The Heroic Legend of Arslan (TV)

[Munsu]

I don't think so. It's pretty tame for a war story.

OK, I'll watch the regular broadcast version then. Thanks.

Just finished watching the series. In all I really liked it, big fan of these types of series. Closest I can come up with is Kingdom, except that one had an incredibly kickass main character. Battles are way more drawn out there, and of course the whole CGI issue. Still think of Kingdom as quite superior.

Anyways, nothing in the series really bothered me all that much particularly considering all the complaints I saw throughout the thread. I was fairly indifferent to Arslan as the main character and lack of female characters a bit of an issue as well, but that's fairly standard in these types of medieval war shows. I would've liked to see the Queen more though, she was forgotten after the first handful of episodes which was a shame. She seemed to have an interesting story to tell and thought she would have some political machinations to be shown throughout.

Maybe that's for the second series.

The other complaint is that I thought we would see Arslan continuing his training during his journey. Other than a scene towards the end of the series, none of his camp figured to keep training him. Which is disappointing, since I thought that was Farangis' main mission after all, to teach him martial arts and what not. Would've been a bit cool to see Arlan also learning to communicate with the Djinn, in part it might play a role against those sorcerers.

But, I was thoroughly entertained by it, will look forward to the next one which starts in July.

[Munsu]

As I was reading yesterday that the 2nd season will start in July, particularly in the My Hero Academia timeslot, something seemed a bit off to me, in particular because I didn't think My Hero Academia would be a short series (but who knows).

Anyways, just now a new article came up mentioning that the Arslan 2nd season will have only 8 episodes:

The June issue of Kodansha's Bessatsu Shōnen Magazine is revealing on Monday that the Arslan Senki: Fūjin Ranbu (The Heroic Legend of Arslan: Dust Storm Dance) television anime series will premiere on MBS and TBS on July 3, and the series will have eight episodes.

The new season will air on Sundays at 5 p.m. on MBS and TBS, which is the "Nichigo" timeslot. The staff had announced in March that the new series would premiere in the timeslot in July. My Hero Academia began airing in the timeslot in April, and The Seven Deadly Sins: Signs of holy war special will air for four weeks in the timeslot starting in August.
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/dail...emiere/.101861

Something is still not adding up for My Hero Academia for me at the moment (unless it's moving to another timeslot or if it'll have another season at another point), but I find it curious that Arslan is only getting 8 episodes for a second season.

Of course, I don't know how long of a story Arslan has to tell and pretty much all the major pieces are about to converge as it is, so maybe that's all they'll need to finish it all up. Just found it a bit weird to have this short of a second series, then of course the positive is that they didn't stretch the story to a normal cour needlessly.

[Buffalobiian]

AFAIK Arslan is a really long story.

[Munsu]

AFAIK Arslan is a really long story.

Then I guess they're aiming to just animate an arc or two in these 8 episodes. So, now have to wonder if this is all we'll get or if we'll get more in the future.

Just hope that at least these 8 episodes are satisfying. As I understand it, the anime has surpassed the manga in content. Of course, the anime has the novels to draw material from, but I guess that in general they'd want to give some more breathing room to the manga as well to pull ahead once again or something.

Who knows.

[Munsu]

Just adding a bit more info if anyone cares:

http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news...e-last/.102264


Reading the news above and the comments, it seems like there are currently 15 novel volumes, and the 16th one will be the final one.

The anime series animated about 5 volumes or so. With 8 episodes coming up, we can say that about 1 or 2 volumes will be animated during that span.

Not sure what will all this mean, but there'll be about 8-10 volumes worth of material left to animate in the future. We'll have to see if it'll get another season to address some of that.

[shinta|hikari]

They are animating the manga, not the light novel, apparently.

[Munsu]

They are animating the manga, not the light novel, apparently.

Let me know if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that the anime went ahead of the manga or was about to?

I guess the next question is, how closely is the manga fallowing the novels (and how closely is the anime following the manga)?

[shinta|hikari]

Don't know. I just read in the articles about the last volume of the LN that the anime follows the manga, not the original novel.

[Munsu]

Don't know. I just read in the articles about the last volume of the LN that the anime follows the manga, not the original novel.

I read the same, just the same I recall reading that the anime went beyond the manga. I may be wrong on that account, but that was my impression.

[Kraco]

Season 2 Episode 1 - HS





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I felt like this hero sword came a bit too much out of nowhere, just in the right time for the Silver mask when he had lost miserably and was looking for a boost. Yet even more so for the stupid temple knights who previously had shown mainly incompetence, yet now miraculously managed to follow Silver mask's troops, and as if that wasn't enough, the sword just happened to drop into their hands. Just how convenient is that?

