Log Horizon: Season 2 Part 1 (Blu-ray) (2013)

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General		Extras
Category	Anime	More…-Textless Opening (1:28) More…-Textless Closing (1:37)
Rating
Year Of Production	2013
Running Time	338:26 (Case: 325)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered Dual Disc Set	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Shinji Ishihira
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Takume Terashima / Mike Yager Tomoaki Maeno / Andrew Love Emiri Katou / Jad Sexton Yumi Hara / Maggie Flecknoe Ayahi Takagaki / Shelley Calene-Black Misaki Kuno / Hilary Haag Jouji Nakata / Jovan Jackson
Case	?
RPI	?	Music	Yasuharu Takanashi

Video		Audio
Pan & Scan/Full Frame	None	English DTS HD Master Audio 2.0 Japanese DTS HD Master Audio 2.0
Widescreen Aspect Ratio	1.78:1
16x9 Enhancement
Video Format	1080p
Original Aspect Ratio	1.78:1	Miscellaneous
Jacket Pictures	No
Subtitles	English	Smoking	No
		Annoying Product Placement	No
		Action In or After Credits	No

     It has been six months since the Apocalypse transported thousands of gamers playing Elder Tales into the game, and winter is coming. Akihabara is settled and peaceful under the benevolent control of the Round Table Conference but Shiroe (voiced by Takume Terashima / Mike Yager) and his friends are running out of money to maintain the city. As well, Goblin armies are still active and need to be contained, spies from the rival Adventurer city of Minami in Westelande are around and the People of the Land are still an unknown quantity.

     Shiroe decides to embark upon an audacious dungeon raid to raise money. But wary of spies and fearing disturbances within Akihabara if the true situation becomes known he travels north with only Naotsugi (Tomoaki Maeno / Andrew Love) to meet up with William Massachusetts (Yuichi Nakamura / Christopher Patton) of the Silver Swords raid guild. William had been one of those invited to the original Round Table conference at Akihabara but had declined to become involved and had moved north with his guild members to pursue other interests. He agrees to be in the raid and his guild members plus Shiroe and Naotsugi, the scatter-brained Tetora (Yukiyo Fujii / Chelsea McCurdy) and the massive Demicas (Atsushi Imaruoka / Rob Mungle) journey to the dungeon complex where the gold is kept. Demicas had been the brutal guild leader from whom Shiroe and his companions had rescued Serara (Misaki Kuno / Hilary Haag) at the start of the first series and he still holds a serious grudge against Shiroe. The group enters the dungeon complex, encountering monsters and bosses; the way is not easy and members of the group, including Shiroe are killed, but of course as Adventurers they are resurrected to learn from their mistakes, rejoin the raid group, and fight again.

     Back in Akihabara Christmas is coming and festivities are in full swing. Princess Lenessia (but now called Rayneshia in the Japanese version subtitles, Mariya Ise / Emily Neves) as ambassador from the Eastal Lords to Akihabara struggles to come to terms with the habits and traits of the Adventurers while missing Krusty (Takahiro Sakurai / Jay Hickman), who is away fighting the Goblin armies. Akatsuki (Emiri Katou / Jad Sexton) is troubled; she does not know why Shiroe left her behind in Akihabara rather than taking her on the raid and she has come to lack confidence in her own fighting skills while also being a little jealous of Minori’s (Nao Tamura / Luci Christian) rapport with Shiroe. But when, against all the accepted rules of the game, a seeming invincible person of the land starts to assassinate Adventurers within city boundaries, Akatsuki and Lenessia find that they may be pivotal to finding a solution.

     Log Horizon continues to create an extensive RP world and there remains of lot of characters; these episodes add even more plus a couple of major characters return who have not been seen since the early episodes of season 1. There are some loud and colourful battles with creatures in the dungeon during the raid and although this series of episodes is still cutesy in places, it is overall darker than season 1 because it contains memories and reflections by both Shiroe and William about their real lives (filmed in grayscale), a spectacularly vivid blue scene set on the moon and sequences reflecting on how playing Elder Tales helped geeks, isolated and antisocial, to find friendship with other characters. There is also some tantalising hints in these episodes as to who, or what, brought the game players inside the world of the game, and why. Then, with the serial killer and raid plotlines completed, new enemies and challenges for Shiroe and Log Horizon appear.

     Log Horizon is now up to 50 episodes. This release, Log Horizon: Season 2, Part 1, contains episodes 1 – 13 of the second season which aired on Japanese TV between October and December 2014.

Video

     Log Horizon: Season 1, Part 2 is presented in the original broadcast aspect ratio of 1.78:1, in 1080p using the MPEG-4 code.

     This anime looks vibrant in HD. The lines are strong and the colours are rich with some vibrant blues, reds, yellows plus nice greys in some sequences. The blacks are solid and shadow detail fine.

     The English subtitles are a clear yellow font unless more than one person is speaking when subtitles in a white font appear simultaneously on the screen. The subtitles are burnt in when the Japanese dub is selected so they cannot be removed for Japanese speakers. I noticed some minor errors and we still continue to get both “Shiroe” and “Shiro” in the subtitles, often in the space of two sentences!

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    Audio is a choice between the original Japanese or an English dub, both DTS-HD MA 2.0. The audio and subtitles cannot be changed on the go with the remote.

     Both tracks are surround encoded and have similar effects. Dialogue is clear and the rears are used sparingly for music and ambient effects such as rain, while there are louder effects during the action scenes. The sub-woofer added bass and boom to the action.

     The English voice cast were good enough although I still prefer the Japanese.

     The music by Yasuharu Takanashi is varied and effective.

     This is anime so lip synchronisation is approximate in either audio track.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     These minor extras are on the second disc.

Textless Opening (1:32)

     The opening song without text. However, I should note that the opening of episodes plays without text anyway.

Textless Closing (1:32)

     As with the opening, there is no credit text with this new closing song. After each episode finishes there is a silent credit crawl.

     Our Region B release of Log Horizon: Season 2, Part 1 is the same as is available in other regions. Buy local.

     Log Horizon: Season 2, Part 1 adds a major dungeon raid with colourful battles with monsters, continued love interests, a bit of mystery and some tantalising clues about why the gamers were transported into the video world of Elder Tales.

     The video is very good, the audio fine. The extras are the same as available in the US.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall