Monday, April 13, 2020

Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight Part 2 Episodes 5-8


The Scepter of Domination.  It is said that whoever possesses this holy weapon will control the fate of all of Lodoss.  It is this relic that Ashram seeks to restore the glory of Marmo and he is willing to challenge two Dragons to attain it.  Parn, the Free Knight, enlists the aid of the Mercenary King Kashue to stop Ashram and his forces before all Hell breaks loose.  On the slopes of Fire Dragon Mountain, Knights, Wizards, Berserkers, Kings and Dragons square off in battle with the future of Lodoss at stake

If there’s one thing I cant fault this weeks second chapter of Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight, it’s that it wasn’t lacking in action.  After a fairly boring beginning, week two ended up being one big action sequence from beginning to end with a few scant moments of character development throughout.  It wasn’t a total improvement but it was something.

I never expected so much story time to be dedicated to Orson the Berserker.  He played such a miniscule role in the latter half of the OVA and I wondered if he and Shiris even had a point being there to begin with.  Well, whether it was necessary or not, Orson did get a fulfilling character arc, even if the woman he loved had to be a gigantic pain in the ass of a character to ensure it ended the way it did.  Seeing Orson happy and rid of the spirit that turned him into the Hulk felt rewarding and it was good to see Orson change from quiet giant to blundering nice guy, one who didn’t really want to fight but still wanted to protect Shiris.  I’m not going to say that the final outcome of the faceoff between Team Parn and Team Ashram would have gone differently if Orson hadn’t Hukled out one more time…but it was pretty damn epic to watch Orson mow down half of Team Ashram single handidly.  As for Shiris, ugh, I hope we’re done with her.  She was annoying in the OVA and Orson’s death is 100% on her (she did admit that though).  Still, she was being a bit of a bitch trying not to accept Orson’s feelings and latch herself onto Parn.  TV Series or OVA, Shiris will always be one of Lodoss War’s eternally weakest characters.

Orson really is the only one who got any sort of proper closure in this story arc.  Ashram, one could argue, got an ending too but if that’s the case, I feel that his sudden breakdown over not being able to fulfil King Belge’s last wishes came out of nowhere.  It’s the problem with starting Chronicles of the Heroic Knight the way it was without going into a proper recap of the OVA leading to the War of Heroes.  We never got to see Ashram interact with Belge and get to know just how the Black Knight saw his King beyond just being a guy to serve.  Granted, I somehow have a feeling that Ashram found a way to survive his swan dive into a pit of lava…so maybe there’s time to spotlight him some more to give him a properly earned conclusion.

Right, the action, cant ignore the one thing I hardly got in last weeks set of episodes.  There are many who call Lodoss War the Dungeons and Dragons or Lord of the Rings of Anime.  Looking at how the action played out, it’s not hard to see why.  Teams of warriors were getting boosts of strength and power from Mages, Elves were summoning Elemental Spirits and Creatures to do battle, Thieves were running around causing distractions.  It really was like watching the end results of a Dungeon Masters descriptions followed by continuous rolls of Battle Dice on a wooden table (your basic Dungeons and Dragons scenario).  When the action got into Fire Dragon Mountain, we got the Lord of the Rings side of the inspiration.  Amongst flames and lava, Parn, Kashue and Ashram teamed up to take down Shooting Star, the Red Dragon, before Ashram and Kashue had their own epic duel right afterwards.  Ashram actually got to slay two Dragons this week, the first being the Sea Dragon Abram.  Might as well call him the Black Knight Dragon Slayer.  Even though everything going on didn’t feel as epic as what we saw in the OVA, it was still fast paced and well done action, just what I expect from this series.

Actually, I never broached this last week but one thing that can hamper ones enjoyment of Chronicles of the Heroic Knight (besides the starting point of the story) is the fact that this is a TV Series and not an OVA…so Chronicles kind of looks less visually impressive.  Sure the intro and anything involving a Dragon is going to look just fine.  But the artwork is nowhere near as pretty and even one of the OVAs most glaring flaws, the use of still frames to carry a fight scene, rears its ugly head again.  There was also one other thing that bothered me…the sound effects.  There were moments in Orson’s duel with Ashram where it sounded less like swords clashing against one another and more like…I don’t know taking kitchen knives together.  At first I thought it was an English Audio problem…nope it’s on the Japanese track too.  Kind of takes you out of the fight when the audio is being whimpy while it’s happening.

While Week 2’s episodes were far better than Week 1, the most shining element of Chronicles continues to be Welcome to Lodoss Island.  From Parn and Deedlt being DJ’s and trading costumes to Kashue’s flirtatious overconfidence to Slayn just being plain creepy, these shorts are great palate cleansers after some serious action…though maybe they could have skipped one after Orson’s death scene.  Oh and Chibi Deedlit got to make a new friend with Shooting Star, the baby Dragon Parn and Kashue could not defeat.  Man I hope these shorts don’t stop after this set of episodes.

It’s interesting that the preview for the next episodes reveals a time skip.  Does this mean Parn’s story is over…not that he’s had a lot of screentime, heck I think Orson’s story was more front and center than anything Parn related.  If so, who is going to be the new star of the series and what’s the next adventure going to be?  Guess we’ll find out next week when we jump forward a decade in Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight.  Be seein ya.

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