Log Horizon: Episode 16

I've been following various Anime, one of which being Log Horizon. I'll be posting a lot more about it later, though probably not more than another post or two unless it gets awesome.

This episode focused on the issue of the Goblin army. Having forgotten about certain events from back when this world was just their regular MMORPG game and not their actual lives, the adventurers focused on improving the status quo, gathering information, and upping their levels. They didn't realize they'd been mostly neglecting to think about game events and taking on NPC missions. As a result, the Goblin King was crowned due to no attack on the goblin armies, and all of the goblin clans united, numbering 10,000 visible and likely a whole lot more on the way.

In this episode, they've already begun to pillage towns. The classic trope of the beat up doll/teddy bear lying on the ground after discovering a catastrophe/tragedy was used. An NPC girl one of the characters, Touya, had met before, had this doll, and in this episode it was found when some of the characters made it too late to save the people of a city that had at this point been already razed. Two goblins were fooling around with the little doll, and then Touya realized where it was from, and stormed in at them.

That said, this series really lacks impact.

I watch it because it's relaxing and kind of fun. I find it extremely cute in a way. The story pretends to be a serious Sword Art-esque locked-in-MMORPG anime with serious problems, but it can't help being very lighthearted. The way this anime tries to be epic but never really allows us to expect that anything very emotional, thrilling, or horrible will happen, and something hard to explain about it leads me to find it just very very kawaii. But it's not a moe or sort of obvious kawaii, it's more the tone, the concept, and especially the dialogue that makes it cute. And again, I don't mean the normal kind of cute; I am finding it cute in, well, probably the most condescending kind of way possible, because I have trouble telling whether the author meant ot to be this way, or actually thought he was making something epic. But I like to think that it is this way on purpose, and I find that the anime has a unique, for lack of better word, "cuteness".

Hmmm, yeah, no other way to describe it.


OH! Almost forgot. One of my predictions, which I don't think will happen though, is that the strategist main character, Shiroe, would have the attacking fishman(?) army from before intercept the goblins and have them end up fighting each other and dying off, or at least use this to assist defending against Goblins. I thought this because... They were fighting an endless army of fish, and then suddenly they weren't anymore despite having commented on their huge numbers. What happened to da fishies??

Oh, and...............

I think Rudy, the prettyboy mage, is an NPC!! This is because when Isuzu ("Miss Isuzuu~~") tried to friend list him, it didn't work. And then things got dark and awkward and we didn't see what happened after. In the next episode, everything was normal. But I think he is an NPC :D Interesting little twist. If he isn't then you suck Log Horizon...



This ending theme fits the series pretty well.

~Yukigami