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「カナミ、ゴー！イースト！」 (Kanami, Gou! Iisuto!)
“Kanami, Go East!”
There were interesting parts, but mostly it’s an episode full of Kanami-related infodumps that fails to flesh out any of the characters, save Kanami herself.
Tell, Don’t Show
One of the cardinal rules of storytelling is “Show, don’t tell.” That means that if you want the reader to know Kanami is genki, you don’t say “Kanami is genki”, you show Kanami doing genki things, and trust your readers to make the connection. As a storyteller, the temptation to tell instead of showing is always there, because it would be soooo much easier, but the good writers always take the time to show us everything, and really draw us into the tale.
Log Horizon can be wordy at times, but most of the time it’s still showing rather than telling. This episode was a long example in the opposite. It feels like the director said “We need to introduce all these people as quickly as possible and get it over with,” which, as the characters in the Saekano premiere said, is not a great way to introduce a story. They spit out so much information that I barely had time to process it, which is sad because I was interested in a lot of it. Take Elias Hackblade (Hirakawa Daisuke), a well-known NPC progenitor. Why he’s still active when all the other progenitors are gone (including the Izumo Knights) is of maaaaassive interest, but it was glossed over and barely commented upon. Ditto with Coppelia (Igarashi Hiromi) … we barely had enough time to meet her and realize that she’s a little odd before it’s revealed that she’s a gold farming bot. An episode or two to let us get to know her before that reveal would have made it mean something. As is, it’s just another piece of exposition they felt compelled to get through.
American Mutant Ninja Frog
The one who came out the worst was Leonardo (Sakaguchi Shuuhei). While Elias and Coppelia had something compelling about them from a world-building level (the progenitor, the gold farming bot), Leo is just a guy. I got a laugh out of his love for the thinly veiled TMNT expy (trope!), but his “struggle” with helping the others was introduced and resolved too quickly to work. Then there’s the time he’s shouting parallel this, parallel that, Parallel Plot something, and it was all incomprehensible in context. (If you want to know what we missed, a handy guide/spoiler can be found at Log Horizon Fun Facts. Good collection of info all around.) Which is a shame because I want to like the guy who yelled “Cowabunga!” and tackled two geniuses (they’re also apparently important later on) off a dragon and killed one, but it was all over as soon as it started.
About the only one who gets away from the episode with any real characterization is Kanami herself, and a little for KR. From her plan for attacking the nole army to having recruited Elias for her party—which is basically like traveling around with Firiona Vie or Thrall—not much time is spent with Kanami, but through everything that happens, we know who she is. We knew beforehand, granted, through everyone else’s reactions and memories of her, but this episode emphasized it all. That’s showing instead of telling. To bad she’s the one who needed characterization least of all.
KR & Kazuhiko – Not So Evil Antagonists(?)
As for KR, it’s becoming increasingly clear that the council of Plant Hwyaden aren’t evil per say, and might not even be antagonists to Shiroe and the Round Table. Or at least, some of them might not opposed to them. KR comes out of this episode looking like an enigmatic and interesting fellow, more interested in seeing what Indicus does when Kanami reappears than having her back, whereas Kazuhiko has apparently been communicating with Shiroe behind the scenes for some time. Having some dissent among the leaders of Minami is good, I think, because it’s only natural that there would be some dissent when they’re going all fascist/corporate takeover of every guild in the cities they control. Log Horizon isn’t a story for one-dimensional characters, so this fits it better.
Looking Ahead – Back To The Newbies
I’m glad we get to go back to the newbie group with Minori and the others. I enjoyed their growth a lot during the first season, as bumpy as it was at times, so a quest with them should be fun.
tl;dr: @StiltsOutLoud – A back story infodump on Kanami & her party. Mishandled, but now it’s over. Yay? #loghora s2e14
Random thoughts:
- I liked the reason why Japan is the key to everything this time. Usually it’s some contrived reason that boils down to “The author is from _____, and likes his or her country the best”—something which anime shares with other forms of popular entertainment, ex: Hollywood movies and America—but here it makes perfect sense: They’re the only ones who got the Novasphere Pioneers update because they’re the east-most server, and it was rolling out at midnight. Which doesn’t make sense since I’d think the Oceania server would get it first, but maybe they’re on Jakarta time? At least it doesn’t come down to “Japan/America/UK/wherever-the-author-is-from is the best, because I say so!” for once.
- If Novasphere Pioneers didn’t launch for all the other servers, does that mean only the adventurers on the Japanese server can go past Lv 90?
- You can tell Leo is American because he has blond hair. *facepalm*
- Kanami is like Shiroe, in a way. If most people said they wanted to attack an army with four people, the appropriate response would be “Lawl, no way,” but with Kanami and Shiroe, you find yourself going “Well, maybe…” Though for Kanami it’s for more personality/guts reasons, while with Shiroe you assume he has a plan. Because he always does.
