Anime: Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu

I often think that as long as I know what to expect from a show, it couldn’t disappoint me. First impressions from the title alone gave a sense it was trying too hard to be epic, but that didn’t matter since I expected “Legend of the Legendary Heroes” to be a fun, clichéd romp. But instead of creating a brainless fantasy flick for dumb people like myself, the show adopts a taste for complexities with writing that leaves a bad taste.

The story opens with two of the three main characters, the wizard Ryner and the knight Ferris, as they journey across the continent of Menoris in search of powerful Hero Relics to aid our third main character, the High King of Roland, Sion. The lazy Ryner and steadfast Ferris aren’t anything beyond that in the first episode, with the only noticeable interplay between them being a scene where Ferris calls Ryner a pervert. Unfortunately, this scene is a running gag throughout the show that turns the Ryner and Ferris duo from simple to cringeworthy.

Much of the show follows Ryner and Ferris’ adventures, meaning much of that time focuses on their relationship, which is Ferris calling Ryner a pervert for no reason; Ryner doesn’t so much as see a pantyshot from Ferris, so it’s not even clichéd in the way it should be, but outright unbelievable. Their relationship is 70% one running joke and 30% serious moments with no real progress between them, because they’re only sentimental when the show calls for it. Their relationship goes in a circle, or maybe it’s a see-saw; I don’t care, but neither do the writers.

In one of the show’s scenes, Ryner is going out of control for plot reasons while Ferris is trying to snap him out of it. After she manages to get through to him, Ryner breaks down and starts crying in her arms as the rain suddenly pours. This scene of clichés doesn’t work since there’s a lack of tells on their progress. Ferris blushes maybe once before this while Ryner shows no interest in her at all. And even if this scene did work, they go back into being a weightless comedy duo until the story demands their sentiments again. And this happens more than once.

But Ryner and Ferris’ relationship is harmless compared to the threads in the rest of the show. Ryner’s lack of personality outside his laziness can be made up for with his background, but the show’s storytelling often jumps back and forth from present day to flashback without any tell it’s done so, making it hard to follow. Even then, most of what little backstory he has is in the later parts of the show. It’s hard to take his tragic past seriously when the show often glosses over it for attempted comedy.

Ferris is an even bigger joke than Ryner. When she’s not wrongly calling him a pervert for whatever reason, she’s going on about dango flavors without much else to her character. Somehow, she has even less background than Ryner, and it doesn’t help that this background is little more than skin service that isn’t even charming, but a forced attempt at being dark and edgy. But, it wouldn’t be a forced attempt at being dark and edgy if Ferris was a character worth caring for, if she had real progress and most of her time didn’t focus on failed comedy.

The final main character, Sion, is also a big joke. His character arc is about learning to make tough choices that come with being High King, but his personality doesn’t show it at all. He’s equally serious and easygoing until the end of the show, which makes it easy to wonder whether story events are affecting him at all. Most of his background involves characters that have one or two lines of dialog, which isn’t enough for it to be taken seriously like it’s supposed to. He’s also incomprehensible, saying he doesn’t want to rule like a tyrant one moment, then leaves his assassin servant to take extreme measures so he can reach his goals the next moment.

Sorry, I tried jumping over one cliché and fell onto another. When the story isn’t being lazy with its characters’ progress or background, it tries TOO hard and ends up being a war and politics philosophy discussion without compelling characters to distract from the fact. These heavy themes require a delicate touch, but unfortunately most of the villains—villains, not antagonists—are wealthy, evil people that take away from any social depth the show tries to have.

Not that what depth the show does have is worth much anyway. There’s a lot more going on in the story, but most of it amounts to nothing or is rushed. One of the characters shows a thirst for vengeance without any build-up leading to that moment. The character he wants revenge on wants revenge on another character. And that final character is dealt with so quickly it disrespects the passion and empathy the first two characters (try to) invoke. If that sounds like a short plot description, then don’t worry, because the show doesn’t give these multiple story threads more than a few episodes.

But even with a lot of episodes, one of the characters still proves ineffectual.
When this character is introduced, she wants to reunite with Ryner because he was her friend during her rough childhood. It makes sense. What doesn’t make sense is how bubbly she is for most of the show, badly clashing with her background. What’s worse is that this isn’t the set-up to a gag character, because she’s supposed to be taken seriously. But her serious moments don’t work, because she lacks the roundedness needed to make her bubbly and serious side believable as the same character.

