Episode 154 of Key Frames, a podcast about anime. Another episode, another discussion about Western fantasy's many forms in anime and manga. This time, at least, we're not retreading our decade-old discussion of Record of Lodoss War (though maybe we should...) nor are we glazing contemporary faves like Frieren: Beyond Journey's End and Delicious in Dungeon. Instead, our conversation keeps returning to a relative obscurity, the Heroic Legend of Arslan OVAs from the early nineties. They're not particularly good, in an absolute sense, but they raise some excellent questions on the ever-fading line between historical fiction on the one hand and neomedieval fantasy on the other, as well as providing for a uniquely fruitful source of people and places to look up on Wikipedia! Then, after being such good boys for staying mostly on topic, Ben and Duncan can't help but ramble a bit about alcohol, trauma, and of course yuri. Enjoy!
Discussed:
The Heroic Legend of Arslan (OVA) (3:48)
Nippon Sangoku: The Three Nations of the Crimson Sun (16:07)
Fullmetal Alchemist (manga) (18:58)
Scrapped Princess (21:21)
Witch Hat Atelier (30:21)
The Warrior Princess and the Barbaric King (39:27)
Botan Kamiina Fully Blossoms When Drunk (44:20)
Awajima Hyakkei (54:43)
Related Links:
Gizmodo comes out swinging for Record of Lodoss War
Kadokawa's consolidated earnings results do pin the blame on isekai
Jobless Reincarnation's uneasy status as the prototype for its genre
Who was Kay Khosrow?
What was the historical region of Turan?
It's hard to pin down the definition of "neomedievalism," but this video does a good enough job
Who was Darius the Great?
The source for "Silvermask could have become the protagonist of Heroic Legend of Arslan," if you can read Japanese
The development of the Roman title of "comes" into the medieval "count"
What are Arthur C. Clarke's three laws?
I can't believe we've never linked this before, but what is Orientalism?
What was the An Lushan rebellion?
What is Mount Damavand?
The promo video for the forthcoming anime about Alexander the Great is indeed very brown
An explanation of the concept of "hogo" in spirits
