Log Horizon Review [Spoilers]

[Kriemhild Gretchen]

Animation: 5/10. This is one of the most important things in an anime to me, second only to plot. This is because it's what your looking at the whole time you're watching it. I have to say, Log Horizon's animation was mediocre overall. The one thing I did like was how artificial the monsters looked with their 3D rotoscoping. But overall, character designs were boring, backgrounds were okay at best, motion was slow and kind of jagged like most other anime, and the less realistic moments (don't know how to describe them, it's the cutaways where characters roll around or something) were stupid.

Plot: 6/10. Honestly, it didn't really hold my attention enough to want to watch it. I kept going because a friend of mine liked it, and I thought if they did, it had to be good. There was so much potential for it to be developed into something better, something with ambiguous morality and unethical actions being forced. To be fair, this had the dual whammy of being adapted from a light novel, forcing them to follow its plot, and being broadcasted on NHK, which is basically the Japanese equivalent of PBS. Or the UK's BBC. I keep thinking back to Fate/zero as a gold standard for anime to follow, though that certainly had its own problems, pacing wasn't one of them. Every episode was only a half hour long but felt twice as long, and in a good way. Overall, it would have been better for this series to be 12 episodes, as there was SO MUCH FILLER.

I have to say, though, the part with the succubus at the end trying to seduce Shiroe was rather interesting. What if he accepted, and became her thrall? Instead, he did the generic shounen protagonist POWER OF FRIENDSHIP thing. The ending was kind of stupid, but that's to be expected, as there's going to be a second season. Unfortunately animated by Studio DEEN, of all studios.

Characters: 7/10. None of the characters really did anything interesting and memorable for me. I'm not going to remember their names in a week. Shiroe had a lot of potential, as I said, but again, I would have appreciated him being more of an anti-hero and doing unethical things for a greater goal. Akatsuki was pretty moe, but again, she wasn't exploited to her full potential. What if she were forced into situations where she had to choose between her personal morality and loyalty to her lord?

Music: 4/10. I really, really fucking hate to say this, but Sword Art Online had better music. There were basically three tracks that were played every episodes, comic relief music, doin' shit music and the bumper music. There might have been a few more, but they certainly weren't distinct enough for me to remember.

Overall: 5.5/10. Averaging these all out gives a rather harsh review, but I can't honestly say I liked something when the majority of time spent watching it was spent waiting for it to be over or thinking how something could have been done better.

I do have to say, though, I did have a dream about it at one point. I dreamed that Shiroe became disillusioned with other people's actions and split into two halves. His dark half dressed in red and black, Brotherhood of Nod-inspired clothing. People called him Terry, short for terrorist.