The only decent characters are more like two pairings that are unfortunately not around for long. One of the characters in the first pairing appears at the early and later parts of the show. She meets someone she doesn’t like at first, but in their next scene they’re enjoying a cup of tea, and in the scene following she’s a blushing maiden. The other pairing is a classic warrior and princess story that believably flows from adoration to sweetness; in the first scene they’re smitten at first rescue, in the next scene they’re trying to hide their feelings from their friends to no effect, and then they’re enjoying a moonlight walk.

Ignoring the small amount of screentime these four characters have, they’re believable because there’s real progress to their relationships. Sure, it’s cheesy, but it’s at least an attempt at a pairing compared to Ryner and Ferris’ see-saw relationship. It’s not as layered as the other parts of the story, but being more layered doesn’t mean better, but a greater chance to be worse. When there’s more plot to juggle, it only falls down much worse when the juggle isn’t kept up, and the juggle falls the moment it starts.

This is part of why Legend of the Legendary Heroes’ writing leaves a bad taste, and what I mean when I say the story adopts a taste for complexities. It tries to execute too many threads at the same time and doesn’t give enough time for each thread to be properly weaved. At the same time, the three main characters take up most of the story’s screentime but have almost nothing to show for it. It’s this odd combination of incoherent density and weightless quantity that makes this show such a failure from a storytelling standpoint.

This leaves only the presentation to save the show, but the visual part of that falls short. Save for Sion, his assassin servant, and the four pairing characters—the last four lack screentime—most of the character designs are multi-colored to the point where it’s hard to tell them apart. For a world with swords and magic, many of the fight scenes are underwhelming for being nothing but beam spam or poor choreography that makes one question if the combatants are only as strong as the plot demands.

The best part of the presentation is the music, but music isn’t the aesthetic focus of an action fantasy show. Still, it’s loud when it needs to be, and has a surprising amount of grace during quieter scenes when it uses the art of silence to put focus on the dialog. Unfortunately, the music is held back by its odd habit of using random rock music during some scenes. This modern flare clashes with the medieval, fantasy feel of the show. I suppose it’s trying to be cool, and in a better show it’d be shameless fun, but here it comes across as trying too hard.

Which is odd, because looking at how the show’s main characters are handled, it’s like they weren’t trying at all. No respect is given to most of the characters and their stories, it tries to tell too many stories, the stories often lack chronological coherence, the social themes lack any depth with its stereotypical villains, and the presentation is best where it doesn’t matter anyway. This show does a few things right and everything else very egregiously wrong.

But the best thing I can say about this show is what Ryner goes on about from episode 1; take a nap. Sage advice, because taking a tap is preferable to watching Legend of the Legendary Heroes. Sure, you won’t be doing anything, but at least it’s better than getting Alpha Stigma-level angry at the people who made this.

Review
Legend of Legendary Heroes (LoLH) is a very interesting show. It's one of those shows that seems like a flashy and B-rated adaptation of some cheap game or novel, but it delivers some good moments and is definitely worth watching as a refresher for those who enjoy the rare medieval fantasy genre. The premise of the show, however, is very unoriginal, borrowing elements from many other successful shows like Code Geass, Fate/Stay Night, Orphen, etc, yet the overall experience and pace is enjoyable and it has substantial quality. The first episodes may show a promise of a comedy-fantasy show, but it grows strong and more serious with its episodes.

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1. A copy-cat with old ideas
   The "relic hunt" premise is a very basic start point for most RPG campaigns as well as most other medieval fantasy animes. The powers used here are mostly borrowed from other shows, like the magical eyes from Code Geass and you won't be seeing much of originality when you tear the show apart. This whole mix together, however, is extremely good. The show starts at a slow pace, but it takes only a few episodes before it quickly becomes serious and luring. The rise of the king, the mystery behind the relics, the background of the special powers, the kingdoms clashing in huge wars, everything in the setting is common but well put.
   
   Simple characters
   The sleeping and absent-minded protagonist, the tsundere, the aspiring king, etc. The stereotypes are all there and they never really grow out of their roles through these episodes. While there is a lot of screen time dedicated for most of the cast, there is very little change to their personalities and the world seems to rarely affect how they act. The only changes come in how they deal with their foes ahead, which is also brought down by a lack of depth to the background of most of the secondary cast, making them feel as your usual cardboard material to depict a medieval fantasy trope of the audience liking.
   
