Anime Profile: Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of Heroic Knight

The Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of Heroic Knight TV series is a sequel to the first seven episodes of the Record of Lodoss War OVA series, which were based on the Lodoss books. The five remaining OVA episodes were not based on the books, but rather were simply a conclusion created from scratch to tie up the series, since continuing with the story from the books would have either ended the series in the middle of a story arc or have taken way too many episodes to reach a spot with a satisfactory conclusion. Thus, the TV series completely ignores those final five episodes in order to continue the story as it happened in the books.

It has been five years since the War of Heroes ended, and now the evil Ashram is out looking for a magical item called the scepter of domination so that he can rule all of Lodoss. He visits Neese at the Temple of Marfa, hoping that this was the treasure that the ancient dragon Bramd gave to her, though when he learns that she sold the dragon's treasure to pay for upkeep of the temple, he realizes it could not have been what he was after. But at least Neese now knows that Ashram is back, so she can give fair warning to Parn and the gang. Let's just hope there's enough time to stop him!

Meanwhile, Shiris and Orson arrive in town of Zaxon on a mission to collect taxes for the kingdom, though the villagers claim that they are independent and not part of the kingdom. Shiris expected as much, and came prepared to fight. So apparently they're not aware that this is the home town of Parn, the heroic free knight. Initially, a sorcerer named Cecil that Parn left in charge while he was away came out to face the mercenaries. The dope quickly falls into a trap they set for him, but is soon rescued when Parn and Deedlit arrive on scene. After a quick battle where Orson turns into a raging berserker, unable to tell friend from foe, they all become friends and head into town.

While there, Slayn arrives and gets the gang up to date on what Ashram's up to, so they all head out to Flaim in hopes of sign up the great King Kashue to join their quest. It's not long after arriving in Flaim that Parn finds himself helping out a poor civilian being terrorized by a group of soldiers. When the military actually realizes who Parn is, they immediately feel stupid and escort the group to Castle Akroyd. After a discussion on the current situation, they figure that since they don't know which of the two most likely dragons has the treasure that Ashram is after, there is no other choice than to split up into two groups, with each taking a dragon.

Parn leads the first group, consisting of Deedlit and King Kashue, and they head off to Fire Dragon Mountain to find the dragon called Shooting Star. Orson is put in charge of the second group, and he, along with Shiris and Cecil, head off to Blue Dragon Island to check out the water-dragon Abram. Unbeknownst to both parties, Ashram has decided to try his luck at Blue Dragon Island first, though Orson's group is unable to make an attempt at him due to the fact that they were captured by pirates! Orson, Orson, Orson, what are we gong to do with you? But on the bright side, Ashram doesn't find what he's looking for at Blue Dragon Island. Of course, with every bright side, there's a dark side....

But wait! This fantastic adventure all comes to an exciting conclusion in episode eight! And there are still 19 more episodes to go! What's a show to do? Well, if you're this show, you'll start a completely new storyline, this time focusing on the youngster named Spark whom we met briefly earlier in the series, though now it is ten years later and Spark is well on his way to becoming a knight like his idol, Parn. This new adventure sends Spark out to stop an evil sorcerer named Wagnard, who is bound and determined to resurrect the mega nasty Kardis! Sure sounds exciting! But honestly, I much preferred the first part of the series. The second part got me a little confused....

At the end of each episode there is a little short called "Welcome to Lodoss Island" in which cute, simply-animated child-like versions of the characters play out a funny little skit. The first was great, with them giving a simple, easy-to-understand summary of episode. The following skits were also funny, but they didn't summarize the plot in any way, which is unfortunate because both my wife and I thought that was a great idea, so that's why after the first one, we found the rest were a bit disappointing. Oh yeah, I should also point out that the animation isn't a good as the OVA series, but that's pretty typical, as TV series usually aren't due to budget and time constraints.

On a side note, Central Park Media has recently repriced the DVD set of Record of Lodoss War: Chronicles of Heroic Knight to $39.99. Also, Central Park Media has made the first episode available for podcast download, along with many other of its titles.