Log Horizon and How to do Politics in Anime: RPG Style

The Danime Times
23 min readJul 5, 2021

--

How to make talking interesting!

All the Guild Masters of the Round Table Conference

If you’re already a fan of the series, you know that Log Horizon is a very political one. When I say “political,” I don’t mean that the author, Mamare Touno, is trying to advance a specific ideology. I mean it’s about politics, literally. One might think that trying to center a story on politics like this would push people away, but instead Log Horizon has become a very successful media franchise with light novels, manga, and anime.

Why is this? How does an author take a series about one of the most bland yet divisive topics in human society and turn it into something compelling? Well, you add in the thing that pretty much everyone likes; games! Log Horizon isn’t just any political story. It’s a political story set in a game world resembling a Japanese Role Playing Game (JRPG). The characters in the story are players interacting with non-player characters (NPCs).

When Shiroe and much of the world wakes up one day, he finds himself stuck in a world that strongly resembles a popular game called “Elder Tale” with no way to log out. And what better way to spend the time than building a civilization to live there?! But how does it all work? How did the series become the sprawling political monster it’s known as today? Let’s dive into the world of Elder Tale!

The premise

Shiroe looking over Akiba

Before we jump into all the juicy details, we need to establish some important context first; just some background so no one is lost. So let’s break down the setting of the story starting with Elder Tale.

Elder Tale is a popular JRPG in the Log Horizon universe. Specifically, it’s a Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game (MMORPG). Shortly before the events of the story begin, the developers of the game announce the Novashpere expansion pack, and many players login to the game again to experience it, some after a long time of not playing.

When the story begins, the players awaken in a world very similar to Theldesia, the world of Elder Tale. The players, who cannot logout of the world (but still access a game menu), refer to this event as “The Apocalypse.”

From there the players realize they cannot die. When they are killed by other players or monsters they reawaken at the local cathedral with their HP restored. This led to many players killing other players in an effort to satisfy their boredom and anxiety. A general feeling of despair dreads over the players as they think of all the possibilities involving being stuck in the game for the foreseeable future.

Domestic Policy: The Round Table Conference

Shiroe shows Guild Master Marielle of the Crescent Moon Alliance the Round Table room.

Politics can broadly be divided into two categories; domestic policy and foreign policy. Immediately following The Apocalypse, the needs of the players, referred to now as adventurers, are apparent. They’re helpless, wandering aimlessly without purpose while mean spirited players begin hunting them for fun to feed their egos, free from the guilt of killing.

It is now when Shiroe steps up to pull the adventurers out of their despair. He decides to form a round table made of representatives of the adventurer guilds. Guilds are groups of adventurers who band together and organize. Some are small, some are large, and the focus of the guilds varies. D.D.D, led by Krusty, is battle focused, while Honesty, led by Eins, is intent on helping lost adventurers (these two are important political figures who we’ll get to in a bit).

The Round Table consists of guild leaders throughout Theldesia’s version of Akihabara (or Akiba for short), where many adventurers are located. These guild leaders act as representatives for the adventurers since almost every adventurer belongs to a guild, and we can see here the beginning of a representative government, if only a skeleton. With a governing body established, if only barely held together, now they need an agenda.

Their agenda is pretty simple; give people a reason to work. The crux of the current problem with The Apocalypse, aside from being trapped in Elder Tale, is that things are static, stagnant. There’s only a chaotic sense of dread. What Shiroe realizes is that while getting home is important, they’re stuck with Elder Tale, and that means having to live there for quite some time while they try to figure out a way home. There needs to be work, productivity. Building, advancing technology, completing quests, earning gold and spending money, an economy. Civilization.

Shiroe develops a two pronged plan to get things on track. The first step deals with the agenda. He discovers that the food in Elder Tale, which is usually tasteless goop even if it looks like real food, can be made tasty if the ingredients are actually prepared by an adventurer with the Chef subclass. With this, he partners with the guild Crescent Moon Alliance to make food they call Crescent Burgers for the adventurers in Akiba and charging them, of course. The food is a big hit, and with it, comes a broader discovery about the materials in Theldesia. Not only food, but technology and infrastructure can be built as long as experts are handling the materials and building them from scratch. The promise of doing these things to obtain money also creates an economy that in turn creates innovation and progress. Two birds with one stone.

However, there’s still a piece missing. The Round Table needs the authority to bend the rules toward order. There’s still the issue of players killing each other and wrecking havoc. So what is Shiroe’s plan to deliver the Round Table that compulsory power?

