Log Horizon Anime General Discussion Thread (NO SPOILERS)

[DmonHiro]

I'm guessing 2 episodes max until Shiroe and friend crush Hamelin?
Shiroe is my favorite kind of character: he's just a nice guy, with some really awesome skills. He's also the type that usually takes the abuse he gets, but if you abuse his friends, you will learn fear.

[tsunade666]

Originally Posted by DmonHiro

He's also the type that usually takes the abuse he gets, but if you abuse his friends, you will learn fear.

I don't think his the guy that will take an abuse and just go it.

Look at episode 2. Those who tried to PK them are dead. Those who always bugs for his help are ignored. He even went solo after the DTP dissolved.

I think his the silent type that if you provoke him. You will get what you wanted.

[Keroko]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

Yes. But again, once he got the basics of fighting, he stopped. Or if not stopped outright, slowed to a crawl because it ceased to be a priority.

Yes, because when I say "there are a lot of basics to figure out" I do mean "there are a lot of basics to figure out." Not just combat. Not just food. Everything.

Thinking about the details of the world can wait until you've gotten a grasp on the basics.

Which is convenient, because several episodes of nothing but infodumping might not fall in good taste with everyone.

[Neki Ecko]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

This is not yet confirmed.

Its just assuming that because its NHK that it will automatically has second season. BUT! it has high chance that it will have one. But at the moment. There is not enough material for second season.

We know it is a two cour series but it will be crazy if they going to add another 25 eps but with all of the material that the author, i might happened.

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Neki Ecko

We know it is a two cour series but it will be crazy if they going to add another 25 eps but with all of the material that the author, i might happened.

i wish maouyuusha had this kind of support.

[DmonHiro]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

Look at episode 2. Those who tried to PK them are dead. Those who always bugs for his help are ignored. He even went solo after the DTP dissolved. I think his the silent type that if you provoke him. You will get what you wanted.

No, I think that he will avoid conflict as long as it only involves himself. He didn't exactly go solo after DTP dissolves. He's an enchanter, so he literally cannot fight solo. He's got some really OP moves, like Thorn Bind Hostage, but by himself, he cannot fight. He's not really a loner, because he seems to crave contact, but is very awkward. I think that's why he choose that class. It's a class anyone would love to have in their team, so he though that he wouldn't need to approach people, that they would come to him. Sadly, that did not turn out as he had hoped.

My point is that I think he's someone who doesn't value himself very much, but values his friends a whole lot.

[VooDooZulu]

Originally Posted by Anh_Minh

It's more of a "one thing at a time" than "do what you can" situation. As I said, they could - easily - be doing more. But they aren't, in part because other things demand their attention, in part because they haven't seriously thought about it.

Well lets go over what we know about Shiroe really quick. Shiroe is a senior at a university studying engineering. So he is around 22 years old and is book smart. He should have a basis for knowing physics. I agree, he could be methodically experimenting to find out just what they have actually gotten themselves into. but lets look at some other aspects about Shiroe.

This is copy-pasted from the wiki

Spoiler for Log Horizon Wiki:

he has been an Elder Tale player since middle school, a veteran with a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of a game known for its depth.

Shiroe is a gamer. This is obvious but he loves games. i don't think its a stretch to say that even he is viewing this as a game. Maybe getting back to the 'real world' isn't his first priority. He was just thrown into a world that he has been obsessed over since middle school. Thats a world that he has invest a large portion of his life into over the past 10-ish years.

Finally, Shiroe is an introvert. He avoids guilds and other people because he doesn't want to be the answer to everyone's problems. If he were to 'discover why we are here' then he would be nothing but the answer to everyone's problems. Before everyone would ask him for help with the game, if he was the one who found out what the world actually is then everyone would ask him for help in getting back to the real world. Thats exactly what he doesn't want.

[Vocah]

Am I the only one who would love to be in a situation like this? Hell, I probably would even volunteer to be in a situation like in SAO ^^

[tsunade666]

Originally Posted by DmonHiro

No, I think that he will avoid conflict as long as it only involves himself. He didn't exactly go solo after DTP dissolves. He's an enchanter, so he literally cannot fight solo. He's got some really OP moves, like Thorn Bind Hostage, but by himself, he cannot fight. He's not really a loner, because he seems to crave contact, but is very awkward. I think that's why he choose that class. It's a class anyone would love to have in their team, so he though that he wouldn't need to approach people, that they would come to him. Sadly, that did not turn out as he had hoped.

He choose enchanter because he likes challenge. Its a class that can't do anything alone but has lots of possibilities and he loves challenge and researching. He likes adventuring and learning things inside Elder Tale.

He is shy, chief Nyanta even said that. He is socially awkward and introvert. He might care for his friends but he is selfish too. He rescued Serara not because he wants to save her but because he is bored as hell and he doesn't have anything to do. He doesn't want to turn into like the people moping around Akiba and doing nothing and even result in PK'ing.

