As The Legend of the Legendary Heroes ends, I guess that I’m still waiting for this series to still show me why it should be called Legendary. Twenty-Four episodes in and I can see that all of the elements for a great sequel/conclusion to this series are in place. Yet, the evidence already presented suggests that even if there is a sequel, it would not be able to adequately combine those elements into a polished final product for a variety of reasons. That said, LOLH does offer a fairly interesting cast of characters and it occasionally delivers interesting action sequences, which  makes it an above average show, if only barely.

Though he was only in like 3 episodes, Tiir was probably the best developed character in the whole series

First, the good. Some of the characters in this show are genuinely interesting, and furthermore, they actually develop over the course of the series. If you’ve been reading my posts on this series, than you probably know how much I love Ferris, and for good reason. Her development, while a little cliché, from a generally cold and sarcastic character who is scared sh*tless of her brother to a person who seemed to genuinely seemed to care for Ryner, as she continually sought to be by his side. Though the series failed to capture on some of the chemistry it generated between the two early on,  the promise they made later on in the series shows  how close they have become, and it also seemed like a pretty interesting plot point.

Both in comedy and drama, these two were top notch characters.

Unfortunately, every good interaction between these two seemed to be followed up by some side character of the week. In general, these weekly guests, if you will, seemed to take time away from the main story. If you’ve watched the show, do you remember who the hell Fiole, Toale, Salawell, or Arua are? While some of these characters, the ones still living at least, may play some sort of role in the future, do I care? No. Even some of the side characters I did care about and who received some development, like Tiir and Noa, seemed like they only showed up for one or two episodes and then disappeared for months at a time. This lack of continuity from week to week is never a good thing in my opinion.

Then there was Sion Astal. If you want to know how not to develop a character, I would suggest looking no further than this guy. Early on, the series made many interesting comparisons between him and Ryner or Riphal, by showing the differences in their moral character. Then, the series does a complete 180 by dropping what it spent 7 or 8 episodes building up to focus on Sion’s personality crisis. Though the show eventually combined the moral fiber thing with the explanation for his dual personality, this shift was far too sudden and poorly introduced for it to have any real basis in reason.

Sion's strange development almost ruined this show for me

However, the sudden jumps from one topic to another were not limited to the characters. I never really got a good idea about what the focus of this series was, or that matter I never really understood the logic behind the magic and the relics the characters used. Episode one gave the impression that the series would focus on Ryner and Ferris collecting relics and fighting monsters. Then the series seemed to shift to Ryner’s Alpha Stigma and Roland’s politics. Then there was that five or six episode stretch in the middle of the series where the show didn’t really do much at all. I will say that the last eight episodes were pretty entertaining, but the transitions from one episode to another were never handled well, and we only really got one cliffhanger.

Plus, the show never really explained to us what exactly the legendary relics were, how many of them there were, or what kind of past they had. Sure, you could infer some things from events after the fact or from the occasional flashback, but the critical information always seemed to be lacking in the moment.  Same thing applies to the magic used in this series, though to a lesser extent.

Though not mentioned anywhere else in this post, Luke is an awesome character

Perhaps the biggest issue I had with Legendary Heroes was with its pacing. From the material that was included in the series, did Legendary Heroes need to be 24 episodes long? The simple answer is no. Too much time was spent rehashing old points and flashbacks seemed like a common occurrence. During the second half of the series it seemed as though every week featured Sion trying to come to terms with his past decisions and Ferris somehow trying to reunite with Ryner. Since I assume this was a result of following the source material, I’m not really going to fault the show for including it, but did I need week after week of Ferris semi confessing to Ryner, or Sion moping for weeks on end? Again, no.

But on the flip side, this series could have easily been longer had they explained some of the unclear parts in more detail. I mean, how was Clough able to get his arm back after Tiir consumed it? How did Ryner and Ferris end back up in Roland at the beginning of episode 15? Who or what is controlling Sion? What exactly can a rule fragment do? To what lengths did Riphal go to when investigating Kiefer? Ok, that last one probably isn’t that important, but I still wanted to see it. The creators could have easily taken some of the time they devoted to the constant flashbacks and superfluous character development to flesh out these issues, but they didn’t. I’m not going to say they are lazy for doing this, but it does leave you wondering if they are crazy.

Knowing more about Gastark, Rule Fragments, etc. would have been appreciated.

