Man, there is something incredibly tiring about doing a 9 hour marathon to watch an entire anime show in one sitting. I have started to re-watch all episodes of a series before posting my review of it. While watching some shows that I had previously reviewed I have found some inappropriate scenes that I had missed/forgotten the first time. This way everything is fresh when I review it so I can be sure to catch things if I forgot about them. On to the review!
There have been a few Anime (and other) shows covering the idea of players being caught in the virtual world. Most, like Sword Art Online, take the concept from the players knowingly entering the world through some kind of VR interface or some other method of “direct stimulation”. Log Horizon takes it from a different perspective. One day, 30,000 players were playing the game Elder Tale – sitting at their computers. It was a regular MMORPG game, played with a keyboard, mouse and computer screen. The next moment, all players logged in at that moment are transported inside the game. Or is it a game?
Shiroe is a solo player (aren’t they all?) who has always refused to join a guild. He has partied with other players in the past, but never once joined a guild. Now that he is inside this game world things are different. Players cannot die, they simply re-spawn back inside the city. Sleeping and eating are cheap, though the food is bland and all tastes the same. In fact, things are so cheap that there is no reason for a player to do anything. A few minutes of battle earns enough gold to eat and rent a room for the night.
The city they live in is falling apart because of this lack of interest in living. What can Shiroe do to turn things around? We get to journey with Shiroe and other friends through their world, a half-size replica of the Earth. They have accepted that this is where they live for now and they need to make the most of it. Not just by surviving, but by continuing to live each and every day. By never forgetting that they are human.
Content is very clean. There are a few mildly animated (obviously) bloody scenes of attacking monsters, but none of them are actually gruesome. No inappropriate visual material to be found in the entire first season (second season has not come out yet at the time of this review, but is scheduled for Fall 2014). One of the characters is a mild pervert and for a number of the early episodes is trying to say perverted things, though he always seems to get kicked off-screen before he can finish what he was going to say. Overall a very enjoyable show – although I do not recommend trying to marathon it in one day. After about 18 episodes I was starting to wish I had split it up into two days.