The Guild Hall in Akiba

Buy the Guild Hall in the middle of Akiba! This is important because the Guild Hall is where players store their assets (money), and it serves as a bank for the adventurers. But Shiroe (who bought the rights with money made from Crescent Burgers) now owns the Guild Hall.

The implications of this are huge. By buying ownership of the Guild Hall, he can, as he notes, deny adventurers access to their bank accounts at will. Needless to say this makes Shiroe a pretty powerful person in Akiba. He’s not only the founder of the current governing body for Akiba, but also the owner of the access for all the adventurers’ assets in Akiba as well.

He who owns the banks owns the world, as they say. It’s a different kind of power you see in other anime. It’s not just mere intelligence or super strength. It’s political and financial power. There isn’t much limit to what Shiroe can do, or rather, force the adventurers to do, as long as he controls access to their money. For if they choose to disobey him, he can freeze their assets and prevent them from depositing or withdrawing gold.

Luckily for the adventurers he doesn’t go mad with power but instead introduces a far more frightening concept; taxation! That’s right, Shiroe orders not only the prohibition of player killing but also charges a small fee for use of the Guild Hall. The collected revenue will be used for funding various infrastructure projects. For a while, this seems to work. Peace eventually sets in and people are happy.

More power, More Problems

Eins is discontent

But it doesn’t last forever. That’s because after a while, Eins, the leader of Honesty, decides the Roundtable isn’t doing enough to help needier adventurers and the People of the Land (who we will come back to later).

Fast forward several months. It’s now been some time since the Round Table has presided over Akiba, and Eins has noticed a troubling trend. Lower ranked adventurers are struggling to make money and growing income inequality is pushing several of them into poverty. Eins knows unless something changes he knows the system will buckle. It got this way because when everyone was transported into Elder Tale, some players were veterans who had been playing for years and others were just starting out. It was far easier for high level adventurers to accumulate massive amounts of gold (i.e. capital) for their business ventures in Akiba, while lower level adventurers had to rely on others for assistance, and by the time those adventurers had reached a higher level, it was too late. Markets had already been created and demands were already being met.

This is a great way to illustrate a head start in an economic world. Many people are successful in the world because they had a built-in advantage of already owning resources and capital while others did not. Touno is quick to say that these people worked hard, but that creates its own issue. When Eins suggests a financial penalty or extra tax to help give additional resources to needier adventurers or provide incentive not to hoard wealth, the other members of the Round Table immediately dismiss him. After all, if they worked to set up shop in Akiba, an extra tax feels like a punishment on their success and whether you agree with them or not, it’s undeniable that it creates another issue of gridlock.

Everyone is in agreement that something needs to change, but where they disagree is on what specifically needs changing or how to implement those changes. On top of that, the Round Table’s founder, Shiroe, says the Round Table lacks the authority to implement the necessary changes Eins proposes.

It is also important to note that Eins has a clear reason for picking this fight. Honesty, the guild he leads, has a lot of members and would benefit greatly from more resources. Eins is idealistic and wants to help others. However this places a significant burden on him. Because Honesty has taken in so many members, especially newer players and lazy players who can’t pull their own weight by choice or otherwise, they need more resources to accommodate them all. Eins, however, is reluctant to kick out leeches or impose stricter joining requirements despite his advisers’ pleas. This is because Honesty’s political influence at the Round Table is in part due to their large membership count. He wants to have his cake and eat it. Help adventurers, and keep his political clout. So he has nowhere else to go but the Round Table.

However, they reject his ideas. As Shiroe notes, the Round Table is a means of discussing adventurer troubles, but they lack real organization and membership is based on representatives’ goodwill.

Frustrated at the gridlock and inefficiencies of the Roundtable, Eins announces that Honesty will secede from the Conference, and he is later appointed Duke by a major noble. It is at this point the Round Table Conference begins to crack, and its future will be decided in an upcoming election.

The World of Yamato

Princess Lenessiya ponders the differences between adventurers and People of the Land

While the Round Table was at work, Shiroe had made another big discovery about The Apocalypse. The NPCs, who Elder Tale referred to as “People of the Land,” were no longer acting like typical NPCs. In Elder Tale originally, People of the Land simply acted out prewritten dialogue and only existed to give quests and rewards to players. But after The Apocalypse, they begin to talk like regular people, acting as flesh and blood. They are no longer merely characters within Elder Tale, but flesh and blood denizens of Theldesia. And for them, The Apocalypse was a reckoning. Adventurers possess great power and knowledge thanks to years of playing Elder Tale and living in the modern world. Think of this like Matthew Perry barging into Japan with modern ships and weaponry.

