Legend of the Legendary Heroes, Part 2 Blu-ray delivers stunning video and audio, but overall it's a mediocre Blu-ray release
Ryner Lute is a lazy student of Roland Empire Royal Magician's school. One day, Roland Empire goes to war against a neighboring country Estabule, and he lost his classmates in the battle. After the war, Lute sets out for a journey to search the relics of a "Legendary Hero" at Emperor Sion Astar's command. And he finds out a deadly curse spreading the continent.
Just how silly is Legend of the Legendary Heroes' name? As was discussed in the review of Legend of the
Legendary Heroes, Part 1 of this new two part set, it's never a good sign when the voice cast mercilessly pillories
the name in several commentaries (something that continues in this second part). But aside from the Department of
Redundancy Department aspect of the title, when most people see something like "legendary heroes" in the title,
chances are they're going to think of, well, you know, actual legendary heroes, whether real life ones or iconic figures
from myth, legend (dare I say it?), and lore. Instead, this anime is culled from a Japanese light novel series which
features characters few Westerners (if any) will have ever heard of, and the title's inherent silliness is further
exacerbated by the fact that the legendary heroes of the name may not in fact refer to the actual on screen
protagonists, but to other characters in the storyline, people from long ago who had, and then hid, a group of
sacred relics which the anime's main trio, Sion, Ryner and Ferris, are out to retrieve, in the hopes that finding them will
usher in an age of peace and contentment across a land roiling and rife with political intrigue and conflict. The first half
of this release had some interesting elements but too often shot itself in the foot with meandering sidebars and long,
involved flashbacks. The back stories of Ryner and Sion played out with a fair degree of interest (despite being told as
somewhat interminable flashbacks), and likewise some salient information about Ferris was doled out in dribs and
drabs, but overall the series had an on again, off again ambience that made it hard to totally invest in the characters
and (especially) the plotline. Unfortunately, the second half continues with many of these same deficiencies, despite
some more visceral intrigue with regard to a couple of characters. Legend of the Legendary Heroes is a rather
scattershot enterprise, one that seems to want to throw as much as possible on the figurative wall in the hopes that at
least something might stick.
When a series is released in two parts like Legend of the Legendary Heroes is, there's a tendency to cut the
first
half a little slack if it doesn't completely fulfill expectations. That tendency seems especially appropriate to this novelistic
series as the first part dealt so much in introducing characters and developing interrelationships and the basic plot
(such
as it is) of the show. But there were already troubling signs afoot, as was detailed in the review of Part 1. Legend
of
the Legendary Heroes is ostensibly about Sion engaging Ryner and Ferris to go out and hunt for a series of long
lost
relics that have magical powers that will help bring peace to the Kingdom of Roland. Instead over and over we got new
tangential characters introduced who didn't seem to hav a whole lot to do with this main plot arc, and also (perhaps
more
understandably) a bunch of flashbacks that supposedly helped to elucidate the long history of these characters,
especially
that between Ryner and Sion.
Once again this series just kind of meanders along, lurching from weird tangent to weird tangent, with occasional
references to the actual ostensible point of the piece. In terms of the story, the best parts of this second half have to
do with two supporting characters. Miran, one of Sion's Generals, is a complex and somewhat duplicitous schemer
whose true motives never seem to be entirely clear (think of an anime version of Ben from Lost for a good
example). Late in this second half, there's also a nice minor plot arc dealing with Tiir, another interesting character
who's something of a cross between a zombie and a Harry Potter Death Eater, in that he consumes flesh and
thereby absorbs the magical powers of whomever he's dining on. While these two relatively minor characters provide
some passing interest, they point up one of the general deficiencies of this series as a whole: it simply veers away
from Ryner and Ferris too often, making the supposed focus of the series seem like afterthoughts.
