Lucas


Chris, somehow, in the year of our lord 2026, there is yet another new piece of Record of Lodoss War media! A webcomic by Studio White (itself a joint venture between KADOKAWA, LINE Digital Frontier, and REDICE STUDIO), Record of Lodoss War: Queen of Death is a prequel to the original, beloved story. After reading through the first four translated chapters, I regret to inform you and our readers that Queen of Death does not have the juice…

However, this release did motivate me to finally watch the Record of Lodoss War anime, which absolutely whips, and I now desperately need to talk about it, and a bunch of other classic fantasy anime with you and whoever else will listen!

Please Chris! Heed my call to action and come on this journey DnD and Tolkien-tinged “let’s remember some anime” TWIA column with me! My fiancée and friends have done their best to indulge me, but I need another anime professional to join me on this noble quest!

Apologies for going on a tangent so early into this column, but Honor Among Thieves was a refreshing take on the action/adventure/heist genres after a decade-plus of Marvel hegemony. It was nothing short of invigorating to experience a piece of fantasy media that didn’t break the pace of the story to offer a lore explanation for every proper noun in the script. I know the film wasn’t profitable enough, and the DnD license is now in too weird a place for us to get a sequel, but that movie punched above its weight class and deserves praise!

And with that side quest out of the way, we can get back to the main event! Maybe I just watch too much isekai slop for this column, and ANN’s Preview Guide, but I was immediately enchanted by Lodoss War, and its desolate world that’s barely clinging to its post-calamity existence! Seeing a Western fantasy world in an anime that’s not at all inspired by Dragon Quest is super enticing to me, and also touches on why I love FromSoftware‘s authored dark fantasy games so much!

You are 100% correct, Chris! After the one-two punch of dark tone setting and biblically evocative lore, and some downright foundational high fantasy action, I was hooked! Thankfully, beyond narratively rewarding my attention, Lodoss War is as visually rich as a dragon’s hoard!

I’m sure you and our audience have heard the expression “every frame a painting.” Well, every frame in Lodoss War looks like it should be airbrushed onto the side of your cool uncle who’s way into Led Zeppelin’s van! I truly cannot undersell how sick this anime looks!

Look at this supporting villain whose name I can’t even remember! We’ve had 35-some years of anime release since this OVA premiered, and no dude has looked more evil than this guy!!!

While I had been ambiently familiar with the visual direction of Lodoss War, so much of how fantasy Japanese media looks clicked into place for me after watching the first six episodes of this show! Everything from the visual direction of the first couple Fire Emblem games to much of the visual direction of ATLUS‘ Metaphor: ReFantazio is clearly lifting from this anime’s take on the fantasy canon established by Tolkien’s fantasy works and the Wizardry games.

While technically Tolkein’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as well as the Wizardry franchise are ultimately the germination point for much of Japanese takes on western fantasy that’s not an overt Dragon Quest clone, the way Lodoss War crystalizes this aesthetic and tone is nothing short of invigorating.

It speaks to Wizardry‘s enduring appeal that it’s still influencing creatives today! Though, please do not make me choose between Marcille and Deedlit! I love my baby queer, half-elf existentially concerning daughter, but also…

There’s a reason that Deed is the waifu template that other anime creators would draw from for the next decade and change! There is so much sexual energy tied to this character without her ever being reduced to eye candy, and I respect whichever person on this team decided that their dream girl absolutely needed to be a badass!

Thank you for making me realize that I now have a rabbit hole of Lodoss War gaming media to explore! And, you’re right. The way every part of Lodoss War — like its world, visuals, and characters — coalesces into a familiar but hyper confident if not definitive experience really is something to behold. With so much fantasy media over the past twenty-odd years trying to iterate upon or subvert the experience that Lodoss War perfected, I was delighted to discover that this influential anime not only holds up, but endures as a high-water mark in this genre.

Though Lodoss War isn’t the only classic fantasy anime we watched for this column! While none of them quite live up to Lodoss War, Gestalt does at least give all dark elf appreciators a very fun character in Suzu!

