Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m happy to announce we’re embarking on the first step of a new adventure, as we check out the beloved Record of Lodoss War, a truly distinct artifact of the anime OVA boom. Though it was eventually adapted into a series of fantasy novels by Ryo Mizuno, Lodoss War initially arose as a series of actual play transcripts in the gaming magazine Comptiq, detailing the Dungeons & Dragons adventures shared by a handful of fantasy writers.
As such, Lodoss War is in many ways a product well ahead of its time, a precursor to the podcast-driven resurgence of DnD typified by shows like Dimension 20, adaptations like The Legend of Vox Machina, and even my own ongoing recounting of my first campaign as Dungeon Master. Dungeons & Dragons began as little more than a fantasy-flavored combat simulator, but it has become a flexible canvas for grand acts of myth-making and emotional drama, as different groups of players find their own balance between mechanical rigor and fantastical invention.
All of this makes Lodoss War an interesting cultural harbinger, if nothing else. That said, it’s doubtful this OVA series would be remembered for that alone – instead, it is Record of Lodoss War’s sumptuous art design and iconic characters, including the inescapable elf maiden Deedlit, that have made it such an enduring artifact. Yutaka Izubuchi’s original character designs are lifted into the stratosphere through this production’s strong array of storyboarders and animators, with director Akinori Nagaoka here assisted by such legends as Rintarou on episode boards and Toshiyuki Inoue on key animation, as well as Escaflowne character designer Nobuteru Yuki handling the adapted designs. It’s always a pleasure visiting this beautiful production, and I’m personally fascinated by DnD’s intersection of game design and collaborative storytelling, so let’s not waste a moment longer. The adventure begins!