Log Horizon

Log Horizon (Japanese: ログ・ホライズン, Hepburn: Rogu Horaizun) is a Japanese novel series written by Mamare Touno and illustrated by Kazuhiro Hara. It began serialization online in 2010 on the user-generated novel publishing website Shōsetsuka ni Narō, being later on acquired by Enterbrain and published as a light novel in Japan since 2011. Yen Press began publishing an English translation in 2015. The series follows the strategist, Shiroe, and the other players of the long-lived MMORPG Elder Tale after they find themselves whisked away into the game world following a game update.

The novel has received four manga adaptations, with one based on the main story and the other three revolving around characters in the series. An anime television series adaptation animated by Satelight aired on NHK Educational TV between October 5, 2013 and March 22, 2014. A second season by Studio Deen aired between October 4, 2014 and March 28, 2015. A third season by Studio Deen aired between January 13, 2021 and March 31, 2021.

Synopsis
Thirty thousand Japanese gamers awake one day to discover that the fantasy world of Elder Tales, an MMORPG that was formerly their collective hobby, has become their cold hard reality. Severed from their everyday lives, they confront a new horizon filled with ravenous monsters, flavorless food, and the inability to die! Amid the chaos, veteran gamer Shiroe gathers his friends, the guardian Naotsugu and the assassin Akatsuki, and together they embark on an adventure to change the world as they know it!

(Source: Yen Press)

Light Novels
Log Horizon began as a light novel written by Mamare Touno. It initially appeared in installments on the user-generated content site Shōsetsuka ni Narō ("So You Want to be a Novelist") starting on April 13, 2010, and subsequently published in book form by Enterbrain since March 2011. Yen Press obtained the rights on its light novel imprint to release the novels in English from 2015.

Several additional volumes have been released only as web-novels.


 * 円卓崩壊 (Entaku Hōkai) (Destruction of the Round Table); completed January 7, 2017
 * 夜啼鳥の唄 (Naichingūru no Uta) (Song of the Nightingales); completed April 16, 2017
 * 黄昏の孤児 (Tasogare no Minashigo) (Twilight Orphan); started August 2017

Side Story

 * Touno Mamare (Author) / Shimodo Hirasawa (Illustration) "Log Horizon Gaiden" KADOKAWA, 2 volumes already published (as of January 13, 2021)
 * 「Kushiyatama, ganbaru! (櫛八玉、がんばる！)」 First edition issued on October 9, 2015 (released on September 30 ) - ISBN 978-4-04-730659-2
 * 「Aratanaru bōken no daichi (新たなる冒険の大地)」 released January 13, 2021 -  ISBN 978-4-04-735304-6

Manga
The novel series has received four manga adaptations, all written by Mamare Touno. The first adaptation is illustrated by Motoya Matsu and titled, Log Horizon Gaiden: Honey Moon Logs (ログ・ホライズン 外伝: Honey Moon Logs). It began serialization on January 27, 2012, and is published by ASCII Media Works in the Dengeki Daioh magazine.

Related Books
The Log Horizon: TRPG Expansion Rulebook Create your own world! (ログ・ホライズンTRPG 拡張ルールブック キミだけの世界を創れ!) produced by the original author; Mamare Touno was serialized in KADOKAWA.

Character
"If we give up when facing problems of this level, we should not have expected anything from the start."

- Shiroe

Shiroe is the main protagonist of the series and Log Horizon's founding guild master who is an Enchanter class with a Scribe subclass, which enables him to cast powerful support spells on his allies and accurately draw maps of the places he has visited. His real name is Kei Shirogane (城鐘 恵, Shirogane Kei), a socially awkward engineering graduate student who played Elder Tale for almost eight years. During that time, Shiroe was the strategist of the long-disbanded Debauchery Tea Party, an informal (non-guild) group of elite players who completed high level group quests known as Raids, and gained infamy as "Shiroe the Strategist" or the "Villain in Glasses" (腹ぐろ眼鏡, Haraguro Megane) for his sometime unethical approach in solving a solution. Shiroe initially had strong reservations about joining guilds until the aftermath of the Apocalypse and the ensuing despair among the players convinces him to establish Log Horizon, organizing Akiba's Round Table council through a highly complex plan to buy Akiba's Guild Building so he can remove criminal guilds from Akiba by banning them from the Guild Building premises.


