This week I’m finishing up my look at the Log Horizon anime series as it currently stands with the series second season.

Cast & Crew

Emiri Katō as Akatsuki
Takuma Terashima as Shiroe
Tomoaki Maeno as Naotsugu
Ayahi Takagaki as Henrietta
Ayumi Fujimura as Roe2
Chiwa Saito as Nureha
Daiki Yamashita as Tōya
Eriko Matsui as Isuzu
Hiro Shimono as Sōjirō
Jouji Nakata as Nyanta
Mariya Ise as Lenessia Erhart Cowen
Misaki Kuno as Serara
Satoshi Hino as Isaac
Sayaka Ohara as Kuina/Indicus
Shinichiro Miki as K.R.
Shōhei Kajikawa as Hien
Takahiro Sakurai as Crusty
Tetsuya Kakihara as Lundellhaus
Yūichi Nakamura as William Massachusetts

Directed by Shinji Ishihira
Music by Yasuharu Takanashi
Original Story by Mamare Touno
Animation by Studio DEEN

Available from Amazon.com in two parts (Part 1 – DVD, Blu-Ray; Part 2 – DVD, Blu-Ray), and for streaming internationally on Crunchyroll.

The Premise

After Shiroe, “The Villain in Glasses” stabilized control of Akihabara, and formed an alliance with the Kingdom of Eastal, the Akiba Round Table and Log Horizon now face their next two major challenges. First comes securing the capital to continue to operate the Akiba Round Table, through a new raid which will lead them the source of all the gold on the server. The second is a new form of raid-boss level monsters, called Geniuses, which are threatening the server. Defeating the Geniuses and discovering their source may lead shiroe to the reason why the Adventurers are trapped in this world in the first place.

High Points

There is some impressive worldbuilding in this season, from exploration where all the gold in this world comes from, to the limitations of the game designers when it comes to writing songs, and what that means to the People of the Land, to what happened to Chinese Gold Farming bots when the “Apocalypse” happened.

Low Points

I really don’t see what Plant Hwaiden gets out of Indictus’ evil schemes. Yes, it gets them political influence with the Westlanders, but considering how cartoonishly evil some of them get, one would thing the moment that comes at the end of the series where she’s stripped of her political influence would have come a little earlier – especially how abusively Indictus treats the guild leader.

Scores

Originality: 5/6

Animation: Studio DEEN, the new animation studio for this season does a good enough job, but uses more “Anime stylistic shorthand” (super deformed characters, comically large sweatdrops, etc.) 4/6

Story: 5/6

Production: 5/6

Emotional Response: 5/6

Acting: 5/6

Overall: I really hope we get a third season of the show. 6/6

In total, Log Horizon, Season 2 gets 35 out of 42.