Genre: Fantasy
Parental Guidance Recommended
1998 Akita Yoshinobu. Sawada Hajime. Yuuya Kusaka. Kadokawa Comics. TBS.
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When the most prestigious university of magic in the land loses Orphen, their most talented student, they'll do anything to get him back. Unfortunately for them, Orphen has bigger plans than majoring in spell casting - namely tracking down a mysterious dragon, the Bloody August.
Together with his young apprentice Majiku (Magic), a spoiled heiress (Cleo), and two cranky trolls, Orphen must battle both the Bloody August and his old teachers, advanced sorcerers who posses frightening power and even more dangerous secrets! Experience the magic, the adventure, and the excitement that spawned the hit video game of the same name.
(24 episodes)
Keeping the traditional video game alive. >>> by firesenshi Swords and Sorcery. Oop... I forget. Just Sword and sorcery. The sword in full cosmic detail here is nothing else but the Barto Andoros. Its powerful. Its ancient. And whoa... when Orphen handles it, it's just too cool. Okay... let my love for bishounen carry on later.
The OP and ending themes are what struck me to getting this. In a word - awesome. The art has the finest detail from the wisps of the hair to the composition of the sword. Orphen slashing through monsters and holding a ball of light with his hands are just astonishing. It is a wonder though that the details in the artwork seem to 'fluctuate' in the episodes. There are episodes where Orphen's eyes are drawn more sharply and making look more cross-eyed while Cleo's eyes in some areas can be drawn so big, it's more than half of her face.
The music itself will tell you like it is the video game. Orphen and his apprentice, Majiku (Magic) and Cleo walking through towns have the typical RPG background music of any character walking on the world map. The background music where Orphen will fight the dragon, Bloody August, sounds typical battle music. And true to the element of RPGs that tackle sword and sorcery, it is a world composed of majutsushi (sorcerers) where they even have an academy where Orphen once came from. A world of magical beasts, hidden tribes and dragons. One such dragon is Bloody August, a dragon Orphen he himself haunts and is in fact, the reason for his very quest. The connection with Bloody August reveals itself piece per piece because the anime actually starts in the middle of the story and slowly revealing character pasts and backgrounds one by one. Each episode is an adventure where they go to different towns rumored to have great treasures and meet different characters. If you play RPGs, that's exactly the formula you'll expect in them. Orphen does not deviate from this formula. (I would hardly recommend the PS2 game though.)
I don't think this is in the same flavor as Slayers, however. The comedy in this one isn't well... as fondly remembered as Slayers. The character design is well though of though, from the main kakkoii character Orphen himself to sorcerers Hartia, Childman and the mysterious Azarle, who is most dear to Orphen. If you like magic and dragons, this one has all those elements but not the works. The greater action scenes however, are mostly contained in the opening theme but not so suspensefully carried on in the episodes.
Individual Rating: Art/Animation 10; Story 7; Characters 8; Sounds 8
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