Recap: Our heroes close in for the rescue, but first they must escape the city. The plan? Taunt the enemy leader into doing something foolish and kick his ass…

Lifesong’s Thoughts:Duel rapiers are a gentleman’s weapon! “Chief” as they call him had some great one liners this week. I’m glad to see that his personality will be a part of the regular party. I wonder If Serera will join in their group as as well? Her beloved cat man is in the group now after all. I suppose she needs to do some power leveling before that would even be an option, just look at how little her heal over time magic did for Naotsugu!

So far Log Horizon’s strategies have all revolved around Thorn Bind Hostage, which is neat, but it really hammers home how much this story is focused on gaming the rules of the system. I like that personally and so I find it interesting, but I would like to see what happens when things don’t all go exactly as planned.

I’m worried that Shiroe’s abilities are going to run out of steam soon. Is Thorn Bind Hostage still useful when something goes wrong? Does Shiroe have other tricks up his sleeve? It’s going to feel weird if he starts using abilities that would have been useful in the past… What about assassins PVP balance? Is there no way for a caster to protect themselves?

The pitfall that Log Horizon could very easily fall into is one of having too much on the table. How long is it before we run into a fight that would need three episodes of setup before the actual fight even starts? And then more once it does… If Log Horizon does that for one big fight at the end of the show, well… that might be okay, but I’m not here for a card game that introduces a new set of rules every time we sit down to play.

Now all of the above probably makes it sound like I didn’t like this episode, that actually isn’t true, I’m just worried about the future of the series. None of the things I am worried about have actually happened, yet.

The flip side of focusing on the rules early is that if Log Horizon then focuses on what it has built up so far and continues to explores ways to reuse the old abilities we know in creative ways, we could be in for something smart. The first episodes alluded to giving this story that kind of bend and so far it hasn’t been a disappointment.

Stuff like Shiroe using a weak light ability to blind players to anything going on in the woods or the way Shiroe recast his ability in order to cut two sets of thorns all at once are examples of what this anime is doing well. We might not get any visceral satisfaction out of any of this stuff, but there is some good nerdy fun to be had none the less.

Looking forward I hope to see something that will make Shiroe panic, something that will show us what he can do when he isn’t in complete control. Oh and course, I am curious what secret Chief has for us about the nature of this world.