   The B-rated production
   LoLH is sadly plagued by a barely mediocre production. For starters there is its generic art style, filled with similarities to classic shows like Slayers and Scrapped Princess, but extremely bland and failing to add identity to the series or delivering the surprising depth it has. Animation keeps thing from becoming a mess, but is good enough to draw you.
   
   Sound direction goes two ways. It is great with musics fitting the show style and contributing a lot to create a believable atmosphere. There are, however, many moments when the seriousness and drama is left in some silent concert, without any dramatic music playing when they definitely should be. It is not enough to bring the experience down, but it could greatly benefit if this was decently done. Voice-acting suffers with some unfitting voices for some characters, but nothing truly annoying.
   
   Yes, unfinished stuff
   There's a huge problem here: almost nothing gets solved. Many of the side plots are simply forgotten and even the main plot is unfinished, leaving you disappointed by end and expecting for some kind of sequence in the following years. This wouldn't be a problem if at least we had a climax or a sidestory with start and finish, but nope. There's nothing completed here, only a sad empty hole of nothing.
   
   It deserves respect though
   Even though LoLH brings almost nothing new and leave most things unfinished, it's enjoyable and must be respected for walking in one of the most forgotten paths of all japanese animation: medieval fantasy. The older shows like Lodoss War, Berserk, and Slayers had very few decent successors, like Scrapped Princess, and LoLH fill this hole with at least a bit of quality. There are refreshing moments of comedy, a very strong luring factor built from the soundtrack and interesting setting and, while the show fails to finish things and make the experience totally worth by the end, it's good enough while you're watching it.
   

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Comments
LoLH was really out of my radar mostly because it's art style was more like a typical shounen show than something serious. I'm a total fan of medieval fantasy in anything, from movies to videogames, and when I started watching LoLH I was very disapointed because it reminded me of Orphen and it's bad comedy side, making a serious plot lose its value with childish moments. LoLH, however, changed drastically after the fourth episode and from there on I could enjoy it fully. It's not great or original, but it has good production and is very balanced in all terms. If it had a real ending it could have higher ratings for sure, as well if it didn't rely too much on the basic stereotypes to move on.

Those looking for good moments and enjoyed shows like Scrapped Princess, and maybe Kaze no Stigma (wich is very similar as well, even though it's not medieval), can at least have a good experience. If you expect a deep show and a masterpiece, LoLH is not your show. Those who are simply looking for a good show to spend a weekend can find fun with LoLH as well.

As always my reviews focus mainly on story, character development, and overall cohesiveness of the entire anime. In my opinion that makes a good portion of any decent anime. My review also contains spoilers and isn't at all none-biased, so be warned.

I will go straight out say that I believe some of the reviews have their entire contents based off watching the first or the first couple episodes in the series. That will not do this series justice and it only begins to come full circle right around the end, which I will explain later on in this review. The pure amount of content in this series is not linear at all and the viewer is constantly bombarded with a ever expanding plot and character dynamics.

That said, if you're not going to watch a anime purely because of the name I'm not going to stop you from skipping this.

To start things off I'd like to get the more technical elements out of the way before concentrating on the bread and butter of the entire series.

Animation - The series is animated quite well. The detail levels in this series aren't above all other animes and the animation budget appears to be a bit more modest. I would put the animation on par with the norm for most series. Characters are very well thought out and generally wear the same attire throughout the entire series, but character attire (especially for the main ones) is quite thorough. Detail is put into where it is needed and the series overall just looks nice.

However, the animation is not the all same throughout. I'm not up to par on the technical term for it, but a few spots in the series the animation shifts from normal quality to a faster and more fluid frame rate at the expense of quality in order to emphasize fast moving battle scenes. This has been in a few other animes and I think it works out quite well in here.

The fast moving battle scenes aside, there are more slow paced ones at which the animators put careful detail into display of power. It is tastefully done to the point of it being artistically brutal. I have no better way to describe it then the artists thought it out in terms of what it would actually be like if it happened in real life. The physics, the blood, the gore, and the pure raw power. Specifically when alpha-stigma bearers go out of control the artists make it seem like the world changes because of it. It's not 'omg he's powering up' it's 'omg my torso is missing'. Episode three will leave your jaw on the floor as far as eye candy goes. I'm sorry, there are very few series that do someone getting vaporized with raw energy nearly as well as this one.

Battle scenes are especially well done and drawn as I explained above. They don't feel cheap or have repetitive scenes used over and over again, it really leaves a feeling of it being epic.