 * He was once a staff member of the legendary player group "Debauchery Tea Party".
 * He dislikes being bound by human relationships and avoids joining a guild and he established his own guild "Log horizon". Furthermore, in order to stabilize public order in Akihabara, he advocated the establishment of an autonomous organization  which gathered the guild masters of the major guilds.
 * He is a rare player who likes the most unpopular job in "Elder Tale", , and his ability is recognized even by top players. Shiroe's fighting style is a build "mana controller" that manages the MP of allies. Fight by accurately grasping and predicting the resource fluctuations of allies and enemies.” is his specialty, and while making detailed predictions in real time, he manages the MP and status of all players participating in the battle (24 people including himself in a full raid) and performs battlefield patrols at the same time.
 * In the real world, he is a 23-year-old engineering graduate student. Her real name is Shirogane Kei. She also learned how to handle CAD at university, and during her "Debauchery Tea Party" days, she created dungeon maps with 3D CAD. Her parents both work and she has been a complete indoor person since she was young. She wandered around her neighborhood at night, and even when she was out playing with her friends, she felt isolated on the inside. She has a habit of trying to do everything by herself, and Naotsugu worries about her.
 * Due to his death after the , he forgets the name of the neighborhood curry shop (the ramen shop in episode 9 of the second season of the anime version). Acquired the contract technique through word of mouth.

Abilities
Shiroe specializes in two builds: Enchanter, and Mana Controller. Typically, he prioritizes casting attack support magic on his allies first (like Keen Edge), then adding offensive magic debuffs on enemies (such as Thorn Bind Hostage). He is a valuable asset in Raids due to his proficiency in the Mana Controller build, which focuses on MP restoration and redistribution. It is through this build that his "Full Control Encounter" is at its strongest, and his extensive research on this build is likely one of the reasons why he was able to figure out a way to revive Rudy. The Scribe subclass is one of the production subclasses in Elder Tale. It allows one to create or duplicate scrolls, maps, books, documents, technical manuals, magical instruction manuals, and contracts using paper and ink. They can also created said paper and ink, their quality depending on the player's level and the material used. Although cheap ingredients will suffice for creating normal items (like basic scrolls), high-quality magical tomes require ink with magical properties. To make such ink, a scribe needs to acquire ingredients such as dragon's blood or rare minerals. His Overskill is , which allows him to create contracts that can change even the laws of the world; for example, his first contract allowed him to change an Earthling's subclass into Adventurer, granting them the privileges that Adventurers had, including revival.

TV Anime
The first season of the Japanese science fiction action anime TV series Log Horizon premiered on NHK Educational TV October 5, 2013, and concluded on March 22, 2014, with a total of 25 episodes

The anime was produced by Satelight Studios and directed by Shinji Ishihira, along with series composition by Toshizo Nemoto, character designs by Mariko Ito based on the original designs by Kazuhiro Hara, art direction by Yuki Nomura, sound direction by Shoji Hata and soundtrack music by Yasuharu Takanashi. The series was picked up by Crunchyroll for online simulcast streaming in North America and other select parts of the world. The Anime Network later obtained the series for streaming. Kadokawa Shoten released the series in Japan on eight Blu-ray and DVD volumes beginning on January 29, 2014. The anime was licensed for a home video release in 2014 by Sentai Filmworks in North America. Madman Entertainment later licensed the series for a 2015 release in Australia and New Zealand. This was followed by a license by MVM Entertainment for release in the United Kingdom. Funimation acquired the streaming rights after Sentai Filmworks lost them.

SEASON 1
Kadokawa Shoten released the series in Japan on eight Blu-ray and DVD volumes between January 29 and August 27, 2014. Sentai Filmworks released the complete series on two Blu-ray and DVD collections on November 25, 2014 and January 27, 2015. MVM Entertainment will follow with their own BD and DVD releases on April 13 and May 11, 2015 respectively. These releases contain both English and Japanese audio options and English subtitles.

The second season of the Japanese science fiction action anime TV series Log Horizon premiered on NHK Educational TV October 4, 2014, and concluded on March 28, 2015, with a total of 25 episodes. The series is based on the novels written by Mamare Touno.

The opening theme is "database" by Man With A Mission ft. Takuma while the ending theme is "Wonderful Wonder World*" by Yun*chi. Eriko Matsui performs cover versions of Yun*chi's "Your song*" and "Wonderful Wonder World*" for the fifteenth, sixteenth, eighteenth and nineteenth episodes. Matsui also performs an original insert song for the twentieth episode titled, "Birthday Song". The songs were all performed as her character Isuzu.

