![]() The last half-dozen episodes consequently felt much weaker than those earlier in the series as they struggled to pack in as much content as possible, leaving some plot points entirely unexplained in order to reach an appropriate climax at the end. The one thing which seemed to let the show down was that after finding the perfect pace for a while, it became suddenly obvious that there was no way it could come to a satisfying stopping point. The pair's banter makes up the bulk of the comic relief, lifting the series' bleak atmosphere from time to time to prevent it being completely swept away by its own darkness. That's not to say that there's no comedy at all - Ferris often casually says things so outrageous that they'd shatter a normal man's heart, and Ryner spurs her on by going along with it. There's a great deal of political plotting going on from all sides. The enormous cast of characters is made up of very human individuals, each of whom has their own agenda. From the very beginning there's a surprising darkness to the story people die, suffer and bleed on screen. I soon realised that I was wrong The Legend Of The Legendary Heroes is not that kind of series at all. To complicate matters, hero Ryner has a special power called Alpha Stigma, which makes him a target for prejudice wherever he goes.Īs I said at the start, I originally expected a light fantasy show laced with comedic elements. Main characters Ryner Lute and Ferris Eris are brought together by Sion to travel around on a vague fetch quest looking for magical artefacts. The basic story sets up a typical fantasy romp the world is divided up into various countries, and one of the three leads, Sion Astal, has become king of a region called Roland. And the show looks gorgeous on FUNimation's Blu-ray discs. This is just a surface quibble, however, as the content is what counts. The Japanese editions definitely do a better job of catching the eye. The dull brown backgrounds don't really help when the two male characters are quite simply coloured to begin with. The design is based on the Japanese home video packaging, but while the Japanese discs were spread over a large number of volumes, FUNimation only has two - and they used the same characters everywhere except on the reverse of the limited edition box. Having now watched it, I'm all the more certain that the US artwork does the series a disservice. My first impression upon receiving The Legend Of The Legendary Heroes was mild disappointment, as the packaging uses a lot of very similar images of the same few characters, which makes it look as though the show has a tiny cast of pouty beauties staring off into space. ![]() ![]() There's a generation of grown-up Record of Lodoss War fans out there. Still, it's likely that it will eventually make its way here as new material with existing dubs gradually becomes more scarce. ![]() I don't recall any UK company having announced a local edition to date (a quick internet search only turned up a rather depressing tweet from Manga UK on the matter) indeed, I don't often hear people talking about the series at all in any capacity. It's a bargain for an unspectacular but flawless English-language release. The first pressing versions of the sets also contained a single tarot card each a pleasant bonus even if they're nothing to write home about, as extras go.Īlthough Amazon is showing the Part 1 limited edition as out of stock at the moment, the two collections seem to be freely available elsewhere. The first of the two combo packs came in a limited edition pack with a BD-sized chipboard box to hold the series. An English dub was also provided, though since I stuck to the Japanese version with subtitles as usual I can't advise on the dub's quality. A pair of combo packs came out together in April 2012, each including 12 of the show's 24 episodes on both Blu-ray and DVD. It has its roots in a long series of books written by Kagami Takaya which began publication more than a decade ago now.Īny kind of fantasy anime immediately catches my eye, so I patiently waited and then preordered FUNimation's home video release. The Legend Of The Legendary Heroes received a more than adequate US adaptation with little fanfare. As I don't follow the light novel industry, I somehow got it into my head that The Legend Of The Legendary Heroes (Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu) was going to be a comedy based on the lighthearted title and apparent reliance on fantasy stereotypes I saw in the initial marketing push.
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