be the second most important character of the show, yet after 15 episodes she has filled no apparent purpose in the storyline apart from acting out the duties of a loli, i.e. being cute, being abused by loli lovers, and looking up to others. Any other role that she fills are of such insignificance that it becomes apparent the author is just trying to justify her existence in the story.

Another major problem of Log Horizon is how lacking in self-consciousness it is. Being an exceedingly inane show, the author astoundingly seems to think that it is bursting with intelligence and wit. It goes through significant troubles to build up atmosphere and anticipation for the characters’ cunning plots, which always turn out either completely juvenile or utterly predictable. Each of these moments are accompanied by cornily dramatic voice-acting, clichéd shifts of tone in art, and overly intense background music, which all contribute to making the already bland show outright ludicrous.

Please excuse my poor writing which is more rant than review; it is difficult to contain my disappointment in Log Horizon. I was not expecting quality writing or engaging themes; I merely enjoy seeing MMO elements in anime and hoped for an enjoyable show. I could never have imagined the disaster that it turned out to be. While not completely devoid of value, the flaws simply outweigh anything the show does right. Log Horizon may be slightly better in craft than Sword Art Online, but it lacks the trainwrecking fun that SAO had to offer. There is simply no reason to watch Log Horizon.

This anime is one that I went in with mixed expectations. I had heard it was like Sword Art Online, which I found to be 'okay' , I was not a rabid hater nor a blind fanboy... but there parts of it I really liked and others I really disliked. Now when I started Log Horizon I did so with an open mind, not expecting a retread of SAO but also expecting at least some level of similitude and that might be the biggest mistake I made.
(Some very minor spoilers ahead, nothing big I promise)


STORY:
Here is the big problem with this series. It is paced ... atrociously and sets up many subplots that don't seem to add up but that is a minor qualm. The main issue is that although it takes place in a world with dangerous beasts and hostile humans, there is absolutely nothing at stake. It is established very early on that there is no risk of permanent death as characters will just respawn in another part of the world, add to this there is easy access to food and shelter. This effectively de-claws any threat that can possibly occur which I thought was an interesting direction to take the story.

However, immediately after establishing this, there are several story arcs wherein a character needs to be rescued from danger completely contradict the established lore of the world. There is no danger, there are no stakes, fights are irrelevant. Now I understand that that's the point, but you cannot take away all danger and then tell us a character is in danger. That destroys the premise of the story, especially when said character is running away in terror (You'll know what I'm talking about if you watch the series).

The best part of SAO, especially early, was the fact that everything was dangerous. There was a very oppressive atmosphere and each action had weight. Here is completely the opposite, nothing matters and because of this, I found it very difficult to become invested in the story when there is nothing to risk, nothing to gain.

Another major problem is that the characters are already high level, again this is established very, very early so I am not spoiling anything. One of the major draws to an MMORPG is seeing how a character changes and grows, removing this aspect is neutering a huge draw to the concept. They wrote a completely flat and dull premise.



Sound:
I found the sound serviceable. The performances of the seiyuus were adequate, although I found Akatsuki's voice somewhat annoying but that is purely subjective.



Character:
And here is another major problem. An anime can have a weak or even no story, as long as the characters are strong and have good interaction. In this anime the characters are very generic and bland, the main character is a Wizard equivalent to Kirito, that is to say, a character with unusually high intelligence, designed to appeal to a demographic of individuals that fancy themselves intellectuals. But the character himself is little more than wish fulfillment, which in and of itself is not a bad thing but it is done very poorly. This character is worshiped by those that surround him right from the beginning of the series and this only increases.

The comedy interactions are very forced and the dramatic scenes come off as more comedic. They simply could not find a balance for Shiroe's over 9000 intellect, Akatsuki's strange roleplaying and Nao's bumbling. These characters are unable to carry this anime.



Overall:
Earlier I mentioned I had mixed expectations, that is because I had a bad experience with SAO and hoped for something to wash the taste from my mouth. Watching this anime left me with an entirely different bad taste in my mouth. I honestly wanted to like it at the beginning, but it slowly removed everything I wanted to see in favor of everything I didn't.

If you are a fan of MMORPGs, this anime is not for you.
If you are a fan of action, this anime is not for you.
If you are a fan of high fantasy and adventure, this anime is not for you.

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.

LOG HORIZON REVIEW:

MINDSET:
*LITERALLY ABSOLUTLY NOTHING*

SYNOPSIS:
Some game called Elder Tale created a near-apocalyptic event which in that day, the players that have logged in and were sucked into the games world. The protagonist Shiro and he's friends work together as helping freelancers to all sorts of random stuff, like killing a monk, helping a loli etc. It usually centrers around Shiro, as he soon decides to replicate real-life society with Elder Tale, as everything has become corrupt. It is up to he's new guild “Log Horizon” to create a new and working society that benefits everyone.

REVIEW:
Lets start out with the good stuff. Even us more professional ... critics agree, that Log Horizons biggest strength is “World Building” You truly get a grasp of this world, how it works and how it has develop. To be honest, its quite fun for me look back on what I learnt at certain episodes, to revise thorough certain pieces of knowledge. This truly puts in favour of its pacing, like Shinsekai Yori, the pacing of the show gradually shows You an ever more and expanding world. (for the most part) the reactions and development on our barren wasteland, to a fully working society is a really fascinating look.

You see major discoveries, like how if You cooked Your self instead of using the command panel, will add actual flavour onto the food, instead of it tasting like plain Yoghurt. Or how wealthy guilds invest money to research technology, by using the knowledge they used to have the world develops quickly. You see laws being added, wars breaking lose, inventions of items that cannot be made in real-life can all add up to a very immersible fantasy realm.

Consequently, there are moments with flawed writing. My case and point? Some of the world building can be quite unrealistic and some plot pints feel forced and rather out of place, like how the origin of Elder Tale was before the age of Adam & Eve, it was the Elves who came before the humans as this super advance race. There are moments like these which subconsciously makes me face palm to how dum the writing can be in certain moments, and yes without spoiling it, the Lore of the original Elder Tale was down side for me...

