Literature / Log Horizon

"This is our reality."

Database, Database,
Just living in the Database, woa-hoa!
The wall of pure fiction’s cracking in my head,
And the addiction of my world still spreads,
In the Database, Database!
I’m struggling in the Database, woa-hoa!
It doesn’t even matter if there is no hope,
As the madness of the system grows!

— Opening Song, courtesy of Man With a Mission

"Elder Tale" is an established MMORPG set in a post-apocalyptic version of Earth where magic and fantasy have grown over the ruins of the previous world. On the day that a new expansion pack was scheduled to become active, every single player logged into the server suddenly found themselves within the world of Elder Tale. Most of the game functions are still active and "death" simply revives the player at their last home point. But in every other sense, the world is "real" and hundreds of thousands of players are now trapped in what used to be a game.

With no indication of how or why this incident occurred, the players of Elder Tale must learn how to survive in this strange new world while they look for a way home.

Log Horizon is a series of Light Novels written by Mamare Touno (author of Maoyu); originally a Web Serial Novel that was first posted on the website Shousetsuka ni Narou in 2010, it was picked up for print publication in 2011 with illustrations by Kazuhiro Hata, and Mochichi Hashimoto providing the monster designs. It has been adapted into a 2-season anime series which aired on NHK from October 2013 to March 2015. It can be watched legally on Crunchyroll, for people living in the following areas: UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand, Latin America, Scandinavia, and the Netherlands. A third season was later announced in January 2020 with an October 2020 release, though it was later delayed to January 2021.

Though similar in premise to the well-established and well-known .hack and Sword Art Online franchises, Log Horizon is notable in several ways: it takes great care to explain the internal logic and mechanics of the game world, player death is treated as a relatively minor inconvenience, and it is very focused on the lifestyle aspects of the various characters as they all adjust to living in this strange space. The drama of dying in the game world doesn't exist, and so the plot can instead center on how they settle into their new lives in the game, which has a whole host of preexisting rules, laws, and societies to make things interesting.

Not surprisingly, the story has its own share of spinoffs:

• "Dragonhowl Mountains" (web novel): Originally a side-story written on Touno's personal site in between volumes 5 and 6, which focused on Kanami, the former leader of the legendary "Debauchery Tea Party." The side-story later became part of the main story, with "Dragonhowl Mountains" as the ninth volume, "Go East, Kanami!"
• Log Horizon Gaiden: Kushiyatama, Do Your Best! (light novel): Originally a fan fic titled Into a Remote Town, the story was later published as an official side-story novel at the same time as volume 10's release. It follows former D.D.D member Kushiyatama and her long-time friend Yaezakura immediately after the Catastrophe.
• Log Horizon (manga): Illustrated by Hara Kazuhiro, the light novel's illustrator, the one-volume manga gives a quick overview of the events in the first light novel volume. (More chapters for the manga were published in Weekly Famitsu, but were never compiled into volumes.)
• Log Horizon: Honey Moon Logs (manga): A retelling of the first two Log Horizon volumes from the Crescent Moon Alliance's perspective.
• Log Horizon: The West Wind Brigade (manga): A retelling and expansion of the first five volumes from the perspective of Soujirou's eponymous guild.
• Log Horizon: Nyanta's Fortune Recipes (manga): A collection of slice-of-life vignettes focusing on, obviously, Nyanta's cooking, and the interactions he has with Akiba's other residents while he does so. The manga spans the events of the first ten light novel volumes.

The series is notable for prompting a surprise visit by Mamare himself to 4chan for an impromptu Q&A session with English-speaking fans, which was followed up by two more in the wake of episodes 10 and 25.

Yen Press licensed the original light novels, Hara's manga adaption, and Log Horizon: The West Wind Brigade in 2015.

The rulebook for a Dungeons & Dragons-style tabletop RPG based on the series was released in March 2014, accompanied by a story of a session played using the rules by four authors◊ — Ayasato Keiji (Beyond Another Darkness, Marginal Operation), Murasaki Yukiya (Altina the Sword Princess), Maruyama Kugane (OVERLORD), Shibamura Yuuri (Gunparade March: Another Princess). Set during the initial few days after the Catastrophe in the Ritorabure Islands (based on the RL Bonin Islands), four stranded Adventurers attempt to find a way to return to the mainland. On their way back they come across a mysterious Lander girl Nagi, and gets involved the incident surrounding her loss of memory.

Finally, as a general warning, this page covers tropes seen both in the anime and the light novels, as well as the various spin-offs. As such, fans of the anime (even those who have seen every episode) should be careful about reading through spoilers, as many reference plot points that have yet to come up in the anime. Consider yourself as having been warned. Also, all character tropes should be moved to the appropriate character page whenever possible.

