While watching Record of the Lodoss War, I thought that the setting of the Lord of the Rings, the Wheel of Time or one of the classic Final Fantasies has come to life in anime form. Record of the Lodoss War is a great anime with strong characters, great character designs, nice story and best of all, a great classic fantasy feel.

Record of the Lodoss War starts off simply enough. Ashram wants to unite the accursed island, Lodoss, by gaining the scepter of domination along with the other items that are guarded by the dragons. Parn and his elf gal pal, Deedlit, along with the heroes from the Lodoss War OVAs must once again stop the evil that is threatening Lodoss. But now, a new evil is emerging on Lodoss, and a new hero emerges named Spark, who, wanting to become a simple knight, becomes entangled with this new evil, and protect the girl he loves, from the Necromancer who plans to something more hideous than uniting Lodoss… Thus the war of Lodoss begins anew.

Being the sequel to the OVA Lodoss War series. I wasn’t sure if I would understand this as well as I could of. However, it wasn’t too bad, and the little knowledge that you need to know about the OVAs is told again in the TV series. The plot is strong, and it incorporates two stories in one that come together nicely at the end. The first half of the series, follows along with Parn and Deedlit and the adventure of stopping Ashram and his ambitions. The second half of the show involves Spark and Neese, and the evil ambitions of the dark wizard Wagnard, who wants to resurrect the godoss of destruction within Neese.

My main problem with this series is the incorporating of the two stories together. While they blend together nicely and supplement each other for the better. I just wasn’t completely into the second half of the story. The problem is that Spark and Neese just are no where as interesting or as cool as Parn or Deedlit, and while Parn and Deedlit do come back for the last five episodes or so, I really wanted to see more of them throughout the whole series, not just the first and last part of the series. Although, I feel the whole story is pulled together nicely and while it may seem simple, Lodoss War has quite a few cool conflicts and impossible decisions that each character must face.

The characters are quite interesting, and with the exception of the annoying Spark and weak little Neese, I found each one to be very interesting and deep. Parn and Deedlit are my favorites, but I also found myself liking the supporting characters, such as Leaf, Orson, and Shiris, just to name a few. The character designs are excellent. Each one is designed nicely. The elves, in particular, are really cool. What I really liked was the cover art for the DVDs. They were absolutely gorgeous.

The music is nice. I think the opening theme is very pretty and has a very soothing, almost Arabic/Indian sound to it. The vocals for the music are absolutely fantasic. The art is crisp, bright and nicely drawn. The animation is quite good, but can be a bit cheesy at times. I really don’t like split-screens, and they are used VERY often in the first episode. Even though they are hardly ever used in the later episodes, I can’t help but remember how cheesy it was.

The action is quite good. It’s very exciting. While the first action scene is quite lame. (AHHH, I HATE those split-screens!) The action really picks up from there. I particularly liked seeing the spells, and the spell casting. They were really cool. I also liked seeing the whole group actually working together as a team to defeat a monster. It felt a whole lot like an RPG battle, with attackers, healers, sorcerers that lend support magic (such as defensive barriers) and attack sorcerers. It was quite exciting. I enjoyed pretty much each battle, with the exception of the first one. While the last battle was not all it should have been. It was still very cool

What really drew me to the series though, was the great character designs and the amazing fantasy setting. This is serious, hardcore swords and sorcery fantasy. No silly magical powers, no silly animal sidekicks, just great classic fantasy. I felt like I was drawn into the world of Lodoss. Honestly, very few animes have completely drawn me into the atmosphere. Everything feels classic. Dragons, castles, swords, sorcery, it’s amazing. Although it does get a bit silly at the next episode previews, with SD characters from the show, doing silly things and telling silly jokes, the real show remains completely serious and very much devoid of anything silly. (Silly fantasy would be Magic Knight Rayearth or The Slayers)

I can’t recommend this series enough. I thoroughly enjoyed it thoroughly, and it’s one of my favorite series. I loved the fact that it felt just like an epic fantasy book, brought to life in an anime form. It has its share of problems, but they are far outweighed by the many good points about this series. Buy it soon, if you are into fantasy and dragons and the like, you will LOVE this series. I’m so glad that I bought it and I actually can’t wait to check out the OVA series.