Considering the fact that the show centrers around world building, it has no grey morality which gives out a few minuses since You can obviously tell who is the villain. And also, the villains are totally one dimensional turds of writing.

Another issue to stress out, (technically I can call that a flaw) is the fact that You still get the same feel and aura of the shows world building. (I know it could be hard to explain but please grasp on my explanation) You only get fascinated by the shows “World Building” this means that You do not truly feel emotion, or tension when reality hits hard, because of the charcters... Yep, I'm addressing this issue again...

We have overall great world building, so what about a cast to back it up? With a cast that can be completely summarised with one word or a one liner, this makes them feel like the same overused cookie cutter flat and uncomplex archetypes all over again. At the end of the series, they do not develop. Sure there were a very small handful that had legit development, but overall, it doesn’t reward any more redeeming factors on the entire cast. The only character that kind of shines above the rest would be Shiro, he's a very logical thinker, the most OP tactician in the series, but personality wise, he still reminiscent of the same generic protagonist vibe that I see with far too many modern Anime these days. Roriconfan describes characters like these, as Vanilla, a character who seems to have a lesser persona, and just reacts at everything.... He gets barely any development even though he gets the most screen time.

There are a few pretty above average characters, but the ratio is like 3/100 of other characters that I've already forgotten there names, but again, there really nothing special.

The only special mention of the OST, would be the OP, its great, sure it doesn’t fit the whole theme of a fantasy series but its just a piece of some really cool J-Pop with really cool beats! The ED is so average that it kind of sucks, so just skip it. (there is nothing special about it) For the rest of the OST, its Your completely generic fantasy OST with your violins, trumpets, etc. With only one memorable song. It is sufficient on its job, and fits the mood nicely. But I'm no musician, so I can't critique it in a very in-depth and critical manner!

This goes the same for the Animation, again, nothing special. It is again, sufficient on its job and doesn’t have anything note worthy. However, I really like it because it remains very consistent, threes not one moment when it felt like downgrading, or upgrading and the action scenes look pretty cool and fluid. Its overall very consistent and nice! Sure the use of colours is rather minimalistic, and character designs are fairly above average for the most part with nicely distinguishing features in each design but its good.

LEGACY:
After so many years passing, this show is going to be decently well remembered for its great (though flawed) world building, it has a few decent characters and an awesome OP to be remembered, its truest legacy would feel like a very fun and animated, quirky geography lesson that is 24 volumes long, with a bit history in the mix made in Japan!

SCORES:
4.5/10 For a nothing special plot, with very above average world building.
3.5/10 With a forgettable and large cast that were not very well directed.
6/10 As its sufficient Animation only redeeming factor is the very consistent budget. And good designs.
6.5/10 For a good OST, and bonus points for a great OP
6.5/10 As an enjoyable Geography lesson (nothing else)

FINALE: 4/10 Only for the cool geography lessons will it not suck.

This is just a quick review about log horizon. Where should i start? First of all, i could say this is one of the most boring and illogical anime i' ve seen and i dropped it at just 11 ep cause i couldn t no longer resist..Why? Don' t get fooled by that "action-adventure" like me..because it's just a SLOW SLOW slice of life fantasy full of political and diplomatic situations, oh and guess what?stereotypes characters.
The worst thing i just can't handle is the hate for the "similar" SAO wich is ten times better.No seriously.. if you're thinking this ugly copy is better there is ... something wrong with you.. I can understand for the spells, classes and the whole Rpg sistem etc but stop.. the rest are just boring useless speechs who make you slee.. Zzzz
There will be many confronts with Sao in this review since many people recommend it for its similar settings but They are Two completely different things,Sao is a love story so deal with it.
By the way, i will just write what i criticize the most and the reason why it is a very bad anime.
Let's start from the beginning.. You got stuck in a RPG game with no chance to escape and what s your first reaction? Fear? Anxiety? Nahh let s take a walk and call my old friend..(few moments later,when they met) "oh man so you're stuck in the game too.." "Yea, woo i ve always thought you were a tall man!" "Hoho that s exactly how i imagined you..look at you, with those glasses" Mm..And while you are at it, order two coffee please oh my god, this is one of the first conversations. Thus the question arises: wtf is happening? .I want you to remind the first ep of Sao.. the air was full of terror.. You just got trapped in a game and you can t log out!!! the first days in Sao many people died or committed suicide cause they cannot manage to being trapped in a game! ..Even after lot of episodes in Log horizon people still don't care and live quietly.. ehm.. The real world? your family?don t you miss them? Sao s players started to fell "adapted" after a year or so when they partially left hopes for coming back in the real world. This is like a crucio that keeps knocking in your head and make this anime too illogical for a watch.Its pacing is also terrible and sets up many useless minor plots to the whole thing.
Then, the characters, the weakest point of LH: the Mc, called the demonic four-eyed, a lv 90 magycian who uses only 1 spell for the few battles he fought (and he s lv 90 so a little more fantasy lol)..a ninja lolita who serve the mc like a master,wow what a news,a perverted big man who get kicked by the lolita every time he tries to joke, the leaders of the crescent moon, an hugger woman who hugs Everybody for no reason and the irrealistic business woman in the real world (bookkeeper i guess) that has a lv 90 Rpg player and spend all tje time trying to use the lolita like a doll..but ehi .. It s an anime so no problem,it s ok, should i continue? let s pass over, it s better..
The most important, the death sistem.You can't die in the game.. Nope seriously? You just cut off the only thing that could have added some tension to this series.This fit up perfectly in Sao and that s why i absolutely loved the first 12 eps of it.The tension was constant and you didn t know what would have happened.
One last thing, i read that after 50 eps so the end of the second season there are still no answers on WHAT and WHY they re there,which would have been the most important thing to explain, so no answers after 20 hours of watching lol.

This might not be an accurate review since I haven't seen all the episodes and I'm not planning to watch anymore episodes. Also, the only reason why I started watching this show is because of SAO haters saying "Log Horizon is better than SAO". I wanted to give it a shot and so far, I was dissapointed.


Story: 6/10
After watching 13 episodes, I was disappointed by the story... What exactly are these people doing? What's the goal? All I see is them creating a burger shop and trying to create a lawful world where players don't kill each other. I'm not going to go deeper into ... my story review since the story synopsis is there for you. Another reason why I was dissapointed with the story is because it's very slow. Very slow to the point where I just fall asleep halfway through. I think I'm regretting what I said about SAO's fast story progression.


