As you may have gathered from my previous post, I'm a huge freaking fantasy nerd. I love magic and stuff. It's kind of hard to find someone that doesn't these days.
But while I was writing about The Slayers, I was reminded of another great show that's always held a special place in my heart: Rune Soldier. Let's have a look.
I'm just going to come right out and say it: If Slayers was everything right about early 90's anime, then Rune Soldier was everything right with late 90's anime.
Time for a confession: I've never seen Record of Lodoss War. It is a shame of mine, one which someday will be corrected, but not this day. So it comes to me as great surprise that when looking up this show again that I find they are actually connected. I always felt like the world Rune Soldier took place in was larger than it led on, and I'm pleased to find this is actually the case.
On its surface, Slayers and Rune Soldier come from the same place. They're both high-adventure fantasy romps in the vein of D&D. But where Slayers is a high-level, perhaps even epic level adventure, dealing with gods and demons and all that, Rune Soldier is your typical entry-level campaign, and one of the reasons I adore it so much.
The main character, Louie, is perhaps one of the worst spellcasters ever. He doesn't use traditional magic, but instead incorporates it into physical attacks. You might say he specializes in punch magic. I'm pretty sure that's even something he says.
Unlike Lina Inverse, who is absolutely amazing at what she does, Louie is pretty terrible. It's part of what gives him his charm though, as a character. He's a wizard that uses a sword, and focuses on spells that give him a boost rather than those that make things explode.
The art is really good in this show. Late 90's TV anime could have some stellar animation work, and it shines in this show in particular. Great character art, wonderful animation, and plenty of visual gags that will split your sides.
Plus the characters are just plain awesome. But unfortunately, this is where I actually have to take the chance to tell you about a pretty big negative of the show: It's technically a harem show. As much as I love the characters, Rune Soldier has one central male lead surrounded by five beautiful women. Well, four if you discount the mousy rogue Merrill. While there are only two of them that appear relatively interested in Louie, the fact of the matter is that everyone gets involved in embarrassingly compromising positions at some points - unfortunately, 'that's just anime for you'. I wish it wasn't so, but that's kind of how it was back then, and still is to this day.
Perhaps the thing that stands out to me the most in this show above everything else are the environments. In Slayers, they kind of blast through any locations they're in, never really taking a lot of time to explore. But in Rune Soldier, they do, and the environments are gorgeous. It feels more like a real adventure because they're always having to deal with the traps and the puzzles instead of just being able to blow the entire dungeon to hell and back.
Now personally, I like Slayers far more - for one, it's a hell of a lot more entertaining. But if you happen to be looking for something that's just a little bit like that, but totally its own thing? Rune Soldier Louie, man. It's such a shame it will never see a second season, because I feel like this is a show that totally deserved it - more than shit like Strike Witches ever did, by any rate. Definitely more than goddamn Diabolik Lovers.
Now that I think about it, I get the impression that Rune Soldier is the show Dog Days should have been from the start. But then that would've made that show good instead of objectively horrid.
... and while I don't plan on watching the third season of that for you lot any time soon I'm sure it will happen eventually. Ugh.
Suddenly I have this desire to watch this show again. Rune Soldier, for all of its faults, was definitely an entertaining story, and one I wouldn't mind experiencing again.
I think I've probably said about all I can on this one, so go check it out if you want to get into something kind of like The Slayers. You'll probably enjoy it.
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