The only negative marks I can give the series is the camera blood splatters, but I'm indifferent to that. I can see where it is being artistic to try and show just how bloody things are, but it breaks the fourth barrier and it just seems excessive. The spells they use throughout the entire series are largely the same and that does eventually get repetitive. They are very well done though.

Sound - I thought the sound was also very well done. The opening and ending are very nice, which do also change partway through the series. There is music that takes place during battles and parts of the series, I also thought this was very well done and quite tasteful. Oddly enough one of the sounds from it seems like it was taken directly from Starcraft.

The music is epic at the right spots and very calm and heartfelt in others. The battle scenes which I mentioned above have music matched perfectly with just how epic they are.

Voice actors were however reused a few different times and it is quite obvious, I can only point this towards having a smaller budget compared to most animes and a lot of important characters. The voice actors were definitely pretty good regardless.

Story - This is the story of a drop out who has given up on life, a women who has lead an abusive life dominated largely by obligation, and of a king who is torn between duty to his country and his friends whom he holds more dear then his own life.

The story starts out rather simple, quite so as most animes, and you're left feeling as if there is more to be desired. The characters don't seem overly powerful starting out and the slacker, which the story follows for most of it, seems like he's hiding something, but you don't realize just how much till later on. I can largely relate to one of the other reviewers saying it felt lackluster and boring following a character around who tries to find special powerful artifacts, then you get past the first couple episodes and realize there is a lot more to it.

I can't emphasize how much the story changes over the course of the anime. It starts out simple like I said, but the three main characters the story rotates around slowly have their past revealed over the course of the entire series and the pieces slowly start to click together. It really doesn't get going till the second half of the series. I don't say that because it's not interesting at first, but because it's hard to make out what exactly is happening and what it all means.

Unlike what other reviewers wrote, I don't think the series ended on a bad note, it merely left way for the end of the series. So much was left unexplained, but it didn't feel like it was tacked on and it had absolutely no meaning. It simply felt like this series could've used another 26 episodes or so. The fact that it doesn't have 26 episodes (it instead has 24) I think does it great justice as in the authors didn't want to put in crappy filler or start a new arc just to end things right away.

To emphasize that as well, the story doesn't really start moving till close to the end of the series after all of the character development is out of the way and all the cards have been laid out on the table. It is truly a shame that the series ended where it did because it is easy to tell the next season would've been purely amazing.

Character - The characters themselves are very well thought out and played out. All of the main characters and quite a few of the side characters slowly develop over the course of the anime. Although it is uncertain as to where the story would've taken these characters each one of them feels like they had a lot of thought put into them.

Most prominent are the three main characters. At first you largely feel inclined to agree with Sion (the king), but he starts making some poor choices or choices that aren't ideal for the sake of his kingdom and you can't help but wish there was another character you could relate to in his place. The king from the North eventually enters the scene as well and some of the things he is fighting for you wish Sion would fight for, but at the same time he does some rather poor choices. It's two conflicting views on how to deal with matters and neither king is ultimately right and the moral and ethical dilemma that develops slowly affects their character development as well.

This is almost really two stories as it follows the development of the kingdom as well as the development of the two other main characters, Ferris and Ryner. Remarkably as the weight of the country starts to bare down on Sion these two also change. Ferris largely starts out as a cold emotionless dominant type women that likes punishing Ryner, but really screams out as a little girl who is crying inside. Ryner seemingly knows this and continues to take punishment from her, but she slowly realizes what she feels herself and for Ryner as the story develops. Ryner, while he can care for others, has little to no actual care for his own life. He truely does not realize how much he means to other people till the end of the series. Ryner and Ferris discover themselves and each other as they slowly grow up caring for one another through a series of not so normal events.

It almost appears to be a love triangle at some points as Sion cares a lot for Ryner and Ryner cares a lot for Sion, but it seems to be on a level that isn't all about love. The viewer doesn't discover just how deeply this goes until the end of the series when you realize each of them holds a past that extends beyond their current life and even though the same events happened in the past, Ferris stops them from happening again by Ryners own volition. This forces a realization on the viewer that if Ferris did not exist, Ryner would've very easily thrown his life away in the circular fashion of history.

Value - I generally don't really rewatch anime so I don't normally rate this high.

Enjoyment - I did really enjoy this series. After watching Arakawa Under the Bridge I have to say it was two good watches one after another. They represent diamonds in the rough. It's one of those series you go in half expecting it to suck and then while you're sitting their thinking about other things you unknowingly get sucked completely into the series (episode three did it for me).