Art/Animation 7/10
The animation is decent. It's not great and it's not bad either.


Sound 4/10
In order for the show to not be boring, you need to have a great soundtrack. Unfortunately, the show's soundtrack sucks. Especially, the opening soundtrack. It's some japanese guy singing in engrish and little but of japanese. The only good soundtrack I heard in this show is some battle themes and the ending soundtrack


Characrer 7/10
Characters are pretty well designed and developed. They're pretty funny and I love how Atsuki and the Naotsu hate each others guts. Shiro is the main protagonist of the story. Atsuki and the Naotsu is the supporting characters. Shiro is your typical hero nerds, Atsuki is your typical emo character and a college girl who for whatever reason looks like a 7 year old girl, and Naotsu is your typical "high school popular kid" kind of guy. There's more characters but I'm not going to go deeper.


Enjoyment 4/10
I didn't really enjoy the show. It's boring and there's not enough actions scenes. It has a very slow story progression and I pretty much gave up at Episode 13. I'm not going to watch anymore episodes because I'm done. I'm not sleeping or going to yawn while watching an episode again


Overall 4/10
It's got a great story but everything else except the characters are lacking and boring. I don't see how this is better than SAO because it's not. In fact, I'm re watching the whole SAO Season 1 right now and I'm having a blast watching that show again. If you prefer a lot of talking and slow story progression then this is the show for you. If you prefer actions scenes and fast story progression then this is not a show for you.



Pros
-Funny characters
-Decent story
-Decent animation


Cons:
-Crappy soundtrack
-Very slow progression
-Boring
-Good to watch if you desperately need a sleep

When Log Horizon wasn't getting on my nerves it was putting me to sleep, it was sold to me as a fantasy world anime done right, with excellent world building, and a vast cast of interesting and likeable characters. Sadly I found this couldn't be further from the truth.

The first issue is that Log Horizon makes up its rules not on what logically makes sense, but what's convenient for its narrative. First of, in this fantasy world you can make food from a drop down menu or buy some made from an NPC, however these foods have no taste, now raw ingredients have taste, ... and so do meals made in the same way you would do so in the real world, though you need the chef subclass to do so. The reason why this is the case is never explained and is merely a contrivance to set up a major sub-plot early into the show. If the logic is that the menu made food doesn't have any taste because it goes through an "unnatural" creation process, why is NPC made food also effected by this. If you need the chef subclass to make food with flavor, why does everyone have the power to make food via a menu, also on that note why there is a chef class is never explained either and have a maid subclass come up later makes even less sense.

Early on we find out that all the characters take on the appearance of their in game avatars, Log Horizon really wanted to have it's cake and eat it too in this instance. All the low level players happen to be children, who all coincidentally made child avatars, which look similar to their real life selves, and everyone elses appearance match both their personality, and gender. Knowing this it would make a whole lot more sense if you simply took on your real life appearance, however then the show wouldn't have an excuse to have some players be cat people, who all coincidentally are fine with no longer being human and even love to role play twenty four seven. One could argue for suspension of disbelief here I agree, though it didn't need to be written in such a way. It could be that you take on your real life appearance, with the exception of specific non-human traits and it would of worked just fine. Even so these other races and traits never really add anything to the show and are never really explored, so I have to wonder what the point was.

Log Horizon isn't even consistent with its rules, it's established that if you attempt to fight inside a city, incredibly powerful guardians will spawn until you cease fighting, outside of cities you can kill other players however, they will merely infinitely re-spawn back in the city. It's also established that a guild exists that forces inexperienced players (who all happen to be children for some reason) to give their experience potions that they receive daily, to the high level players within said guild, of course this brings up just how exactly they could force them to do anything, considering they could just leave to the areas were the guardians spawn. The show attempts to explain this away by saying the guild members could simply kill them when they leave the city, though this implies they have enough people to keep the entire area covered for every time one of the children tries to leave, who are also totally okay with child abuse. At one point on of these guild members physically restrains one of the children, however the guardians don't spawn because it isn't technically 'combat', but this seems to imply that you could physically unarm someone and drag them out of the city, but not have the guardians spawn on you because you have technically started combat. This as well as the food having no taste and the physical appearance of the characters, are just three of the many issues I had with Log Horizons world building, as it feels as if the rules are made up merely as it goes along.

Annoyingly, Log Horizon doesn't even feel as if it accurately portrays MMO's how ether, in most of the battles only one or two ability is used per character, and apparently there's no default attack for most of the classes.I cannot comprehend who would want to play an MMO in which you can only make one action every five teen or so seconds, it also doesn't help that we never learn the variety of class options or if there exists a form of meta game present before the game is made real.

Moving on, the characters are a horrible detriment to the show, which all feel one note and completely uninteresting. We have our main character Shiroe, who doesn't really have much of a personality other than being somewhat reserved. The show wants us to believe he is a master strategist, apparently not by actually showing him do anything impressive but by having the characters constantly riding his dick about how great a strategist he is, remember don't show, tell tell and tell some more. Speaking of riding Shrioe's dick, what better way to describe Akatsuki, a 20 year old women with the appearance of a twelve year old (which is based off her actual appearance mind you) for some reason, not that it matters because she acts like a child, loving to constantly role play as her class, and refer to Shrio as her lord, it is unbearable as it sounds. She isn't the worst however as after her you have Naotsugu, his entire character is basically that he's a pervert, he exemplifies the worst of Log Horizon's attempt at humor, it wasn't funny when Akatsuki hit him the first time for being a pervert nor the other twenty times after that. Aside from that you have a group of annoying children who take several days to grasp the basic concepts of an MMO, some people who take things far too seriously, and a princess that everyone seems to love for no real reason.

The aesthetic of Log Horizon also feels uninspired, you'd think there would be some disquisition between high level and low level characters, considering that higher level players would have stronger equipment, but apparently not, you would also think people would look rather unique considering how much time people put into character customization but this isn't the case either. It makes it hard to wonder why people would play an MMO that looks so generic, and just because a narrative is based on an MMO it doesn't mean it has to conform to such a generic looking standard.