One thing the show did do a better job of over the course of the series was improving its animation. Early on it seemed like Legendary Heroes utilized a lot of blank spaces and had difficulty with lighting. Whether this was on purpose or not I don’t know, but I found it pretty annoying. Over time though, it seemed like there were fewer occurrences of this, and the animation as whole looked a lot sharper, especially in the last eight episodes.

There was also just enough comedy to keep me interested in Legendary Heroes when I might have otherwise dropped the show. Obviously Ryner and Ferris were the source of most of this comedic relief, but a few other characters, like Sion, Noa, and Clough occasionally got in on the act. It did seem that the show pushed the Ryner X Sion jokes a bit too far, especially considering that Legendary Heroes doesn’t seem to be on the viewing list of people who like that sort of stuff, but I’ll let it go.

Best screen cap from this show.

As for the fighting scenes, they were a mixed bag in my opinion. Anything with Tiir was awesome, because let’s face it, he is awesome, but every other scene that featured a large number of combatants never really impressed me. It seemed like both Ryner and Ferris were powered down to meet level of their competition in these situations, and there were multiple occurrences in which the show had poor choreography for its fights, in that some characters disappeared for long stretches of time during fight scenes. That said, fights featuring few combatants were almost always interesting and well done.  Episode four’s fight between Ryner and Ferris, Episode 17′s Clough/Tiir fight, and Episode 24′s fight between Ryner and Sion are prime examples of this. Of course, almost any scene in which someone used a legendary relic was an instant win as well.

So even considering the possibility of a second season and that the source material is supposed to be much better, this anime series on its own didn’t really stand out to me. Sure, it is a far better waste of your time than some generic moe show, but when compared to some of the more “involved” shows that are out there, this one just isn’t up to par. To sum it up, this show is just too inconsistent, but it does have a lot of good points. I’ll probably rate this as an 8 on my MAL list, but in reality this show belongs in 7.5/10 territory.

You know I've never actually had Dango, but this show has made me want to try it. That's something.

Nice final episode, though I’m even more confused now than when the episode began as to what is wrong with Sion. Obviously, it looks like the plan is for there to be a sequel, and if there is one, it seems like it will have a faster pace than this series. While I’ll give my thoughts about the series as a whole in an upcoming post, there were a few notable things that happened in this episode.

While I’d like to say I knew how the legendary hero back story relates to what is going on in show, I pretty much only get that Lucile is the weaver of all equations and Ryner is the solver of all equations. I had thought at the beginning of the series the Ryner would be the present day legendary hero, but it seems like that role is more befitting of Sion, especially considering his relationship with Lucile and Ryner.

The fight scene from the episode’s opening half was interesting enough, but it was perplexing to see it just end. I mean for floating, possessed Sion just to give up because weird floating woman who came out of Ryner saying that it wasn’t time yet, was as weird as it was disappointing. I guess the point of this fight was so that we could finally know that Sion had finally been taking over by his evil double, but it seemed like that had been the case several times in the past few episodes. I suppose that it is possible that Sion is now cohabitating with his evil double, or whatever, given that Ferris said he was smiling and crying when he told her that he had killed Ryner. I just don’t know, so I’ll let it go for now.

We then got a reunion between Ryner and Ferris (it seems like they have had reunions every two or three episodes in this series), in which we got to see, again, that Ferris really does care for Ryner. However, it seems like there may be a cause for concern for Ferris, because she did look a bit worried when Kiefer helped them escape. Since it seems that Ryner and Ferris are going to be going up against Sion and Roland in the future, I would venture a guess that Ferris and Kiefer will inevitably cross paths again. Now whether Kiefer and Ryner would still have a thing for each other after all of these years is questionable, but it would still make for an interesting encounter.

The rest of the episode was really just one long ending montage scene featuring the various characters the series has introduced thus far, either fighting or standing around ominously. I will give this montage credit, in that I do want to watch more Legendary Heroes after watching it. One of the most interesting things from that montage was that Milk and company still seemed to be fighting on behalf of Roland, even after Milk learned the truth from a couple of episodes ago. Now, given that she would know that Sion’s undead soldiers were a result of human experiments, I wonder what could have possibly kept Milk from conspiring against Sion.

All things considered, this episode did move the series forward, but it seems like the ending montage was far more useful than the actual fight between Ryner and Sion, especially considering that we at least know the show didn’t forget characters like Tiir, Milk, and Miran.

