Finally reached the end and I am glad I finally made
it. No, I don’t mean that in a good
way. This show has been a trial to get
through and every decent idea, scene or fight that has popped up is easily
overshadowed by annoying characters and dump truck loads of lore and exposition
that drag on and on and on. Hell, at
least Fate/Stay Night, at it’s worst, is always pretty to look at. Yeesh, I feel like I started right on my final
thoughts already. Let’s go over what
went down in the final three episodes of Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of
the Heroic Knight, and get this over with.
Truly, the only memorable part of the finale was Parn and
Ashram’s final duel. On the one hand,
couldn’t Ashram have just brought a peace envoy and some civilians to Lodoss
and maybe tried to broker some peace plan with the Kingdoms if all he wanted
was to move his people out of dangerous territory? But on the other, I do like Ashram’s renewed
focus on protecting his people and doing everything in his power to keep them safe. He’s even willing to duke it out with Parn
one more time to settle old accounts. It
wasn’t even about beating him, it was just Ashram’s way of saying goodbye to
his rival. If anything, Ashram’s the
lucky one who got to bow out rather than watch Parn and Deedlit stand around
and let the B-Team save the world…barely.
The true final battle bore appropriate scope: dark, red
skies; evil spirits swooping in to claim any soul in their path; and a tiny
girl with blood red hair leading the entire charge. Sounds like the best kind of last challenge
right? Well then you realize that Parn
isn’t facing Ashram in the bowels of Marmo while Deedlit clings to life. Nope, instead Spark replaces all of his
dialogue with “NEESE!!!”, so much he’s basically become Groot (basically
“Neese” is his “I am Groot”). And then
the B-Listers luck their way into a victory so hard it doesn’t even feel
earned. I thought back to Parn and
Ashram’s duel during this battle.
Ashram’s explanations for his actions and Parn managing to fight him
more evenly…these are tales of progress that would have made a far better story
to follow than the journey of Spark and his rushed together team of
complainers, freeloaders and proclaimers of all things horrible and
terrible…mostly in regards to dangers around Neese. Why couldn’t we see Parn and Deedlit
traveling together, getting into adventures and eventually making their way to
Marmo to finish off Wagnard while Ashram dealt with his own soul searching in a
side story. At one point, one of Spark’s
team members dies…and I was totally numb.
I didn’t care so long as Parn, Deedlit and Slayn were ok…and they
were. But they were cast to the side
without much of a care after Ashram left that they felt like an afterthought
while Spark went to go face two Goddesses to win his girl back…admirable but
it’s Spark, I’d say Lodoss got lucky.
But I know what you’re thinking: Well clearly he didn’t
like the finale itself but what about the other finale? Yes, my much more invested interest in
Welcome to Lodoss Island was rewarded perfectly with the true, feel good ending
that Chronicles definitely wasn’t. Not
only did we get to see some funny nudity at poor Ashram’s expense, but the
Great Cookie Quest reached a proper ending and things still turned out crummy
for poor Spark. It’s funny that I wasn’t
a fan of these shorts when I did my original First Impression Friday feature on
Chronicles and yet its been the best part of this series and every short was
always worth slugging it through 20 minutes of predominant boredom. So…yeah, I’m going to make good on something
I mentioned a while back. Welcome to
Lodoss Island gets a 9.5/10. These
shorts are great, taking the seriousness that Chronicles is going for and
making it the best joke it actually is…and is actually funny. The Chibified versions of Spark, Parn,
Deedlit, Neese and especially Kashue, Slayn and the Dark Elves never run out of
material to run through and, if im honest, the animation was pretty good too,
way better than the more mature episodes that preceded them. In many ways,
I wish I could have been watching half hour segments with this cast
instead of 2-3 minutes. I guess that’s
why it’s not a full 10/10 cause at the same time, maybe going beyond that time
limit would dampen the appeal.
Which brings us to the end. Man…I don’t want to say I’m letdown and
heartbroken but I kind of am on this one.
I was already kind of letdown by how this series began. But the change of cast and a time skip did
nothing to really improve things. Spark
and his crew of B-Listers never elevated to anything truly memorable beyond how
annoying they all were. Spark himself
proved an ineffective lead, especially when his dialogue boiled down to poor
Crispin Freeman screaming, “NEESE!!!!!” every other word (seriously I counted
at least seven times where I just said “Neese” in a bored manner as a
prediction of the next word out of Sparks mouth). Every appearance by Parn and Deedlit just
made me miss their old adventures and most of me wanted to just throw the OVA
in and enjoy that instead. Hell, the
overall failure of Chronicles of the Heroic Knight makes me want to add an
extra point to the Record of Lodoss War OVA.
Chronicles padded things out way too long, had a lackluster and annoying
cast, wasn’t animated nearly as well as it could have been and pretty much
failed to live up to the example of its game changing predecessor. The only good things I can say about this
show are the Opening and Ending themes are great, with the intro’s animation
being exactly what this entire show should have looked like from beginning to
end. And whenever the spotlight was on
the original cast, even if the first eight episodes faltered, I was genuinely
happy to be spending time with them and wanted to see more stories centered on
them. Nope, we got Spark instead, the
poor mans Parn, who was even treated like a joke by the OG cast several times.. And no, Welcome to Lodoss Island’s goodness
will not boost this shows overall score.
If you want the true Lodoss experience, watch the OVA. If you really want more, be cautious of
Chronicles…cause I was certainly unprepared for just how incredibly bad it
would be.
Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knight
receives a highly disappointing 4.5/10.
Hey, speaking of Fate/Stay Night looking pretty even when
its being talky, how about we check out an alternate Holy Grail War from the
people who gave us the Anime juggernaut that is Sword Art Online? Fate/Apocrypha starts…at the end of
next month. But first, we come to the
biggest event of 2020 for the Gundam Anime Corner…GUNDAM MONTH MARK IV-THE
GAUNTLET begins this Monday with the beginning of Mobile Suit Gundam
Seed…suit up.
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