I really can't emphasize how underrated this series is. The generic plot this series starts off with is just there for show and the cheesy comedy is there to lighten up what would otherwise be an insanely brutal anime in terms of making the viewer feel emotionally abused (think Berserk). This series does not hold back at all. It does not sugar coat the truths in the world or how people would be treated back in the midevil ages if they did not come from nobility. It truly tells the story as it should be told, no flowery excerpts or roses and tea (about the best you get is dumplings).

I highly recommend this series to anyone just to contrast the typical anime that has been coming out lately, this is coming from a really hard to please critic. IF this series had continued for another 26 episodes I am almost completely confident it would rate up there among the best (possibly better). Unfortunately you just get to see the tantalizing bits as the clouds clear away from the peak and it slowly starts to make its way up towards the climax as the series ends.

First off, don’t let the name of this anime Legend of the Legendary Heroes be the reason to not watch this, even though this title can be shorten to LOL Heroes, it still has many reasons to watch this very under-rated anime.

Animation
Animation was great in one word but not exceptional. Considering this is a fantasy anime; fantasy based animes/games do a lot of traveling with characters going from one place to another either on quests/journeys, that’s just the nature of fantasy animes… with that said, Legend of the Legendary Heroes does a very good job showing different art and a lot of detail in the drawings. Magic castings and battles were neatly drawn, but nothing really breath-taking in my opinion. Animation is very opinioned and varies person to person, but very acceptable in my books.

Sound
Nothing really special here. OPs and EDs songs are nice for a one time listen, then after that, they have served their purpose. The exact can be said about the general music that was used in the anime. But then again, very few viewers get an anime for the music, so this category is minor.

Sound effects and voice acting were good. All the sound effects for the most part went with what was being performed… sword on sword, magic castings, etc. Voice acting was good. I really didn’t have an issue here. So you won’t have a mature voice for a 5 year old girl or vice versa.

Story
So what is this anime about? No clue, go watch it for yourself… lol. See what I did there? I used a pun there, lol equates to Legend of the Legendary Heroes. Ok, so now that I have bored you with my lame attempt to make you guys laugh, let’s go into what this anime is about.

The majority of this anime takes place in a land called Roland. In Roland, the nobles are very corrupt and so, Sion Astal (dude with purple hair) wants to be the future king of Roland and asks his friend Ryner Lute (magician) to help him out. Ryner goes on a journey with help to find these items called “hero relics” that have incredible power (ex. comb can nullify all magic). With the hero relics, that dude can become the king of Roland and a powerful one at that too.

One thing I would like to mention is that this anime is based off novels; however in my case, I did not read any of them, so I don’t know how similar or different they are to the anime. But one thing that is very obvious in this anime that most viewers won’t like are the transitions from one scene to another scene, because in almost every case, they were completely different from one another. In one instance, you have political agendas and corruption, then it gets transitioned to Ryner’s and Ferris’s adventures (Ryner’s traveling companion), then go to all sorts of flashbacks. The non-fluidity of scene transitions by far was the biggest drawback for Legend of the Legendary Heroes. It was really difficult getting into the flow of the anime since it was always switching to something completely different.

However, even though this is a major drawback, there is still a lot to enjoy with this anime. L.O.L (too lazy to always write the whole name everytime, and its not every time you can put LOL and be referring to the anime). LOL has good amounts of drama and suspense. First pretty cool events happen at ep 3 and then probably the best parts happen at mid to end of ep 9 and go to ep 10. There are other good dramatic events that take place, but for me that was notable.

The plot/story of LOL is linear even though it might not seem that way with flashbacks and flip flopping between character to character, the story stays true to what it set out to be, Sion Astal (dude with purple hair) trying to become king and Ryner and Ferris being on a journey.

Another mentionable was the ending, it was very weak. The last two episodes are very confusing especially the very last one and the 2nd to last one feels like a filler episode. Just be prepared for a 2nd season or a movie to conclude this anime, since there was no closure.

Characters
LOL contains a lot of characters, but I will just stick to the main ones.

Ryner Lute – Is considered a very powerful magician who is very lazy and wants to take afternoon naps all day long. He goes on a journey to find those relics for the purpose of helping Sion become the King of Roland

Ferris – She is your sword wielder (because you have to have a sword wielder in every fantasy based anime, right?). She always teases Ryner whenever she can and is fascinated with dangos. Ferris is a very powerful and quick sword wielder.

