Log Horizon: Entaku Houkai

I quite like Log Horizon and my overall feelings about the series as a whole really haven't changed much since I watched the very first season all those years ago. The series does a number of things particularly well. It is well animated and features a vibrant, colorful, expansive world. It has a consistently standout soundtrack and some pretty banging intro/outros that really get the juices flowing. It has a HUGE cast of characters and deliberately moves at a slow pace in order to develop those characters, develop the world itself and expand on the various systems both politically and in terms of gameplay going ... on behind the scenes. This final point is both its biggest strength and its biggest weakness and it's where I'd like to start out our discussion about the third season.

The first season of Log Horizon was a meaty, thorough 25 episodes, but since then seasons have been a mere 12 episodes each. When the cast is this enormous and the pace is deliberately this slow, greatly exasperated in this case by the half decade long wait in between seasons 2 and 3, I can't help but be left feeling unfulfilled and wanting more. We waited six years to introduce all of two plot points essentially and the entire first half of this season is devoid of combat or dungeon exploring whatsoever. Normally, with a higher episode count, this isn't an issue at all and these arcs are a nice change of pace and a great opportunity to enhance the deep lore of the series and develop characters, but with just 12 episodes it feels like there is no choice but to cut corners, rush things and pick and choose who you want to feature. There simply isn't enough time to give all the meaningful characters meaningful screen time or to continue with all the previously established plot points. Many characters and subplots are forced to take a back seat for the time being.

It's hard to know how much of that I should hold against the anime itself. I'm a bit of an apologist as I know there are various issues out of the control of the creators of the anime such as a lack of source material, with the original Log Horizon web comic not being updated since 2018 and with no announcement regarding if or when it will continue, the author running into some fairly serious legal trouble and, of course, simply budget restraints from studios in what is, ultimately, a for-profit business. I think the people creating this anime have done the very best they can with what they were given to work with. Nevertheless, pacing issues, some characters and plot points being left behind, feeling there are too few episodes/not enough meat on the bone to justify a six year wait and a distinct lack of combat in the first half of the show are all valid criticisms one could direct at this season.

My fear for this series as a whole is that it almost inevitably will not end in a satisfactory manner, and that's if it ends properly at all, as it's possible it may simply stop one day. In the worst case scenario, maybe that day is today. I also fear that I'll be old or dead by the time this concludes. If they're pumping out a mere 12 episodes every half decade or so, it's going to take a very long time to conclude all of this. My sincere hope, though I live in the real world and know this is very unlikely at this point, is that they'll drop at least one if not two full fledged 24 episode final seasons, conclude things the right way and let this lore rich, deep, ripe with potential series walk into the sunset the way it deserves to. For now, this twelve episode third season felt like just a little taste of something far bigger and better, but it sucks to have to wait who knows how long just to take another small bite...

PERSONAL ENJOYMENT RATING- 7-8
OBJECTIVE RATING- 7-7.5

tl;dr: A series of transitionary arcs that are interesting in how they’re building up a lot of different elements, but that holistically feel lacking because very little happens in this season itself.

Log Horizon had two seasons way back in 2013-2015. Of course it is expected that one watching later seasons has watched previous ones. However, in the case of large gaps between seasons, it is often the case that some sort of recap is provided either separately from the anime or in the anime itself. The third season of Log Horizon does neither. It doesn’t ease in the viewer at all and pretty much expects ... them to be as familiar with the franchise as they would if they had just finished watching the previous seasons. As such, if it has been a long time since you’ve watched the previous seasons, I would recommend doing something to get refamiliarize yourself with the series, whether it be to rewatch the series, read the novels, or go find a detailed third party summary.

Between the previous seasons and this one for reasons that will not be elaborated upon, the franchise hit a very turbulent period. And by that I don’t just mean the anime, but the novels as well. Log Horizon was originally a web novel that was receiving a light novel release, however in 2015 production of that pretty much stopped as well with only one volume released after that in 2018. Previous seasons also adapted material from the web novels before it got released as a light novel. However, the issue this time is that there wasn’t all that much to adapt from the web novels either. As such, while previous seasons of Log Horizon were two cour, this season is only one cour as there’s simply not enough material left for a second one.

That isn’t inherently a problem, but in this specific instance I feel that this has resulted in a pretty weak anime because the current season is composed solely of arcs that feel like they’re building up to something, but without any arcs that really feel like substantial stories of their own. There are three very distinct arcs. Across the three there’s a some pretty good content in a lot of different areas, but there’s no real depth nor any really good any content in any specific area.

The first arc is centered around conflicts within the Round Table and some political intrigue arising from that. There’s a lot of good world building that it is clear will have a major impact going forward, not just in terms of Akiba but in terms of Yamato overall. However, this is pretty much entirely tangential to the main plot and thus not really focused on yet. In terms of what is focused on, the actual political gambits are incredibly simplistic which results in the story not being all that strong in and of itself. There’s also a focus on Rayneshia’s character growth which is written decent enough, but is pretty generic so it’s not particularly memorable.

The second arc is about the adventures of Krusty off in the Log Horizon equivalent of China. As an adventure story it’s pretty good and has some great action involving interesting twists on MMO mechanics. Still, it’s a story that’s very much in the early stages it feels like. It has a lot of world building regarding Geniuses and the Moon, but it doesn’t feel like this arc has any sort of event that results in major progression to serve as a solid conclusion to the arc. Rather, it’s not clear at all where things are going to go exactly. The writing is setting up a lot of intermingling plot threads, but it feels like actual progress in all of them is going incredibly slowly. As of yet, I don’t feel the narrative has done anything interesting enough with Geniuses to justify how much focus they’ve gotten throughout this and the previous season.

The third arc is centered around the younger members of Log Horizon, especially Minori, growing to become more capable adventurers. There’s a large focus on how raids work, but that was already a focus in season 2. Furthermore, while season 2 focused on high level raid tactics and such with Shioe, this focuses on the basics with Minori, which feels like a step back. This season gets more into the nitty gritty than season 2 did so if this was before the raid focused part in season 2 I feel this would have been perfectly fine, but focusing on the basics at this point just isn’t that interesting. There’s also some romantic development, but it’s more focused on making clear what currently is and where things will go in the future than actual progress, so this is yet another area where it’s building things up but not actually making any progress on them.

The art and animation are solid enough in terms of quality. The design work has a pretty fun style that combines fantasy and modern Japan in a pretty unique way that I’m pretty fond of. The OP and ED are both pretty solid in terms of the song and visuals. I love how overtly dramatic the OP is about the Fall of the Round Table arc. The soundtrack was decent enough but not particularly memorable.

How is it possible for such a good premise to be wasted in a tremendous slowness of disjointed, nonsensical dialogues without any coherence? I am sad because when the first season was released, we were expecting to see innovative, enjoyable, and action-packed content. However, as always, nothing significant happens to the adventurers; the protagonist always emerges victorious without anyone suffering, and there is no chance of anything bad occurring.

Everything consistently falls into place, and there is no captivating storyline to keep watching. I finished it, but with a great deal of drowsiness and the inclination to give up on every episode. I am happy for ... those who managed to complete it without falling asleep; it serves as an excellent remedy for insomnia.

There are no emotionally charged dialogues, plot twists, action, or enjoyment—only political maneuvering, childish dialogues on top of adults, and trivialities.

I am disheartened because it was a promising premise compared to other MMORPG anime. While I rated Log Horizon Season 1 a 10, this Season 3 deserved no more than a 6, and that's being generous.

As it's on hiatus, it probably won't have a conclusion, and I even think it's better if it remains unfinished instead of continuing this enormous drowsiness.