90s fantasy anime turns the Dungeons And Dragons campaign into an all-time classic
Pa Jonathan Klotz
| Published
The explosive success of Dungeons and Dragons podcasts, among others Adventure Zone, Not just another Dungeons and Dragons podcastand rotating heroes, helped make the classic board game more popular than ever before. A critical rolethe largest and most successful factual gaming podcast, even turned their company into an animated series, The Legend of Vox Machinaon Amazon Prime, but it wasn’t the first D&D campaign to become a series. In 1990 anime Record of the Lados War brought author Ryo Mizuno’s homebrew game to life.
Actual playback before podcasts
Record of the Lados War began as a serialized “rerun” in the Japanese magazine Comptiq, as a transcript of Mizuno’s D&D sessions. Using Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition as the basis for a high fantasy story with an adventuring party of Woodchuck, Slaine, Etto, Parno, Didlit, and Glim, each representing a different class in the game. Taking on a mission from the king, the adventurers begin with the intense wrath of a green dragon, and the stakes only rise from there.
As anyone who has ever played a Dungeons and Dragons the company knows there is a rhythm of adventure, and Record of the Lados War builds to that same crescendo, complete with big mysteries, betrayals, and a final, heaven-shattering battle. no anime yes, not even Killers or Delicious in the Dungeon brought the company to life in the same way. The original series is only 13 episodes long, so it moves faster than any home run.
Fantasy of the old school
Say that Record of the Lados War It was an instant success, to say the least. The original novels, which Ryo Mizuno wrote before the anime, sold over 10 million copies in Japan, over a dozen video games, tabletop role-playing games, and two spin-off franchises, Legend of Crystania and Rune Soldier. The two spin-offs take place after the end of the original series and explore what happened to some of the members after the final battle. Record of the War of Lados: Chronicles of a Heroic Knightreleased in 1998, reunites (most) of the cast in a 27-episode series that benefits from better animation and music mixing, but lacks the same appeal as the original.
To this day, there is a huge success, including fantasy anime Freeze: Beyond Journey’s End that pushed the medium forward with bold storytelling and fantastic new takes on old tropes. Still, there’s something to be said for a series like this Record of the Lados War covering classic tropes from young Parn’s rise to leadership, hitting all the classic RPG beats to the isolationist elves that Didlit tries to save and Woodchuck the thief, and with a one-word description like that, you know exactly what to expect. There’s nothing wrong with doing cliche anime every now and then, and for the most part, the 1990 series has aged well and remains perfectly watchable today.
Role-playing games, including Dungeons and Dragonshave changed over the years, which is why “Elf” is no longer a class, and goblins are no longer forced to be an evil race; I’m going back to watch Record of the Lados War similar to opening a time capsule containing THAC0. It’s rough around the edges, Pirotess the Dark Elf’s design is pure fanservice, and the plot doesn’t beat the first seasons Adventure Zone, NaDDPoDor A critical rolebut it’s fun to go back to where it all started.
If you’ve never watched Record of the War of Ladosyou can stream it on Crunchyroll.
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