Log Horizon 2

Episode 16

I expressed some concern last week that the kids' rambling adventure would hurt the momentum of Log Horizon, by pulling focus from the much more interesting Shiroe material. This week's episode saw that fear realized, as the story slowed down to track the first few days of the kids' journey south. There were campfires and cookouts and discussions of travel plans in an episode that counted among the lightest and coziest of the show so far. There were fortunately some actual plot rumblings as well, but there's no escaping the fact that when Log Horizon focuses on the younger team, things tend to drag.

There wasn't much actual narrative to speak of this week - the kids began their journey, there were lots of little bonding moments, Log Horizon indulged in its usual food obsession (I counted three meals by the nine minute mark), and the episode ended by finally introducing a new character. In light of that, it's more reasonable to attack this episode in terms of its specific character moments and interesting details, and fortunately there were a nice assortment of those. Tohya was the closest thing to this episode's viewpoint character, and his conversations with minori and Rudy bookended the episode's focus on the growth these characters have undergone, and the distance they still have to go.

Frankly, a lot of this material was actually unnecessary - the show doesn't need to spell out how much minori's grown, that's obvious in all of her actions. However, I can see the show highlighting this simply for the sake of Tohya's own journey, as it seems like this episode was most interested in demonstrating how he's now aware of his own immaturity. Plus, minori scene aside, the moments we got with Rudy this week were actually quite good. Rudy tends to be framed almost entirely as a joke character, but seeing him act humble in light of Isuzu's talents and insecure about what she thinks of him helped give his character some necessary shading. In my very objective personal estimation, Rudy and Isuzu trail only Crusty and Lenessia in terms of adorable Log Horizon couples, so I'm perfectly happy to see Rudy demonstrate some self-awareness and even insecurity about their relationship.

Beyond those specific character moments, most of this episode was filled with the whole younger crew just bonding and acting cute together - more of what the show was already indulging in last week. That material was frankly pretty slow (Log Horizon doesn't possess the aesthetic nuance to really elevate slice of life material in the way that, say, Kyoto Animation can), but it was fortunately broken up by a couple jumps back to the Akihabara crew. The first Akihabara vignette almost felt like the show was actively toying with my desire for intrigue (Rieze and her friends eat cake and discuss friendship!), but the second brought us back to Shiroe, and offered some nice new details on how the political landscape of Akihabara is shifting. D.D.D. is hemorrhaging members, the other members of the Round Table are feeling the pressure of managing themselves as both guilds and political players, and Shiroe is leaning even further on trusted allies like Isaac to maintain peace while also furthering relations with the People of the Land.

In contrast to the heavy-handed Tohya monologue about winding roads and growth, simply seeing Isaac discuss responsibilities with Shiroe was a welcome demonstration of natural character development. Isaac's first big action in the series was threatening open war over the formation of the Round Table - seeing him now as an aggressive but indispensable political player is a nice reflection of how far this story has come. Overall, this was definitely a slow episode, but the show's set so much narrative bait that it can't be long before things start picking up again.

Rating: B-

Log Horizon 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.