Mahou Senshi Louie

I would rate this a 7.5 if I could. It has a message, it has entertainment value, and it isn't as ecchi as one might think from a casual glance.

The female characters are surprisingly deep and I found that I knew real-life women who could be compared to each of them. On the one hand, one can watch this show as merely being a bit of fan service, counterbalanced by a male buffoon, thus making a compromise show suitable for viewing in mixed male-female company. I take the show more seriously; I think the writers are making a point about how ... an old-fashioned masculine man can get along with aggressive, independent female co-workers who are *not* romantically attracted to him in the slightest. I think it's trying to make a point about modern gender roles. I could be reading way too much into it.

At the same time, it's very intertextual, which is a fancy way of saying it rips off cliches from all kinds of sources that have come before it. IMHO the writers do a great job of ripping off a diverse selection of sources -- not just swords-and-sorcery, but also murder mysteries, martial arts stories, etc.

When I think of Rune Soldier, I almost immediately think of Slayers: sword bearing warriors, magical items, monsters, sorcery, etc. It's definitely a comedy, and nearly impossible to take a situation seriously until the very end. There were quite a few times I laughed out loud while watching this. The series is 24 episodes long, and it felt like an appropriate length. There weren't really any dry episodes or filler that was noticeable either. The last three episodes were more or less dedicated to the ending, and although there were events leading up to this it almost felt like an abrupt twist to finish things ... up, but in the end I was pleased with the way things were handled so I can't complain. If you dig comedic anime and the old school RPG setting then I'd highly recommend this.

4.75/10 ~ The Lodoss War never asked for

For all that do not know, this takes place in the same universe as Record of Lodoss War and Crystania. However past a few minor references such as one of the main charecters is a follower of Myrii and they mention the ancient magical society that Karla is from, they also have a similar power system and the fact that elves are super cute and have extremely long ears... That's it, that's all that is similar.

Rune Soldier is mostly a episodic slap stick comedy set abstractly in the middle of a DnD world, if I never ... told you it was in the world of Lodoss, you probably never would have ever noticed. I'm not sure why they call Louie the "Rune Soldier"... he uses actually zero runes in the show, I'm assuming its a translation error. Instead of having decent plot through out we get waaaaay to much fanservice, Over used jokes, a haram and ZERO runes lol. And the English VA was pretty shit... pretty standard of the late 90's.

The pros:
- 90's Anime goes so hard
- Low power high fantasy is one if not my favorite genres
- Lodoss references made me oh so happy
- music was pretty decent
- tho the show didn't take it self that serious it never tried to be something it wasn't
-The opening and the final "arc" was very decent

My biggest gripe is unlike Crystania and Lodoss War OVA/TV Series that are fairly large epic series, Rune Soldier is all but that. 62.5% of the entire 24 episode series that is Rune Soldier is actually filler. To speed run this for plot relevance so you don't feel like you wasted your time watch:
Episodes 1-3, this sets up the cast and location
Ep 13, Tho this is technically filler, they tie the plot back to this episode
16-17 this is where the plot begins to bear fruit
22-24 these episodes are the pay off for watching the whole series, and Lodoss.
--These 3 episodes have the climax and conclusion to the series
With this all in mind this whole series could have been condensed down to a few episode OVA or long movie, instead of all this shit filler. Don't get me wrong when a show is good and a cast is great filler simply is just more time spent with ones we fall in love with. However this cast of charecters isn't it, this plot isn't it and honestly with the lure of Lodoss I was suckered in.

All that being said, I am mostly disappointed from the 15 filler episodes which averaged out to be about a 2.75/10 to a 4.5/10 at its best. The first 2 episodes and last 3 episodes were actually pretty decent for what its worth at maybe a generous 6/10. So I cannot justifiably give a show of this length an average or above score, just barely missing the mark of a 5/10. I would only recommend this to someone that is ABSOLUTLY craving ANY Lodoss content or just needs to watch obscure Fantasy 90's anime... but this should probably be your last stop.