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Log Horizon 2
Episode 12

by Nick Creamer,

We reached the end of Shiroe's raid journey this week, with the Villain in Glasses finally unveiling his plan for all the riches of the world. William and the Silver Swords' adventure also came to an end, and from there it was a long journey home, tying up all the loose ends of season two's first half and offering some nice moments with friends. This was a well-earned cooldown episode, as the show catches its breath from the first two arcs and begins to put pieces in motion for the future.

We started off with Shiroe's confrontation with the Kunie Clan representative at the fountain of gold that enriches all of Elder Tale. I really liked Shiroe's offhand comment that the final boss must actually be afraid of them - no matter how difficult the challenges put in the face of the Adventurers, no boss fight could compare to the terror of an enemy that can die continuously but will always come back. The politics of Elder Tale partially hinge on the fact that the Adventurers are forces of bizarre, absurd power within their world, and it's always nice to see that reality from the other side. It's moments like that, that reflect on the mechanics of game design from a worldbuilding perspective, that make Log Horizon such an enjoyably clever show.

That position of power initially cast Shiroe as the villain in this exchange, but his ultimate bargain was both compassionate and extremely forward-thinking. Instead of simply using the infinite gold of the fountain to secure his control of Akihabara, Shiroe decides to go much bigger, and buy all the land of Yamato in order to assign the property rights back to the server itself. By doing this, Shiroe essentially destroys the concept of property as an actual game mechanic, meaning both that no Adventurers in the future can abuse control of property and also that all the People of the Land will be on equal footing when it comes to property rights. This choice solves Shiroe's immediate problem, stymies any number of future problems, and goes a great distance in further enfranchising the People of the Land - it gives him everything he wants while also making him look like a master diplomat. It's about as clever a solution as I could ask for.

From there, the episode jumped back to William and the Silver Swords, who finally got to enjoy the spoils of their victory. The show has done very solid work building up William's character, and so I didn't mind watching the show revel in their victory for a while. The number of slow pans here and awkward mid-distance shots elsewhere really demonstrated how bare-bones of a production this is, but if they need to cut corners, an episode that's largely dedicated to just showing the characters relaxing is probably the place to do it. And some of the little character moments were certainly endearing - I particularly liked William's awkward “add me to your friends list” to Shiroe. William Massachusetts has clearly turned out to be the breakout character of season two.

The episode's last act dropped a couple random clues towards the future of Log Horizon, as we checked in on a mysterious shadowy council and suddenly learned that Tetra's actually a guy. That reveal calls back to the monologue in Akatsuki's arc about the ways people are changing to reflect their characters in Elder Tale, and is yet another indicator of the ways this world is still somewhat settling into itself, both with and without Shiroe's guidance. This was definitely not a high-stakes episode, but it gave the show some needed resolution and downtime, and the pieces are already assembling for the show's next act. I'm ready to see where Log Horizon takes us next.

Rating: B

Log Horizon 2 is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

Nick writes about anime, storytelling, and the meaning of life at Wrong Every Time.


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