Monday, April 20, 2020

Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight Part 3 Episodes 9-12


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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