Log Horizon S2 - Episode 19 Discussion / Poll

[Nvis]

Aren't the Odessey Knights part of PH? Why are the servants attacking their mobile cathedral?

I don't really care about the Roe2 speech, just what are those servants doing?

[Xellos-_^]

Originally Posted by Random14

Roe2's cryptic comments aren't helping, and too bad Minori stood around for most of the episode, but guess she's confronting Roe2 in a way as well, but Roe2 isn't sharing much. Roe2 obviously isn't just a random Adventurer, but they have bigger things to worry about.

While they are reviving quickly, it is kind of disturbing watching something that almost seems like a... suicide cult (or something) dying over and over. You'd think they might as well just keep jumping off a cliff again and again if they want to get that glimpse of their past memories (or some other method of dying). Though seems to be playing into the Genius' plans, whatever those are. Tohya confronting that Odyssey Knight leader isn't helping much, but he's the most hotheaded one so it fits his personality. And while the other guy is complaining about his marriage, Tohya has experienced real pain before so seeing them trivialize death would set him off. And hard to call that world fake with Rudy as a comrade. Although so far we've seen Akiba and Minami adapt to their new circumstances mostly well, but these guys are definitely unstable.

Exciting ending, not sure how far Nyanta can go against those odds, but still awesome to see him just charging the enemy train, can't wait to see him fight again.

the guy is not complaining about his marriage. He was about to get married and quit ET when the Event happen.

[Benigmatica]

Originally Posted by Nvis

Aren't the Odessey Knights part of PH? Why are the servants attacking their mobile cathedral?

I don't think the Odyssey Knights are part of Plant Hwyaden. Prior to this episode, I was thinking that they're part of it, but it wasn't!

On the other hand, I'm thinking that Nureha gave the Odyssey Knights the mobile temple technology.

[Random14]

I thought their player info said they were part of PH? Although considering how crazy they were, not sure they would follow any orders anyway. Interesting tech Minami has been coming up with, even if it seems a lot more reckless/dangerous.

Whoops, now I remember his life story, and its understandable he'd want to get back, but repeated dying just seems really insane. I can see that Odyssey Knight's POV too, sorry to reference the other major "trapped in MMO" anime, but that was more common there, being desperate to get back home, to family and friends, and his life story would normally be sympathetic... just the crazed look in his eyes really doesn't help his cause. For some people, they love being in the game (somewhat surprised the anime went into that much detail about Tohya's sad life, compared to how they just had vague inferences before), but in a way these guys are worse than the random PKers Shiroe had to deal with early on.

I think Shiroe has been looking into the whole "trapped in game" thing quietly, but its a relatively minor priority for him, with little to no clues or info and plenty of other more dangerous problems to deal with first. Kind of surprised we haven't seen more of those, what did Shiroe call them, nostalgia groups, compared to Shiroe's nation building and Minami's experimenting. We know repeated dying is just going to erode their memories more (and Roe2's comments make it seem like part of a larger plan), and the info has probably somewhat spread in-world by now, but these guys seem more like they're just floundering about and desperate for any glimpse of the real world by this point. Well, not everybody can be as analytical as Shiroe and his group of course... which is why they makesfor such a nice contrast with Log Horizon members (who definitely believe the "game" world is real now and are trying to follow all of Shiroe's advice).

[Ickarium]

Considering how Roe2 said that the constant deaths would help the Genius monsters - I am wondering if the portable cathedral and maybe the Lander Summoner thing were created using information planted by the Genius monsters.

[Yan3242]

I think my brain got fried when minori and roe2 start talking those "i dont know what the hell are they talking about" stuff

And i dont get the servant and exp pot thing too, can someone explain that part about research about servant and injecting exp pot stuff? So this 1 guy act as the host, summoning a lot of servant to farm exp? God why there is a lot of complicated stuff in this episode

Those oddysey knight should be called suicide squad

That red hair lady inside the train is a lander? I though she is a player

[Dark Wing]

wow this starting to get intense...for all the folks out there who had been wondering about who wanted to know more info about the mistreatment of landers and people actually wanting to go home well here you go.

- Experimentation on Landers to make them stronger soldiers

- Suicide Cults thinking dieing will get them home

I mean damn how much more great can this story get?