- But seriously, who farms gold on a cleric?
- Hello, Londark. Long time no see.
I wrote a book! My first novel, Wage Slave Rebellion, is available now. (More info) My personal site has also moved. Last four posts: I can’t believe it. This is really happening!, Lessons from the Dresden Files: All alone, Mind meld, & Interview with Little Red Reviewer.
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Chinese farmer bots for the win!
What I couldn’t understand is why would the Chinese farmer bot be in a healing class? Wouldn’t a offensive oriented class be more fitting for the role?
There are possible answers below
Because in the end, farming bots are still player characters and have vulnerabilities like health. So bots operate in teams as usual with DPS and healers.
Healer bots were made for the purpose of healing any other bot or human chars. At least, this was the idea back in the days in Ragnarok Online, were mobs of healer bots would be around healing randomly in random maps lol
This episode they made the peculiar choice to burn through most of the content of a volume in a single episode. That’s why it’s so rushed. We might still get some of those missing scenes though, given the way they’ve rearranged various things this season.
If I were to guess at why it was done this way, it would be that the planning phase for S2 happened before it was decided to adapt this side story into volume 9.
On the flip side it means we might get some volume 10 content, which Mamare is currently writing.
Was this an actual volume’s worth of material? IIRC, this is based off the web-published sidestory, Dragonhowl Mountain(?) and from the few parts I saw it was short.
@Blue
The first half of the season covered volumes 6 and 7. Volume 8 covers the upcoming adventures of the former newbies/scrubs. Volume 9 is a rewrite of the Kanami side story, changing/updating some things, and re-framing it to fit within continuity.
They just burned through almost all known plot points from volume 9. There’s still some character interactions they could make use of, and they haven’t explained why KR doesn’t know what happened after that, so they could still bring that up. But in general they just burned through a good 4-5 episodes of plot development in a single rushed episode, at the expense of some character development and world building.
Quite the odd choice for a series that’s at 14 episodes, and had just two volumes left to adapt. Especially as rewriting of volume 9 only just finished a couple weeks ago, and they didn’t have to put this here.
Sorry, not to beat on a dead horse, but my confusion is:
Is there even a volume 9 yet? I thought volume 8 was the most recently published volume. It’s great to hear that Kanami’s sidestory will be/is expanded upon, but does such material exist yet?
I’m pretty sure by the end of the season we’ll have most if not all of volume 10 in anime form. Maybe even a sneak peak as to whats beyond too.
It was to introduce the Genius, as stated by the director.
Show Spoiler ▼
I would be shocked if the author isn’t heavily involved with the animes production. Certainly one would think the author would map out where he intends on taking the story to the studio, that way they can forge on ahead.
Judging from the fact that this episode’s depiction of Kanami and co. are (almost) entirely from KR’s point of view during his one-off chance encounter with them, one can only hope that her party gets fleshed out more in later episodes.
Or in an OVA. Really, that would be a shame to waste such a story burning it all in single anime episode.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_mOpFCssGHQ
I would have really enjoyed if my childhood made a reapearance in an anime. T_T But copyright issues has always never been easy. Anyway, don’t suppose Leo can at least use those swords to slice up pizza?
Or I don’t suppose there is a raid boss that is called the Shredder.
The 2005 TMNT cartoon is your childhood?
Oh gods, I feel old.
Nothing can replace the original opening.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qhrrkNfTQOA
That’s what I’m talking about. Heroes in a half shell, turtle power!
Now there’s the song I know!
…And it does make me feel old. 🙁
I saw article on the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles one time only comedy parody comic book in 1984. TMNJ was a joke name to rift of D movie names. There was no intention at first for it to go anywhere other than as a one time joke parody of 4 popular at the time comic books and things in the culture.
I had just graduated collage I’m feeling ancient.
Well, I have never written a bot programme for an MMO before, but I would say a cleric is perfect for gold farming. They might not be hard DPSers, but Elder Tale has been shown to have relatively slow recovery times for players. When your MP is nearly gone, you need time to replenish it, as we have seen during the Goblin King event. Likewise, I assume HP will be a problem if you basically exist to constantly kill things and pick up gold.
Clerics have a lot of MP, can wear heavy armor, and can heal themselves. Basically, they can function autonomously for far longer than most other classes. And isn’t that the whole point?
Possibly true. I always think of Elder Tale likes it’s old school EQ, where clerics were heal boys entirely incapable of soloing, if only because no one ever picked the class unless they wanted to constantly be one of the two most sought after classes in the game. (The other being Enchanter, though once they cast crack they could AFK.)
