What Sword Art Online could have been if Kirito wasn’t a douchebag.
It’s certainly not the most inspired show I’ve ever seen. The premise— an MMORPG becomes real— has been pretty common lately.
But it has an earnestness that Sword Art Online and Accel World lacked. It doesn’t have this overriding focus on wish fulfillment through self-insertion as the main character. The main character here doesn’t seem to be out to prove anything and isn’t full of himself. He’s actually socially well-adjusted and popular.
The show also has a subdued, low-key sense of humor which I enjoyed. It feels peaceful, but not boring. The battles are pretty cool too. Am mildly looking forward to this.
Though this episode didn’t get everything right, I enjoyed the small details like the height difference making the main character stumble and the controls being overly convoluted. The source material is from the same author of Maoyu Yuusha (the anime sucked, but I’ve heard the novels are pretty good), so hopefully it doesn’t go downhill.
“the anime sucked, but I’ve heard the novels are pretty good”
That applies to SAO as well. But I’m pretty sure the novels are actually crap too. So I’m not so sure about MMY. Surely there were issues with the anime, but unless they didn’t completely rewrite the plot from scratch, then the novels have their share of fault in that crapfest as well. Like the Hero being nonsensically overpowered, the harem elements, and the general horrible political ideology.
Yeah, I also find it hard to believe the novels are much better… One nice thing could be you don’t actually have to look at Maoyuu’s breasts all the time though.
My expectation of this anime falls even lower when I saw that it’s written by the author of MMY. That anime was seriously shit. Even lower than SAO, probably. Now that I think about it, the reason that I started a blog is because I really want to bash it. But blogging is tiring, I respect people who have been continuing for years.
Yeah, hearing it’s by the author of MMY is setting off alarm bells for me too. But the idiotic political ideology / historical interpretation of MMY would make much more sense in an MMO, so it probably won’t have exactly the same problems… But then again, MMY was terrible in so many other ways as well…
Yeah, Maoyuu Yuusha sucked, but mainly because it tried to deal seriously with historical themes such as racism, religion, economics and education which the author clearly knew nothing about. Well and because all the characters were terrible… ok I guess it just sucked in general. I think the author might be able to deal better with an MMO though than more serious themes. We’ll see how it goes.
I thought this was pretty fun, maybe even fluff (though I suppose things will still be a bit serious when it wants to be). The main trio seem likeable at least, and the Zetsubou Sensei boy and Rika girl were both rather cute in their own ways.
My only real problem is they seemed to try cramming too much into this episode, but I did like that the characters were having to do a lot to try figuring out their situation and get a feel for their new environment.
I also thought having the protagonist get completely defeated even before the OP started was a pretty funny way to show that we didn’t have a Gary Stu on our hands. =P
I’d rather have them cram more in than drag, but personally I didn’t feel like it went too fast.
And yeah, that was a pretty fast defeat. 🙂 So glad this guy isn’t Kirito.
This premiere is pretty bland, while it’s supposed to engaging, to draw viewers in. I will give it a few more episode to see if it stays boring or not. It feels like watching somebody else playing video game, seriously. There’s nothing new here. Let’s hope they will drop a pink elephant in it.
BTW, is 90 the maximum level? It’s weird to see that all of them are 90s.
I guess 90 must be the maximum level then if that’s what they all are. We’ll see how the next episodes go, I didn’t find it that bad.
For me personally, I found the first episode to be quite good in the sense that it managed to capture the essence of an MMORPG (and no, it is not to have the best weapons, armor, etc.). The essence of an MMORPG is about SOCIAL INTERACTION in the form of group play dynamics. Good MMORPGs allow for customization yet at the same time places limits on what classes can/can’t do. For example, a mage can be customized to focus on different types of spells/effects but cannot wear the heavy armor of a warrior class. Such design choices are intentionally placed in the game to force players to work together to compensate for their shortcomings. Therefore, log horizon manages to touch on the essence of MMORPGs better than SAO or (with its ridiculously overpowered protagonist) could ever do; which is to place the mantle of power equally on the 3 main characters, with each relying on the other to survive.
Great observation. I think it’s particularly cool how the main character’s class is completely useless on its own. The entire point of it is to support others.