Audience reviews
20 · Sample from the first available page, separate from the total number of ratings.
Based__
I just think it's crazy that High Fantasy Anime peaked in 1990 and only in the past decade have we started to get shows that begin to match the quality of Record of Lodoss War. Like don't get me wrong, Dungeon Meshi and Frieren are modern day classics, but there is nowhere near enough fantasy, whimsy, and trope-y cheese in those shows throughout their 25 episodes compared to what Lodoss gives us in a measly 13. Record of Lodoss War has enough material and plot packed into one season that it could easily be 2, maybe even 3 seasons if everything was giving time to breath.
Now, Record of Lodoss War isn't perfect by any means. Most of the characters aren't very complex, the storylines are compacted and squeezed into its episodes, and the world doesn't quite present itself in a really thoughtf…
Read at the sourceimmosha
An anime adapting a 90's Dungeons and Dragons campaign, and man was it a boring one. Nice art direction but far too many tropes to take the plot seriously.
In the modern day of 2025, we see so much isekai soft-fantasy that a true hard-fantasy setting would be a welcome reprieve from the gimmicky plots plaguing the industry. However, Record of Lodoss War, despite a traditional fantasy, leans /too far/ into the traditional aspect. Based on the author's contribution to a TTRPG settting, it unfortunately combines all the tropes of LOTR races, classes, and setting with the tropes of the most 90's shonen anime you've ever seen. It's so predictable, it could basically be considered the model species of the Hero's Journey. Joseph Campbell would downright cream his pants watching this. Damsel-in-d…
Read at the sourceLightNoragami1
This was really bad. Just to put it out there, I love High Fantasy, I love LOTR, Game of Thrones, Frieren: Beyond Journeys End, Berserk and so on. But this was awful. First issue is the series has to much ambition for 13 episodes which leads to way too much being skip over. Another issue is that none of the characters are likeable, especially Parn, and they receive zero development and their relationships feel hollow as a result. The world building is lacklustre as well. Decent music tho.
If you care about characters and interesting world building, don't watch this show, watch the things I previously mentioned. You might enjoy this if some switch your brain off and watch fantasy is what you're after, but it was not what I was after.
The art did have that nice 90s retro feel tho, so that…
Read at the sourceBmoBebop
I loved the art and the tone this show sometimes achieved, but Christ did the writing make it unwatchable. Every character is a flat stereotype of their race or something like "being evil." The world building is childish with a king of goodness and puppies, king of being mean and stinky and a chaos lady “because balance” being the full extent of it. It has less moral dimensions than He-Man.
Those could have been great ideas. Having an objective model of good and evil that move on a cosmic level to be balanced or swing to and fro *could* be interesting if it were ever questioned what good and evil mean. If it could make those concepts relevant and personally challenging to the characters and people living in the world… But Record of Lodoss War refuses to expand on anything, leaving nothin…
Read at the sourceDrakestalker
I don't know what it comes down to. Maybe it's the color composition and background art. Maybe it's the contrast of digital vs. hand-drawn animation. Maybe it's the fact that the characters are all adults or at least adult-looking, rather than children or teenagers. Maybe it's a combination. Maybe it's all of the above. Maybe it's something I'm missing. Whatever the case, watching fantasy anime from before the advent of Sword Art Online is a wild, quasi-mystical experience. They just have such a different look and feel to them. The result is a world that instantly captivated me from its opening sequence.
In today's day and age, even some of the better fantasy anime that do not outright copy the SAO formula, their worlds and environments still somehow end up retaining that same plastic, ca…
Read at the sourcePurpleMagic
Seizure Warning: Don't watch this anime if your prone to seizures, they love to flash lights every fourth of a second in this anime to compensate that they had no budget or time to make this anime. It's prevalent throughout the entire series and especially in the final episode.
Record of the Lodoss War is not a hidden gem and the people who like it are talking with Rose-Tinted Glasses on. They story is all over the place and episodes skip context that would make the next episodes make sense. The narrator will say some important information non-chalantely and then move on with "more important things." They were traveling for an entire episode to meet an important old wizard. Then the next episode hits and their in the castle, they skipped over the meeting with this important old wizard wh…
Read at the sourceGsarthotegga
Nostalgia can be such a nice feeling, evoking vivid memories and moods. On the negative side, it can result in a depressive malaise or obsessive longing; more positively, it can lead one to aspire to something new, even greater. In the case of media, though, the rose-tinted image from memory is usually better, especially if it leads back to childhood. That's certainly the case for Record of Lodoss War: It's visually striking enough and well presented to the point that it can seem grander of a fantasy than it really is, and contrary to the emperor with no clothes parable, RoLW is an emperor peacocking in lavish and ornate robes at the behest of his advisors who hope to distract the populace from realizing their puppet king's drooling idiocy.