Elder Tale seems to mix in some modern attributes, so perhaps a cleric could solo well … but I still feel like their slow and steady would lose out to, for example, a Monk.
From what I have seen of the show so far, very few classes in Elder Tale are completely incapable of soloing. Minori the miko and her … tanto dagger? I’m not sure… surely proved that fact. As for what class is best to use, it would depend on how often things like HP/MP pots drop. If mobs just drop a bit of gold and some low level crafting materials most of the time I would be sure to use a char with recovery ability.
Plus, making a gold farming bot that just runs around a specific zone systematically killing the same kind of mob is doable, but making a bot that can dynamically respond to dangers and the needs of a whole party on a dungeon crawl? Sounds a little farfetched to me… Then again, if Elder Tale and its 20 years of storied history truly is based on EQ, then, well, the series would be set in the year 2019 at the earliest, so maybe.
another take on this that I came across is that it’s not a gold farm bot in the way we think, i.e. killing mobs.
In some Asian MMO’s there are bots that exist called buff stations (such as Ragnarok Online). Where a bot is placed in an area where they buff people who are either part of the bot farm, or in Coppellia’s case, “buff for gold”.
It’s an interesting take since she keeps offering healing/buffs; and when she gave it out to the townsfolk she took particular note as to the amount of thanks she got (thanks instead of gold).
Lineage 2 is also made like this. MMORPG like these are designed so that party is necessary for anything and soloing is made hard by class design. Actually very few classes could solo with ease while several were literally incapable of. Healers, Enchanters and Tanks for instance. (they later added trasformation skill so that these class could do some soloing too).
So when designing bots you can’t only set up killing machines but you also need service from automated enchanters and healers. And there’s also a habit called ‘dualbox’ where you own and drag around your own enchanter as a buff/heal station when levelling. (I also have one, btw :p)
I once watched to a youtube movie where people enjoyed fighting bot farmers. They caught several bots, one fighter with an automated healer. They repeatedly killed the fighter while the automated healer continued resurrecting the other bot. At that time players lost 4% exp per death so go figure how many levels do that people let the bot loose.
It depends really – in Ragnarok Online, one of the oldest MMO still functioning cleric could go for healing/buffing (classical build), but there were also melee DPS (novelty build for fun), and two builds that could be very inmteresting here – Turn Undead build (powerful single target ranged DPS on undead only enemies, with chance for instant kill) and Magnus Exorcismus (giant AoE with tremendous damage, demons and undead only).
The two last builds were one of the fastest characters to level because of their enormous killing speed (as long as they stayed in undead populated arenas), with many full support build splicing TU as help for leveling before going for Rebirthing (character reset with powerfull bonuses).
I don’t know all skills of Cleric in Elder’s Tale, but if they had even one like ones in RO… well, they could be THE best farming class.
With all that “do you require healing?” I got impression that Coppelia wasn’t designed for soloing, but rather as an automated party cleric optimized for survivability. Grinding moves and low level raids with (relative) noobs or other bots.
Or maybe a dualbox. That could explain why she’s in search of a master and was stranded like that having lost hers.
It might not be related, but the status window parallel ability of the defeated ‘genius’ reminded me of Nelreth’s status window while he was possessed by the sword.
blame DEEN for mash 1 Vol into 1 EP
they left out so many important detail.
Show Spoiler ▼
and more, i cant remember all of it :s
Stilts edit: Spoiler tags added.
You want to blame DEEN when the production staff is almost identical? Moron.
You’re blaming the people who made the visuals for the scriptwriter and director’s screw-up?
also, i think spoilers abound here?
Call whatever you want but it’s crystal clear something changed for the worst when Deen was succeeded to the head project.
Well, I suppose that explains why that cleric is dual-equippped with shields….
Also, subgroups… ‘nole’?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gnoll
Really?
Gnoll fortress, Baldurs Gate…
oh the nostalgia…
Yeeeeah, I thought about that, but not knowing if they were doing something unique with it, I just shrugged and used the translation I heard about. I have to hope it was Gnoll though. Nole just looks silly.
It could be a copyright thing, some of the D&D creature names are, and Wizards of the Coast the current owners of the property are like Disney when it comes to trademarks.
if all the chinese farmer bots gain suddenly personality, it will be truly apocalypse…
If they’re all moe kuudere maids, I say bring it on!
Hum I really liked the episode and it did not seam that rushed for a story that often does not drag out the combat situations that long. But if you know what’s dropped of course it a shame.
Now this is because I give leeway for things to be expanded later. If no expansion then I will not like it.
Chinese Farm Bot might not have had a soul but you can see with her reaction to Kanami this status is cracking. And our froggy turtle seams to realize it. Shiro came to his people of the land realization in one episode too along with others in his party. As froggy had a week in the village and seemingly at least a day or so traveling realizing NPC”s are no longer NPC’s anymore is not that fast.