Actually, now that you mention it, the only new dark elf of note that we’ve gotten lately in anime is Mariabell from Yandere Dark Elf, which is not a good show and only serves as proof that anime fans are losing our culture.

Getting back to our main convo, I was surprised by how much more Gestalt felt like a parody of fantasy anime media despite only releasing seven years after Lodoss War. Common anime tropes are far more overt in this anime, and there are even some fourth-wall-breaking references to other media in this space like Final Fantasy.

I know this is likely because of how rapidly this kind of media became popular in Japan in the early and mid 90s, but it really is astonishing how much closer Gestalt feels to a present-day take on western fantasy anime than its predecessors.

Fairy Princess Ren has as many names as Gou does sisters, and it’s a damn good time no matter what you call it! While the darker and more serious anime of the 90s (some of which we’ll talk about in a bit) definitely did the lion’s share of the work in establishing anime in the US, Elf Princess Rane feels like it helped solidify the exaggerated and even irreverent humor that the medium would also come to be known for. Although this absolutely stellar Media Blasters dub is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for me personally.

I’m also surprised by how timeless much of the humor in Ren the Fairy Princess is! While the OVA features incredible, gag-a-minute writing, the extended bit of Gou interrupting some of his sisters trying to take a sick album cover pic feels like a joke I could see on TV today!

I mean…while we’re here, I’ve got more than a few words on the 1992 Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy OVA! Which, uh, definitely feels like it’s bridging into hentai territory on more than one occasion!

This tonal incongruity is exactly why I bounced off the 2022 version of this series! Well, that and these very 90s character designs do not work nearly as well in a digital animation style (the Urusei Yatsura reboot and Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! continue to stand alone). However, I clicked immediately with the OVA, as its more exaggerated script and performances made me realize that this anime was not taking itself seriously, and neither should I.

Darren Norris doing his Jack from American Dad voice for Dark Schneider (except he’s audibly holding back laughter in half of his takes) immediately had me hooked, and the downright dickish take on the character made me realize that Bastard!! is closer to a work of camp than it is straight forward fiction.

Though it’s also a lot of fun seeing classic DnD creatures pop up throughout the work with their classic designs!

Even discounting current events, AnimEigo is rad, and everyone reading this should go patronize everyone trying to keep this medium’s history any kind of accessible! And Ruin Explorers has been on my backlog for forever!!!

Given my penchant for dungeon crawlers, I know I’d have a great time with this work, and I’m quite literally starved for fantasy anime media that has any kind of enthusiasm or respect for female characters. Ruin Explorers sounds like a feast after years of the anime industry force-feeding me male power fantasy stories in this genre.

Hell yeah! Everything about these characters and setting screams “homebrew tabletop campaign” in the best way, and I hope more people check it out now that buying physical media is cool again! (Though, for the record, buying physical media has always been cool).

Speaking of silliness, Luna Varga is just an anime where a high fantasy princess fuses with a demon that’s just a dinosaur to save her kingdom from destruction.

That premise really is all there is to this anime, lol. If I had to reach for anything else to talk about, I guess the overtly Saint Seiya-esque designs are neat, but this work does boil down to its “dinosaur princess” premise, and will probably only appeal to folks whose ears perked up when they heard that pitch.

As you and Sylvia discussed extensively, giant women have always held a special place in humanity’s heart.

The last classic anime I came into this convo prepared to talk about is Shamanic Princess, which I thought was going to be fairly cutsey based on the limited visuals and descriptions I could dig up, but it pulled a proto-Madoka on me and is actually pretty visceral and VERY gay!

If nothing else, though, these works are still clearly influencing today’s animators and storytellers, as we repeatedly connected these titles back to more modern works throughout this column. I hope that, as remakes become more common in the anime industry, new takes on these titles make the originals more accessible. However, the anime fan community has long done more for media preservation than their corporate counterparts, and I’m feeling pretty confident that these inspiring works will remain a couple of clicks away from those seeking them out!

While this extra-legal accessibility is less than ideal, beggars can’t be choosers, and I can only hope that these titles continuing to endure in this community motivates some decision maker somewhere to give us some kind of avenue to support official versions of these releases.