*Ferris and Ryner for the most part are what make this anime interesting with their carefree journey*

Sion Astal – He is a guy that has this naïve idea of becoming king (don’t we all have these goals of becoming the next big shot?). Sion actually does it though. What I really enjoyed about this character was the way he changes since became king its as one would expect of someone in that position and the "sacrifices" that he has to do in order to keep order and make a change to fit his beliefs.

All the other characters just add flavor to LOL, but really don’t have enough stage time to be considered a main character. The character development between Ryner and Ferris was comical, dramatic, action packed and really good.

Value/Enjoyment
Considering I am a complete fan of fantasy/adventure animes, I knew I was going to enjoy this anime, cause its not your ecchi/fanservice only anime. There is more to it to that with fantasy animes. I really did enjoy watching this anime and thought it was worth my time watching, even though there are drawbacks like the scene transitions and ending, but as a whole, I felt what I watched was worth my time.

Considering the end of a series is what sticks in your mind since it’s the most current events of the anime, that ending was very weak, but as mentioned before, as a whole, this anime is very good for an under-rated anime. I highly recommend this anime.[/b]

Legend of the Legendary Heroes… what a silly name. Like Greenery of the Green Vegetables or Bitterness of the Bitter Dark Chocolate. If names are supposed to attract people to an anime, then this sure does not help. I mean check out Slayers. Such a simple and direct name. There is even a band named after it. Yet in both cases the names are actually deceiving the viewers rather than preparing them for what they are about to watch. There is nothing epic in the first as there are no fountains of blood and gore in the second. What kind of a trolling technique is this anyway?

The similarities don’t end in the name-trolling alone of course, as Epic of the Epical Epicness is in fact 50% like Slayers. That is, a medieval comical adventure about imba wizards and warriors strolling the countryside trying to save the world one goof at a time. Well what about the other half then? Is at least that original? Nope, it is just a dried up version of Legend of Galactic Heroes (Sion is Reinhart, Ryner is Wenli) about several intrigues and power struggles amongst royalty for the domination of the world. And look at that, even that anime had “Legend” in its name. Do I see some accidental plagiarism here?

Anyways, Great of the Greater Greatness is for me a half-breed. Half Slayers and half LoGH that is. And on paper it sounds like the stuff of legends (oh, the irony). I mean, if you take the political intrigue of LoGH and combine it properly with the zany comedy of Slayers, you have an optical orgasm.

Well, the producers were unfortunately first timers and thus there was no orgasm in the final product. Just a half baked story about something that is left half-done. Yeah, we might as well cut all words in half, to fit with the rest of the show. Something like Leg-O-th-Legend-Her. Ah, that’s more like it!

So who made this crap? Oh my, the notorious studio Zexcs. Will you guys ever make a good show just for a change? Directing is done by Kawasaki Itsurou who also didn’t manage to produce something above average in his whole career. Yeah, you already know this is not going to turn out to be good.

STORY SECTION

The story is in a nutshell about some dudes looking for some super items in order to help their friend to be a peaceful yet powerful king. Do they succeed? I have no idea as the story will be continued in egend-f-e-ary-oes.

So the story is a half-breed and half-done. Any half other than that? Why yes, it is also half-interesting. You see, a lot of episodes will be wasted on totally minor events and the others will have a really weird way of jumping back and forth in time and space. And I’m not talking about time travel, the narration is simply done without proper transition from one time frame to another. So what you basically have is a series about unfitting segments. On scene one, Sion is talking seriously with some scheming aristocrats. Suddenly, the scene changes five days later to Ryner, who will bored and half-asleep on a tree. Then the scene changes to ten years in the past where Sion and Ryner fight assassins who are chopping of the heads of their friends. Then the scene changes to fifteen years in the future, where Ferris eats dango and verbally torments Ryner. And then… the anime ends in the middle of… um … nowhere I guess.

If you got half of what I just wrote so far (oh, the irony 2) then you can easily tell the story in fact LESS than half-good. Some blame the bad adaptation from the novels but that is still far from excusing the bad directing. And if you think the director had a bad day, just check out Kawasaki’s roster. Horrible!

CHARACTER SECTION

But who cares about the story if the characters are great, right? I mean, who needs a story in K-On? If the cast are moe, comical, or bijin enough, most won’t even notice the objective of their adventure. So, are they legendary in anything like that? Nope, they are again half-interesting (damn that persistent irony!)

