A Tale of First Series: Heroism and Binaries in Record of Lodoss War
Heroism is something I find myself coming back to a lot in these especially trying times. After all, we hear about heroes from time to time, and yet so few of the stories we see are about heroic people. The hopelessness of that reality is hard to fathom even as I sit here contemplating a TV show that has little interest either in the ambiguous and oft-hidden heroisms of reality or the gritty heroisms of fantasy. Record of Lodoss War just isn’t that kind of show. For those that don’t know, the 13-episode OVA (original video animation) Record of Lodoss War (1990-1991) is the first anime adaptation of Ryo Mizuno’s novels of the same name, themselves based on transcripts (or “replays”) of RPG sessions created by the Japanese gaming company, Group SNE (co-founded by Mizuno). This particular anime production generally follows the plot of the first novel and loosely borrows elements from several others (primarily in its final five episodes). A later anime series (subtitled as Chronicles of the Heroic Knight) ran for double the first series’ length and attempted to retell the story through a more faithful adaptation. This background should give you an idea of the kind of story you’re walking into when you pop in those delicious RLW DVDs (or VHS tapes, if you’re so lucky to own them).