90s fantasy anime turns Dungeons and Dragons campaign into an all-time classic

According to Jonathan Klotz
| Published 20 seconds ago

The explosive success of Dungeons and Dragons podcasts, incl Adventure Zone, Not Another Dungeons and Dragons Podcastand rotating heroes, helped make the classic board game more popular than ever before. A critical rolethe biggest and most successful true gaming podcast, even turned its campaign into an animated series, The Legend of Vox Machinaon Amazon Prime, but it wasn’t the first D&D campaign to become a series. In 1990 anime Lodoss War Record brought to life author Ryo Mizuno’s home game.

Real playback before podcasts

Lodoss War Record began as a serialized “replay” in Comptiq, a Japanese magazine, as a transcript of Mizuno’s D&D sessions. Use Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition as the basis for a high fantasy story featuring an adventuring party of Woodchuck, Slayn, Etoh, Parn, Deedlit and Ghlim, each representing a different class from the game. Taking on a royal mission, the adventure party begins by making the green dragon very angry, and the stakes only rise from there.

Like anyone who has ever played a Dungeons and Dragons the campaign knows that the adventure has a rhythm and Lodoss War Record captures the same crescendo, complete with great mysteries, betrayals, and a final battle that shakes the heavens. No anime not since then Slayers or Delicious in the Dungeon, brought the campaign to life in exactly the same way. The original series is only 13 episodes long, so it goes faster than any domestic campaign.

Old-school fantasy Throwback

To say that Lodoss War Record was an instant success would be an understatement. The original novels written by Ryo Mizuno before the anime have sold over 10 million copies in Japan, over a dozen video games, tabletop role-playing games, and two spin-off franchises, Legend of Crystania and Rune Soldier. The two spin-offs take place after the end of the original series and explore what happened to some of the group after the final battle. Log Lodoss War: Chronicles of the Heroic Knightreleased in 1998, reunites (most of) the party for a 27-episode series that benefits from better animation and music mixing, but doesn’t have the same appeal as the original.

There are massively successful fantasy anime to date, including Freezing: Beyond Journey’s End that pushed the medium forward with bold storytelling and fantastic new takes on old tropes. Still, there’s something to be said for a series like this Lodoss War Record which includes classic tropes from young Parno’s rise to leadership that hits all the classic RPG beats to the isolationist elves that Deedlit tries to save and Woodchuck the thief, and with that one word description you know exactly what to expect. There’s nothing wrong with clichéd anime every now and then, and for the most part the 1990 series has aged well and is still great to watch today.

Role-playing games, including Dungeons and Dragonshave changed over the years and therefore “Elf” is no longer a class and goblins are no longer forced to be an evil race; return to watch Lodoss War Record it’s like opening a time capsule that contains THAC0. It’s rough, Pirotess the Dark Elf’s design is pure fanservice, and the plot doesn’t beat the first seasons Adventure Zone, NaDDPoDor A critical rolebut it’s fun to go back to where it all started.

If you’ve never watched Lodoss War Recordyou can stream it on Crunchyroll.