I love stories like this and Ghost in the Shell that deal with what is a person when dealing with artificial intelligence’s.
Progenitor. It was interesting that the enemy was trying to impose knowledge from the Adventures world on him to weaken him when Kanami was your real and your past is real in effect. We know from other People of the Land there is a lot of history, personal relationships, a llot more People of the Land in this world then those who were in the game and knowledge of their past that was never part of the game. He’s level 100 first Lander who can trash a player without cheating.
It was almost like a curse kept the world mirroring the game world until they basically combined.
With the world expanding I’m fairly sure the New Content will spread worldwide over time.
The New York Riots mentioned seams little different than what happened to the Northern Part of Yamoto he just wisely left before a warlord finally consolidated power(or with an area that size a few in different areas). Probably could have just relocated to another US town I’m sure the situations vary greatly. Oh fairy rings no choice of where they drop you probably the reason.
…and now conquering in style, with armored trains!
they have gone completely 163x on that medieval setting…
by the way, anyone’s gonna blog about Ansatsu Kyoshitsu? i liked that anime
I actually felt like this episode was pretty good. It definitely did feel rushed, but they did at least introduce a lot of interesting characters. For the ninja, I thought he had some development, since he started off thinking NPC’s are just NPC’s, they’re not important, and he’s starting to have a different viewpoint because of the chinese bot farmer. I just hope they’ll expand more on these characters, which I’m sure they will since Konami is coming back to the japan server, and her companions will probably follow her too.
The episode felt like telling a side story. If you think of Kanami arc as an actual volume, then yes, it’s rushed. But if you’re KR and just telling a story of your friend, then it’s the perfect length. No one talks in gory details when you’re talking about an old companion with a friend. As someone who’s not particularly that interested in Kanami, I’m kind of glad they got that over with.
Looking forward to what should be a low level raid next.
I was astonished that they convered every scene with Kanami and Co. from the ep.1 preview in a single episode. It feels like we got the cliff-notes version of this story. A poor choice, IMO, as Kanami is fascinating, and her team is worth getting to know. And this is the introduction of the Genius monsters! If anyone is going to claim the title of being the “villains” of Log Horizon (the story), it’s these things who know that they’re in a game, and manipulating the systems to their will, and are actively hunting down the in-game heroes like Elias to further some plot of their own. Things like that need more than a quick five minutes on screen that barely even acknowledges that they’re even interesting.
What I think bothers me the most about this is the fact that up until now Log Horizon as an anime has carefully avoided rushing its material. Not that it hasn’t skipped content, because it has, folks have made that plain, but it has very carefully taken the time to tell every story fully. The fact that it chose to buck that trend, and did so here, of all places, is not encounraging.
The Genius monster thing went by so quickly (and during a noisy battle) that I had to go back twice to catch what info I could. It wasn’t until reading the comments here that I connected Elias’s apprehension of Geniuses to his mention of Kanami being his savior. As in, Kanami saved Elias from being wiped out by Genius(es) before. Argh!
Once this season is over I am so going to enjoy reading the LNs…
seem to me than may be aim have an anime original ending.
I don’t like kanami. She strikes me as a reject from a worse anime. Her personality consists of nothing other than GENKI! (which, despite what anime has attempted to convince viewers for decades, is not actually a well-rounded personality type), she’s got boobs three times the size of her head, which log horizon had avoided up until this point, and her fighting style seems random and shounen esque compared to Shiroe and the other lead characters.
Fortunately, the episode wasn’t really about her so much as it was about people’s reactions to her, which I think helped to avoid the worst of her random Mary Sue-ness. I didn’t realize they shoved her whole story into one episode though. That’s unfortunate as I would have liked to have seen more of these characters.
You can blame DEEN for the breast-upgrade. While Kanami’s always been a solid D-cup in her appearances, it wasn’t until this season started airing that they suddenly ballooned into those H-cups.
Unlike blaming DEEN for writing/directing issues, I can agree that inconsistantly animating Kanami’s breast size is a goof on their part.
You’ll have to realize that Kanami is playing a different character from what she had played with during her time in the Debauchery Tea Party. She’s a monk and not a Swashbuckler anymore.
Not to be rude, but what does her class have to do with what I was talking about?
I dunno, a part of me giggles at the thought of Kanami cranking the bust size all the way up while creating her new character.
The whole Debauchery Tea Party thing always struck me as shonenesque, with Kanami as the MC, so her coming across as a shounen lead really didn’t bother me too much.
