The D&D comedy RUNE SOLDIER LOUIE - Anime Review

And welcome back. As always, thank you very much for joining me, where today I'm reviewing Rune Soldier Louis, an anime series from quite a few years ago, set in a fantasy world, but it's a comedy. And this is a thing that has become more common recently, but was pretty rare back when Rune Soldier Louis came out. That said, it is set in a well-known established fantasy universe. It's actually the same universe as in Record of the Lotus War and in Legend of Crystania, so this is kind of a well-known, you'd think sort of a D&D or Lord of the Rings style universe, with some lore behind it, but this is essentially a comedy. It's about a three-person adventuring team in the classic fantasy tabletop game kind of a sense, all female, who are looking for a new member of the party, and the only one they can find is this guy named Louis, who is a complete idiot. And so it is about them having to deal with Louis as this member of their group. So that's the basic idea, you know, fantasy, comedy, and definitely sort of over-the-top comedy. The animation budget for a 2000s era show is pretty much right there in the middle of the sort of quality spectrum, where there's enough animation to get across what's going along, and certainly for a fantasy series you need a decent budget to show all these skeletons and zombies and various creatures, and plus, you know, the whole fantasy world. There's enough there, but it's certainly not a high-budget show. There's not a lot of action, and they actually kind of keep some of the action minimal throughout the show in terms of, you know, they're not on a dungeon-delving quest every episode by any stretch of the imagination. That said, it is very bright and colorful. One of the things I really like about the show is how vibrant the world looks. It feels like a fantasy world, and they really put some effort into making this be an attractive show to look at in that sense. The character consistency is usually pretty good. The characters are off-model occasionally as the show goes on, and there are some points where they're significantly off-model, but in general that's not a big problem, especially because the character designs are very distinctive. Each of the characters look very different from each other, so you can very quickly tell who's whom. The animation style in general is pretty over the top, not to the point where they all go into super-deformed mode every few minutes, but where this is essentially a screwball comedy in a fantasy universe. The movement is kind of traditional anime style where the characters will, you know, they can jump an awfully long way, that kind of thing, right? The focus is not here on realism of movement. That said, it's a more grounded show than a lot of, say, shounen series, so this is not about, you know, fantasy ninjas leaping from tree to tree, but it's generally, you know, it's definitely standard anime style realism of movement and art. Overall, the direction is effective, nothing too shocking or memorable, and indeed the general pacing of the show progresses pretty nicely. It's, I think, 12 or 13 episodes. I can't remember off the top of my head right now. Forgot to write that one down, but it is, which is a really good length for the story. There is a little bit more plot later on. It's not just, you know, Guy's an idiot for the entire show, but there's really not that much to develop in the show. This is about kind of goofy characters and all that, so again, not complaining, but that's definitely the kind of thing you're getting here. The characters in this are one of the reasons I actually enjoyed it and watched all the way through to the end. There are three, as I mentioned, really four main characters. Louis, who's basically a lunkhead, a lovable lunkhead, but still. And then the blonde female main character who has been fated, if you will, to have this guy in her life, and it appears that her goddess is basically, has fated these two to be together, even though she really doesn't want to be around this guy. So there's a lot of long-suffering stuff for that character, and they do a good job of having her submit to this, because that's what her goddess wants, and that's just what she has to do, without turning it kind of weirdly masochistic, right? Without turning it into, you know, I will do whatever you say, right? It doesn't go in that weird direction. And then there's this big muscle barbarian character, who is a big muscle barbarian character, and she can't stand Louis, because he's such a bad, he's so bad in combat. Then there's a rogue girl, who is sort of a thief, who is just too smart for him, frankly, but she has her own little flaws, too. So it's fun watching the thief be very much a thief, be very sneaky, and a little too smart for her own good, you know, in some cases. The barbarian be just, you know, let's get stuff done, but very practical, you know, she's not dumb, she's not a big dumb barbarian, she's just, she spends all of her time practicing and, and, you know, being strong, physically strong. So she's a kind of a good foil comedically for the other characters. One of those things is not gonna work for everybody, but it works quite well. It's one of the things that's actually nice about the dialogue, that works into the dialogue, that the characters all do have different ways of approaching problems, different ways of discussing things. They don't have particularly different styles of speaking, in the sense that one feels like she has more highfalutin language, for example, but I don't think that would be appropriate anyway for a comedy. The, so the general way people speak is pretty similar, but because they all have pretty distinctive characters, they all have very distinctive things that they're saying, and they're all pretty different as, as characters, and as characters reflecting what they're, what they're doing, which is, which is quite nice. Now, this is set in a generic D&D fantasy style world. This is one of those things that's gonna be a turnoff for some people, I think, and a real point of interest for others, where you're in a world of goblins, and skeletons, and zombies, and people who go out into ancient ruins to delve into the, delve into those, and defeat those. So it's not a particularly realistic environment in that sense, where you could come up with real reasons why all these things exist, and so forth, but that's not really the point. The point is to provide this fantasy backdrop for these, these scenarios, and what's going on. It's kind of intentionally goofy in that sense, where they don't explain why there are all these monsters in this dungeon, they, they're just are. I watched this with the English voice acting, and liked it quite a bit all the way through, no complaints there. A pretty average English dub, you know, one of those classic situations, where it's, the voice actors understood their roles and got them across quite well, no complaints. Particularly the main four voice actors, there are some voice acting work in some of the very minor occasional roles that are a little cringeworthy, but overall, you know, no real problems. So that's the basics of Rune Soldier Louis. If you're looking for a sort of D&D comedy, that's exactly what this is, that's exactly what you're going to find here, and if you're not, that thing just doesn't really work for you. I think it definitely works just as a straight-up comedy with its characters, and I think it is fun from the fantasy perspective of seeing how the fantasy works out, so give it a try if either of those things interest you. Otherwise, I think it is a, it's one of those shows that I think is worth a first episode checkout. You know, watch the first episode, see if you're gonna like it or not. Sometimes it's known as just Rune Soldier, sometimes it's Rune Soldier Louis, and you might find that it's fun and interesting for you. So I hope this is helpful, and until next time, I hope you will find more interesting anime.