Perhaps the most maddening thing about Legend of the Legendary Heroes is that erstwhile fans will have stuck
with the series for 25 episodes hoping for a payoff, or at least a partial resolution, only to discover that this entire first
arc seems instead to merely be a setup for the real story, which is supposedly to follow (although no
subsequent episodes have been produced or are even evidently in the pipeline). This may in fact remind some regular
television viewers of the brouhaha surrounding The Killing, a show that infuriated a lot of viewers by not providing a
supposedly promised denouement at the end of its first season. That may or may not actually be an apt comparison,
but as patient as some viewers may be with Legend of the Legendary Heroes, my hunch is a lot, if not most, of
them are going to feel like that patience netted them relatively little in return.
Legend of the Legendary Heroes is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of FUNimation Entertainment with an AVC
encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. As with Legend of the Legendary Heroes, Part 1, this is generally a very sharp and well
detailed looking high definition presentation, one that combines some nice CGI elements with more traditionally animated
fare, and in fact the animation may well be the major calling card for anime fans who want to check out the series despite
its failures in the story department. Once again as in the first part, character designs here are fairly straightforward and not
very innovative, but a lot of the backgrounds are really nicely rendered, sometimes in a quasi-Impressionistic, somewhat
blurry way, but at other times with really crisp and clean detail. Line detail is strong and well defined and overall this high
definition presentation boasts superior clarity and sharpness that as in the first part is very appealing.
My comments about Legend of the Legendary Heroes, Part 1 prove equally apt for this second part. Part 2 is
presented with two lossless audio options, the original Japanese language track delivered via a Dolby TrueHD 2.0 mix and
an English dub delivered via Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix. Both of these tracks offer really excellent fidelity, but even original
language track purists may well want to at least sample the English track for its extremely boisterous low end, which
pummels the subwoofer fairly regularly in just about every episode. The English mix features good voice work from the
usual FUNimation suspects, though a couple of the male voices frankly have the tendency to sound more like surfer dudes
that legendary heroes. The 5.1 track offers some great immersion in the series' battle elements, and it also provides a
significant opening up of the series' music. Dynamic range on both of these tracks is quite wide, though the edge once
again goes to the English 5.1 dub in this regard.
Episode 21 Commentary features Joel McDonald, ADR Director for the second half of the series, as well as
Eric Vale (Sion). They get into a bit about Sion, as well as some of the other Kings (and kingly characters) that Vale has
voiced through the years.
Episode 24 Commentary features Ian Sinclair (Ryner) and Luci Christian (Ferris). This last episode has to wait
until after Sinclair and Christian finish skewering the silly repetitive title, which they say they call Legend of the
Legendary Legend of Legends of Legends—of Lore.
Textless Opening Song – Last Inferno (HD; 1:32)
Textless Closing Song – Filament of Light (HD; 1:31)
U.S. Trailer (HD; 1:22)
Trailers for other FUNimation Entertainment Releases
From a purely visual standpoint, Legend of the Legendary Heroes is, if not quite legendary, at least really, really
potent. There's a lot of gloriously beautiful imagery here that helps elevate the series substantially above what its
meandering plot and mishandled characters might otherwise attain. The series is confusing on a number of levels. As was
mentioned in the review of Part 1, it feels both too long and too short by different standards. Because so many tangents
are explored, and so many flashbacks utilized, the series seems to take forever to actually get anywhere, and the
punch line is by this first season's wrap up, it turns out it really hasn't gotten anywhere to begin with. On the other hand,
there is a lot here that simply doesn't make a whole lot of sense, as if the creative staff simply expected the viewer to
divine what's going on, or at least have a really solid grounding in the light novel series. Diehard fans of the fantasy genre
may well have the requisite patience to make it through this series, and it must be stated that on a visual level, there's
certainly a lot to recommend Legend of the Legendary Heroes. Taken as a whole, though, this is one "legend" that
barely rises to the level of anecdote.
Legend of the Legendary Heroes: Other Seasons
Season 1 4-disc set $42.74
Season 1 -
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