That’s very true, but it never really bothered me because the DTP was always just a background element. Sure they were impossibly badass, but it was just academic at this point in the story. And our main images of the party were Shiroe and Naotsugu, who both have very well-rounded personalities. Shiroe can veer into Mary Sue territory a bit, but it’s done in a very different way from most things, so it doesn’t bother me.
Kanami just seems… unfinished. Log Horizon generally does a very good job at creating fairly layered characters and she just isn’t as far as I can tell. But again, the story’s not really about her so much as how her force of personality effects other people (Shiroe, Leonardo, etc) so it still mostly worked for me. But I’m not a fan of her specifically. Probably my least favorite female character.
Counterpoint: Some people just aren’t that complex. Kanami seems, to me, like a character we haven’t gotten to know well yet, this is true, outside of the surface-level glimpses we’ve had … but even in those, we’ve gotten some hints at depth, they just haven’t been expounded on yet. And may not be, now that they sprinted through this entire volume, but oh well.
Oh indeed, and sometimes people that aren’t that complex aren’t that interesting. But to be frank, I don’t think that’s the goal here. Kanami is a very common anime stereotype, or a mixture of a number of them depending on how you define her. The point is, basically all of the stereotypes that she embodies I find shallow and dull. And in fact are the kind of thing that turned me off of anime for a while and which I still avoid.
That said, I’m not really making a broad statement about her. I said I don’t like her, and I don’t. And I do think that’s semi-intentional. Kanami is important, but as far as I can tell at this point she’s not ‘truly’ a lead character in the story.
She has qualities that are meant to draw out things in other characters more so than be particularly central on her own. I think it’s telling that even in ‘her’ side story, the focus is still pretty heavily on a completely new character (Leonardo) as opposed to her. I think that tells you what Kanami’s role is meant to be in the story.
I like Log Horizon a lot and liked this episode a lot too, but…
Why, Deen, why? Why squeezing so much ‘plot’ into
such a tiny uniformoops, I mean into such a meagre single episode? There was enough for a full arc, you know? Instead this feel more like a filler to me. I guess it’s just Deen being Deen. You can never trust them…The bot and progenitor concepts were pure gold. I hope they’ll expand them further later on.
Should’ve been split into at least 3 or 4 eps because i was completely lost in here.
Dammit, this episode frustrates me. Because there’s so much interesting elements brought to our attention, yet they’re all just rushed through. I mean, we get a look at the situation on other continents, bots being turned into adventurers, surviving in-game heroes, self-aware raid bosses with nefarious plans and dissent among the ranks in Plant Hwyaden. Every tidbit of information are something that could be explored to great detail through the span of an entire arc, because all of these could influence the story to a great deal.
But no. This episode was like they were just ticking off boxes, telling us the basic information people got from the side-story and then just get it over with. It’s like someone reading a list of spoilers off to you, going ‘you get that? good’ and then just walking away. It’s dissapointing, to say the least.
C’mon Log Horizon, you’re better than this.
Just like everyone and Stilts said, this episode was so good but wayyyy too rushed. It almost pisses me off that we can’t take our time and get to learn these interesting new characters over 2-3 episodes. Or maybe somehow make a full 1 hour length special and introduce these characters properly.
I was so interested in the Progenitors back story. But it was barely mentioned in a hurry and rushed past. Would’ve also liked to see Kanami talking to her comrades more. Also confused on the whole China server thing. I felt kind of dumb honestly. I was trying to figure out did China get pulled into the Apocalypse (sounds like it has) and is it connected to the Japanese server?
When Elder Tale became real, it pulled in players from around the world, and rather than being on independent servers, they’re all mashed together into a single world.
Thank you very much!!
First time I saw KR, I thought he was a duche, glad to see he seems more than meets the eye. (Also probably helps that I think I recognize his voice at Sora from dot hack! O.O them feels!)
I like how they subtly mentioned the whole ninja turtles bit since I think everyone was curious how’d they pull it off since not even the creator was sure they could. XD
Other impressions (tagged for safety reasons):
Show Spoiler ▼
The kids going off on their own. Clearly a coming of age arc, can’t wait! (for lots of reasons, because something always happens :P)
Show Spoiler ▼
https://randomc.net/image/Log%20Horizon/Log%20Horizon%202%20-%2014%20-%20Large%2037.jpg
Beat Rush!
https://randomc.net/image/Log%20Horizon/Log%20Horizon%202%20-%2014%20-%20Large%2031.jpg
Splinter would be proud
So, Tifa, Leonardo, Sir Galahad, and a dual shielding battle maid walk into a bar…
While I liked this episode, it highlights the problem that LH tends to jump around too much. Kaname’s group was fun, but still felt like an aside to the real action. Next week is the newbs, who I’m not very fond of to say the least.
You forgot the talking horse.