Final Notes:

With this post, I’ve finally completed blogging my first full series, and while LOLH hasn’t been the most exciting series, it was pretty fun to blog. I’ve tried getting away from some of the longer, more analytical posts that I did earlier on, to making shorter, more to the point posts. That said, if you do read my posts with any regularity (I’m also blogging Star Driver), I would appreciate any feedback on my writing and ways that I can make my posts more appealing. Aside from that, I’d like to say thanks to the people who do read my posts, and more specifically foshizzel for commenting on such a regular basis.

That is the one thing I learned from my 10th grade English class. I had written an otherwise excellent (for a 10th grader), well sourced paper about Herbert Hoover’s life and she gives me a B- for no other reason than that the paper had no transitions. Suffice it to say, I’ve never made that mistake again in an academic paper. That’s one of the big issues with Legendary Heroes that has bothered me for some time; there are no transitions. Now, there has been the constant shifting from one story to another, and I’m cool with that. However, putting characters in unexplained situations, like the show did in episode 15, or the weird shift in tone from the last episode to this one are disappointing, to say the least.

Episode recap in four words: Sion goes crazy, finally.

Then there is the problem with the within show transitions. Having comedy intermixed with drama is a fine line to walk, and I pointed this out in my episode one post. LOLH has been doing a fine job with handling this concern of mine, but for some characters to act so out of turn, like Miran did in this episode, is perplexing to say the least. Now you might think that I hated the quick transition from the disconcertingly flirtatious and nice Sion to evil Sion, but that had been hinted at for some time, so while the transition was quick, it was understandable.

Aside from that last revelation, nothing really happened in this episode. It seems like the creators needed some reason to bring all of the characters together before Sion went bonkers, and they went with the birthday idea. Nothing too revolutionary or well imagined with that choice, but hopefully the show’s ending makes up for it. It was nice to see that the show hadn’t forgotten all of its side characters, like Miran and Noa (who was berating Clough for drinking too much in the background of the party scene, which was pretty funny). I really don’t think too much else needs to be said about this episode, so I’ll leave it at that.

I’ll end this post with some pictures of Ferris, but unfortunately there were no good ones of her blushing when it was revealed she was planning on opening her own Dango shop.

This was actually a very good episode, but there were a lot of things that left me scratching my head. The single biggest question mark relating to this episode’s events was how the hell did Sion get so damn strong, because it seems like all he has been doing in the past 10 episodes (aside from letting Ryner help him get rid of Tiir) is sitting in a chair in that room full of glass muttering to himself.

Twenty/Twenty hindsight, I suppose you could have seen this one coming with Ryner calling Sion the devil like 10 times in this episode, not to mention countless times in previous episodes, which was actually a pretty nice touch if it was done on purpose. While there had been more than enough foreshadowing in earlier episodes to show that Sion was going to turn evil, especially after Fiole was killed in episode 5, this shows that the original creators (presumably?) planned ahead well, so I would expect more of those aha moments in the future.

Sexy time

Also, this episode (finally) took the show in a more adult direction. Sure, there had been gory battle scenes and some heavy emotions in previous episodes, but the only adult shot was when Claugh rescued Noa in a previous episode. This episode threw them out so often it was like they were going out of style. Back to Sion though, it is pretty reasonable to assume that he at least has some hand in the use of the forbidden magic infused soldiers that Riphal’s men found in Runa, if not the mastermind.  Then there was his somewhat surprising change in his morals, as for no apparent reason he decided to start killing Roland’s nobles (including Milk’s parents) without even informing Miran. Then there was the phrase I hate hearing any anime, in which Sion said there was more going on in this world than lines being drawn on maps. You can read my thoughts on this type of plot device here, but suffice it to say, it seems we have been down this road before.

One sided sexy time?

That’s not to say that Sion is the only character who seems to be going down a dark path in this episode. First there was Claugh getting his arm back (and a little action on the side), though there was conveniently little explanation as to how this happened. I think it is hard to ignore the symbolism of Claugh having a black arm, though I am having a little difficulty seeing what role that is going to play in the future. And then what would Legendary Heroes be without making you hate both Sion and Riphal, who had resorted to torturing (but in what way?) Kiefer after she had reacted to Ryner’s name in a previous episode. You have to feel for what she may face in the future, as I doubt she knows anything about Sion using forbidden magic, but I guess you never know.