I'll end on a positive note by saying the sound track for this show is decent, and also feels as if it would be in place inside of a video game, whilst also fitting the scene in general. The intro theme is also pretty good, aside from being a tad cringey with lines such as "We've got the antidote for the jammed and hypnotized." Unfortunately this isn't enough to salvage Log Horizon, and I certainly wont be continuing on to season two.

Dropped after 5 episodes.

The biggest issue for me is that the main cast effortlessly wins fights, there's simply zero tension when the heroes fight because it's clear that no one is actually in danger - and even if they were it doesn't actually matter that much.

The attacks are just flashing lights, no matter what is actually happening. One tanky dude screams "Anchor Howl" and it's just a flash of a green light that is supposed to draw the enemies towards him. I know it's supposed to be like in a video game but that doesn't really translate well to animation.

The general premise is ... kind of dumb. Due to how the world works everything the heroes do seems kind of pointless. There's no end goal nor any danger, it's literally "lol we're in a video game now". Hell, the main hero even says "there's no point in doing anything" in the very first episode. If there's no point - why keep on watching?

Log Horizon lacks stakes, has childish humor, minimal action or character-building, and only has 1 compelling arc that doesn't seem to denote that this should be a renowned isekai.

Story & Writing: 3/10
Characters: 4/10
Art: 2.5/5
Sound: 2.5/5

Avg: 4/10

I haven't written one of these in a while, but without spoilers I feel the need to unfortunately dump on a fairly beloved isekai. Let me start by saying that this is sometimes a very smart show. For anyone who has ever played an MMORPG, it is a very legitimate and affectionate take on the genre. They introduce several mechanics such as classes, subclasses, quests, grinding, balancing a party, etc.
...
It also has 1 arc that was really great. I won't go into it but it's around episode 9-12 or so, and involves a lot of clever politicking and is very well-written. Beyond the aforementioned moments, it feels worthless to me.

The story is almost nonexistent. There is an event that happens that is never explained, and none of the characters seem overly concerned that this is a monumental life-changing experience with no sign of changing. There is also no goal, journey, or point to the season. They essentially meander and try to take over until some kind of conflict arises. That said, the final arc is mostly slice of life and has little suspense or interest. I had to multitask to even finish it. The writing is smart at times, but the humor is very poor. Maybe children could find the slapstick funny, but it's mostly cringy.

The characters can be good sometimes. The main character is one of the better ones, in that he's an otaku but his skills come in handy in this game world. He's never a pure good guy but easily someone you can root for. As for everyone else, you have the perverted friend, the sagelike perfect friend, the adoring sidekick, generic tough guys, a guy who can somehow always read the mind of a princess, a bubbly woman who fawns over another girl, etc. They reuse the same jokes and character interactions over and over again, and nobody grows or learns in the story.

The art and sound are both fine. I skip both the OP and ED althought the ED isn't bad. Nothing special or terrible in either of these regards.

If you are a very patient MMORPG fanatic, this might be for you actually. I'm not dumping on it to be cruel but to provide a perspective for potential viewers. I definitely hope to see some newer isekai that change my mind about this genre at some point in the near future.

Honestly I dont know how this anime got above a 6. It may have been one of my least favorite isekai genre of animes. The fighting scenes and animations were sub par, the sound effects were not satisfying, the characters were kind of boring, the voices of most characters were annoying, the anime kept using cliche anime scenes like pushing up glasses with a glare and sound effect, there was nothing special about the animation, in fact I thought the animation was a little worse than other animes, and the ideology behind the character motives and thinking are childish. I feel like this anime is ... a vastly inferior SAO. This also applies to the second season.

In a world of shitty isekai's, there's gotta be one that's actually good, right? Log Horizon is... not quite that.

Log Horizon is a series that, while not that good, does have a few things going for it. Notably, the strength of the narrative and its use of MMORPG mechanics as plot devices. However, these advantages are smeared by a mess of poor presentation and stiff characters. I can see why somebody could be captivated by a show like this, but so many elements hold it back from being anything beyond but just-another-isekai.



[Rating]
Story: 8
Art: 3
Sound: 4
... Character: 3
Enjoyment: 5
Overall: 4


[Story: 8]
The story is, without a doubt, really well constructed. That is, until the final arc. But let's list what is great about the story at the start!

- Shifts in the plot don't feel random due to proper foreshadowing.
- Offers perspective on both high-level and low-level players
- Uses MMORPG elements properly as plot devices.
- Keeps audience informed about the rules of the world.
- Great understanding of political and economic response to social change.
- Has a pretty good sense of agency and pace.
- Gives opportunity for growth to many characters in a way that feels natural (though the characters are too weak to support it)

... and more. I would nearly give the plot a 10... before we get to the last chunk of episodes. Coming in, we finish a nice battle arc but don't really settle the 'final boss', which the audience definitely expects. Instead, we go into this strange romance arc which is incredibly boring because THE COUPLES SUCK and also this strange scheme-discovery arc which is also weird because all it really does is set up the next season. This really makes the last 7 or so episodes lack any real sort of interest when it makes the most sense to just finish off the action and set up these events better.



[Art: 3]
The art is not good. Generally, things look alright, but the line art and character portraits are really iffy most of the time. Character design ranges from average to poor, the only good one appears in the last episode. It also feels like the characters simply lack proper shading. Art of the various monsters is awful. Really lacking in the action department.

I'm taking a full point off for the egregious use of the glasses-adjust visual device. Happens so often. It is beyond stupid. Whoever thought this was a good idea should never be allowed to work in the industry again. Seriously, what are you doing?



[Sound: 4]
Voice acting is pretty stiff. Individual tracks and simple and do the job, but definitely repetitive. Otherwise, the sound design is fine.



[Character: 3]
Yeah I mean, these characters really don't have much going on. Shiroe and Minori have some moments going for them, but beyond that, the rest are just throwaways.

The series is particularly maligned by its inability to properly construct a romance, which it tries to do. Get Akatsuki out of the show. She literally did nothing after episode 5 in this series. She has no romance potential at all. What are you doing?



