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Log Horizon 2
Episode 21

by Nick Creamer,

A low-key episode this week, tying up loose ends from the finished arc and setting out new threads for some future ones. It wasn't a forging-new-heights standout like the last several have been, but it had its moments, and ended the road trip arc with exactly the right tone. It's likely we won't see peaks like the ones we just passed until some eventual third season, but it wouldn't be Log Horizon if we didn't spend half the time just hanging around and enjoying food with friends.

There wasn't much strict structure to this episode - it was more a collection of scenes that alternated between wrapping things up in the half-destroyed town and checking in back in Akihabara. As has become a clear trend in the kids' side material, Rudy stole the show this week with his various small acts of perception and kindness. After Roe 2 and Nureha make their goodbyes (Roe 2 leaving a mysterious letter addressed to Shiroe), Rudy's the one to ask Tohya if he's okay, and cheer him up by playing the fool a little. It's kind of funny how much these kids revere the intelligence of Shiroe while seeing Rudy as a goofball, as Rudy demonstrates again and again that he also possesses a strong emotional intelligence. He doesn't make a show of the way he reads his friends, but he's the heart that keeps the group smiling.

Rudy's attempts at understated support are later expressed through his urging his friends to leave the People of the Land to rebuild the town themselves. This sequence and its aftermath contained a great deal of subtext, from the reflection that the People of the Land are accustomed to this kind of violence (a fact Shiroe later connects to the looming possibility of war), to the implication that they're also still far from trusting the Adventurers, to the fraught position all of this cultural disconnect puts Rudy in personally. The truth of Rudy's attempted kindness becomes clear later, when Isuzu overhears People of the Land lamenting the selfishness of the Adventurers. Many of this arc's threads ended not with a sharp conclusion, but with a promise to continue, and it's clear that relations between the two awkwardly distanced races are one of the many challenges that will bear conflict for a long time to come.

The Akihabara material was somewhat more disjointed, ranging from consequences from prior arcs to allusions to potential new ones. There was a tiny subplot about a man who apparently has some kind of player ability that lets him mind-control women, which seemed far more terrifying than the show's fairly lighthearted framing would indicate. I liked the dynamic visual slapstick of this sequence (a rare spot of visual creativity for Log Horizon), as well as how it implied we're beginning to see consequences for Lenessia dropping Akihabara's defenses, but could have done without the crummy gay panic joke that ended the sequence. More important to Log Horizon's long-term narrative were the renewed reflections on people feeling lethargic and out of place in Elder Tale - as Shiroe admits, Londark's unhappiness is a symptom of a larger problem. Just like Nyanta couldn't simply kill Londark, Shiroe can't simply defeat this problem - the issue of Adventurers feeling disconnected from this world will result in change, be it through cultural upheaval, seeking a way home, or open war.

Overall, this arc ended on a necessary note of melancholy tinged with hope. The kids didn't return home in the high spirits that they left, but that's a good thing - the lessons they had to learn were not all happy ones, and the world they return to will be more complicated than the one they left. Log Horizon continues to address both its characters and its world with sensitivity and nuance, and the road ahead is looking both as treacherous and as compelling as ever.

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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