Record of Lodoss War: OVA & Chronicles of the Heroic Knight - The Complete Series [Blu-ray]

Beginning as a Japanese remake of fantasy games like Dungeons And Dragons, Record Of Lodoss War was developed into a related series of novel by creator Ryo Mizuno. This also prompted the printing of several different manga, and eventually into one of the earliest ongoing OVA series. Madhouse took up the Herculean effort into making the anime, while it was produced by animation veteran Masao Maruyama. Having one volume released monthly in the early 1990s, all 13 episodes were put out within the span of less than two years. The anime itself was based on the first four volumes of the prose novels, plus the two-part manga, Record Of Lodoss War: The Grey Witch. The storyline was carried out further in the Record Of Lodoss War: Chronicles Of The Heroic Knight anime TV remake which expanded on a newer generation of characters, as each portion of the series' history deals with six different characters forming a party to save their land from darkness, largely in the spirit of The Lord Of The Rings. Set hundreds of years after a war of the remaining gods, their final battle caused part of the continent of Alacrast(which would be the basis for the fantasy comedy Rune Soldier)into breaking off and forming the cursed island known as Lodoss. Centuries later, Lodoss is seperated into several kingdoms, most of which are allied to each other, except for the mirky smaller island nation of Marmo, lead by the reckless Emporer Beld. Marmo begins invading Lodoss with its forces of goblins, wolfmen, and dark elves, all lead by their general, the dark knight Ashram. While this is happening, the sturdy old dwarf Ghim seeks to find Leylia, the daughter of a high priestess that saved his life. Ghim sets help from his wizard friend Slayn, and the two come across the wannabe knight Parn with his friend Etoh, a recently graduation priest. The four team up to save Parn's village from Marmo forces, and then travel to the nearest kingdom to join in the struggle for freedom, which has them teaming up with the pretty high elf Deedlit. After gaining the thief Woodchuck to their party, the now six heroes go on various quests to prevent Beld's ambition from tearing Lodoss apart. However, all sides a secretly being played by Karla, a grey witch who keeps all the opposing forces in perpetual battle so as not to give any one side the most power to either conquer or unify all the kingdoms. Parn and his party have several members either leaving temporarily, or permanantly, and their quest leads to dragonslaying, epic duals, and the resurrection of an evil goddess. Record Of Lodoss War wasn't Ryo Mizuna's take on the RPG-inspired genre, not only with the various spinoff titles, but also with his more recent Record of Grancrest War, which despite the similar title doesn't have any direct connection to the Lodoss franchise. There was an anime continuation titled Legend Of Crystania, even though it works more as a sequal to the TV remake, as some characters died in the OVA series who show up alive in the frst Crystania movie. There is some difficulty structuring together the collected plot of OVA series, which skips some chapters and characters from the original novels, in fact the premiere episode is more done as a preview of the anime as it takes place in the middle of the first story arc with the six party members having already gotten together. Another criticism is you can tell which episodes had a bigger budget due to the slight lack of quality in animation, or reusing footage from previous episodes, like a red dragon and repainting it black. But, despite the mileage, Lodoss War has achieved level of nostalgia unparalleled among other 90s OVAs, as its one of the few ones to actually get a Blu-Ray re-release. Whether it's gamer, Tolkien fans, or generic otaku, Lodoss War is an excellent example of bringing life to a genre which at the time wasn't as huge as it would be, since fantasy anime was a niche market.

As someone who just watched this series for the first time I’m not quite sure where to start as I absolutely loved the OVA series on the Blu Ray discs. The characters are all very likable if familiar, the Dragons are the coolest I’ve ever seen, when music is used it’s used right, the animation done by studio Mad House is gorgeous, the main Villain is actually a pretty interesting character, the dub is Cowboy Bebop levels of good, and I could go on. For the OVA this package is well worth it. Now onto the TV series which is on the DVDs! Ok so the TV series isn’t bad and offers some really cool further character development; we get to see Parn as a seasoned Knight and they do some really cool stuff with Ashuans character. Hell some of the new characters are really cool. That being said the animation being done by a c tier studio can be really rough and looks wise it definitely doesn’t make up for it with character art looking barely professional and some of the backgrounds looking like something a high school art student might’ve drawn. The pacing and acting is also pretty mixed and there’s a grating shoe horned in comic relief. The TV series has a lot of good stuff though so if you really want more and can deal with one annoying mascot character and mediocre production values(even for the time) I recommend it but only then. Otherwise the original OVA series stands well on it’s own and is absolutely timeless.

For the price you get a lot, the OVA is close to 6 hours in 13 parts. Legendary among the 90s and 80s anime crowd. It is a fantasy epic similar to a Dragon and dungeons or a Lord of the rings story. The picture quality is HD the color is amazing as well as the sound restoration using and strong cast of actors. The Ova is a HD remastered 1080p Blu-ray on 2 discs 16:9 format with Dolby HD stereo Both English and Japanese audio. You get a digital copy/ code to stream if your into that. 1998 TV series is a Sd transfer to dvd 4 disc set and is 4:3 format in English or Japanese audio I honestly had no idea a TV series existed, it came out after the OVA everyone remembers and loves the OVA. In The Tv series starts differently than the OVA but the idea and events are similar but 8 episodes in it shifts a decade into the future to the story of a new hero. Most of the original characters appear to support a new band of heroes. this is more true to the novel's and Manga story line. The animation is lower budget because it is twice as long as the OVA. The art style shifts in quality depending on importance of the scene, It is still pleasing and fun to watch.

Si te gusta el mundo de Tolkien esta serie te va a encantar, las OVAs vienen en bluray con una gran calidad de imagen, la serie viene en dvd.

With this box set, you get the original 13-episode Record of Lodoss War OVA series on Blu-Ray and the Chronicles of the Heroic Knight series on DVD. The remastering on the OVA is excellent, showing the highly detailed artwork the way it was meant to be seen- but Chronicles still suffers from being a tad grainy in places, as expected from a DVD. With both series, you have audio options of either Japanese or English in 2.0. I would say that for both series, either audio track has some definite flaws in some of the voice acting, with Chronicles bearing the brunt of it more than the OVA. I found myself preferring the English dub track for both personally- the characters speaking English makes more sense for a fantasy world based on British and European folklore. I'm sure you know by now if you're buying this set that the Lodoss franchise was based on a game of early D&D, and later adapted into it's own TTRPG and novels. If you want to watch the most novel-accurate experience, I recommend watching episodes 1-8 of the OVA and then the TV series immediately afterward.

So happy to have this legendary anime in my library on bluray. Very pleased with how the seller handled it the condition is absolutely perfect, and the price felt very reasonable.

たしかOVAは自分が学生の時に友人から借りて観ていました。ロードス島戦記は小説から入ったので当時はキャストが自分の思い描いていた声だったのを覚えています。 字幕が消えないのは残念ですが今でも名作だと思います。 DVDはリージョンフリーのプレーヤーで確認しましたがTVシリーズでDVDということで画質が少し残念でした。

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