With Kanami, I felt like this was the setting for a more traditional ensemble. Y’know, according to tvtropes; Kanami’s the Hero, Elias her Lancer, Leo The Big Guy and so on and so forth. I dunno, it just seems like a nice contrast to Shiroe’s. You have to admit, she does have a sort of memetic charisma that draws the oddest people to her. Though boy did she misfire with Intix, whom I’m actually wary about. Her abusive behaviour just didn’t sit well with me.
Next episode, more of the kids! Yeeeeey! They’re really growing on me :3
Just out of curiosity, Stilts, what class and sub-class would YOU have chosen on Elder Tale?
If you’re interested, you can take a look at the tropes listing for “Journey to the West”‘s Pilgrim characters:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/JourneyToTheWest
Based on this episode’s eyecatch:
Kanami = Sun Wukong/Monkey
Coppelia = Chen Xuanzang/Tang Sanzang/Tripitaka
Elias = Zhu Wuneng/Zhu Bajie/Pigsy
Leonardo = Sha Wujing/Sandy
KR = Yu Lung/The Dragon-Horse
@ Murasaki
Actually, Leonardo would be the Lancer. Elias would be the Big Guy. Coppelia would probably be The Heart, amusingly enough.
And I would be a Sorcerer for sure. Not sure on the subclass. Berserker? I always have a tendency to play a squishy caster and the fling myself into melee and use AE spells whenever possible, lol. I always tend to have pocket healers, which is the only reason I ever get away with that >:3
Wow….Kanami grew up quite a bit from last season. >_>
Anyway, that aside, infodump was okay, just waiting for the next bit though, more. :3
So one volume of material (that a lot of fans were looking forward to) got squeezed into 1 ep. Why?
Well, did they choose to make this ep because they wanted to? No. Because given how well LH has been produced so far, do you honestly think the people in production WANT to make crappy TV?
No, so they HAD to.
So why did they have no other choice? Probably because Mamare couldn’t get the Kanami book ready in time for them to adapt it properly, and their production schedules got shot to hell.
Mamare had said that he wanted to have “Kanami, Go East!” published by December, 2014/January, 2015. (In the volume 8 afterword.) Well, it’s January, 2015, and it’s still not up for pre-order. So that means nothing until early March most likely. (JP publishers don’t do just dump things on the market. It’s up for pre-order for at least 2 months, sometimes longer.)
My guess is that in converting the web LN to the Real Thing, he ran into problems, and he hasn’t solved them yet, or he solved them too late for the production staff, so the production staff only had the web version to work off of.
But if Mamare is going to dump some or all of that in the finished product, or change it considerably, then what to do?
Simple: compress the ep and lose those annoying details. And you deliver on the promise from the OP. Is it perfect? Oh, hell no. But this sort of thing happens.
Move on, wait for the big new arc starting next week. This is just an unfortunate bump in the road.
Mamare still posts his drafts on his website where he posted Log Horizon when it was a webnovel. The draft for volume 9 was finished right at the end of December. If they’d waited instead of trying to cram the story in before volume 8’s material, things likely would have gone smoother.
They could easily wait one or two more seasons to have all they needed without any rush or lack of material. Why to rush and risk possible fails like this?
Maybe the story is a bit different and is about the authors not expecting so much (relative) good reception from the public and wanted to exploit such a sudden success since it’s still new. You know, anime fan have limited time span memory, after all.
Interesting thoughts, s_w. You may very well be right.
@ Solaris
I think you overestimate how much control Touno-sensei has on the anime. My guess is approximately zero. The publisher/network probably wanted to exploit Log Horizon as quickly as they could, so they rolled the dice and greenlighted the next season as quickly as possible. This may have been a problem that resulted from that.
Sorry for my poor choice of word. With authorS (<– plural) I meant whoever made this (anime) not only the writer of the novel.
Gotcha. The staff, you mean
I don’t know why, but I think this was my favorite overall Log Horizon episode. Despite not having any of the main characters in it, enough was going on at any one time to provide a ton of entertainment. It might just be because the last arc dragged out for so long. It’s nice to see a fast paced LH episode, while I do appreciate LH’s tendency to take it’s sweet time, at times that can be a detriment. When several weeks in a row you’re waiting for the ending of the same cliffhanger, having an episode like this with not only a different feeling to it, but tangible and significant plot progression is nice.
I don’t know, the first 13 episodes may as well have all just been a giant mass of slow moving character development. Admittedly the episode felt rushed and the connection you can feel to the characters ends up being superficial, but you get a general jist of their personalities and it was overall just a really fun episode to watch. It kind of felt like a snail all of a sudden gets a motorbike and drives off full speed. It’s not exactly the best thing for a snail to do, but at least it’s different than what the snail has been doing before, which was moving ridiculously slowly.
