Disclaimer: Reviews contain my personal opinion, and I don't claim to be the authority on these things. I appreciate and respect that other people may have different opinions. Friendly debate is welcome, but name-calling and other such immaturity will be ignored. My reviews assume you've either seen the series already or aren't planning to. They're full of spoilers, but they won't necessarily describe the whole series beginning to end... more likely I'll rant about some aspect or another in detail, but leave huge gaps about the plot. And oh yeah, I'll be cursing.
This is a show I'd been meaning to watch for years, and only recently got around to it. It's a fun little romp from the writer of Slayers about a group of female adventurers who try to find a mage for their party and end up stuck with Louie, a clumsy but good-hearted oaf who never does things the conventional way but somehow still makes it work.
The characters are all ridiculously memorable. There's Merill, a very traditional little thief who wants nothing more than all the gold she can get her hands on; she's always got a get-rich-quick scheme up her sleeve. She's the closest to the Lina Inverse character; she's very short, feisty, and the butt of all the flat-chested jokes. Then there's Melissa, the priestess of the goddess of battle. She's the soft-spoken party healer, voiced by Kikuo Inoe, most known for voicing Belldandy. Melissa's goal in life is to find a hero to serve in the name of her goddess. There's Genie, the ex-soldier, whose mastery of the sword makes her more than a match for any man. And then there's Louie.
I have to say, I'm really glad I waited to watch this until after I learned how to play Dungeons & Dragons, because I got *so* much more out of it than I would have otherwise. This, as well as Slayers, were stories based on campaigns of Sword World (the Japanese equivalent of D&D) that the author participated in, and I can just imagine how they must have played out.
Louie seems like a multi-class build gone wrong. He's got levels of wizard and fighter, but mostly monk. The girls hire him on as a mage, but he has trouble remembering his spells. He's brash and lacks the patience for magic, so he'll often try to hack at his foes with his sword instead, but he's also a terrible swordsman. Louie's go-to attack is his patented "Louie Punch," and it seems to work on *everything,* often with hilarious results.
While there is good comedy to be had between the seasoned adventuring party and the brash noob, at times the girls are just total bitches to Louie. He'll go out and punch a giant boar in the face, defeating it in one hit, but the girls are embarrassed by him because of his technique. Really? He killed the enemy, who fucking cares how he did it?
The series also has a bit of a disappointing ending. It at least wraps up the story arc it introduced and explains all the mysteries that had come up, but there are a lot of minor loose threads I would have liked to see addressed. Will Melissa ever accept that Louie is a hero? Will Louie ever realize that his childhood friend Ila is actually in love with him? Who is Louie's real dad? It's a very open ending, leaving off with the party about to embark on another adventure, and I would have enjoyed another season. Alas, it was not to be.
Despite this, I recommend the series, especially to anyone who likes fantasy or D&D. You'll really get a kick out of it.
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