10 years have passed since the Battle of Fire Dragon
Mountain. The Heroes of that fight have
become legend and peace has endured…until now.
Wagnard the Wizard, one of the last great leaders of Marmo, threatens the
resurrection of Kardiss, Goddess of Destruction. This time, however, it will take more than
just Parn, Deedlit and their allies of the past. A new generation of heroes must rise to the
occasion, one of whom is a Knight in Training, personally taught by Parn
himself. At last, a new journey begins.
As much as I want to open this review saying “This is how
Chronicles of the Heroic Knight should have started,” that comment is both
right and not so right. Sure we got a
good reset start point for a new quest but it isn’t without its drawbacks
(mainly the cast and pacing). Sad to
say, when Welcome to Lodoss Island, aka the continued parody of the series,
continues to be the main highlight of every episode, you know you’re in
trouble.
The story now shifts a decade later and away from Parn
and his terrible new haircut. We are now
in the traveling hands of Spark, who we met as a ward to King Kashue in earlier
episodes. He’s received training from
Parn himself and has some royal blood in his veins. At one point its even revealed that Kashue
believes Spark can be his successor to the throne. So naturally this means Kashue and Parn can
jerk Spark around to their hearts content: invite him to an important party, oh
that’s just an excuse to get him to spar with Parn. Punish him for failing to stop a high profile
robbery, let’s give him a makeshift DnD squad to go after said thieves. Seriously, be direct people. Spark himself dreams of being the very best
that no one ever was…wait sorry that’s Pokemon, but the same principle
applies. He wants to be the hero, get in
on the action and prove his worth. Its
not hard to equate him to Parn at the start of the OVA…he even whines just as
much but at least he can kind of fight better…I think?
The rest of the new cast isn’t anything to brag
about. Most of them are either
incompetent (Aldo) or just plain lazy (Garack and Leaf). The most interesting member of the bunch is
probably Greevus, a Dwarf who functions as a healer. He’s a much calmer take on the much more
brash and battle ready Dwarven character we saw in Ghim from the OVA. There’s also “Little” Neese, the daughter of
Slayn and Lelia, and I am just going to call her Neese cause “Little Neese”
just sounds pretentious. All of these
characters squabble back and forth over relationships and demanding to be set
up in four star accommodations after they’ve been walking for a few short
hours. And Spark is the guy who’s
supposed to pull together this cobbled together team of Mages, Mercenaries,
Thieves and Holy Priestesses. It makes
me think of a way less interesting Gundam: 08th MS Team…only Shiro
was a much more competent leader and the 08th Team was a far more
fascinating bunch.
After basically having non stop action last week, this
weeks reset tried to do another balancing act of action and exposition and I
felt like we were mostly back in the debut set of episodes: where it was 90%
exposition and 10% action. Spark and
crew did get to see some battles, particularly against a Hydra like Demon who
grew out of a soldier, YIKES. Yet those
pesky still frames reared their head again.
Yeah they look amazing but after we got to watch Kashue and Ashram have
a beautifully animated and choreographed sword duel, still frames to make up
for epic action just wont cut it anymore.
I may be more forgiving of that aspect with the OVA now because it is
miles better than the TV Series so far.
And like I said, much of the slower, talk heavy scenes when they weren’t
dedicated to Lodoss politics, focused on Leaf trying to ship Garak and new
thief team member Ryna….it’s just annoying.
Much like before, Welcome to Lodoss Island returns to
save the day from the boredom and annoyance Chronicles of the Heroic Knight can
bring to bear. Sadly, we are
transitioning hosts along with the casts.
Parn and Deedlit are replaced by Spark and Neese but the comedy is still
spot on. It’s like the parody knows the
shows faults are glaringly obvious…so they have fun with them. Spark wants to be a knight but is stuck
guarding Neese on an escort mission to deliver cookies to…somewhere, all the
while stalked by a Dark Elf with a Sweet Tooth. Seriously, why isn’t this the
20 minute episode? I suppose smaller
doses do work for a parody like this, so be thankful for what you get.
I really wanted this weeks set to be the good, proper new
beginning Chronicles of the Heroic Knight should have started with. But the overall story feels “eh” and it’s not
helped by sidelining series favorites in favor of a mostly irritating new
cast. We did end things with Spark and
company ready to run into battle against Dark Elves. Let’s hope they actually can fight or at
least act a bit more like the warriors they were hired to be…cause otherwise
Kashue really is just screwing with Spark, giving him a D-List squad in
desperate need of leveling up. See ya back here on Friday as Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight continues.
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