Other than that, Arslan sure has his hands full. Nobody else gives a single shit if neighbours try to come in to plunder, so Arslan single-handedly must both keep defending the country from third party outside forces and try to win it back from the conquerors. He has decent forces under his command for now, but where exactly do they get their supplies if the conflict starts to lenghten following the signs we are already seeing?

I still think Arslan needs a girl. He can't be motivated by sheer lust for power and revenge like Silver mask, so a lady by his side would be beneficial.

[shinta|hikari]

Etoile is in his heart.

I loved the twist of Andragoras escaping. What now? How will Arslan become king?

[Kraco]

I loved the twist of Andragoras escaping. What now? How will Arslan become king?

That was the best part of the ep, even though I didn't mention it. It was so bizarre. And now the whole city is in chaos because the lone man from the prison is occupying the throne with the chained prince sitting on the floor next to him. I reckon the author felt he needed to do yet something more to make it absolutely clear how incompetent the Lusitanians are. Maybe Arslan should have spared 50 men from his army. They would have been plenty of take the capital back.

[shinta|hikari]

The rusting chains idea was very nice. It showed just how bad ass Andragoras is. Maybe he wouldn't have lost even now if it weren't for the betrayal.

[Kraco]

Episode 2 - HS



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Either the sound editor was dead drunk when they were putting this episode together or simply absent and the director chose to have nobody fill in for him. I hope for the latter for the sake of the poor sound editor's professionalism. I bet the Japanese will be envious of subtitles when they are watching this. You could barely hear the dialogue from the music and sound effects. I guess lack of QC is not only a fansubbers' fault.

The old king is far wiser than he seems with his barbarian countenance. Despite having rotten in a prison for so long and being blissfully unaware of anything going on in the world, he immediately saw the one thing that would be the best for Arslan, right upon his arrival and during their first meeting, no less. The greatest obstacle to Arslan's development is the fact he doesn't need to think for himself and there's always someone to save the day from his mistakes. He had far too good supporters, so his role remained to be a figurehead and an idol for righteousness. However, he could never serve as a king the way he is now. He could serve in his current role, to fight against the invaders, because war doesn't miss one man, like the saying goes. However, if the peace was restored and he was made a king, he would be a really pitiful one.

If he now needs to achieve great things on his own, without the help of the brilliant veterans, he will need to do by himself everything that was previously done for him by others. The good things and the bad things. If he can pull it off and return victorious, then he would make a real king.

[shinta|hikari]

WTF, you weren't kidding about the sound. What the hell was that..? I couldn't understand a damn thing they were saying at times.

I think Andragoras just feared Arslan's rising power so he exiled him. He doesn't look like he gives a shit about raising his son for any job, much less king.

[Kraco]

Yeah, that was actually my basic impression during the scene, but later I realised it could actually go either way, so I forced myself to think like I did when I wrote that post. It's kind of hard to judge the dude. It's true that he most likely wanted to get rid of Arslan right then because he could still serve as a king. The fact he referred to Arslan having performed something like a treason certainly suggests as much, unless he did it simply to see the reaction of Arslan's followers and Arslan himself. However, the dude really is smarter than his looks suggest and he ought to know he won't live forever. He probably isn't happy with Arslan who's so different from his own style, but Arslan is basically the only one who could take over, for now. There's no way the king would be planning to support Silver Mask.

Nevertheless, after saying what he did, if Arslan manages to return with the big army, the king can't take back his words anymore.

[ambulance]

Either the sound editor was dead drunk when they were putting this episode together or simply absent and the director chose to have nobody fill in for him.

Apparently the raws were fine; only the funi version was bad.

[Munsu]

Episode S2 episode 3 is out:
http://www.nyaa.se/?page=download&tid=831160


Just watched the first episode of this 2nd season, really don't have much to say as I'm waiting to see what comes next, but Andragoras was completely badass. Also looking forward to more fleshing out on the backstory between him and his wife.

[shinta|hikari]

Army reset.

Who the fuck cares about mask dude's love life? Wtf.

[Munsu]

Just watched episode 2, and as you guys mentioned, it had audio problems. Horriblesubs did re-release it and fix the issue.

Outside of that, didn't like the 2nd episode at all. One of the weakest, and dumb with Arslan jumping against the opposing army like that, further than that, his companions letting him do it. Just dumb.

I'm not enjoying the pace either right now. It does feel like the series knows it's under a time constriction of having to cram an arc into 8 episodes, so we're not really getting proper scenes. More like we're simply getting a collection of impressions. Hope this improves as it goes along.

Interesting ending to the episode though, not sure about the consequences yet. We'll see.

I'll watch the 3rd episode soon.