That means there are now two kinds of people in Theldesia. The adventurers and the People of the Land. The Round Table knows it cannot ignore this fact and so do the People. Instead of ignoring that, the two try to foster trade agreements and an anti-war pact. This is part of the other side of the political coin; foreign policy. The adventurers within Akiba are crafting strategy on exchanging dialogue with the People of the Land.

But before we get into the details, first we need to establish some geographical context so we have the scope of the parties involved.

A map of Yamato

Theldesia is divided into 13 regions (public servers). Each region mirrors a real world area. The Japanese region/server is known as Yamato and it is divided into five major territories:

  • Fourland Dukedom: Matches the real world area of the island of Shikoku. There are no adventurer settlements in Duchy and it is mainly ruled over by powerful monsters
  • League of Freedom Cities Eastal: Perhaps the most important territory of Yamato for the adventurers, who aim to build good relations with the People of the Land here. It covers the eastern and north eastern parts of real life Japan. It is ruled by the Eastal League from the city of Maihama which is ruled over by the Cowen family, one of the two families claiming to have blood relation to the original royal family of Yamato before it broke into the territories. The exceptions to the Eastal League’s rule are the adventurer cities Akiba (a sort of nation state controlled by the Round Table), and Shibuya, which is deserted.
  • Ezzo Empire: Matching real world Hokkaido. The adventurer city Susukino is located here.
  • Holy Empire Westelande: Takes up a portion of the western half of Yamato’s main island. It is Eastal’s main rival and they have a tense relationship. It is led by the Saiguu family, the other of the two families in Yamato to claim royal blood. However, unlike Eastal, Westelande is really under the control of Plant Hwyaden from the adventurer city Minami, a massive guild containing both adventurers and People of the Land. This puts the two in a shaky relationship, and Minami is Akiba’s counterpart for the west. Plant Hwyaden quickly grew in size in strength as it conquered smaller guilds throughout Westelande.
  • Ninetail Dominions: Representing the far west and real world Kyushu. The adventurer city Nakasu is situated here but Plant Hwyaden has taken control of it as its only guild. Thus, in effect, Ninetail Dominions is under the control of Westelande.

Foreign Policy: Akiba and Eastal

Palace of Eternal Ice looking real cool

Upon learning of the adventurers, Sergiad, the current leader of Eastal, invites them to a dance party at the Palace of Eternal Ice in Maihama so the adventurers and the People of the Land may mingle and establish better relations. This is where Sir Krusty, the Guild Master of D.D.D, enters the picture as an important player. With the others in the Conference not as adept at talking to others, Krusty is informally recognized as the Conference’s representative. The People of the Land and adventurers are clearly suspicious of each other, and each side hopes that this party may bring better relations. As talks begin, the Round Table remarks their wish to be treated as a separate entity from Eastal despite Akiba being located in their territory.

Princess Lenessia, granddaughter of Sergiad, lives a sheltered life. As the granddaughter of the current ruler of Eastal, she is politically hardly anything more than a figurehead and her younger brother Itharus is named the heir as the only male descendent of Sergiad. Lenessia had often been described as weak and cowardly, afraid to pursue her own desires. However, upon meeting Krusty, she begins to change, but not before Krusty can employ some clever tactics.

Krusty begins meeting Lenessia regularly, much to her annoyance at his crass behavior and deep down, she’s jealous of the adventurers who can be free in Theldesia. They are not tied down to the customs and gender roles that exist in Eastal. Krusty knows this and tries to give her a push and announces that he will challenge the knights at the palace and the winner will be given the princess’ hand in a dance at the party. He easily wins and claims the princess’ hand while showing the People of the Land the strength of the adventurers.

All of this is to encourage Lenessia to stand up for herself. That pays off when the Goblin King event from Elder Tale begins unexpectedly and the adventurers need to rally troops to face an army of goblins. The princess is brought in, fully armored, and with a passionate speech to the adventurers, ignites their spirits and inspires them to fight. After the intense battle, Eastal and Akiba agree to a trade agreement and non-aggression pact. Lenessia is then appointed Ambassador to Akiba.

Meanwhile, Lenessia’s brother Itharus is the heir to the Cowen family. Itharus is only a child but is the only male blood descendent of Sergiad. Isaac, the Guild Master for The Black Sword Knights, is tasked with watching over and training Itharus. Karashin from Shopping Street 8 also talks to Isaac about the growing tensions between Eastal and Westlande (we’ll get back to this in a second).