Not related to Horizon in the Middle of Nowhere or Legend of the Galactic Heroes (commonly abbreviated as LoGH and thus, confused for Log Horizon).

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Log Horizon provides examples of:

# to D

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: It's pretty easy to tell that the Goblins and Sauhagin are 3D models.
• Accidental Celebrity: The members of the Debauchery Tea Party were just a bunch of friends having fun gaming together and taking on challenging content. However, word of mouth spread about them, and they became known as the invincible party with the incredibly talented members who are winning against impossible odds without being affiliated with a guild. Their reputation reaches such lengths that all members are treated as Living Legends by other players (especially protagonist Shiroe, who as The Strategist is cited as the person most responsible for the victories), and some characters like William admit to having considered joining the party a gaming goal before it was disbanded.
• Adaptation Expansion: Most obvious in episode 7, where a good chunk of the first half of the episode (the preparation by the Crescent Moon Alliance) had to be taken from their manga spinoff Honey Moon Log. In the equivalent chapter (chapter 3 of book 3), only seven very short paragraphs are devoted to it.
  • Add to this the participation of Soujirou's West Wind Brigade in the Crescent Moon scheme, whereas in the light novel (and also in the anime), Shiroe asks him to send the invitations for the Round Table Council to the other guild masters.
  • In episode 8, we see Isaac and Krusty's reaction to Maryelle's invitation, which isn't seen in the light novel.
  • In a minor case, the English Dub adds a line in Episode 6 from Shiroe explaining the name of the titular guild (see Badass Creed below).
• A Day in the Limelight: Episode 10 of season 2 focuses on William, guildmaster of the Silver Swords. Much of it consists of him giving his defeated raid group a Rousing Speech after being defeated by three raid bosses fighting them all at once.
• After the End: Elder Tale takes place in a post-apocalypse Earth. The server Shiroe plays in runs the Tokyo section of the world (specifically, Akihabara is the hub zone). The current civilization exists in the wake of two apocalypses. The first wiped out the "ancient empire", with a fairly prosperous civilization appearing afterward. The second apocalypse was the first World Fraction when the Alv created the beast races as revenge for their destruction, reducing the global population to roughly a quarter of what it had been.
• A House Divided: In episode 17 of season 2, members of the Round Table discuss the growing discontent between craftsmen and large guilds having more wealth than smaller guilds and those without crafting professions. They discuss various solutions, such as confiscating blueprints and excess money, but others are against it, stating it would kill innovation. Shiroe is unable to offer any solutions up front, but he does note they'll have to address this issue, and asks the other members to come up with solutions they could work on.
• All Men Are Perverts: Naotsugu believes this with passion. See There Are Two Kinds of People in the World.
• All Myths Are True: In episode 7 of season 2, several characters discuss the possibility that the flavor text on items meant to give them more backstory is actually becoming true, such as the murderer's weapon belonging to a powerful lord who was murdered by his lover and cursed said weapon to get revenge. A scene showing the murderer later shows him trying to fight against said curse before obeying its command to continue killing.
• All There in the Manual: A lot of the details on the state of the world of Log Horizon post-Catastrophe, particularly of the events outside of Yamato/Japan, could only be found at Mamare's site for the webnovel version, or from Mamare himself in the Q&As from the same site.
• Alternate Universe: Shiroe believes that rather than being trapped within Elder Tale - The Game, everyone is trapped in an alternate reality where Elder Tale is reality. This leads to the major guilds within Akihabara finally taking the situation more seriously, leading to the creation of the Round Table Council, implementing law and order and treating the Landers with respect.
• Amazon Chaser: Exploited by Shiroe in Episode 18 when preparing Raynesia for her speech in Akihabara. He specifically picks out a weapon for her despite the fact that she will not fight there. While "Beautiful Princess" has good appeal, "Beautiful Warrior Princess" is even better. Over a thousand adventurers agree.
• Anachronic Order: Episode 1 of Season 2 skips around chronologically; there are Flash Backs, a Flash Sideways to Kanami's group and at the end what appears to be a Flash Forward to Christmas Eve, where Shiroe and Akatsuki are apparently resurrecting from death.
• Anatomy of the Soul: See Japanese Mythology, below.
• An Adventurer Is You: The following classes exist in the novel:
  • (Fighter-archetype) Guardian, Samurai, Monk.
  • (Rogue-archetype) Assassin, Swashbuckler, Bard.
  • (Priest-archetype) Cleric, Druid, Kannagi.
  • (Wizard-archetype) Sorcerer, Summoner, Enchanter.
    • Samurai and Kannagi class are Japanese server exclusive, with its North American server counterparts as Pirate and Shaman. Each server has their own set of exclusive classes.