I do think the last two arcs, since they were intertwined, felt slower than usual. Usually it’s 4-5 episodes of an arc, then the next arc, etc., so they each move quickly enough, but when you get the start of raiding with Shiroe, and then pause that for several episodes to go back to Akiba with Akatsuki, it leaves you wondering about the Shiroe raid the whole time.
An evening off RC and there are 7 brand new entries I gotta read!?? Goodness, Bloggers! 😀
…it sounds like i might have to do some reading and catch up on lost material
It looks brown to me
It only looks blondish in the other screenshot because of the light.
I’m surprised the review didn’t mention what I thought was the most telling scene in the episode: When Kanami is faced with something she doesn’t understand, and with a goal (save the villagers) she has no idea how to accomplish her thoughts turn immediately to… Shiroe.
In her short moment of self doubt, it is Shiroe’s advice she seeks. That gives us quite a hint on their relationship.
Ah yeah, I did notice that. There’s definitely a level of admiration and trust between them that’s not to be understated.
This situation, Kanami gathering her hairum standing on top a mountain of fruit and having them all sweating on Valentines day, Kanami saving Elias by instantly emotionally overpowering the menial attack on him, and getting a bot to start become a person as their dawn show me that Kanami has maximum level charisma leadership skill. Leadership skill at this level has been called a reality warping ability in real life by some in how the leader instantly takes over the situation just by showing up and even enemies can’t help to admire them and have trouble disagreeing with them while in their presence. Reagan and Bill Clinton were described this way even by enemies. Steve Jobs was one in software and Walt Disney way before. Napoleon maxed this out by showing up in front of an french army loyal it seamed to the new government sent to kill him by showing up in front of them and saying ‘Soldiers, I am your emperor. Know me! If there is one of you who would kill his Emperor, here I am’. They threw down their weapons and joined him on a peaceful march to Paris where he took back power for the 100 days.
I love that the max power leader in Log Horizon is a woman and that she does not conform to a male leadership type personality either. Other anime have had shown how a woman can be a very believable leader with a female personality that people do not associate with leadership. In example Marika in Bodacious Space Pirates who shows how what I call a California Girl personality can lead believably even though you would not realize that at first if you just meet her at school or as maid cafe worker.
Things like this show how tough traditional Japanese culture is to resist change but I’m sure these examples continue and the Japanese who grew up watching them reach leadership age the culture will slowly change.
Bits and pieces throughout season 1, Kanami was portrayed as this den-den-den legend that even Shiroe looked up to. I feel like she completely lives up to it.
But I liked her “old” costume much better (with rice picker hat) than this bizzaro-Tifa look.
http://i.imgur.com/Zug6Kgp.gif
(her chest wasn’t OUT of control either)
I get the sense that Kanami didn’t just change servers, she changed characters. Her previous look was more of a Shrine Maiden (or whatever Minori’s class is) than a Monk. Would explain the new look.
She rerolled Monk and got also some breast bonus upgrade in the process…
Yorokobinasai Sh…iroe [kinda-cit.]
Also, she’s on her way by foot to Japan from the far European server, if I got it right.
Very Kanami-ish if you ask me…
@ Deadpool
Like Solaris said, she rerolled characters on the Western European server (when she lived in Rome, she mentioned). She used to be a Swashbuckler (even if she liked to dress like a monk even then, lol), but now she’s actually a monk.
Same Kanami, but in the same way that Shiroe is taller than he was in real life, she may have given herself a bit of a bust upgrade with her new Monk toon, lol. Though truthfully, I believe that’s all DEEN being DEEN.
Judging from conversation between KR and Kazuhiko you get the feeling that Kanami is going to play heavily into Indicus holds Shiroe in such low esteem (ie: he’s not even a real person, just interference). There’s likely a lot more to the story of why the Tea Party broke up than just her leaving for Europe.
Especially the opening bit where Kazuhiko suggests that Nureha is “a replacement for Kanami” which, given their individual dispositions, makes absolutely no sense unless you start reading into the possible implications of that…
Well, Kanami was great at gathering people together. In a way, so is Nuhera. Her public persona will be that of the second coming of Kanami. Even if she’s being forced into it.
What landmark building was that one KR and Kazuhiko were standing over?
Looks like a department store
http://www.osaka-info.jp/en/facilities/cat37/post_393.html
If you see the real map there’s also an highway like that in the episode.
Do someone notice Dotombori with the famous Glico and Crab at the start of the episode when KR is speaking (no screenshot here, dude?). That’s exactly why Minami is intended as (South Osaka).
I dunno, but this Episode felled like a Log Horizon Spin-off
Technically it was. It started off as a side story on the author’s website.
they seriously cram the whole story into one episode! this is so annoying as they missing out many details… Season 1 is much better than Season 2.