And as for Thorn Bind Hostage(TBH) its not OP skill. Sorcerer can dish it out a lot easily and it doesn't need others to help. He is just good at using his character which make it look OP but its not.

[darksassin]

Originally Posted by VooDooZulu

Well lets go over what we know about Shiroe really quick. Shiroe is a senior at a university studying engineering. So he is around 22 years old and is book smart. He should have a basis for knowing physics. I agree, he could be methodically experimenting to find out just what they have actually gotten themselves into. but lets look at some other aspects about Shiroe.

This is copy-pasted from the wiki

Spoiler for Log Horizon Wiki:

he has been an Elder Tale player since middle school, a veteran with a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of a game known for its depth.

Shiroe is a gamer. This is obvious but he loves games. i don't think its a stretch to say that even he is viewing this as a game. Maybe getting back to the 'real world' isn't his first priority. He was just thrown into a world that he has been obsessed over since middle school. Thats a world that he has invest a large portion of his life into over the past 10-ish years.

Finally, Shiroe is an introvert. He avoids guilds and other people because he doesn't want to be the answer to everyone's problems. If he were to 'discover why we are here' then he would be nothing but the answer to everyone's problems. Before everyone would ask him for help with the game, if he was the one who found out what the world actually is then everyone would ask him for help in getting back to the real world. Thats exactly what he doesn't want.

I don't think Shiroe is that bad. He just dislike people using him purely for their own benefit. But if someone really needs help he will do what he can to help them. That is why he likes helping newbies, or at least doesnt mind them.

About getting out from the world, lets compare with SAO.

Spoiler for comparison to Sword Art Online:

In SAO the players were basically told from the start"I am the one trapping you here. If you defeat 100th floor boss you will be able to escape.Dont die though or you will die for real." Even then, it took 2 years for them to escape. And they even have dedicated guild with purpose to reach the end faster.

In Log Horizon, the player have absolutely no clue how they got in the Elder Tale, how to escape, and why. And Elder Tale is much more vast, 1/4 the size of the world. Even if we limit to Japan it is probably 100 times more massive than SAO World.

So how should they start looking for clues?
There are maybe thousands ans thousands square miles to search through. If one of the largest and influential Guild in Elder Tale were unable to do much to find any clues how do you think Shiroe can find it easily? Searching for some kind of clues in a wide world takes time, resources and manpower, and is probably impossible for just four people to do, even when using Gryffon, and Shiroe so far has almost no persuasive power to influence other people, especially since he is guildless. So, he did what he can do at that moment.

And no, he doesnt view this as a game, Shiroe accepted that this is their reality now, he just thought that they were bound by game rules. That is why and the end of each preview he said "This is our reality." And if he just consider this as just a game he probably couldnt care less about saving Serara

[darksassin]

Originally Posted by tsunade666

He is shy, chief Nyanta even said that. He is socially awkward and introvert. He might care for his friends but he is selfish too. He rescued Serara not because he wants to save her but because he is bored as hell and he doesn't have anything to do. He doesn't want to turn into like the people moping around Akiba and doing nothing and even result in PK'ing.

I dont think that is the main reason Shiroe decided to rescue Serara, more like an excuse to himself. He is reluctant to help a guild even though he want to. He felt like he doesnt deserve to lend them a hand. So he used "boredom" as an excuse to justify himself helping the guild

He likes helping others, he just dont want others to depend on him solely for their own benefit.

Think about it, why does Shiroe, who is reluctant to join any guild, is very close to Crescent Moon whose main purpose is to help beginners, compared to others?

[Sheba]

I can't remember who have done the comparison with Phillip Jose Farmer's "Riverworld", but the more I watch the episodes and try to get some clues from them and various sources the more I can see why the poster have brought up "Riverworld".

[blackwhite67]

Originally Posted by VooDooZulu

Well lets go over what we know about Shiroe really quick. Shiroe is a senior at a university studying engineering. So he is around 22 years old and is book smart. He should have a basis for knowing physics. I agree, he could be methodically experimenting to find out just what they have actually gotten themselves into. but lets look at some other aspects about Shiroe.

This is copy-pasted from the wiki

Spoiler for Log Horizon Wiki:

he has been an Elder Tale player since middle school, a veteran with a near-encyclopaedic knowledge of a game known for its depth.

Shiroe is a gamer. This is obvious but he loves games. i don't think its a stretch to say that even he is viewing this as a game. Maybe getting back to the 'real world' isn't his first priority. He was just thrown into a world that he has been obsessed over since middle school. Thats a world that he has invest a large portion of his life into over the past 10-ish years.