While training Itharus, Isaac asks why the women don’t have more political power and Itharus just shrugs it off and responds that that’s just how things are. Women take a politically subservient role to men. This also illustrates another difference in cultures between the People of the Land and adventurers. The adventurers come from a modern world where women are encouraged to pursue power a lot more freely.

And indeed the number of high ranking women within the Round Table is noticeable. Both the Guild Master and Vice-Guild Master of the Crescent Moon Alliance are women along with the the high ranking members of DDD (who have to take over when Krusty goes missing). There are also a number of prominent women adventurers like Akatsuki and Kanami, the leader of the currently disbanded ragtag Debauchery Tea Party group. Even the cutthroat Indicus, the true leader of the antagonistic Plant Hwyden Guild, is a woman.

Kanami, the leader of the now disbanded Debauchery Tea Party

Of course that doesn’t mean there aren’t powerful women in Eastal. It’s not lost on anyone, including Itharus, that his mother is a renowned diplomat with political prowess. This strikes at a deeper, more systemic issue in Eastal. Even though women may be skilled in their own right, they’re often relegated to being assistants to men. What Itharus is alluding to isn’t something that can be easily solved. Just like how the real world took hundreds of years before reaching the modern age, so too must Eastal wait before women can be afforded fair representation in the political sphere. In this regard the series is clearly showing that since the People of the Land are depicted as more primitive, women being subservient to men is a primitive idea.

Nonetheless Isaac continues to train Itharus. However, an assassination plot illustrates the growing complexity of Yamato’s relationships. One night assassins step in to take out the young heir and Isaac is forced to step in, and Shiroe begins to notice the growing tension between the two major powers of Yamato, Eastal and Westelande.

Kunie Gold

Shiroe speaks with Kinjo of the Kunie tribe

Speaking of the differences between adventurers and People of the Land, adventurers have one other big advantage. Adventurers can buy property, or more specifically, “zones” of the server and claim the rights to those areas.

Here, Log Horizon is putting the People of the Land on a much lower economic level as well. Buying property has enormous consequences as we’ve seen previously when Shiroe raised money to buy the Guild Hall building. He was able to freeze assets and prevent economic activity at his discretion.

Aside from that, buying zones could give access to resources such as farm land, game, water, or infrastructure. Whoever owns the property owns life as people know it. That puts the People of the Land in a rather precarious position because it means adventurers could buy the zones they live in or are nearby and exploit them in various ways. Essentially all it would take is an adventurer finding a secluded place with monsters, farming gold for a long period of time, and then buying a zone for personal use.

Speaking of gold, what’s the villain in glasses’ solution to rectify this problem? Going to the source of the gold itself. He negotiates with the Kunie tribe, tasked with overseeing the reservoir of gold within Theldesia.

This has huge implications for how money and property work within the game. The fountains of seemingly infinite gold would imply that wealth is easily farmable. Yet this only amplifies Eins’ concerns about wealth inequality. It points to a much deeper structural problem. Despite the vast amounts of wealth being created in Theldesia, there’s still massive inequality. It’s not that lower ranked adventurers can’t produce wealth. The issue is the head start higher ranked adventurers had in setting up shop. By the time those lower ranked adventurers earned a higher level, it was too late and the market no longer had need for their services. The best they could hope for is to live comfortably, but costs have been rising and as inflation has kicked in as the economy in Akiba grows, that leaves a huge chunk of adventurers out in the cold. Not to mention attaining more gold requires taking on more difficult quests and fighting tougher monsters.

After fighting an excruciating raid battle, Shiroe gets to the gold reservoir and confesses these problems to the Kunie. His solution is to take as much gold as it takes from the reserve and buy all the zones in the Yamato server, and then return them to the Yamato server itself. This would effectively prevent the purchase of zones altogether. This would be akin to making the server owned by the public as opposed to privately by a few individuals. While the purchase of regular property would still exist through regular contracts, no adventurer could buy a zone and exploit the server, preventing an adventurer oligarchy.

Thus, Shiroe returns the rights to the city of Akiba as well as the Guild Hall and cathedral to the Yamato server as well, hoping to ease the inequality between adventurers and the People of the Land.