As is so common to the fantasy genre, it loses…
Read at the sourceMKSTEEL
A fantastic piece of fantasy anime that feels like it brings alive the lore of Dungeons & Dragons in the medium of Japanese Animation. I really liked the heroes who were all well-drawn personalities despite their fantasy archetypes and the villains were well imagined as well with several morally 'grey' entities inhabiting the moral ground between the armies of Darkness and Light struggling for Lodoss such as the Grey Witch Karla and wildcard Dragons. With even secondary characters like the Good King Fahn and the Dark Emperor Beld receiving some impressive development the series has a sense of history and worldbuilding that helps create an impressive series, despite some of the limited animation that plagues some of the larger set-piece moments in the OVA series.
Read at the sourceliteraturenerd
Overview:
Record of the Lodoss War was a HUGE hit when it came out in 1990 Japan. It also gained strong popularity among the tiny US anime fandom of the early 90s. Unfortunately, this anime has not aged gracefully. Normally I hate using the phrase "aged poorly". It's something that young punks use too often to just shit on anything over 10 years old. In this one instance though, I'm afraid it's kind of unavoidable.
Background:
Record of the Lodoss War was a 1990 OVA based on a Japanese short novel... based an a Japanese tabletop RPG...which was a ripoff of Dungeons and Dragons. Take the most cliche Western high fantasy tropes and they are ALL here in Lodoss War, distilled down to their most basic. The characters go well beyond archetypes and into the realm of laughably generic. The plot…
Read at the sourcefushisan92
This OVA is Considered An Underrated Masterpiece!! Yep!! The characters are Well developed. Parn & Deedlit's Relationship is way better than generic Anime relationship. The Music Of This Anime IS FREAKING ORCHESTRAL-LIKE MASTERPIECE. The Story is Reminded Me Dungeons and Dragons With Mix elements with Lord Of The Rings(BTW, I Didn't Watch Lord of The Ring movie trilogy yet, Surely I Plan too). The Artstyle is Unlikely Generic Fantasy light novels yeah!! This Artstyle Looks Mature Period. Animation is The Best If you watch in Blu Ray Version. This Could Be Everyone's Favorite & Became My Favorite OVA. Also English & Japanese audio Are Great. I've watched in Japanese Audio cause Ashram is Voiced By Akira Kamiya(Voice of Kenshiro from Fist Of The North Star, Ryo Saeba from City Hunter & Kinni…
Read at the sourcethemegamancave
Knights, clerics, elves, dwarves and dragons occupy some of our biggest inner-nerd imaginations. Some of my fondest memories were playing old school dungeon-crawler video games on the PC, and interacting with this type of fantasy lore. Lord of the Rings, Willow and the Chronicles of Narnia all come to mind when reminiscing of some of my favorite fictional fantasies, and there’s plenty of anime out there that scratch the itch. Legendary anime studio Madhouse attempted to tackle Record of Lodoss War in the early 90’s, a time when fantasy novels and movies were undoubtedly on the rise. It has a palpable Dungeons and Dragons feel, and is nostalgic of those all-nighters with friends, chugging our Mountain Dews and munching on Doritos while rolling the 20-sided die one more time. Unfortunately L…
Read at the sourceTevishSzat
Once, a young man toured the empty, echoing halls of an ancient dungeon, a place abandoned by time and now slowly, painfully grinding towards a final collapse named "Blockbuster Video". A few petty coins were left behind for his prize, a priceless treasure known as "Record of Lodoss War"...
OK, enough of that, you want to see a review of the 13-episode OVA series Record of Lodoss War. So, right off the bat, here's my objective opinion: This is a flawed, often deeply-flawed series, but one that has a lot of high points to go along with its flaws. Personal opinion, though? I love this series. I love this series because its creators clearly loved it, and that shows.
So let's talk about those flaws. The story is strong, but the pace of the story is fairly uneven, taking its sweet time here a…
Read at the sourceDwarfking45
Going into this anime, I didn't have very high expectations, but it was part of one of my favorite genres. Also, this is one of the anime where I had some of the hardest time actually deciding on how to rate it. Then, I realized that it is probably going to be just above average. And it did just that.
Story:
It revolves around the wannabe swordsman named Parn and his fellow adventurers who are trying to avert further warfare and save Lodoss from the oncoming evil. This is a setup for a good anime, and I liked it. However, there were many plotholes that could be dug into this anime, and for good reasons, and not necessarily bad ones. This story was meant to be more of a story about a hero who triumphed against all odds, and trust me, the odds were stacking against him WAY more than I anti…
Read at the sourceShura-shurato
First of all, i can slap myself for not watching or seeing it as an kid, though i noticed it decades ago the collection in the VHS store´s, but i had no idea about it until recently and its MAGICAL.
