Record of the Lodoss War

Akiko's Thoughts

Record of the Lodoss Wars is the first anime I bought. I had seen pictures of Deedlet online, read about the story, and decided I HAD to have the series. I bought all six tapes at once.

The story line is basically that of a RPG. The setting is Lodoss, the accursed island, where wars have ravaged the land for thousands of years. The main cast is a group of six adventurers who don't know each other but must save the world. We have the young hero, the would-be knight Parn, who wears his father's armor. His childhood friend Etoh is a priest. The wizard Slayn has to be convinced to join the journey, by his friend, the dwarf warrior Ghim, who is haunted by something in his past. We have the thief, Woodchuck, who is cynical, but good-natured, and finally the elf, Deedlet, who is haughty but intrigued by Parn and joins the party for that reason. Together they must save the kingdom from invasion.

If that is all there was to the story, it would be rather predictable. The interesting part of this story is that most of the "bad guys" are not inherently evil. The leader of the invading force, Emperor Beld, was once a friend to King Fahn. The black knight Ashram is in love with the dark elf Pirotess. Neither of which are evil, they just happen to be on the wrong side. Perhaps the only "evil" character is the wizard Wagnard, who is power hungry, and manipulates Pirotess and Ashram. However, the grey witch Karla in turn manipulates him. Karla is, in fact, manipulating much of the cast for her own purposes, which are of course, unknown.