[Nicaea]

Tbh the focus was put on the Landers so much, that it seemed hard to think that there's possibilities of having conflict among the players. Now the story seems like Minami's bright heads versus Shiroe's (that sure is on an island when it comes to competence )

[~Yami~]

feels episode....
lots of feels

I was lost in most of the talking..
at first I feel sorry for the knight leader... well, having your future get robbed like that is sad
but now I feel more sorry for Tohya T__T
stay strong, boy

I really don't get why Odyssey Knight fights with the Night-spectre
Is the Odyssey Knight is used by Minami higher-ops to level up their summoner?
well, I must admit Plant Hwayden consist of lots sick adventurers and NPCs

next episode would be a very epic one
Nyanta-hanchou is going to steal the spotlight, nya~~

[Irenicus]

This would have been a great episode if it didn't come after many, many episodes of sheer time-wasting. And in itself it is half an episode.

I understand the context, the feelings, the development, I really do -- with the exception of the intentionally mysterious Roe2 -- but I don't feel half of it because, and I can't believe I'm saying this about Log Horizon, people talk too much. I understand the relevation about the knights' reckless actions. I intellectually sympathize with Touya's outburst, his background and his emotions, but all I could feel was me wanting to tell him and the rest of the kids, I don't care, get a move on and do something useful plox.

Talking a lot used to be the series' strength. Talking and/or flashbacks significantly enriches this series' wide cast with depth and agency. I'm sure it continues to be a strength in the novels. But while speech was action in the previous season, here it does not mix well with slow panning, people taking their time standing around with no movement, cheaply emotional music, Isuzu being forced to repeat her song the zillionth time. There are wyverns all over town. Why is it taking a whole episode to not even confront the things?

It's taking its time like its Naruto or other outstays-its-welcome absurdly long shounen stories that need to conserve budget at any cost. I hate those. I. hate. those. I don't want to hate this series. Deen, stahp.

[SeijiSensei]

Originally Posted by Proto

I consider William's speech (and the Elder Sister maid's I am human speech in the other series) to be by far the climax of their respective works.

Of course this is just my opinion. The past episodes have been slow as you say, and on a second read of my previous post I may have been a little high handed. My apologies.

Not a problem, Proto. I've come to respect your opinions over the years even when I don't agree with them. William's speech is a good example. I thought it was repetitive and at least twice as long as it needed to be. I understand that the author wanted to wave the flag for online gamers, but this is an example to me of how something that might work on the printed page doesn't translate well to video. Part of it might be that I don't sense much antipathy toward devoted gamers in 2015, so the need to rationalize their behavior seems misplaced. But mostly my objections are simply a matter of dramatic pacing, something that was better managed in the first season than in this one.

As always my comments reflect someone whose view of the work is based entirely on the anime adaptation. Adapting popular works is always fraught with problems as the producers need to balance the desires of existing fans with the demands of the audiovisual medium. A.O. Scott's column in the Times this week on Fifty Shades of Grey contains a thoughtful discussion of these issues.

There have always been film adaptations of popular novels, and sequelized, presold franchise entertainment, but the release of movies based on very recent best-selling book series is a fairly new development [in the US]. It started with “Harry Potter” and has continued through “Twilight” and “The Hunger Games.” In those cases, as with “Fifty Shades,” legions of devoted readers arrive at the multiplex expecting what they see on the screen to match what they loved on the page. This puts great pressure on filmmakers and studios, and also on reviewers, who tend to be more interested in how a movie works on its own terms than in its fidelity to source material.

Originally Posted by Irenicus

This would have been a great episode if it didn't come after many, many episodes of sheer time-wasting. And in itself it is half an episode.

I understand the context, the feelings, the development, I really do -- with the exception of the intentionally mysterious Roe2 -- but I don't feel half of it because, and I can't believe I'm saying this about Log Horizon, people talk too much. I understand the relevation about the knights' reckless actions. I intellectually sympathize with Touya's outburst, his background and his emotions, but all I could feel was me wanting to tell him and the rest of the kids, I don't care, get a move on and do something useful plox.

You expressed my feelings much better than I could, Irenicus. Thanks! When the wyverns arrived at the end of the preceding episode I thought the pace would pick up this week. What we got instead was a bunch of guys committing suicide and the Log Horizon team largely standing around and talking once more.

[monir]

I liked this episode a lot. The one thing that has been lacking from the show was there were not enough exposition to how people were feeling for being forced to live in this world and how much they had been missing their own world.

[FRS]

Interesting episode, it showed another facet of the adventurers, the ones that werent able to cope and how far they were willing to go to try to go home