Let’s check the main characters. There is an aristocrat who is thrown in a middle of a power struggle amongst aristocrats. There is an imba friend of his who wants to help him. And there is a token bimbo.
… um, not much, is there?

What they are really good at is that they are a colorful bunch. Heck, half the duration is spent on getting to know them. In a slow and almost overkill way. What they eat, what they drink, what their favorite color is, how they fold a napkin and so on. Jeez, it really is like K-On in this regard!

But no, in reality it is also about an adventure where they are supposed to receive development and catharsis in the end of the road. Which of course they don’t because as I wrote (and hopefully it is amongst the half of which you still remember) the story is left incomplete. You will get to know a lot about their development up the present through numerous dialogues and flashbacks. But very little about their future because of the missing second half.

So all you are left with is:
-Sion, a dude with similar ambitions as Reinhart but hardly someone who achieves anything solid.
-Ferris playing it cooldere and eating a mountain of dangos (Togame, cough).
-Ryner, a dude with a laser beam eye (no kidding) who is too bored to care about anything, yet gets to stroll around the world looking for magic trinkets and battling random goons with his Geass eye (Lelouch, cough) and inner demon releasing (Hollow Ichigo, cough). The series of course calls it Alpha stigma instead of Plot Armour, so who am I to judge that?
Originality, wanted dead or alive for 100.000.000 Belly.

So as you can see, the cast is really a vivid bunch but not something you haven’t seen before and definitely not one fully looked into. There are others who exist as support of course (too many for its own good) but who cares if the main ones are not good enough. Most are too minor to even bother with.

ANIMATION SECTION

And now let’s talk a bit about this unimportant section most viewers pay too much attention to. It is good; the world building looks great with the medieval setting and all. Castles, uniforms, lightning look good. They are otherwise not exceptional in any way, not artistic, not unique, not too smart in cinematography. The battle choreography sucks big time with all the random spells and power imbalances, while body motions felt slow as if the characters were bored to move around. But I must admit that it’s currently studio Zexcs best work (meaning it is the only average show they ever made out of their 30-title roster).

SOUND SECTION

Another minor thing I rarely have much to talk about. The music score left me completely indifferent. Sound effects were ok I guess. Voice acting… Damn, so many dialogues about so many events I hardly cared about. They are also good too I guess. The only two voices that stand out are of course those of Ryner and Ferris. Ryner has the same voice actor and an imba power in the same spot as “another very famous character” (anyone got any cough drops?). He was a major bait for most fans of “that other anime” and I’m sure most were greatly disappointed with this far less interesting character. As for Ferris… shit man, she is the otaku bait. A cooldere eating dango and slap-torturing poor Ryner. Need I say more? She is quite typical as the tropes go but who ever said otakus look for originality, hm?

ENJOYMENT SECTION

But enough with all those halves. What about the adventure itself, is it good or not? Well, on paper it could be good if it was handled more properly. Like, with less time jumps and more action. The story is otherwise quite average in concept (go find magic trinkets to save the kingdom from evil) and the action part makes little to no sense. Not only there is too little of it in a series that it’s supposed to be “legendary” but it also has too much randomness. Random spells, random results, random power levels. And for Pete’s sake, what is the age advisory on this anime? One moment they are doing slapstick, the exact next they are beheading and gutting people alive. Jeez, where is some consistency in all that? It’s like two people were writing the script, an 8 year old girl-scout and an 18 year old heavy metal dude.

VALUE SECTION

What reason would anyone have to keep this anime in his collection? Apart from collective value or lack of elitism that is. None! Really, I mean it, none at all. It is messy and incomplete and slow and typical. All its good parts can be found in spades in Slayers and LoGH. Maybe if they ever make a sequel and create a Kai version of this, then we are going somewhere. Otherwise, it is a waste of time for veterans and just an average time killer for casuals.

OVERALL: 4.5/10
Mediocrity of the Incomplete Typicals. Now that’s a more fitting name.

'Densetsu no Yuusha no Densetsu' ('Legend of the Legendary Heroes') is a medieval fantasy adventure about Ryner Lute, a social outcast born with powerful magic eyes, and his friend and new king Sion Astral's quest to end all wars.

