90s Fantasy Anime Turns Dungeons And Dragons Campaign Into An All-Time Classic

By Jonathan Klotz
| Published 20 seconds ago

The explosive success of Dungeons and Dragons podcasts, incl The Adventure Zone, Not Another Dungeons and Dragons Podcasta Heroes that revolve, helped make the classic tabletop game more popular than ever before. Critical Rolethe biggest and most successful real gaming podcast, even turning their campaign 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, the anime Record of the War of Lodoss bringing author Ryo Mizuno’s homebrew game to life.

Real Play Before Podcasts

Record of the War of Lodoss It started as a serial “replay” in Comptiq, a Japanese magazine, as a transcript of Mizuno’s D&D sessions. Using Dungeons and Dragons 2nd Edition as the foundation of a high fantasy story featuring the adventuring party of Woodchuck, Slayn, Etoh, Parn, Deedlit, and Ghlim, each representing a different class to the game. Taking on a mission from the king, the adventuring party begins by finding a very angry green dragon, and the stakes only go up from there.

As has everyone who has ever played a Dungeons and Dragons campaign knows, there is a rhythm to the adventure, and Record of the War of Lodoss holds the same crescendo, complete with grand mysteries, betrayal, and a final battle that shakes the heavens. Nope anime since, not even Killers or Tasty in Dungeon, has brought a campaign to life in exactly the same way. The original series is only 13 episodes long, so it goes faster than any home run.

Old School Fantasy Throwback

To say that Record of the War of Lodoss Instant success would be an understatement. The original novels written by Ryo Mizuno before the anime have 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. Both spin-offs take place after the end of the original series and explore what happened to some of the party after the final battle. Record of the War of Lodoss: Chronicles of the Heroic Knightreleased in 1998, brings (most) of the party back together again for a 27-episode series that benefits from better animation and music mixing but lacks the same appeal as the original .

To this day, there have been highly successful fantasy anime, incl Freeze: Beyond the Journey’s End who have pushed the medium forward with bold storytelling and great new ideas on old tropes. But then again, there’s something to be said for a series like that Record of the War of Lodoss which embraces the classic tropes of the young Parn’s rise to leadership while hitting all the classic RPG beats for the isolated elves Deedlit tries to save, and Woodchuck, a thief, and with that one word description, you you know exactly what to expect. There’s nothing wrong with a cliche anime from time to time, and overall, the 1990 series has aged well and remains a perfect watch today.

Role playing games, incl Dungeons and Dragonshas changed over the years, which is why “Goblin” is no longer a class, and goblins are no longer forced to be an evil race; go back to watch Record of the War of Lodoss It’s like opening a time capsule containing THAC0. It’s rough around the edges, the design of Pirotess the Dark Elf is pure fan service, and the plot doesn’t surpass the first seasons of The Adventure Zone, NaDDPoDor Critical Rolebut it’s fun to go back to where it all started.

If you have never watched Record of the War of Lodossyou can stream it on Crunchyroll.