Plant Hwyaden

Nureha, Guild Master of Plant Hwyaden

In stark contrast, the Plant Hwyaden guild has taken the opposite approach, intent on cementing their rule over Westelande and the city of Minami. Or rather, Indicus is trying to cement her own rule over Yamato. Nureha is the official leader of Plant Hwyaden as its Guild Master but only acts in practice as a figurehead. The guild is actually ruled by the Ten Seat Council with Indicus, a former member of the Debauchery Tea Party, at the top. Nureha’s charm and power is what allowed and continue to allow Plant Hwyaden to control Minami.

Using Nureha, Plant Hwyaden managed to get on friendly terms with the Westelande branch of the Kunie tribe, supplying them with an enormous amount of gold. They then used this gold to buy out the Guild Hall, cathedral, and other important structures.

Also unlike Akiba and the Round Table Alliance, Plant Hwyaden instead absorbed all other guilds and consolidated adventurer power within Minami and Nakasu from the neighboring Ninetail Dominions region of the server. After this, they instead coerced the Westelande Nobility to follow their lead, as opposed to a friendly trade agreement like between Akiba and Eastal. They also instead made similar discoveries about Theldesia by exploiting the People of the Land.

Realizing that Eastal is in a better position economically due to the alliance with Akiba, Westelande attempts more than once to drag Plant Hwyaden into a war (due to Plant Hwyaden’s extensive power) and use them to fight off Eastal and the Round Table. Nureha initially gives the go-ahead to launch Operation Red Night to instigate a war between the two territories within Yamato but they are stopped when running into the junior members of the Log Horizon guild and Nyanta, a senior member of the Log Horizon guild. After bonding with the youths (disguised as a woman named Dariella), Nureha calls off the operation. There are still members, however, who are itching for war.

Indicus especially wants a war and she opposes Nureha’s efforts for any kind of peace or alliance with Akiba. Her goal is to eventually rule over the entire Yamato server. If Westelande wages war and wins, they can expand their territory into Eastal. That would leave Suskino as the only remaining adventurer city not under Westelande’s (and therefore Plant Hwyaden’s) control.

Intent on keeping tensions high, Plant Hwyaden and Westelande become an ever looming problem for Eastal and the Round Table. These problems aren’t just related to foreign policy either. Utena Touri Saiguu, heir to the Westelande noble Saiguu family, intends to marry Lenessia and tie their nations together, and he appoints Eins as a duke after he leaves the Round Table. This causes great concern among Shiroe and the Round Table, who now must deal with potential Westelande influence in Akiba and how it may impact their relationship with Eastal (since Eins is now a duke for a rival power).

Akiba General Election

The campaign posters

Ultimately Eins and Shiroe agree to settle their differences with an election, in what feels like a political culmination for the series. The election will decide whether or not to form a new Akiba Government. With every election, there’s some important context surrounding it and background that needs to be discussed. So let’s cover the timeline leading up to this election.

Shortly before, Eins had proposed to the Round Table more jobs programs to keep people working and ease the inequalities between adventurers and People of the Land. However, the other members rejected the idea, citing costs. When Eins proposes levying a tax on the assets of wealthy adventurers, they reject that too. After realizing he won’t get anywhere with his goals at The Round Table, Eins has Honesty secede from the Conference.

After seceding from the Conference, he is appointed Duke by Utena Touri Saiguu, who also wants peace. Touri also intends to marry Lenessia and unite the two powers.

Eins states he wants a sturdy Akiba Government with the power to legislate and create more representation for the People of the Land and lower ranked adventurers. He also wants Shiroe to oversee its creation and take part in it in an important role.

Elsewhere, Lenessia doesn’t want to marry Touri (as she’s more into Sir Krusty, who is missing at this point). After some encouragement from friends, she remembers how much she likes being Ambassador to Akiba and her faith in the Round Table is restored. Thus she heads off and proclaims her desire to keep the Round Table and not marry before Shiroe can answer Eins’ proposal. Realizing the two are at an impasse, Shiroe offers a counter proposal; that the two decide with an election. The winning idea shall prevail.

And so Eins becomes the face for the Akiba Government and Lenessia for the Round Table. The two sides agree to two major rules on voting. 1) All residents in Akiba are eligible to vote and 2) Anyone in Akiba on the day of the election will be counted as a resident.

The campaign begins and initial polls show Eins with a huge lead due to large support among all the People of the Land in Akiba. Not only does Eins have their interests more clearly in mind, but Lenessia refusing to marry Touri damaged her reputation as a noble.

In this regard, Eins is more like a politician than anyone else in the series. He’s covering all his bases to make sure his constituents are taken care of. He’s more attuned to the population of Akiba as well. Eins realizes there are far more People of the Land who have immigrated to Akiba since The Apocalypse than the other adventurers have realized, and he’s proposing programs that would help not only them, but Honesty as well.

