Welcome to animation quick look, where I watch a few episodes of something animated and tell you if it’s worth investing your time in. After trying something western and something my wife really enjoys I wanted to try a show more in my comfort zone. I think everyone has a formula they really enjoy even if they enjoy new stuff as well. For me, it’s pretty much wacky fun cast of characters in a medieval fantasy setting. My favorite anime series of all time is Slayers and a modern favorite is Fairy Tail, both fun well-animated fantasy comedy series. So despite the awful awful title (I mean seriously) Legend of the Legendary Heroes seemed cut from that same cloth.
It’s mainly the story of master wizard Ryner Lute & his travel companion Ferris Eris (again, really? it’s not just the title that’s awful), a woman highly skilled with her sword as they travel the land seeking relics of legend at the behest of their friend and King, Sion. It also shows Sion’s struggle to be a good king surrounded by corrupt nobles who treat commoners like shit.
I watched 6 episodes of this series and it has sort of an odd pace, it spends the first episode setting up the basic premise, then spends several episodes showing how Sion became king as well as how he, Ryner & Ferris all met. The episodes leading up to him becoming King and sending Ryner & Ferris out on their quest are very well done, but it makes the first episode seem like a waste of time and gives the overall series a bit of a pacing issue.
Ryner & Ferris mostly play off each other well, but the series relies a little too hard on a couple of running jokes between them. Namely that Ferris constantly physically abuses Ryner for virtually no reason (not uncommon in anime but this seems to really be overdoing it) and that she’s think Ryner is a lout and a pervert and thinks everything is he does is motivated by trying to get her into bed, which she has no evidence of, and while it’s a little funny at first, it gets old pretty quickly. Ryner isn’t a pervert, he’s just lazy and wants to nap. A lot. He says he wants to nap several times in an episode. We get it, he likes naps. But when the series isn’t relying on these crutches, the characters work a bit better and their chemistry shines through, especially in the well-animated battle sequences, which is pretty standard sword and sorcery stuff but still fun to watch.
Ryner & Ferris are mostly the comedy act, Sion, while allowed to have plenty of funny moments (especially in a scene where he checks up on them posing as Ryner’s “cousin”) has much more serious scenes as he’s dealing in a deadly game of political maneuvering that could get him and his closest friends killed if he’s not careful, throwing the kingdom right back into the corrupt nobleman he’s trying to keep it from. It can make for an odd tonal shift when you are laughing at a hilarious scene focused on Ryner and Ferris and suddenly it shifts to somebody being brutally murdered as part of a political ploy. It’s not that you can’t have these elements mix well, it’s just that Legend of the Legendary Heroes makes no real attempt to do so, just jumping between the storylines at a whim with no regard for consistency.
That being said, I overall enjoyed what I’ve watched so far, especially the political stuff and if they can keep it interesting and tone down the reliance on one-note running jokes and balance the comedy and serious stuff a little better (and maybe they will, I do intend to watch more) they may have something really special here.
Final Rating: 3.5/5-:Legendary relics that blow everything up…
