So, heads up ya'll. Positive review coming through.
If you haven't watched Log Horizon, you need to do so. This is a seriously solid anime, and it deserves to be appreciated: strong characters, strong narrative structure, and a rare ability to gradually bring in characters and plots without resorting to info-dumps and shattering reveals.
It is a great example of a gradually developing setting, which is so rare in anime that typically like to establish setting first, and then focus on all of three-odd characters.
What is Log Horizon? Some people call it the less angsty SAO. Others a knock-off of .hack, the real starter of the 'trapped in a MMO genre.' Neither quite gets what Log Horizon is about, though, which is less 'we're trapped in an MMO world and need to escape' and far more 'this MMO is our world now, and we need to adapt to it.' The early plots focus heavily on the struggles of adapting to the changes, from struggling to find purpose and motivation to building societies and then relations with the former NPCs. The issues at hand are familiar and believable to those familiar with video games and MMOs, and arise naturally after one another. Things change, then things change because of what's changed, and then those changes spark new changes. It's a steady state of developmen, and even better none of the dramatic solutions (and this is good, fun drama rather than angst-based suffering of hidden information) are outlandish or rely on suspension of human behavior. The way that they address and largely resolve the issue of PK-ing and kidnapping guilds was excellent.
I'm enjoying the characters as well, both in development and in casting roles. While the plot largely follows Shirou, a bespectable 'book smarts mage' character, a renouned MMO veteran who serves as resident genius/strategist, a good supporting cast of primary and secondary support characters comes in and out of focus constantly- a bunch of visually and characteristically distinct personalities that give a sense of community as they bounce off eachother and interact. And interact they do- while character development arcs are heavily focused on the internal monologues and doubts of the characters involved, all of these characters play off of multiple other characters to an uncommon degree. It's a world with a lot of people with their own groups, and not focusing on them doesn't mean that we can't tell that they exist and mean something to the people involved. Even a few of the nameless characters show up enough as background/cameo roles that they can seem to have personality.
Log Horizon is a lot more light hearted than SAO is, but that's because it has a much bigger heart. More characters, more inter-personal relationships, less angst and sometimes-incestuous romance plots eternally focused around a single character.
And did I mention this is one of those rare few anime which can actually do convincing platonic relationships between men and women? Close, emotionally healthy and supportive friendships between opposite genders without romantic tension?
Log Horizon is a mature show- not for fanservice (it exists, but is pretty tame and character-appropriate), not for angst or drama (though there is personal weakness and struggle aplenty), not for death- but by taking a complex subject and addressing it in mature, and sometimes amusing, ways. Humor is a part of emotional maturity.
So. Dean's seal of approval. If you haven't watched it, go watch it.
Retour en haut
I'm arriving at the point to where most seem to consider SAO turning to garbage, so I might actually dive into Log Horizon tonight. 