Ok, I asked this question last episode and I am all the more curious now, are there physical boundaries between the areas of different servers. By this I mean when Kanami and co where traveling from Europe to China, did they simply walk from one zone to another or did they have to travel across servers using special means like the fairy rings or transport gates. Currently based on the information we have I am inclined to believe the former. I feel this point will be important whenever a plot point is brought up that forces the characters to travel to different servers since the transport gates (at least in akiba) are down and the fairy rings are fairly dangerous.
Leonardo used a fairy ring to get out of New York and it dumped him in China. No way to reliably get a party anywhere with them. Nureha’s claimed her group got the gates to work partially but nothing more is know. Have to assume for Kanami gates are down. So I have to assume she been walking and there is no such thing as a server barrier anymore.
The world of Log Horizon has constantly shown it is real more like the game was copying it. And now with the players in the world the world is going back to normal earth size and making major non game changes.
The biggest evidence for this is the huge explosion in People of the Land population after the change. Before there were just enough People of the land to flavor the story in example a village had 30 of them for a population of 500 now there is the full 500 of them each of them totally human with multi generation family histories.
Yes everyone might be data on some far in the future technology alien computer but Log Horizon is based current day, there are no virtual reality hookups possible, a full AI computer is still mostly pipe dream let alone a computer system that could contain probably over a million separate AI’s running.
The last this is real not game to me was Kanami totally shutting down the your not real memory attack on Elias Hackblade instantly bringing him back by using her huge leadership presence to say your real, the information your just a program is false, and it worked like in any fantasy story. The reality in the end is more powerful than illusion is why Kanami was able to do that.
Can’t wait till Kanami unexpected flings herself into a round table chair and takes over the meeting and no one even dreams of objecting. She sure was both a bright light and a total terror to an introvert like Shiro but her asking him to do the impossible rubbed of on him and his think things out rubbed off part way on her.
To clarify, there were never hard server barriers like there are in other games. Ex: In Everquest, there are servers like Bristlebane, Cazic Thule, Firiona Vie, Tunare, Vox, etc., each one of which is a complete duplicate of the entire EQ system which you cannot traverse. So, when you go to the Southern Desert of Ro (does that still exist? Am I showing my age?) on Bristlebane, someone else can be in the Southern Desert of Ro on Cazic Thule, and you won’t meet.
Not so here. While someone might be based on a certain server (the Japanese server, for instance), they can travel between servers at will—even when it was a game. It’s been explicitly noted that raiding guilds like D.D.D. and Silver Sword traveled through the Fairy Rings and did quests in other servers (Silver Sword did some in Korea, and I believe Krusty got his axe in a super hard raid European raid sometime).
Them being able to travel between servers isn’t new. The main difference is that, because they don’t have the travel charts that tell them how to use the Fairy Rings (apparently these were all housed offline, for some reason … a spot of rare bad design in Elder Tale the game, if you ask me), if you jump into the rings (like Leonardo did), you’re leaving it up to luck where you’ll end up. So Kanami, Coppelia, and Elias almost certainly walked to China.
For the last two years I have been so unhappy with life. On Christmas day I lost my daughter in law, who died in the arms of her husband suddenly and without warning. Complications from Crohns. My son was devastated, but it didn’t end there. On January 23 of 2013 his youngest son got killed by a train. This was way beyond what anyone could handle, needless to say, he became really in a dark place. On April 14, he shot himself in the heart. To this day, I still cry when I talk about them. I so want to be happy again because I know they are ok and are in a better place, but I am selfish I want to hug them again, and I can’t, so my loss is getting worse. I promised my children I would try to change this New Year, and I really am with the help of all of you and this site. I need to be happy again, none of them would want this for me. My husband passed in 3/5/2010, my younger sister died in her sleep on 1/23/2011, and these losses. I feel I didn’t have time to grieve for my husband, or my sister before all this happened. But I am going to really try. That’s a promise. Thanks for listening and I love the advice from this site. Happy New Year to all. xxx
Speaking about pacing. After a full arc worth squeezed into a single episode, go watch this week’s episode. 25 minutes of greetings and compliments just to start a trip. Oh DEEN…
Forgot one thing about this episode that I really hoped to see how they would handle it in the anime (tagged for spoiler just in case)(but it something about mechanics, if you’re curious)
Show Spoiler ▼
I thought the ninja frog is really cool. Especially when he shouted “Cowubanga”. Also, Kanami, I can understand now why she became the leader of DTP. I believe it is confirmed now that she is the best girl. I’m kinda intrigued how she managed to recruit the other two though. If given a chance to develop, I think I might support Leonardo x Coppelia, even if the latter is an AI. 😀
I don’t like how they rushed it but, overall, I still like this episode.