[Enjoyment: 5]
I finished it! The story keeps you engaged without the continuous use of cliffhangers, which is a testament to the strength of the narrative with all the other problems that exist in the series.



[Overall: 4]
Nothing left to say. Despite the strength of the narrative, I consider this to be a close-to-average show. That being said, those interesting in storytelling can learn a great deal from this series. But there is too much holding it back from being actually good.

tl;dr: Not for everyone, not a lot of fighting, a lot of politics/talking

I really wanted to enjoy this show. It looked right up my alley with all the other isekai I've been watching recently and the first couple episodes were pretty much what I was looking for. In fact, if it had ended after the first ten episodes I would have been satisfied.

However it doesn't. While I won't get into any details, Log Horizon falls into the same trap that Reincarnated as a Slime's second season does: talking. I'm fine with the MC being a strategist and for the story to be mostly planning but ... especially after episode 10 everything starts to move at a snail's pace. The same jokes are used time and time again and the plot barely even progresses. There is no sense of action, confrontation, or urgency.

The concepts of the show are very cool, the characters are a little generic but have fun quirks, and the animation is average. The world building is cool and the way NPCs are shown in the show is another very interesting topic. By all means, if you enjoy isekais that are a bit more talking and a little less action, then this could be your cup of tea. But it's not mine.

PROPER MINDSET
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.

SCRIPT
So yeah, here we are again with a premise where people are trapped in a videogame. Only this time, death is not permanent, since you will just respawn in the nearest temple. You know right away it is not a grave issue, like SAO pretended it was before throwing in tentacle fan service. It is light conflict where the trapped ... players just try to get along, many of which don’t do that and just loot and pseudo-kill others for fun. Here is where our main heroes come in to save the day because… erm, because they are good people. Yeah, that is the whole conflict, some guys who are bored and do nasty thingies with no real repercussions, and some other guys who try to stop them because they have nothing better to do. That’s all there is to it, really. They try to make it seem more intriguing at points by mentioning how you lose some of your memories every time you resurrect, or how the NPCs actually have personality and are not drones. Despite those attempts, it still remains a comical and light fantasy adventure all the way.

The story is based on light novels by Touno Mamare, the guy who also wrote Maoyuu Maou Yuusa. He never tries to create a serious story, and loves to make parodies out of stereotypes. Despite the light approach, he still manages to have better characterization and immersion than SAO, since over there it was just some generic super perfect dude doing everything, while being surrounded by people who can’t do anything without his divine presence. Over here, you get teams of players, each one having a certain role in battles. Nobody can solo armies and big bosses like that asshole Kirito could; over here you need teamwork and coordination to win. Thus it offers a much better feeling of what MMO battles really are like.

Of course lots of things are still quite off in terms of realism. Many of the players don’t seem to know very fundamental powers even if they are at maximum level. Yes, you heard right, the main players are at max level since episode 1 and just raise their secondary classes, which have no real impact in their happy-go-lucky adventures. Thus nobody can be stronger than them in terms of statistics and it all boils down to strategies and teamwork. And since the heroes happen to excel in those elements, they are basically flawless and you are just watching them casually showing of their mental superiority as they overcome with ease all challenges. So all the fancy terminology they use during action scenes is just there to confirm their status as the picture perfect super team. Again, not exciting, but at least it is about brains over brawns. And they sure don’t try to make it seem like equipment or items play any role, since nobody seems to wear something that gives him extra durability, or does spells that the others even heard of.

Exposition is by far the weakest aspect of an already weak story, since everything is explained exactly when it happens, a thing which makes it sloppy. For example, they explain the game terminology in the middle of the battle, as if there is no other way to let the audience understand without rubbing it to their faces. Opponents and on-lookers will be stand still while the heroes are infodumping the hell out of everything, even for things everybody should have known in-series. It looks ridiculous when you see how all the strategies they use in battles are based on skills and spells the audience never heard of up until that moment. It does make sense after they explain it to you but it is by no stretch of the word smart; it feels like the author is just making them up as he goes along based on what the plot demands.

CAST
The characters are just ok for the type of style this show goes for, but are not deep or complicating 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). Any attempts the setting does in order to present a world where anarchy rules and people do stuff out of boredom is rendered useless when you see how nobody seems to care much about whatever happens. They act scared when someone is looting or killing them but that means absolutely nothing if you can’t really die or you just lose a few trinkets. They are all still defined by very well-established archetypes and fetishes, so you never feel like they are real people. They are fairly cartoony and goofy, lack backdrop stories or long term objectives to offer some openings for character development, and take it too easy considering their situation. So they might seem cool and funny at first, but down to it are very shallow and easily forgettable.

PRODUCTION VALUES
The one aspect SAO beats it at, but then again if you are watching a show just for the visuals and music, you really don’t care about what the show is all about. Not that they are bad; they are just ok, nothing fancy, better than most of whatever a small studio like Satelight can offer. It’s enough to get a good feel of a virtual fantasy setting but you are never going to be mesmerized.

LEGACY
It will never have the sales or popularity of SAO, just because it is easy going and without awesome production values. It will still be remembered as a better version of SAO, since it did a far better job at showing how online communities work, 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. I can even say how we were all expecting it to be a SAO clone instead of being hyped to the moon, and thus when we go to see something better fleshed out with less expectations, it ended up being an overall better experience. Log Horizon does not betray you, since it remains the same as what it shows you in the first episode. It doesn’t promise you to be a scary action survival before soon turning to a harem with tentacles, rape, and incest like SAO did. That is something quite respectable. Although it still isn’t exciting, so unless you are in for the comedy and the gaming terminology you will get bored of it very soon. I still consider the best of “trapped in a videogame” anime to be Hack//sign for down to it 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.

Despite easily being one of the better isekai shows out there, Log Horizon still falls into the same self-dug hole most shows of the genre fall into; poorly-written narratives and characters.