Story/Character: 3.5/10
It's impossible to watch this show without being reminded of similar themed series. For example, the magical medieval setting of 'Scrapped Princess', art style of 'Koukaku no Regios', magic eyes of 'Code Geass', and knighthood and characters of 'Fate/stay night". However, this show had the mother of all premises by blending all the best qualities from such series with an interesting mission of collecting "Hero's Relics".

With such a cool mix of setting, characters, and items, we could've expected a captivating epic adventure. What we actually got was a rather dull, huge mess of a story.

First of all, the show had an awful flow. A classic case of poor anime adaptation of a novel where the story jumps from one place to another. One minute, you're watching Ryner and Ferris trying to find Hero's Relic, next minute, you're back in kingdom where Sion is working, then jump back 5 (?) years before returning to a new adversary we've never seen before. Unlike novels, this effect on anime makes it nearly impossible to empathize with characters.

The character motivation is always questionable. All the kings are fighting for the same dumb reason: "Slaughter all my neighbors to stop war". This is 2010... did they really think such contradicting and cliché purpose is still intriguing? There were also a lot of scenes where characters are obviously capable of accomplishing a better result, yet simply give up or their spells are nerfed just to achieve the desired plot development. For example, the destruction of bridge by Kiefer in the final episode when she could've clearly crossed first before destroying it. Such inconsistencies are usually unnoticeable in novels, but with visual support in anime, it just doesn't make any sense.

There also was a deliberate power balancing and DBZ-like increment of average strengths. For example, Ryner and Ferris have not been able to obtain a single Hero's Relic, while far weaker antagonists manage to possess them, and use them as their primary means of attack. In addition, somehow the victors don't seem to be interested in collecting the loser's Relic after defeating them. The story is very much driven by sudden appearance of new adversaries. One minute, a character seems to be invincibly strong, then a new foe appears, and he doesn't even stand a chance. The prime examples are Sui Orla, Miran Frouade, and Tiia Rumiblue. On the other hand, our hero and heroine seem to be able to put up a decent fight no matter how strong or weak the opponent is (they even struggle against minions).

There was way too many characters for 24 episodes. Not only that, most of them had very limited role and weak presence. I just browsed through the character list, and didn't even remember half of them. That's how bad the side characters were. And then we have the hero and the heroine, who were just lazy Lelouch Lamperouge and outgoing Saber. Despite Ryner having Sharingan Alpha Stigma, he only casted like 4 different spells, 80% of which being "Lightning".

The comedy was funny at first, but it got tedious through uncreative repetition of dango and sleep. A lot of action scenes, but not very exciting unless Alpha Stigma is fully activated. The story tries to be dark in the second half, but it just seemed out of place due to light first half, and didn't make sense.
Overall, very boring, corny story and character.

Animation: 8/10
Amazing, considering a large portion of animation work was subcontracted to Korean studios.
Characters are usually very detailed, and every character is easily distinguishable. While the background is not as detailed as it could be, the change in mood through lighting worked well.
SFX was wonderful in action scenes and with magic circle or spells.
Episode 18 had off the chart fluidity, but at the cost of character details. At one point, the characters turned into blobs. Personally, I liked the impression better than detailed and stiff, but it's a definite minus in terms of consistency.
Unfortunately, the presentation (camera angles, cuts, art style, action choreography etc) were rather dull, and seemed lazy.

Sound: 7/10
Loads of established seiyuu even in minor roles. Some annoying, but on annoying characters to begin with, so it was somewhat tolerable. Everyone sound like they should, especially Ferris' voice was great.
While Ryner played by Fukuyama Jun was excellent, I can't help but notice how his voice was exactly same as Lelouch in 'Code Geass' series. The two characters are already similar as it is (both having magic eyes), having the same seiyuu completely cemented Ryner as a cheap copy. The evil/mad laugh really was godly though, the best I've ever heard.
BGM in battle and emotional scenes were well done and dramatic. The rest are rather ordinary and forgettable, but didn't sound out of place.
All four OP/ED in the series were pretty catchy and suit the series.

Value/Enjoyment: 3/10
This series was by far the most disappointing series of the season (ending Fall '10). By episode 3, this series had such a strong introduction that it could've easily been an amazing fantasy series, but it seemed to deteriorate by the episode from there, eventually leading to an inconclusive ending where nothing is explained and half the deliberate plot devices unused.

From boring story, character, to lazy animation and voice acting casting choice, what this series suffered through was a widespread absence of creativity. The incompetence of Zexcs in adaptation was painfully clear, and this show did not live up to its title as the 'Legend of the Legendary Heroes'. It was an epic failure.