SEASON 2
The series was produced by Studio Deen and directed by Shinji Ishihira, along with series composition by Toshizo Nemoto, character designs by Tetsuya Kumagai based on the original designs by Kazuhiro Hara, art direction by Masakazu Miyake, sound direction by Shoji Hata and soundtrack music by Yasuharu Takanashi. The series was picked up by Crunchyroll for online simulcast streaming in North America and other select parts of the world. The Anime Network later obtained the series for streaming. NHK Enterprise has released the series in Japan on eight Blu-ray and DVD volumes beginning on January 28, 2015 and in 2016, the season got an English DVD and Blu-ray release. The anime was licensed for a home video release by Sentai Filmworks in North America.

The third season of the Japanese science fiction action anime TV series Log Horizon premiered on NHK Educational TV January 13, 2021, and concluded on March 31, 2021, with a total of 12 episodes. The series is based on the novels written by Mamare Touno. The season was originally scheduled to premiere in October 2020, but had been delayed to January 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Season 3 is titled Log Horizon: Destruction of the Round Table (Japanese: ログ・ホライズン 円卓崩壊, Hepburn: Rogu Horaizon Entaku Hōkai), named after the title of Volume 12 of the web novel series.

SEASON 3
The cast and staff reprised their roles from the second season. The opening theme is "Different" by Band-Maid and the ending theme is "Blue Horizon" (ブルー・ホライズン, "Burū Horaizun") by Miyu Ōshiro (大城美友, Ōshiro Miyu).

Web radio

 * 『Log Horizon』 Radio: Elder Tale Tsushin
 * A web radio program distributed on Famitsu.com from April 12, 2014 to September 27, 2014 . Updated on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays. The personalities in charge of the second Saturday are Daiki Yamashita (role of Touya) and Nao Tamura (role of Minori). The personalities in charge of the 4th Saturday are Eriko Matsui (role of Isuzu) and Misaki Kuno (role of Serara)  . In addition, a business trip version of this radio was attached to the TRPG replay collection "Gochiso Kitchen to Disease Genesis". The 1st, 2nd, 11th, 12th, and business trip version were broadcasted by all four personalities.

Audio Drama

 * The same cast is used for the characters that appear in the TV anime.

Drama CD
It was produced as a bonus for other products, and is not sold separately. The benefits of the original (special edition) have their own number of volumes. The benefits of the Blu-ray/DVD (First Press Limited Edition) are included in the case of the main body, and the original volume number is not attached.

Tabletop RPG
A tabletop RPG that focuses on being an adventurer in Theldesia. The original author supervised the production. Knowledge of MMORPGs, which was used extensively in the original work, is not emphasized. To avoid complex role-playing, it is recommended that the adventurer play a modern person who has wandered into another world, rather than playing the "Elder Tale" player. The rules of this TRPG include elements such as support for scenario difficulty adjustment  and the MMORPG hate concept that is characteristic of the original. The player character's level can be freely set as a flavor element for role-playing, and does not affect ability and strength in the TRPG game. Rulebook released on May 2, 2014. Expanded rulebook released on March 20, 2018.

Collection of Replays
Tomomi Ozaki is in charge of the illustrations. Volume 3 contains the scenario of the sequel to the main story, so that the true ending can be completed by the reader. In 2015, the first volume was made into an audio drama exclusively for PC distribution.


 * 1) Twilight Princess and Adventurer (Published April 4, 2014 - ISBN 978-4-04-729360-1 )
 * 2) Feast kitchen and disease disaster (Published October 10, 2014 - ISBN 978-4-04-729929-0 )
 * 3) Goat Sura Tank and Endless Journey I (Published April 4, 2015 - ISBN 978-4-04-730267-9 )
 * 4) Goat Sura Tank and Endless Journey II (Published May 11, 2015 - ISBN 978-4-04-730425-3 )

Reception
Rebecca Silverman of the Anime News Network noted that the series has "its own unique take on what has become a subgenre of fantasy" when compared to the previous Sword Art Online and the earlier .hack series. With respect to the anime adaptation, Silverman noted that one of the major drawbacks was the artistry. She held the designs of the characters with small regard, calling them "somewhat bland and generic in design, which is a bit of an accomplishment given how many character creation options there apparently are". She used the design of Akatsuki as an example, explaining that the character's beauty has to be constantly reminded to the audience despite the fact that "she's one of the less striking female characters on screen". Another issue Silverman pointed out was the apparent overuse of Naotsugu's perverted nature for comedic relief and finding that for some viewers he may be "line-crossingly obnoxious". Despite these drawbacks, Silverman remarked that the "show shouldn't be dismissed as 'just another ripoff' before giving it a chance" since "it has the potential to expand rather than rehash the basic premise of players trapped in a game".

Trivia
'' to be added. ''

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