Let's start with the show's MMO and power-system aspect. One of the many things I've grown sick of in the isekai genre is how poorly-written, bland, uncreative and incohesive many of the power systems are. Though not impressive by any stretch, this show has at least succeded in presenting a fairly well-structured power system that doesn't seem too all over the place and feels adequately fleshed-out. It was, put simply, alright - though the ... show's writing falls short in pretty much every other parameter. The main roster shared an entertaining enough chemistry, but the same old interactions got old very quickly. However boring and immemorable, there were some character development, though everyone was ultimately as one-dimensional at the end of the show as at the beginning. The main character also wasn't quite as intellectually impressive as the show wants him to be and there are certainly far more clever characters whose respective reputations exceed them far less; though this isn't a massive issue for me. I won't get into the ample plotholes and how many unaddressed imprortant characters or details were littered throughout the show for the sake of avoiding unnecessary spoilers and to save time, but there are plenty of points which attest to how poorly-written the story is overall; a few more of which I'll get into shortly.

Another one of the show's greatest weakness is its inability to properly establish a tone. I found it very difficult to ignore the stark incongruity between how grave the narrative makes out the many of the situations to be and the actual lack of stakes at hand. There simply wasn't enough at risk to warrant both the characters' or our engagement in the affairs of this world. The show also tried to juggle between serious issues of personal, politcal and even socioeconomical natures amongst many others and a laid-back narrative. Though this isn't an inherently bad idea per se and I can't say I don't appreciate a well-executed change of pace and vibe; whatever the show's genre, it is expectedly not easy to masterfully blend multiple moods and tones; let alone conflicting ones. The best comparison I can think of is if [Tensei shitara Slime Datta Ken] tried to take itself too seriously half the show and ended up tasting lukewarm.

One of the few things I liked about the show, however, is how it didn't make power-scaling and the notion of getting stronger the cynosure of its narrative. The main narrative focuses more on the world-building aspect, and the sub-story which took place in concurrence with the main plot at the second half of the show revolved around a group of underleveled young players who were going through the usual "learning more about my teammates, creating bonds with them and getting stronger with a side serving of character development" arc. It's a much appreciated breath of semi-fresh air.

In summary, I had great difficulties persevering through the first half of the season due to a grave lack of narrative direction to anchor me and keep me watching as I couldn't help but feel unengaged. That said, the story did take wind right around the start of the second half, but even that was sadly not enough to account for the overall poor writing. Still, I'd be lying if I said it wasn't an enjoyable experience.

I'm a sucker for video game/isekai anime. After finishing SAO (before the newer seasons came out), I was looking for something similar to watch. EVERYONE who I knew that had a remote interest in anime told me to watch Log Horizon, and how it was so much better than SAO.

After watching a good majority of it, I can conclusively say I don't understand why people say that this is WAY better than SAO. I'm not saying SAO was this fantastic, God-given gift to the anime world, it definitely has some glaring flaws and issues, but how people can say Log Horizon is "way" better ... is beyond me. Are No Game No Life and Re:Zero better than SAO? Yeah, I could agree with that, but not Log Horizon.

In watching this series, I have paused or dropped it around three or four times. Not because the animation is bad, not because the characters are bad, not because the sound is bad, no, not any of that, although I'll cover those later in the review. No, my biggest complaint about Log Horizon is how dreadfully boring it is. Every time I come back to watching it, I am constantly reminded of why I dropped it in the first place.

Before I elaborate, let me briefly explain this show's high points. The animation and design of the Elder Tale world and characters are very clean. Each of the backgrounds have a stunning attention to detail, and the different characters introduced have interesting designs and personalities (for the most part).

The sound is also a great strength of Log Horizon. Similar to many other fantasy-themed anime, there's a very "olde" vibe to the more Renaissance-related areas, whereas more action-packed scenes have the typical but effective music that is similar to a good majority of shounen anime. The OP is also blood-pumping. I NEVER skip it.

The characters are either hit or miss. While I previously mentioned that I loved the character designs, there were only a few that I actually ended up feeling really attached to. Shiroe is a pretty awesome protagonist. While he isn't necessarily creative in the "guy with glasses makes witty and intelligent remarks while everyone oohs and ahhs" area, his cunning and calculating nature makes for a very compelling protagonist. Nyanta is your typical badass, really nothing more to say there other than he's just a fun and wise character who is really enjoyable to watch. Krusty is pretty compelling too. And although this might be an unpopular opinion, I have enjoyed Marielle's character from the start. Her humor is extremely contagious and her bubbly persona is very endearing and charming.

If I didn't mention a character, it's because I either didn't care for them or didn't remember them. I don't mind Naotsugu's goofiness, but he just isn't memorable despite being a protagonist. Akatsuki's character is honestly just disappointing. She's supposedly a powerful high-level ninja, but you rarely ever see that considering she serves as Henrietta's dress-up loli doll for eighty percent of the plot. I don't mind Henrietta either, but her obsession with Akatsuki was unneeded and annoying. Rundellhous was pretty cool too, but similar to Naotsugu, he didn't really leave an impression on me. (Although there is a pretty great plot twist involving him that I won't spoil).
Another issue that I had is a good chunk of the characters are already high-level players, giving little room for any meaningful character development.

Onto the story, the primary reason that I wrote this review in the first place. I already mentioned it, but I've dropped this series multiple times for one reason; it's simply just a boring show. While it follows a similar plot to SAO with players being trapped in a video game, the danger isn't there. In SAO, you die in game, you die IRL. In Log Horizon, nothing happens to you aside from respawning and losing any items or money that you weren't smart enough to store (unless you're an NPC, in which case you are unfortunately "all-dead"). This effectively eliminates any real danger. This also plays into the conflict of when a character is "in danger." I can't understand how there is any real danger to begin with when the worst that can happen is you is losing your items. This lack of danger also plays into the severe lack of a conflict. Multiple times I've been told "it gets better the longer you've watched it." Eighteen episodes in, and there has been close to no central conflict that poses the characters. You could say "Well, you haven't watched all of it, so how would you know?" For all I know, there is a very good chance that the plot picks up towards the end of the series, but therein lies the problem. It shouldn't take this long for a compelling conflict to be established.

