Log Horizon Episode 13
What They Say:
One day, while playing the online game Elder Tales, 30,000 players suddenly find themselves trapped in another world. There, eight-year veteran gamer Shiroe also gets left behind. The trapped players are still alive, but they remain in combat with the monsters. The players don’t understand what has happened to them, and they flee to Akiba, the largest city in Tokyo, where they are thrown into chaos. Once proud of his loner lifestyle, Shiroe forms a guild called Log Horizon with his old friend Naotsugu, female assassin Akatsuki and others.
The Review: Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
This episode further advances the duel plots going on regarding the younger players and the Conference with the people of the Land. A significant part of the episode is devoted to Crusty and his interactions with the Princess, which is mildly amusing and awkward, and eventually Crusty has a bit of a sincere moment, telling the Princess that she reminds him a lot of his sister in the real world. Crusty is not entirely interesting as he sort of has it all going for him (good looks, good fighting skills, socially adept…there’s really nothing that makes him stand out or draw back except that he sort of seems to be the typical perfect knightly figure) but the bit about his sister is a little touching. Even though they bring up that they’re trapped in a game world, it’s easy to forget watching the show to remember that there are families back in the real world that the adventurers cannot see.
We see various one-two minute scenes where other members of Akihabara are interacting with various members of the People – merchants, scholars, Akatsuki spying on meetings – kind of general things. We do learn that Akihabara has shared the secrets to making real, good tasting food with the People, which apparently has a positive impact on their way of life and has raised significantly the resources put into producing, transporting, and cooking. Noting the reasonable problems involved with transporting goods over land (most notably being monster attacks on the caravans) the People ask for the technology required to transport goods over lands, or more specifically, ships. It’s interesting to note that they don’t have this technology, and given the still tense relationship between the two, being able to transport goods over land could easily be turned into transporting troops.
The younger adventurers continue to have problems in the dungeon and trouble wrapping their heads around why, even though the monsters are lower or equivalent level, they’re getting constantly thrashed. I have a sneaking suspicion this will turn into one of those “If we work together we can beat anything!” moments but it’s still not 100% clear.
There is some major plot advancement in the last 30 seconds of the episode though, when Shiroe and Akatsuki are surprised by the rather ominous appearance of Regan, of Miral Lake, a magely type that wants to speak with Shiroe. The next episode preview seem to indicate that he has knowledge on the adventurers bizarre status in the world of Elder Tale that he wants to share, but we’ll have to tune in next time to get the full story.
In Summary:
If it wasn’t for the very end of the episode, this episode would have been pretty boring overall. Character development is good and all, but Crusty just isn’t that interesting because he just seems so damn perfect. The bit about his sister was nice, and explains his interaction with the Princess, but in general it just wasn’t very engaging, it was just ‘Crusty is being really good and sly at stuff”. The training camp subplot is immensely boring and feels like just a solid time waster because we’re not really learning more about the characters and they don’t’ really seem to be growing much either. There is a brief part where some of those at the camp see weird, shimmering lights on the horizon of the ocean, but then they disappear and that’s that.
The episode would have felt like a really slow, boring installment of the series even with a few of the more interesting things if not for the very end. I really hope the next episode give us much, much more insight into how the players really fit into the overall cosmology of the world of Elder Tale, and explains some of the things that remain unexplained, like why can they always revive but seemingly the People of the Land cannot.
Grade: C+
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
Review Equipment:
Intel Alienware laptop, Windows 7, 25” HP2509m screen at 1920×1080 resolution
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