Anime Review: Log Horizon (Seasons 1 & 2)

The anime subgenre of people caught in an MMO has been around for a while. It's something of an outgrowth of the transported to a magical world fantasy series, popularized by shows like El Hazard and Those Who Hunt Elves, and before that with more conventional western inspired anime series like Record of Lotus War, and Slayers. This particular outgrowth has been somewhat panned, with the series that comes since Sword Art Online having been generally poorly regarded, but there is at least one show, which is also based on a light novel, which expands on the concepts of the genre in some very interesting ways, and that show is Log Horizon, which I'm reviewing today, both the first and second seasons combined into one bunch, because it's one big continuous story. Sword Art Online is based in the world of the fictionist MMO Elder Tale. The most recent expansion of the game, Homesteading the New Sphere, has caused a bunch of the game's users to be sucked into the game world as their characters, forcing them to have to adjust to this new world and try to figure out how to get home. What makes this show unique is the one big change in the formula, and what author Mamare Tuno does with this change. Unlike all the other series with this concept, the idea of you die in the game, you die for real is gone. If you die in the game, the same thing happens when you die in the game every other time, you respawn at the Cathedral of the Last Ten you went to, so consequently, the social structures that build up over death is a real thing with consequences are out the window, and so now, narratively, as far as when it comes to the societal constructions, you now have to deal with a whole bunch of different consequences. You can't kill someone because they are abusing their power, or being a jerk, or stealing from other people, or that sort of thing. There is no ultimate penalty for these crimes, necessarily. Additionally, as part of this, all of the fast travel structures in the world have stopped working, so there is no quick way to travel between point A and point B, so now you have a situation of, if you want to get around the world, you have to go there on foot, as you would have to in the real world, and so now consequences for death are, or failing to reach your destination with your supplies, or that sort of thing, is you are sent back to where you are, you have lost time, you have lost effort, you have expended energy, and that energy has been lost, and you have gotten nothing out of it, but you're still alive. Further as part of this, the people of the land, the NPCs, have become sentient and act just like other humans, and so now there's an additional third plot element with this, of how these characters, of how the people of the land view the adventurers, because now they have their own political views, and their own personal opinions of how adventurers are, and how they act, and what they do. If you're familiar with Tono's other major series, Mao Yu, Mao, I apologize for my mispronunciation, Mao Yu, Mao, Yusha, then you know where the structure of the series is going. Beyond focusing on combat and big epic battles, though those are certainly here, the main focus of the series is on the social-economic-political conflicts. In an MMO-influenced world, when the mods are gone, how do you enforce some sort of social order, particularly when death no longer has any sting? How do the people of the land react to what are, in their eyes, mad immortal demigods running around the place talking about their chimichangas, whatever the heck those are? To put things in another way in context of the show, the second arc of the show is entirely focused around food. In this case, most food in the game, after this whole calamity, tastes like stale crackers. It will feed you, it has nutrients to keep you alive, but it tastes like stale crackers. And stale crackers do not taste appealing. But what happens when someone figures out how to make food that tastes like food? Now again, this isn't to say that the two seasons of the show aren't without action. There are definitely action sequences there and both seasons wrap up with a major action-focused thrust. Season 2 actually has two major action-focused arcs, one based around a really big dungeon raid and then the other one with a more general narrative focus related on the question of why the characters are where they are. Why do they get sucked into the game world? However, because death is not permanent, Tonno instead puts his focus on finding new ways to provide genetic tension outside from just the risk of death. Whether it's related to the fact that the people of the land can die and when they die, they stay dead, or by putting a time limit on a particular quest. Needing to accomplish this goal before a certain time runs out because of some world condition or because the people of the land will be at risk or something else. Or by otherwise making death cause problems for others that the character at risk is worried about instead of just directly placing the character who is at risk of death at risk of permanently dying. Also, because death lacks its sting, the question of, do we want to go home has real meaning. If your life in the real world is hellish and terrible, why go back? If you're bound to a real chair in the real world due to paralysis cause of injury or birth or what have you, but here in the world of Elder Tale, you can run and you can walk, why go back? It's a serious, important question and to the credit of the show, it is a question that the show does not shy away from. The characters don't have answers to this question, though they don't answer it, but they don't have the answers themselves. They're still trying to figure this out on their own accord. They have yet to confront answering this question directly because they have yet to find a way back. So they get to have a circumstance where they need to answer this question, but it's in the, it's in the character's minds and they don't, and the writers, the writing doesn't forget this. Now the show itself is animated fairly well. There's a shift in animation quality in season two due to a change in animation studios. It's not terrible. It's not as necessarily a shift downwards, but it is different. And if you really like the animation style in season one, it can certainly be considered a set down. But still, I didn't have a problem with it, but it was definitely a noticeable thing. It can be somewhat jarring. They do try to stick fairly well with the character designs and the world designs from season one, which helps. Season two also shifts the narrative focus of the show. The main three characters, Shiroe, the strategist, Nausugu, the tank, and Ninja Akatsuki, basically get split up for a significant portion of the show. Shiroe and Nausugu stay together, but Akatsuki is on her own. And so if you are watching the show for the interplay between those three characters, there is a significant loss of that interaction there. We get it back at the end of the season, but for a big chunk of the early part of season two, that interplay is gone, effectively. That said, though, Akatsuki gets her own character arc basically to herself. There's some other supporting characters from the show who are featured in this arc, but the focus of the arc is on her and her character development and her agency. And I think that's a big deal, and I think it definitely makes season two worth watching if you watched season one and enjoyed it, because you're now already invested in these characters in this world, so you're definitely up by this point for wanting to see more character development for these characters and growth for these characters that you would not necessarily have gotten otherwise. As far as the show itself, looking at it in total, whether or not you've played an MMO before, I recommend checking this series out as it's a wonderfully put together world with very well-written and well-portrayed characters inhabiting it with some very real serious thought put into the world-building and the setting of the show. So definitely check this out. The show is currently, as of this recording, available for streaming on Crunchyroll worldwide. It has also been licensed for region one DVD and Blu-ray release by Sentai Filmworks and is available through them and thus consequently also through their streaming site, Anime Network, and their streaming site has the dub if you're more of a dub-only person, which is fine. Not passing judgment. So there's that. So once again, thank you very much for watching. 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