If this show was advertised as a "slice of life", I think I'd be less harsh on it. But no, Log Horizon is not a slice of life at all. No where will you find anything that suggests Log Horizon is even remotely a slice of life. "Action" and "Adventure" are two of the genres listed, despite both being, for the most part, absent for a good majority of the show's run. I usually have no problem with slices of life, since going into it, I KNOW that the plot and story are not as important as the characters. This is why I enjoyed "Miss Kobyashi's Dragon Maid" and "Sakamoto desu ga?" because going into them, I knew that neither would have a concrete plot considering they were slices of life, and I enjoyed both for their charm and how their characters interacted. This show plays out as a slice of life for a good half of the run, focusing less on the actual plot, and more about how the characters adapt to their new world, but again, that's NOT what this genre is.

Another minor gripe I have is that the language of the show is pretty bizarre. You have a character in the first few or so episodes saying "We're gonna kick your ass", to Akatsuki calling Naotsugu the very childish insult, "turd". I mean it's very clearly not a kid's show, so why the creators thought it was necessary to use such childish language was beyond me.

Again, I DON'T dislike Log Horizon, but my expectations (I guess that's partly my fault) of what the show was meant to be were not met in the slightest. I'd find myself falling asleep at certain episodes because of how devoid of an interesting conflict they were. As I previously mentioned, SAO is NOT perfect at all, but in terms of world-building and the presence of a conflict and plot, it absolutely dominates Log Horizon and drives it into the pixelated ground.

I'm sure if I watch a bit more, my opinion might change, but for now, I'm not going to waste investing my time in it.

I went into this anime with high hopes and expectations after all the hype given to it by its fans and the friends who were interested in watching the new season with me. I binged first and second season across a few days and my god. This is probably one of the worst animes of all time, and by far one of the worst pieces of story telling across all mediums of media.

First, the characters. Shiroe is a boring plank with no personality and weak motivations. The rest of his "character" is projected onto him by those around him constantly worshiping him and his supposed ... galaxy sized brain. But Shiroe himself with one or two exceptions, has no proven superior intellect but rather a base level of common sense especially with regards to any "strategy" in games. His big moment in early episodes he "waited until the cc spell was almost expired to cast it again for chain cc and burst" which is arguably the most common sense utilization of said spell possible if the cooldown is that low. Won't even talk about how this spell being used in this way should technically break the game in any kind of fight where there is only one target. Most of his solutions are silly and smell of a "smart character" being written by a very dumb person. He makes the game server pay for all his buildings upkeep, rigs a vote by just invited an entire other city to come vote, he brings someone back to life by making them sign a document to become an adventurer. Its just weird all too convenient solutions that don't sell the audience on him actually being intelligent.

But rest assured, the rest of the cast will convince you he is actually super smart by constantly reminding you of it. Other characters are even more poorly written than Shiroe. Shrioe has two close friends, one of whom's only character quality is talking about panties and holding a shield. The other's qualities are kicking the guy for talking about panties, **** worshiping Shiroe in a RP-style kind of way(calls him lord etc and is clearly infatuated with him), and she gets almost no development whatsoever in Season 1 despite being the clear love interest with our protagonist.
The list goes on but every character is essentially *insert anime quirk/meme here and have them spam it* and that is all there is to them at all. The only character who actually seems to have real passion or motivation is the muscle man Shiroe beats in PVP in episode 3(?) who goes on to really hate Shiroe for beating him in a fight and just wants to beat the crap out of him. Everyone else pretty much operates with no goal or purpose with maybe exceptions given to the numerous women who want Shiroe's big brain PP for no discernible reason given he is a blank slate *insert yourself here* protagonist for young escapist men with poor social skills who also have power fantasies/short man syndrome.

Speaking of characters, what about villains/antagonists? Well disappointingly enough, there seems to be no apparent villain in Log Horizon. I have heard arguments about the world itself being the antagonist but the memory loss seems almost irrelevant after 2 and a half seasons, the weapons/flavortext being important or dangerous was immediately fixed, goblin invasion was boring and pointless, no one seems to care about actually leaving the game world. There is no actual threat present that isn't solved within a few episodes or just forgotten about(and thereby being unqualified to be of importance/seriousness). Seems like any characters being presented as antagonists are outplayed instantly or in the case of two certain female characters, seem to be thinking more about Shiroe and less about actually completing their own goals. And to be an antagonist, your goals must be either in the way of the protagonist, or the protagonist's goals must be in the way of yours. For an anime with as much exposition and weakly attempted world building as this one(during which it always takes a very serious tone) you'd expect there to be a clear antagonistic force or character by the time Season 3 comes around. I'll save you the disappointment and let you know there isn't one.

World building. The world is cool but the author does very little with it and refuses to explore interesting ideas he puts forward, likely because they are beyond the scope of his own abilities to explore. Which is fine, but there is a lot of truth to writing what you know, and I am not sure the author knows how to write a smart character, or actual layered intrigue. So the world falls flat because we see so little of it and so little of it seems to actually matter anyways. This is a slice of life style anime with exposition and dramatic dialogue layered throughout it and a constant suggestion of impending problems that never actually come out to shake the world up.

The story is directionless, as is the world building and the anime suffers heavily for this. It tries to be a quirky slice of life but then why have all the exposition/world building/attempts at intrigue etc? So much time is wasted on, for lack of better terminology, anime memes. These are spammed relentlessly at the viewer in the most repetitive sense possible and none of them are that funny to begin with, and those that were get old very fast.

Log Horizon is an impressive feat in that it somehow convinced a generation that grew up with the likes of Game of Thrones(the first few seasons specifically) that it is a "smart" anime with lots of depth and good characters/world building. In truth it has none of that and is an attempted smart anime written by a presumably dumb person for even dumber people. It fails in every technical aspect of good writing but tries too hard to actually be good so it doesn't even cross the threshold of "being so bad that its good" which I would welcome at this point from this 60 episode slog of a series where almost nothing ever happens and when it does it literally does not matter.

To end with an especially egregious example of the story telling at work here:

A character gets SUCKED INTO A WEAPON in such a way another character loses her forearm trying to help him, and then NO ONE talks about him for THREE MONTHS in the anime's timeline, which was many MANY episodes for the viewers. And that is the ONLY time he is brought up again until the end of the season after which it is relayed to the main cast that he is A-Ok which I guess they must have already known beforehand because no one seemed to care or get worried about what happened despite him being one of the main GMs for running their player city/their war general. They just shrug it off until the audience is told he is fine. Did the characters all read the script ahead of time?