Finally, Shiroe is an introvert. He avoids guilds and other people because he doesn't want to be the answer to everyone's problems. If he were to 'discover why we are here' then he would be nothing but the answer to everyone's problems. Before everyone would ask him for help with the game, if he was the one who found out what the world actually is then everyone would ask him for help in getting back to the real world. Thats exactly what he doesn't want.

He's a gamer, but that doesn't mean he loves games. He loves Elder Tale, which is a game and I wouldn't call him obsessed just because of his encyclopediac knowledge. He doesn't like guilds and like a good person, he doesn't believe that he had the right to help others.

[Quol]

I'm not exactly sure what we are talking about anymore... In the end shiroe is trying to balance finding a way to escape with living his life. Also for people who ask shiroe is trying to find a way out, its not a matter of personality or personal will. All anime characters that get trapped in a virtual world-like situation will try to escape. (ie: SAO, yugioh, or btoom!)

[aohige]

Originally Posted by Neki Ecko

We know it is a two cour series but it will be crazy if they going to add another 25 eps but with all of the material that the author, i might happened.

More like highly likely to happen.
We're talking NHK here. They'll animate as long as there's source material, and author is willing.

Only reason Twelve Kingdom second season stopped with only 5 episodes is because it was clear the author wasn't going to provide any more new materials for years to come.

Originally Posted by VooDooZulu

Finally, Shiroe is an introvert. He avoids guilds and other people because he doesn't want to be the answer to everyone's problems. If he were to 'discover why we are here' then he would be nothing but the answer to everyone's problems. Before everyone would ask him for help with the game, if he was the one who found out what the world actually is then everyone would ask him for help in getting back to the real world. Thats exactly what he doesn't want.

I'm going to predict you're gonna feel really silly in less than a month for posting this.
Shiroe is far more aggressively active and initiative taking than you can possibly imagine.

[VooDooZulu]

I might take my words back, and i believe i came off too harsh saying "Shiroe thinks this is a game". Because that has the wrong connotation. You can still believe something is a game and want to help people in the game, and you can also have morals and values inside of a game. It is clearly stated that Shiroe loves to explore and find out the mechanics of this world. In my view that is 'playing the game'. I see Shiroe as someone who (at the moment) just wants to learn more and live life one day at a time.

And blackwhite67, He has been playing the game for some 10 years. That's why i say he is obsessive about it, not because he has encyclopedic knowledge of it.

As for helping others, from what i have seen in the anime he even avoids helping newbies. So far he has helped two newbies and that was on a situation basis. He doesn't like people using him, but he also doesn't like helping people. He was reluctant to help out the newbies and even then he didn't really know why he was doing it, it was just on a whim. That's what i got out of it.

Now this conversation has mostly been about Shiroe. Lets just say, hypothetically, if we were to try to empirically test what is going on what would we do? we know that this once was a computer game, not a virtual reality. My hypothesis is that they are stuck in some type of computer simulation, my only proof is that they have contextual menu's. If they are NOT in a computer simulation then they have had medical cyborg-like implants or have discovered magic in order to pull up those menu's.

So we could test the extent of the computer's knowledge. We already know that gravity is in effect, but that it "doesn't hurt as much as it should" Does this mean it doesn't hurt as much as real life? or that it doesn't do as much HP damage as it should inside of the game? Anyway we could test to see the acceleration of Gravity by dropping a large object from multiple different heights and timing them. Though this is a simple process that any computer could replicate.

I believe to really test the limits of a computer we would have to either put a large strain on the physics engine of the machine, the problem with that is two fold. First, if you put a huge strain on the system you could crash it- possibly killing everyone. Second, because you are part of the machine would you experience the lag that such strain would create? Anyways an 'easy' way to test this would be to take a lot of objects (preferably bouncy or semi-solid to really test the engine) have a large number of people throw them at an object. With all of these objects bouncing off of each other the physics engine would be put under massive strain to calculate their trajectories.

Another test would be the computers encyclopedia of scientific knowledge. If you could find a chemistry major you could ask him to preform as many chemical tests that knows. a failure on the chemistry part of the experiments would prove you are inside of a machine.

You could even pull a Columbus and just try setting sail in one direction and hoping you find something. if you die from starvation then you just teleport back. Much less risky than it was years ago.

Those are the places i would start, if we are talking about trying to 'find a way out'

[teja208]

Originally Posted by aohige

I'm going to predict you're gonna feel really silly in less than a month for posting this.
Shiroe is far more aggressively active and initiative taking than you can possibly imagine.

Since I haven't read the novel, I am going to predict that the author is using this arc (volume) as a catalyst for build up Shiroe's resolve to become Tamayura more agressive and reforming Akiba into a better place. It probabily take him another book or two for him to began exploring the world for real.

Anyway, it's not that I dislike the current pacing, although I have to remark that it seems to took him quite a while to get him to made up his mind (months in-universe). I imagine standard shonen hero would take only few days to get to that point, you know, for being young and hotblooded and all that. Of course I am ok with Shiroe not being like that, however, it does make him come off as highly intellegent and analytical but indecisive fellow.