This, by the way, is a great illustration of how the representatives for a constituency are often ironically not like those constituencies themselves. Eins, despite being an adventurer, is campaigning for, and has the support of, the People of the Land. Meawhile, Lenessia is a Person of the Land yet campaigns for the Round Table made of adventurers. There are often valid arguments to be made that representatives should look like the people they represent. But more often than you’d think, that isn’t the case in reality.

People do care about this but they also know better than to base their decision on a factor like that. Instead, people tend to go with who has formed the best relationship with them, at least at the local level. Eins is campaigning heavily on the interests of People of the Land and his work at improving Akiba for them hasn’t gone unnoticed. He’s also gotten into the good graces of the nobles the People of the Land respect. Touri’s endorsement also signals to the People of the Land in that regard that Eins is the better candidate.

On the other side, Lenessia has built a strong name for herself in Akiba as Ambassador. She originally rallied the adventurer troops to defeat the Goblin army and has mingled with adventurers as Ambassador thinking about how to make Akiba better. So it’s not surprising she has the support of the adventurers.

Eins’ speech
Lenessiya’s speech

This doesn’t change Eins’ large lead, though, and the Round Table will have to campaign intensely in order to close the gap. Yet Eins isn’t thinking he has it in the bag either. Behind the scenes on the eve of the election, Touri stresses the importance of winning since the Westelande Senate is eager to get a move on war. But Eins knows Shiroe, and despite the early lead in the polls, pegs their chances at about 50–50.

On the day of the election, both candidates give final speeches before the polls officially open. Eins goes first and receives warm reception. However, before Lenessia can give hers, gates by Akiba open and adventurers from Suskino come flooding into the city.

Shiroe had managed to reactivate fast travel gates between cities long thought permanently inactive. What he managed to do was exploit the second rule of the election. All people who entered the city at the time of voting are considered eligible voting residents.

Shiroe truly is a cunning man, because he showed that a come from behind is possible not just from a great speech, but by tailoring the rules to your advantage. Shiroe knew in advance the gates were working, or close to working, and that’s why he set the second rule. This is why in reality a lot of campaigns viciously attack the rules themselves aside from the candidates, and why there’s such a debate over who can vote, because controlling who votes also means controlling who wins. Scary thought!

Lenessia gives her speech and announces that Regan, a well known mage of legend in Elder Tale, as well as Kinjo of the Kunie tribe who negotiated with Shiroe, would be joining the reformed Round Table to represent the People of the Land should the Round Table win.

Eins and Touri recognize that they’ve been beaten before all the votes are counted and they head out west away from Akiba, on good terms with Shiroe.

Although the victory wasn’t overwhelming. The Round Table does win but only with a slim majority, indicating there’s still uncertainty and divisiveness remaining among the population. It was a majority, but not a huge one, so Shiroe, Lenessia and the Round Table will have to reckon with the fact they’re starting from lukewarm support. They’ll need to work diligently with their new robust Round Table at fixing issues on the homefront and abroad.

The Future of Elder Tale

Ending shot from the season 3 opening

That brings us to the end of the anime’s political happenings and the light novels are currently on hiatus, with the anime covering up to the most completed novel. I’m not a light novel reader and any information that exists in novels not covered in the anime is scarce to find (even the election stuff is almost entirely absent from the wiki.

For now there isn’t more story to tell. However I can only hope the light novels continue to be released and we get more anime content. There isn’t an anime out there quite like Log Horizon that tackles politics in such a way. As far as “trapped in a game” anime go, it’s certainly up there for me.

If you’re new to anime or Log Horizon and stumbled upon this article somehow and read all the way through to the end, thank you. I can’t recommend Log Horizon enough if worldbuilding and JRPG exploring is your thing.

After all, this was only the politics side. This didn’t even begin to cover all the action, comedy, drama, game system or any other story beats that exist in its 63 episodes. It’s well worth the watch.

Log Horizon is available to stream on Crunchyroll. Seasons 1–2 exist in an out of print Blu-ray release from Sentai Filmworks. Season 3 is available on Blu-ray from Funimation.

Thanks to my patron over on Patreon for supporting me, Michael Potin-O’Brien.

Check out my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/danimetimes

Follow me on Twitter: Dan Mansfield (@MMJDanM) / Twitter

--

--

The Danime Times

In depth analysis and features on anime you can’t get anywhere else. For conventional reviews: https://www.fandompost.com/author/danmansfield-tfp/