No one cares, so why should we?

And that's basically all there is to the show. Don't waste your time on it. People who enjoy this anime likely have nostalgia glasses on and watched it before they had a palette developed for what makes a show/story good. And if they watched it recently and unironically think the story/characters/world are well written, then I would filter out future anime suggestions from that person. It is a miserable slog not worth of anyone's time and by and far the WORST anime, or any piece of media in general, that I have ever had the displeasure of consuming.

It's a slow, soulless MMORPG guide disguised as an anime. The characters aren't terrible, they're just stale and incredibly uninteresting. The story doesn't actually exist. The writing quality is variable, with some parts actually being key to the workings of the (rather complex) world, and others being absolutely mind-numbing rambles about literally nothing of signifigance (i.e. s1e2 when Shiroe was trying to gauge the "coolness level" of something and then wondered whether there even is a "coolness level". It's just not believable that a person in Shiroe's position would even have those thoughts.) The art and animation are both good, and the sound quality and ... execution is very good, all of the sounds fit well for every scenario.

Pros:
-Characters aren't unaware of obvious facts in regards to the situations they're in (*cough* Guilty Crown *endcough*).
-The mechanical aspects are strongest of any Isekai.
-The art, animation and SFX/music are all good.
Cons:
-Characters are painfully limited in their individual personalities.
-Some characters don't even express any grievance with being forced into this false world without any escape (bye bye behavioral authenticity).
-The pacing is so slow that you could leave to use the restroom and return with a high probability of not missing anything essential to the "story" or characters, which brings me to my next con.
-The story doesn't exist. In a small, vague way, it does exist. But there really is no primary direction or conflict. It's more like watching a bizarre social experiment in the style of anime than an actual normal anime.
-You can tell that the combat in this show wasn't meant to be exciting, but rather, to make as many possible parallels to real MMO games via familiar terminologies and visuals. Recognizing those familiar elements in this anime is cool at first, but unless you're an MMO addict that is also halfway through MMO withdrawal, that angle quickly wears out.
-The moments of awe in this anime exist solely for the characters, not the viewers. Again, things like combat are devoid of excitement for the viewer.
-After a while you begin to realize that you may as well just be playing an MMO yourself since you're essentially watching a group do just that almost to a T.
-The leader is a support class who somehow enjoys the support role (which is a knock at believability).
-The above con is satirical. I enjoy the support role in many types of games.

The only good part of this show is the that the NPCs are basically real people and have meaningful strife with the real players. Unfortunately, that's only about 30% of the story, and far less of the overall screen time.

The characters are somewhat enjoyable, though none are particularly strange enough to claim any significant feelings from a viewer over any set of characters from any other show.

The real issue is how much of this scenario is supposed to be an MMO and how absolutely fucking terribly the show portrays it. They literally live in ... an MMO, which has supposedly been around for 20 years(though is still the most poorly made game to ever exist), yet less than 1% of players have hit max level, and nobody in the entire game, including the veterans, acts like they've ever played anything. Every single character has severe brain damage, nobody ever uses more than 2 abilities in their repertoire of 10 minimum, and several times, abilities that previously were shown to do something, now do something else.

I feel I need to give some examples, so that anybody who has a shred of common sense or cares at all about video games will steer clear of this show. In an early episode, the main character uses an ability that does 1k true damage per ally hit, 5 times(max level character of the tankiest class has only 14k hp max), and then after that deals 50% of the opponents max hp. Clearly this has to be the most overpowered ability ever created, and maybe the author realized this too, because next episode the 50% hp shred was straight up removed. Did i mention that the main character only has buffing abilities, has only played solo, and was one of the first people to hit max level?

In that same scene, a low level healer needlessly puts out healing of about 5hp/sec, which the main character for some reason has her "hold until the right moment." Then she levels up a few times, from about 19 to 24, and suddenly in a later battle she randomly puts out healing of over 1k/sec, which hilariously outheals any form of damage the entire gangrape on enemies had been doing.

Tanking things in this game works on a damage based aggro scale, so high dps people or tanks with "fake high damage" abilities tank enemies. Later on in a dangerous battle, the bard, who has been shown to have 0 damaging abilities, is in a 1v2 against the same enemies as the tank right next to her is 1v1ing. This takes place after a heartwarming several episodes where their troop learns common sense, and clearly proved that they at the very least knew how tanking works. This leads to a rough battle, where the "smartest strategist" in their group realizes their tank is about to die, here's how that scene plays out.

"I need to use [shield ability] on [tank] or he'll die, but its on a 10 second cooldown still!" It then shows her HUD, where we can see that ALL of her other abilities are up, several of which we have seen be fairly useful. "But wait, that [shield ability] doesn't even work against these enemies!" Why in the world was she using it then, nevertheless ONLY using it.

Also this tragedy of a battle starts with all the max levels characters sitting it out, because they have to "regen their mana", even though we've seen that mana fully regens in 1 hour, they haven't done anything involving mana in at least a day, and they have a plethora of mana potions.

The relative OK-ness of this show's characters and story barely make an attempt to outweigh the pain that is the scenario.

Kinda sad for the mc as he got all the flat girls.
Felt like The anime was more of a political discussion and romance series rather than a actual rpg isekai.ep1-7 was pure gold and after that it digs into politics and other shit but gets worse through the whole series (season 2 and 3 was shit )

the mc is so popular because he is jenius in anime but he stops using his brain from the mId season.i mean there is only 3 thimes hardly where the mc get in a fight although people suggest it as an anime" with op mc "

I mean comeon give ... us some good actions where our mc use some op brain power but nah it turned into who loves who shit AND Making foods story.
And also I didn't like the character designs(maybe i am little frustrated beacuse the side girls had more attractive design than our little ninja girl(hope she wasnt loli looking).there was too much pep talk through the whole series about unnatural politics made by NPC. The ninja girl is preety op.Felt sad how every couple got together except the mc.(season 3)

The Pace is not slow but kinda feels like there's unnecessary events going on. Animation doesn't matter when there is 80 % of talk through the whole series.