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[series:4841#628] | ||||||
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(All episodes watched}: There must be a sizable market in Japan for anime and manga targeted to MMORPG players who feel they have been unfairly cast aside by their former fellow party members and would love to hear stories about people in similar situations who were able to prove that those moves were a mistake. 'Once everyone looked down on me, but I showed them!', basically. And here's another. Episode one is all about Laust and Narsena forming a new party and as of yet there are no signs of any hidden powers that the title infers. Narsena, whose specialty is the martial arts, is disappointed that Laust doesn't remember their previous meeting, but then she had yellow hair then. She keeps her frustration a secret. Laust is a 'labyrinth orphan' who has been an adventurer since he was a child. While he's not much of a Healer, he has learned to be a respectable fighter over the years, as he demonstrates when they encounter a fearsome giant Orc on what should be a relatively safe level of the Mardat Labyrinth. Guild clerk Amherst and manager Hanzum may be significant characters (Hangun seems to know something about Laust that most don't). Again, nothing really novel has happened at the end of episode one, and this was all seeming rather familiar at that point. But since this show hasn't really revealed what, if anything, will be unusual about it, and Laust and Narsena are fairly likable characters, I figured I would watch episode two. In episode two we learn more about Laust's past--how he has been mistreated by previous parties, in particular. Still no sign of any extraordinary abilities on his part. It turns out that Narsena is a nobleman's daughter and the people in power don't want her adventuring, so someone is given secret authority to do whatever he must to get rid of Laust. Narsena is pretty powerful because she can employ some sort of mana (except a different term is used here) when throwing punches and kicks. This show could be much worse, so I figured I would continue watching for now. I was pleasantly surprised by episode three. I had figured that the members of Blades of Lightning would be pretty much two-dimensional assholes whose only purpose would be to be humiliated by Laust in the end. But no, they have a good deal of depth to them. Already Margulus, their leader, has come to realize that ejecting Laust was a mistake--he's not much of a healer, but he was quite handy as a fighter. I had assumed that Laust would discover amazing abilities as a healer, but really who gives a damn about healers when there are fighters to be had? Margulus asks Laust to return (without much tact) but Laust of course is now part of a new adventuring party and won't desert Narsena. One of the girls, Armia, feels guilty that she didn't speak up for Laust when Margulus dumped him. Margulus recruits another fighter, Sieg--and it turns out that this is a guy that Laila (IIRC), the female healer who replaced Laust knows (an ex-boyfriend?), and him showing up is surely not a coincidence. You could almost say that what's going on in Laust's former party is more fun than what's happening in his new one. Actually, you could say that, and you'd be right. Unfortunately, this intriguing tension within Blades of Lightning doesn't last long. Rather than an ex-boyfriend, Sieg is some sort of high ranking investigator of malpractice among adventurers. And Margulus and one of his girls say some stupid things and are forced to flee from the party as a result. It looks like Laust will return to BoL as its leader, and of course Narsena will join as well. That's why the members were given some depth. Sieg will hang around for awhile; he seemed much more interesting as an ex-boxfriend who could not let go of his lover than the formidable fighter with a magic sword who is content to act as an observer that he has actually turned out to be. Something weird temporarily happened to Laust during a fight with the hydra--his eyes glowed red and he sprouted some sort of horn from his forehead. Sieg wants to keep an eye on him as a result. But again I would much rather have been presented with a sort of soap opera within an adventuring party than this pretty standard stuff. Eh, this show is now looking very ordinary rather than exceptional. Anybody can be the best adventurer if they have the good luck to have some unexplained powers. In episode five the two parties agree to work together to hunt a Phoenix within the labyrinth. Narla (IIRC), an old acquaintance of Sena--and, it turns out, Laust--turns up to check up on her status. Hanzum handles the business, but something funny is going on with the actual adventurer's guild manager, Mist. Narla demands a meeting with Hanzum and conveys her fears that a 'labyrinth uprising'--whatever that is--may be coming soon. She also wonders what the purpose of a ring of plain stone towers around the city might be--evil magic? Meanwhile, Laust, Narsena and the BoL people take on the Phoenix. Armia has a not terribly convincing struggle with panic. All in all, looking like a very average show. Episode seven was sort of interesting, though. It was a between-quests episode with no action and basically about the possibility of romance between not just Laust and Narsena but between Sieg and Laila as well (I wasn't completely imagining things when he struck me as a possible former boyfriend). The episode flipped back and forth between conversations among the girls and the guys, and I got the impression that a little finesse had been employed here. While hardly brilliant, this is of more interest to me than a fight against another monster in the labyrinth. Also, everyone agrees to combine the two parties into one, no doubt with Laust as the leader. In episode eight we meet Keith, a labyrinth orphan who was callously sacrificed by adventurers to distract some 'Orks', but miraculously survived. Laust gets into an argument with Hanzum over the matter, and realizes that they have met before--they once had a similar experience to that of Keith. Laust had asked to have a private talk with Narsena, but that is put on hold when the team gets an unofficial quest to hunt monsters that have been showing up in increasing numbers around the city (knowing anime in general, there's no way he was going to propose to her). Also, we learn that there is significance to Narsena's unusual blue hair (IIRC, she said she just woke up one morning and her hair had changed color). In episode nine the 'monsters' turn out to be goblins and hobgoblins, and the characters realize that what's going on is indeed a labyrinth uprising. The Goblins attack the town but the battle is pretty lame and unexciting. The goblins are slaughtered wholesale, conveniently transforming into drop crystals when they expire, while the only injuries the humans sustain are a handful of minor ones which are easily healed using spells. Laust and Narsena discover Mist's secret: he's actually a 600 year old Elf. This seemed confusing to me, in particular confusing in regards to why we should consider this revelation (and others) to be shocking. Mist's greatest sin seems to be that he knew an Uprising was coming but didn't do anything more than modestly recommend that people leave town. It looks like the real final boss will be some entity deep within the labyrinth that is providing the magical energy that makes the uprising possible; an embarassed Mist agrees to help deal with it (why didn't he do this before the uprising broke out?). But surely it will be Laust and Narsena that actually get the job done. In episode 11 the crisis is clarified: there's an evil dragon which is resurrected every 200 years, and, as per prophecy, the only way to stop it may be if blue-haired Narsena sacrifices herself. It seemed to me that this problem could have been made a good deal more gripping than it was; perhaps the almost playful we're-adventurers-but-nobody-ever-gets-hurt format of this show made it almost impossible to believe that Narsena was in any real danger. Supposedly the hero who shows up every two centuries to deal with the problem is missing this time, but we can all guess who the actual hero will be. So, the climax was modestly interesting rather than truly exciting. Everyone goes into the deepest depths of the labyrinth for the fight with the final boss (getting there was surprisingly easy). But the climax, such as it was, takes place back at the surface outside the labyrinth. It felt very simplistic, like something schoolchildren would cook up. Two characters get impaled but are good as new at the end thanks to magic. And what was the deal with Laust's special red-eyes & horn power? He and Narsena go on a quest at the end to find the missing hero, which implies that the story isn't over (but I would bet that they will learn that Laust was the legendary hero all along). I would prefer that the anime wrap up here, because the degree of intrigue I am getting from this show has fallen off precipitously. Ultimately, the message seemed to be 'you shouldn't have ejected me from the adventuring party because obviously I was going to develop an unexplained but amazing ability sooner or later!' Last updated Thursday, January 02 2025. Created Friday, October 11 2024. | ||||||||