Lucas


Chris, somehow, in the year of our lord 2026, there is yet another new piece of Record of Lodoss War media! A webcomic by Studio White (itself a joint venture between KADOKAWA, LINE Digital Frontier, and REDICE STUDIO), Record of Lodoss War: Queen of Death is a prequel to the original, beloved story. After reading through the first four translated chapters, I regret to inform you and our readers that Queen of Death does not have the juice…

However, this release did motivate me to finally watch the Record of Lodoss War anime, which absolutely whips, and I now desperately need to talk about it, and a bunch of other classic fantasy anime with you and whoever else will listen!

Please Chris! Heed my call to action and come on this journey DnD and Tolkien-tinged “let’s remember some anime” TWIA column with me! My fiancée and friends have done their best to indulge me, but I need another anime professional to join me on this noble quest!

Apologies for going on a tangent so early into this column, but Honor Among Thieves was a refreshing take on the action/adventure/heist genres after a decade-plus of Marvel hegemony. It was nothing short of invigorating to experience a piece of fantasy media that didn’t break the pace of the story to offer a lore explanation for every proper noun in the script. I know the film wasn’t profitable enough, and the DnD license is now in too weird a place for us to get a sequel, but that movie punched above its weight class and deserves praise!

And with that side quest out of the way, we can get back to the main event! Maybe I just watch too much isekai slop for this column, and ANN’s Preview Guide, but I was immediately enchanted by Lodoss War, and its desolate world that’s barely clinging to its post-calamity existence! Seeing a Western fantasy world in an anime that’s not at all inspired by Dragon Quest is super enticing to me, and also touches on why I love FromSoftware‘s authored dark fantasy games so much!

You are 100% correct, Chris! After the one-two punch of dark tone setting and biblically evocative lore, and some downright foundational high fantasy action, I was hooked! Thankfully, beyond narratively rewarding my attention, Lodoss War is as visually rich as a dragon’s hoard!

I’m sure you and our audience have heard the expression “every frame a painting.” Well, every frame in Lodoss War looks like it should be airbrushed onto the side of your cool uncle who’s way into Led Zeppelin’s van! I truly cannot undersell how sick this anime looks!

Look at this supporting villain whose name I can’t even remember! We’ve had 35-some years of anime release since this OVA premiered, and no dude has looked more evil than this guy!!!

While I had been ambiently familiar with the visual direction of Lodoss War, so much of how fantasy Japanese media looks clicked into place for me after watching the first six episodes of this show! Everything from the visual direction of the first couple Fire Emblem games to much of the visual direction of ATLUS‘ Metaphor: ReFantazio is clearly lifting from this anime’s take on the fantasy canon established by Tolkien’s fantasy works and the Wizardry games.

While technically Tolkein’s The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings as well as the Wizardry franchise are ultimately the germination point for much of Japanese takes on western fantasy that’s not an overt Dragon Quest clone, the way Lodoss War crystalizes this aesthetic and tone is nothing short of invigorating.

It speaks to Wizardry‘s enduring appeal that it’s still influencing creatives today! Though, please do not make me choose between Marcille and Deedlit! I love my baby queer, half-elf existentially concerning daughter, but also…

There’s a reason that Deed is the waifu template that other anime creators would draw from for the next decade and change! There is so much sexual energy tied to this character without her ever being reduced to eye candy, and I respect whichever person on this team decided that their dream girl absolutely needed to be a badass!

Thank you for making me realize that I now have a rabbit hole of Lodoss War gaming media to explore! And, you’re right. The way every part of Lodoss War — like its world, visuals, and characters — coalesces into a familiar but hyper confident if not definitive experience really is something to behold. With so much fantasy media over the past twenty-odd years trying to iterate upon or subvert the experience that Lodoss War perfected, I was delighted to discover that this influential anime not only holds up, but endures as a high-water mark in this genre.

Though Lodoss War isn’t the only classic fantasy anime we watched for this column! While none of them quite live up to Lodoss War, Gestalt does at least give all dark elf appreciators a very fun character in Suzu!

Actually, now that you mention it, the only new dark elf of note that we’ve gotten lately in anime is Mariabell from Yandere Dark Elf, which is not a good show and only serves as proof that anime fans are losing our culture.

