7.8 KiB
[infuriatingly close to being RT] Log Horizon
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Author: u/None *
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/rational/comments/5li113/infuriatingly_close_to_being_rt_log_horizon/
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Score: 20
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Created: 2017-01-01T23:52:45
Post:
Log Horizon is a fantasy-MMO anime (based on a light novel series) that is not a death game. Revival still works and is reliable. As such, it focuses more on the social implications of a bunch of immortal magical people suddenly showing up.
Log Horizon is really trying to be more rational than most shounen. It doesn't always succeed, but its heart is in the right place:
- the challenges to the protagonists are often economic or political rather than things that can be punched;
- the protagonists often use intelligence to solve these problems;
- the power of friendship is necessary but not always sufficient even in actual fights, and the protagonists usually succeed due to superior tactics/strategy and awareness;
- the show tries to be Fair Play Insight-compatible with its foreshadowing;
- munchkinning the world, such as finding new ways to use existing powers, is rewarded;
- even the "NPCs" turn out to have lives, factions, and interests of their own;
- characters are shown to not be doing things For The Evulz, and people who act evil are doing so out of realistic drives (although, admittedly, for some characters it takes a very long time to show what these drives are).
But there are a few things that prevent it from fully qualifying:
- the show is slowly paced and takes a long time to get to a lot of the interesting parts of the worldbuilding;
- if you aren't terribly interested in slice-of-life, you will find the show to be even more frustratingly slowly-paced than I felt it was;
- the foreshadowing is sometimes incomplete and if you aren't paying very close attention to background details some things can seem like ass pulls;
- sometimes it may feel like the worldbuilding was put there in order to get the main characters to succeed, rather than that the main characters take advantage of the existing world;
- the main character's ability to keep track of everything in a battle might be a little too Sherlock Holmes to be rational;
- it takes an extremely long time (until mid-second-season, in some cases) to show that the main characters are not one-sided, and most of the secondary characters never get even that;
- the plot turns out to be Because Of Aliens, which is a tableflip-worthy offense;
- even though munchkinning the world is rewarded, the main characters don't do it nearly as much as rational-fiction connoiseurs expect them to.
The infuriating thing is that it's so close. It values all the right things. It's just that the writer isn't quite smart enough to get everything to pull together credibly to people who are used to rational fiction.
I guess this means, if anything, that rational fiction might be something Log Horizon fans enjoy, rather than the other way around. Maybe we can let them know that rational fiction exists and see what happens.
Comments:
u/vallar57 [+17] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (28 minutes later)
the main character's ability to keep track of everything in a battle might be a little too Sherlock Holmes to be rational;
It's not; it's a well-trained ability of a leader to keep track of everything important. Actual raid leaders are often expected to keep track of all positioning and all raid-wide cooldowns, issuing orders for them - something which Shiroe's demonstrated abilities are well within.
it takes an extremely long time (until mid-second-season, in some cases) to show that the main characters are not one-sided, and most of the secondary characters never get even that;
Not really? Most of the main characters were shown from different angles right from the start (Susukino adventure).
the plot turns out to be Because Of Aliens, which is a tableflip-worthy offense;
As far as I undestand, the aliens were just as surprised by the transmigration as the players.
It's just that the writer isn't quite smart enough to get everything to pull together credibly to people who are used to rational fiction.
The author is smart enough; Log Horizon follows all the tropes from the sidebar, unless you are very rigorous in interpreting the "Nothing happens solely because 'the plot requires it'" part. Also, read his other series, "Maoyuu Maou Yuusha", which is also rational.
However, it wasn't even his purpose to write a rational fiction. He wrote LH because he wanted to show a functioning and believable MMORPG in fiction (saw it in an interview with him, can't find it now though). Every differentiation from common RT tropes comes from that.
u/None [+8] (41 minutes later)
I suppose I'm just not used to MMO anime, or MMOs, or anime. Which would probably explain most of the things that seem inexplicable from my perspective.
I have an irrational dislike for Because Of Aliens because I have seen that trope screwed up too many times to count.
u/vallar57 [+8] Unseen University: Faculty of High-Energy Magic (an hour later)
I have an irrational dislike for Because Of Aliens because I have seen that trope screwed up too many times to count.
Sturgeon's law is quite cruel, yes, but remember: tropes are tools!
I suppose I'm just not used to MMO anime, or MMOs, or anime. Which would probably explain most of the things that seem inexplicable from my perspective.
Probably. This is something I actually noticed while reading Log Horizon: it's very different in writing style from common western fiction. I later checked by rereading some of my other favourite light novels, and saw common tropes in them, tropes that are rarely or never used in the West. Log Horizon anime follows it's LN original very closely.
These tropes can make reading easier when you read a lot of LNs in general, but to an unprepared reader they may feel, quoting yourself, as "slowly paced and taking a long time to get to a lot of the interesting parts".
Also, if you don't actually have a lot of MMO experience, quite a lot in the show will be lost for you, additionaly generating the feel of slow-pacedness.
u/None [+3] (an hour later)
Then I'm even more impressed that there's still enough there there for me to like.
u/Dwood15 [+5] (a day later)
The main issue I have with LH as an anime is that it's a bit too-harem-y. The girls want to be with the MC just because, and romantic relationships are about that deep.
The second issue I have with LH has to be that I don't feel like there is any real chance of failure on the part of the MC. Things work out to be okay for some reason.
The third issue I have is that the rules for the loss-of-memory is so vague as to be unquantifiable. There is no measurable way to say how much memory one character loses per death, if any. It may as well be an asspull.
Those are my complaints with the anime. If the LN doesn't have those issues I'd be interested.
On the other hand, there's Overlord (read the LN, don't watch the anime), perhaps my favorite of these kind of stories so far.
u/OutOfNiceUsernames [+1] fear of last pages (14 hours later)
I second this recommendation. Here’s a (admittedly small) preview for the anime’s drawing style, characters’ designs, etc. I also disagree with at least half of criticism points (don’t remember the show well enough to have an opinion on the other half). You may not enjoy the show as much as some others if you’re not that much into (MMO)RPG games and RPG mechanics verses though.