This ova serie´s that i think a side or continuation of the t.v serie´s ( 1990) that was a cornerstone for fantasy anime till this day with exception of Y´S ( 1989).
But there is a catch if u watch it for the 1st time ever, and its that u have to watch the epidose´s in the right order, start with episode 2,3,4,5 after that watch the 1st episode , than # 6 till 13 in order wich i never was able to solve why they did it.
Storywise it was definetly a epic fantasy , dark and well put together with the whole package, dragons, Knights, spells, ancient kingdoms, sort of a ´fellowship´, princesses, tr…
Read at the sourceFirechick12012
This is one of anime's most beloved titles, even though I never learned about it until this year on TVTropes. Plus I felt bored of watching nothing but Pokemon and Sword Art Online all throughout the semester, so I figured I might as well try something I've never seen before. This has gotten a lot of praise from fans, and I thought I'd like it. To an extent, I did, but...honestly, I can't really see why people like this. Now don't get me wrong, it's not a BAD anime. Heck, I'd watch this over every ecchi anime in the world! However, there's just too much wrong with it to really be conceived as anything other than decent. But the show's main problem is that it's just way too short and way too convoluted for its own good. By convoluted I mean like Digimon Adventure 02 convoluted. What do I me…
Read at the sourceIron_Leopard
I'll go ahead and get the inevitable comparison out of the way. Record of Lodoss War is The Lord of the Rings of anime. Maybe not as highly regarded as Tolkiens fantasy trilogy but still a spectacular addition to the genre.
One of the very first OVAs I was introduced to back in the late 90s ROLW was everything I'd ever wanted out of american animation but never recieved. A dark and serious fantasy adventure that touched on all the familar qualites that the genre is known for. Knights, Elves, Dwarves, Dragons, Wizards, and epic bloody battles. This was a show strictly made for Fantasy fans.
The story is pretty straight forward with a few twists and surprises here and there but it's mostly the world is in peril from a great evil and our band of heroes must set out to defeat this evil and s…
Read at the sourceangelsreview
This one is a little bit serious. If you want to talk about this in DnD perspective, these are the guys that take everything serious and say that you can’t talk out of character and all that. Sure there is a little comedy but it is pretty much ether nurd-ifide or magically complicated. Maybe this is why I don’t really get along with the serious people… because I didn’t much care for it. Now this doesn’t mean that it is bad, oh no. It’s far from bad even to today’s standards. It just takes a lot of talking and standing around before anything really significant gets done.
The characters are alright though I have to wonder about the names and character designs. Ghim, the dwarf, reminds me a lot of Ghimbli from Lord of the Rings, and I’m not sure but depending on when Rune Soldier was made, D…
Read at the sourceBankaieater12
An excellent job of sword and sorcery, that has become an everlasting classic for anyone to enjoy. Many others like it fail where this anime grabs you and truly enthralls from the very beginning. Its character progress is a defining aspect that leads to a wonderful adventure. It has everything in just the right dosage, not too mention great character interaction. The art work for its time is sure a landmark in anime. If i had never seen this great masterpiece i would have never acquired my addiction for all things anime.
Read at the sourceWiikendWarrior84
Story:
Overall though this was a good OVA. However, the Story is very scattered and doesn't have proper closure. The completest in me tells me I have to at least see the TV series that follows. I haven't had any luck finding it, however. This anime has a special place in my heart due to the nostalgia factor. I only hope that the TV series that follows this up somehow gives better closure. And one minor gripe, I think all of us understood the backstory of Lodoss by the 3rd episode so it really wasn't nessesary to retell it prior to every episode.
Art:
It's very good looking for an older piece, however it's not so old as to forgive some of the shortcuts and mistakes that are noticable.
Sound:
I love good sound. This doesn't really diliver however. IMHO there's no excuse for 2.0 now that…
Read at the sourceJTurner
Of all the Anime series that I have viewed, Record of Lodoss War holds a special place in my heart. If you happen to be fond of fantasy adventure videogames as I am (or great literature such as J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings), then this 13-episode video series is a very clever hybrid of these two great works of art. It's got everything fans could ask for--dragons, elves, dark gods, unlikely yet compelling heroes, villains you'll either hate (or love, depending on who you side with), action, suspense, romance, a small dose of humor, and an engaging feel to keep on watching by the time each episode ends.
This is a direct-to-video animation series produced back in 1990, which unfolds over thirteen half-hour episodes. Adapted from the fantasy novels of the same name by Japanese autho…
Read at the source