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!
Chris
I've been in a tabletop campaign or two myself; I know all about heeding the call to adventure!
And I'm happy to, since Lodoss has been a blind spot for me over my anime-watching years as well. I mean, it's definitely faded a bit since its heyday, given the aforementioned webtoon snuck out last month with nary a peep at launch. But at least the legend lives on somehow. If Ryo Mizuno's classic fantasy setting can get a follow-up after all this time, maybe there'll be hope for that Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves sequel yet!
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!
Your effusive praise of Honor Among Thieves is appropriate in this context, since Lodoss War's origins as retellings of DND sessions by Mizuno are probably what lend it so much of that flavor you appreciate.
The beginning of Lodoss the anime absolutely gets this. So many solid RPG sessions start out with the party together and on their quest, so after a relatively quick deep lore recap, Lodoss just drops viewers right in with Parn and crew in medias res and off to the races!
Look at that, just in the first episode they go into a dungeon and fight a dragon! This show understands the assignment!
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!!!
Lodoss War's status as an OVA specifically probably contributes to how influentially tasty it looks. Madhouse was making magic with mad money back in 1990. And not for nothing, but the old Funimation upload that Crunchyroll has looks incredibly crisp. I wish projects a third as old looked as nice as this does!
It's not just that Lodoss is quintessentially fantasy, it's quintessentially fantasy anime. Not the first to do it, but one of the best and still most influential in ways you can still pick out. Even I, who hadn't checked this show out before now, knew that when fans wax about the bygone days of amazing anime elf women with pauldrons you could serve drinks off, they're talking about Deedlit.
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 Wizardryfranchise 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.
You should know, you've covered those classic fantasy anime influences before! But Lodoss naturally seems to swing specifically toward the tabletop side of things. It's visible in details like the furry Kobolds found in Japanese fantasy fiction.
This naturally lets me point to the likes of Delicious in Dungeon as a modern series derived from Lodoss War's lineage. Lodoss even has its own dwarf who advocates for monster meals!
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!
She's iconic! (next to Pirotess who, uh, tugs collar). It's no wonder they gave Deedlit her own Metroidvania decades later. And for what it's worth, I heard way more hype in the run-up to Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth's release than I did anything for Queen of Death.
But I could espouse such appreciation for the whole party. Slayn seemed unassuming at first, but I quickly grew to dig his efficient demeanor. And how could I not love Norio Wakamoto voicing a scuzzy thief named..."Woodchuck"?
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!
I feel like we don't get as many good dark elves as we could in anime these days (once again: Pirotess). And as future successes like Marcille would show, we love any elves that get treated more ignobly than their high fantasy lineage would lead people to expect in the 90s.
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.
The far and wide spread of fantasy as a classical genre means there's always been plenty to mine for humor and parody. Hell, Dragon Half was doing it just a year or two after the Lodoss anime started up.
Similarly, you've got shows like Magical Circle Guruguru, though that's a TV series, not an OVA. Though within that purview, it's not like you need to look for something that swings more for comedy and isn't entirely rooted in the classic fantasy tropes with the dragons and the dungeons and whatnot.
Honestly? Thank god the 90s were turning out weird experiments like Elf Princess Rane. Or Ren the Fairy Princess, as OceanVeil calls it.
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 Blastersdub 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!
It's definitely got that mile-a-minute comedy OVA pacing I associate with the era, but like, in a good way. Especially with how oblique some of the in-between jokes can be, it's great.
It's also worth noting that of the shows we were suggested to sample from, Rane/Ren is the only one besides Lodoss to be streaming anywhere... for the time being, anyway. Catch it on OceanVeil while you can!
Not sure if the incidental nudity is a reason OceanVeil picked it up in the first place. Of course, we could probably write a whole lot of words' worth of material on hentai series that took on these established fantasy tropes if we wanted to...
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!
Damn, missing Norris as Schneider is one more reason to push for more of these classics to be made available. Netflix could've at least brought him back for the new series. I'll have to round back to the old OVA if I ever opt to behold more Bastard!!, since I at least appreciate the idea of Schneider and Yoko's chemistry from what I saw in the new version.
Thankfully, not all these treasures are buried for good. Ruin Explorers - Fam & Ihrie caught my eye years ago when a whole bunch of Anitwitter inexplicably watched it around the same time, so I was devastated when it left HIDIVE. But now AnimEigo has picked it up for a Blu-ray release!
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.
Ruin Explorers gave me Ihrie, one of the handsomest women in fantasy anime. I was doomed before I even started the show.
Ruin Explorers also straddles a neat balance between the sillier side of fantasy anime OVA and the strong straightforwardness exemplified by Lodoss. It starts out rather irreverent (very much in the "feels like banter in a real DND campaign" way of Honor Among Thieves) before picking up into more serious stakes.
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.
I understand now why Lynzee brought this one up as an example. Princess Luna is a dragon girl that holds a place in her heart, after all...oh hey, there she is right above Mink from the aforementioned Dragon Half!
If we really wanted to draw parallels between Luna Varga and modern trends, there's probably at least a little of it in Kaiju Girl Caramelize this season.
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!
Bless old Media Blasters licenses. This is another one that was streaming for a bit over on Tubi and Crunchyroll but has since been lost to the sands of time. Which is a real shame because, as you said, it's a fascinating genre project.
At the risk of being reductive, Gō Nagai's influence runs deep, and it's always a blast to see other artists put their own take on the character design direction he spearheaded in Devilman! I don't know how much more Shamanic Princess I have left in me, but this is the kind of release that motivates people to document discrepancies in cover art along different releases, and I have to respect the impact this title has clearly had on so many.
It also apparently crossed over with Magic User's Club!? This show is a rabbit hole, though if we were going to follow it down to 90s magical girl shows we'd really be here all day (while also making at least a couple of our editors very, very happy).
Still, it shows how robust the fantasy OVA factory was in this era to pump out stuff with this kind of variety. It makes it disappointing that so little of it has been preserved for modern times outside of Lodoss, which is the one that keeps coming back, as we've seen.
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.
Some people heard me yelling in the panel room when AnimEigo announced Ruin Explorers, so I can confirm: get more of these series out officially, and I'll be eating good.
Grab your dice and join Chris and Lucas for a journey through old-school fantasy anime!― Grab your dice and join Chris and Lucas for a journey through old-school anime fantasy! Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the participants in this chatlog are not the views of Anime News Network. Crunchyroll streams Record of Lodoss War. HIDIVE streams Yandere Dark Elf. Oceanveil streams Ren the F...
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