[Anh_Minh]

Originally Posted by darksassin

I don't think Shiroe is that bad. He just dislike people using him purely for their own benefit. But if someone really needs help he will do what he can to help them. That is why he likes helping newbies, or at least doesnt mind them.

About getting out from the world, lets compare with SAO.

Spoiler for comparison to Sword Art Online:

In SAO the players were basically told from the start"I am the one trapping you here. If you defeat 100th floor boss you will be able to escape.Dont die though or you will die for real." Even then, it took 2 years for them to escape. And they even have dedicated guild with purpose to reach the end faster.

In Log Horizon, the player have absolutely no clue how they got in the Elder Tale, how to escape, and why. And Elder Tale is much more vast, 1/4 the size of the world. Even if we limit to Japan it is probably 100 times more massive than SAO World.

Spoiler for SAO:

SAO took time because they couldn't afford to die. If they'd revived normally, they'd have been out in days.

So how should they start looking for clues?

I said it before: NPC and physics. It doesn't matter if it doesn't yield a solution immediately.

And again, my point isn't necessarily that they were wrong to put it on the backburner. It's that they choose not to pursue the mystery.

[aohige]

Originally Posted by VooDooZulu

I might take my words back, and i believe i came off too harsh saying "Shiroe thinks this is a game". Because that has the wrong connotation. You can still believe something is a game and want to help people in the game, and you can also have morals and values inside of a game. It is clearly stated that Shiroe loves to explore and find out the mechanics of this world. In my view that is 'playing the game'. I see Shiroe as someone who (at the moment) just wants to learn more and live life one day at a time.

And blackwhite67, He has been playing the game for some 10 years. That's why i say he is obsessive about it, not because he has encyclopedic knowledge of it.

As for helping others, from what i have seen in the anime he even avoids helping newbies. So far he has helped two newbies and that was on a situation basis. He doesn't like people using him, but he also doesn't like helping people. He was reluctant to help out the newbies and even then he didn't really know why he was doing it, it was just on a whim. That's what i got out of it.

Now this conversation has mostly been about Shiroe. Lets just say, hypothetically, if we were to try to empirically test what is going on what would we do? we know that this once was a computer game, not a virtual reality. My hypothesis is that they are stuck in some type of computer simulation, my only proof is that they have contextual menu's. If they are NOT in a computer simulation then they have had medical cyborg-like implants or have discovered magic in order to pull up those menu's.

So we could test the extent of the computer's knowledge. We already know that gravity is in effect, but that it "doesn't hurt as much as it should" Does this mean it doesn't hurt as much as real life? or that it doesn't do as much HP damage as it should inside of the game? Anyway we could test to see the acceleration of Gravity by dropping a large object from multiple different heights and timing them. Though this is a simple process that any computer could replicate.

I believe to really test the limits of a computer we would have to either put a large strain on the physics engine of the machine, the problem with that is two fold. First, if you put a huge strain on the system you could crash it- possibly killing everyone. Second, because you are part of the machine would you experience the lag that such strain would create? Anyways an 'easy' way to test this would be to take a lot of objects (preferably bouncy or semi-solid to really test the engine) have a large number of people throw them at an object. With all of these objects bouncing off of each other the physics engine would be put under massive strain to calculate their trajectories.

Another test would be the computers encyclopedia of scientific knowledge. If you could find a chemistry major you could ask him to preform as many chemical tests that knows. a failure on the chemistry part of the experiments would prove you are inside of a machine.

You could even pull a Columbus and just try setting sail in one direction and hoping you find something. if you die from starvation then you just teleport back. Much less risky than it was years ago.

Those are the places i would start, if we are talking about trying to 'find a way out'

"They have menus therefore they must be stuck in a gigantic computer!"

Let's not completely ignore the magic element. In a world where governing laws are not ours.
At the point they are in anther world, where all five senses exist, as well as laws of physics, it's already entirely unfeasible by modern science.

The phenomenon is completely supernatural. At the point it's supernatural, trying to force a modern scientific logic on it and constraint it to modern feasibility is utterly implausible.

If they're in a computer, it'd have to be ALIEN technology. Or you know, magic.

Let's make one thing clear, trapping people from all corners of the entire Earth, hundreds of thousands of them, in a computer world, and making hundreds of millions of NPCs in that world sentient, is not possible without technology at the level of Galactic Federation from Star Trek.
Since this is 2018, that would equal to Alien Technology.

[Breimoon]

For a so advanced level of technology it should be a super quantum computer , and even then it would require a pc so big i don't know where the hell they could fit it. Not really an expert in things like this, but some scientists made a few theories why it is impossible we live in a matrix like world, go look for it.