Finally, there was the revelation that Milk’s foster parents had been killed, and that it was likely done on Sion’s orders, though I don’t think she or anyone else in her squad made that connection, but the scene cut off after she asked about what is going on in Roland. I found it pretty weird that she was so broken up about her parents dying even after she found out that the only reason she was adopted was so that her parent’s real  children wouldn’t have to go fight. Then there was that dream sequence she had with Sion before she woke up. There have been hints earlier in the show that she and Sion were connected in some way, but how important the two are to each other is still in question. Then, just to throw more wrenches into the plot, Milk came up with a reason as to why she shouldn’t trust anyone in her squad. Though I guess this isn’t really a surprise, as it seems like nobody trusts anyone in this show, but that will make for a good conclusion.

This was a good scene, with some new, but welcome, eye movements from Ferris.

Then there was that whole back and forth between Sion and Miran about Ryner. Why Sion still considers Ryner so important to his identity is a little weird, but I’d imagine that he will eventually change his mind, like he did with the nobles (because, really, what are the odds that Ryner is dead?).

Oh yeah, Ryner also got stabbed.

If it was not for the fanfare and epicness surrounding the third episode of Amagami SS, this episode would have been the highlight of my anime watching week. That show aside, Legend finally delivered an engaging episode that left me looking forward to next week’s episode for the first time. However, this show is still far from perfect as the story relies too much on questionable decision making by its characters.

Before and ...

Following a short scene that featured Kiefer confessing her love to Ryner, the show surprisingly moves to the attack of the Estabul Knights within the first ten minutes of the episode. Unfortunately, we don’t really get to see most of the Academy’s students get chopped to pieces, but the scene was still enjoyable. However, I continue to question the preview scene in episode 1 that seemed to suggest that no one but the main three students would survive, as that took much of the suspense away from this scene.

As amazing as that onslaught was, the highlight of this episode was without question the clinic Ryner put on for the Estabul Knights. Apparently, the Alpha Stigma’s power isn’t limited to copying the abilities of other magicians, but it also gives Ryner the ability to laugh like a maniac. That, and the ability to practically disintegrate people at will would make it a serviceable ability, if only Ryner would stop being such a pussy about using it (which I discuss later).

After

While I give the show credit for making the scene as exciting as it was gruesome, I found the Knights’ behavior unbearably stupid. I mean they fell into the common bad guy monologue/deathtrap set up that has befallen many greats, including Dr. Evil. Why these Knights didn’t just kill Ryner when they captured him is beyond me, but it certainly made for an interesting watch.

The ending monologue suggests that future episodes will focus on a shift in Ryner’s mentality, which definitely needs changing. Sion was right when he read Ryner the riot act for not saving their comrades earlier via his Alpha Stigma. The reliance on “I’d rather take afternoon naps” and “can’t we all get along and not fight” by Ryner really showed his immaturity. He should take a page out of Peter Parker’s play book and realize that with great power comes great responsibility.

I'm having a tough time deciding which of these two characters I like less.

Unfortunately, Ryner seems so dead set against using his Alpha Stigma, even after most of his classmates died, that it looks like it will take a while for him to come to his senses. I mean even Miyafugi, from Strike Witches, was able to realize violence was necessary by the end of that series (yes, that show does have some themes). Thus, Ryner has no more than ten episodes to get his act together, or this may get old, and fast.

I will give credit where credit is due, and applaud Ryner for using his one request to free Kiefer, who did turn out to be a spy. Though once again, I really don’t understand why they would give Ryner one request as he is the Alpha Stigma bearer, but I’ll let this overly convenient plot go on for now so the story can be established, but not for much longer. That said, I’m really wondering what type of role Kiefer will have later in the series, as I can’t imagine her as a one and done type of character. While she seems to genuinely love Ryner, what will she be able to do now that her cover is blown?

Only one scene with Ferris in the entire episode. For shame.

Three episodes in, we have had three fairly different types of episodes. After taking into account the underwhelming first, overly talkative second, and carnage filled third, this series hasn’t really entered any sort of definable groove as of yet. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve enjoyed a lot of what this show has offered, but it seems like it’s a more a collection of parts rather than one definable story. I still don’t really get why Lucile is protecting Sion, though his ninja skills at the beginning of his episode showed how much of BAMF he is, and why Ferris is so afraid of him (also, a disappointing lack of Ferris in this episode).  Additionally, the farther we get away from episode one, the more I will question the point of that episode and the characters introduced in that episode.

The ending conversation between Ryner and Sion, who had offered to help Ryner escape prison but was rebuffed, didn’t really offer any hints as to the nature of the next episode. But here’s to hoping Ryner doesn’t go on some emo trip and confine himself to prison for too long.