Getting back to our main convo, I was surprised by how much more Gestalt felt like a parody of fantasy anime media despite only releasing seven years after Lodoss War. Common anime tropes are far more overt in this anime, and there are even some fourth-wall-breaking references to other media in this space like Final Fantasy.

I know this is likely because of how rapidly this kind of media became popular in Japan in the early and mid 90s, but it really is astonishing how much closer Gestalt feels to a present-day take on western fantasy anime than its predecessors.

Fairy Princess Ren has as many names as Gou does sisters, and it’s a damn good time no matter what you call it! While the darker and more serious anime of the 90s (some of which we’ll talk about in a bit) definitely did the lion’s share of the work in establishing anime in the US, Elf Princess Rane feels like it helped solidify the exaggerated and even irreverent humor that the medium would also come to be known for. Although this absolutely stellar Media Blasters dub is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for me personally.

I’m also surprised by how timeless much of the humor in Ren the Fairy Princess is! While the OVA features incredible, gag-a-minute writing, the extended bit of Gou interrupting some of his sisters trying to take a sick album cover pic feels like a joke I could see on TV today!

I mean…while we’re here, I’ve got more than a few words on the 1992 Bastard!! Heavy Metal, Dark Fantasy OVA! Which, uh, definitely feels like it’s bridging into hentai territory on more than one occasion!

This tonal incongruity is exactly why I bounced off the 2022 version of this series! Well, that and these very 90s character designs do not work nearly as well in a digital animation style (the Urusei Yatsura reboot and Go For It, Nakamura-kun!! continue to stand alone). However, I clicked immediately with the OVA, as its more exaggerated script and performances made me realize that this anime was not taking itself seriously, and neither should I.

Darren Norris doing his Jack from American Dad voice for Dark Schneider (except he’s audibly holding back laughter in half of his takes) immediately had me hooked, and the downright dickish take on the character made me realize that Bastard!! is closer to a work of camp than it is straight forward fiction.

Though it’s also a lot of fun seeing classic DnD creatures pop up throughout the work with their classic designs!

Even discounting current events, AnimEigo is rad, and everyone reading this should go patronize everyone trying to keep this medium’s history any kind of accessible! And Ruin Explorers has been on my backlog for forever!!!

Given my penchant for dungeon crawlers, I know I’d have a great time with this work, and I’m quite literally starved for fantasy anime media that has any kind of enthusiasm or respect for female characters. Ruin Explorers sounds like a feast after years of the anime industry force-feeding me male power fantasy stories in this genre.

Hell yeah! Everything about these characters and setting screams “homebrew tabletop campaign” in the best way, and I hope more people check it out now that buying physical media is cool again! (Though, for the record, buying physical media has always been cool).

Speaking of silliness, Luna Varga is just an anime where a high fantasy princess fuses with a demon that’s just a dinosaur to save her kingdom from destruction.

That premise really is all there is to this anime, lol. If I had to reach for anything else to talk about, I guess the overtly Saint Seiya-esque designs are neat, but this work does boil down to its “dinosaur princess” premise, and will probably only appeal to folks whose ears perked up when they heard that pitch.

As you and Sylvia discussed extensively, giant women have always held a special place in humanity’s heart.

The last classic anime I came into this convo prepared to talk about is Shamanic Princess, which I thought was going to be fairly cutsey based on the limited visuals and descriptions I could dig up, but it pulled a proto-Madoka on me and is actually pretty visceral and VERY gay!

If nothing else, though, these works are still clearly influencing today’s animators and storytellers, as we repeatedly connected these titles back to more modern works throughout this column. I hope that, as remakes become more common in the anime industry, new takes on these titles make the originals more accessible. However, the anime fan community has long done more for media preservation than their corporate counterparts, and I’m feeling pretty confident that these inspiring works will remain a couple of clicks away from those seeking them out!

While this extra-legal accessibility is less than ideal, beggars can’t be choosers, and I can only hope that these titles continuing to endure in this community motivates some decision maker somewhere to give us some kind of avenue to support official versions of these releases.