  • Literally invoked as the players are in fact referred to as "Adventurers" by Elder Tale to distinguish them from NPCs who are called "Daichi-jin" which translates roughly to "Earthlings".
    • Translated in the anime as "People of the Land", while officially called "Landers" in book 7.
• Arc Welding: The last episode of season 2 connects everything that happened in that season.
• Arrow Catch: Rundelhous does this in episode 12, albeit unintentionally. When Minori warns him about other dangers nearby, he brushes it off and has his hand near his head. The arrow then gets caught by his fingers. In the light novel, he catches it ... with his head.
• Art Shift: In the anime, during the few times Real Life is shown in flashbacks, the artwork shifts to a more realistic style to disambiguate the players from their characters.
• Ascended Fanboy:
  • Averted. Many players have stopped raiding and adventuring, instead turning to production-style tasks. Even with little risk from death, having to fight the monsters with them in your face instead of on the other side of the screen is pretty damn scary for many people.
  • Played straight. Rudy, a lander, wished to become a heroic adventurer and he did so. First by pretending to be an adventurer and later the real deal thanks to Shiroe's magic.
  • Downplayed. During his I Am What I Am speech William says that despite how scared and confused he was after the Catastrophe, deep down he felt some happiness at becoming a part of this world and he's sure his fellow guild members felt the same.
• Astonishingly Appropriate Appearance: Everyone. In both Real Life and the game, Naotsugu is a boisterous 'knight' and Shiroe is a beady-eyed 'wizard'. The only one who doesn't fit this trope is Akatsuki but this only applies to Akatsuki pre-potion chugging, looking for all the world like a cheap, tall, Sasuke knockoff.
• The Atoner: Once having nothing to do but to player-kill adventurers such as Minori and Tohya, four members of Dread Pack, the PK team that Shiroe and friends later curb-stomp in episode 2, become successful merchants. On meeting Minori and Tohya during the Libra Festival, they make a profound apology to both of them and send them on their way, loaded with free merchandise.
• Attempted Rape: Just to show how much bigger douches than they already are in the main book series, some members of Hamelin try to do this on both Isami and Sara in the West Wind Brigade spinoff. They hint that this isn't the first time they've done this.
• Awesome by Analysis:
  • Shiroe is able to utilize various tricks, spells, and tactics against the people and monsters fighting him and his friends when he studies who they're up against.
  • Minori is trying her best to follow in Shiroe's footsteps.
• Badass Adorable: Akatsuki; it comes with being a short and cute level 90 assassin.
• Badass Army: The Akihabara Adventurers as a whole. While they aren't generally organized into a standing army, they still number upwards of 15,000, with almost half that number being Level 90. While vastly outnumbered by the native population, most Landers don't go beyond Level 40; compared to the other two Adventurer cities shown thus far, Akihabara's population is at the very least over two times larger than both of them combined. Best shown during the 'Return of the Goblin King' arc, where a force of only 1200, under coordination of Shiroe and Krusty, was able to Curbstomp an army of Goblins that likely would have wiped out the Eastal Lords.
• Badass Cape: Shiroe's white cloak emphasizes his stature as the Villain in Glasses and Strategist.
• Badass Creed: The English Dub has Shiroe give one to the titular guild
  Shiroe: "We bare the story of those who challenge the edge of the earth. We are Log Horizon."
• Badass Crew:
  • The Debauchery Tea Party successfully completed many quests and raids despite not being a guild themselves prior to its disbandment. They were so close with each other that even after years apart members of the group (such as Shiroe, Naotsugu and Nyanta) still don't need to speak in order to coordinate a well-timed, synchronized and perfect display of teamwork.
  • D.D.D., Black Sword Knights, Honesty, and Silver Sword all count, being major, dedicated raiding battle guilds. During the Return of the Goblin King event, a legion of Adventurers composed of D.D.D., Black Sword Knights and Honesty completely rolled through all opposition with razor sharp military-like precision.
  • If that wasn't badass enough, during the above spoiler, Krusty led a 96-man team of Adventurers on a blitzkrieg straight into the heart of the entire tens of thousands-strong goblin horde, massacring almost every one of the goblin leaders in the process.
  • Silver Sword is reinforced as this when they go on the Abyssal Shaft raid at Shiroe's request. Even after being completely obliterated by not just one, but three Raid Bosses ganging up on them, they choose to follow their guild master William back into the raid, barely succeeding the second time around after formulating a new plan. Shiroe notes that not even Isaac nor Krusty would have even thought of challenging it again.
  • Minori's group becomes like this after the training camp. They performed very well in the defense of Chousin.
• Badass Longcoat: The uniform worn by the Round Table Council's representatives to the conference with the League of Freedom Cities Eastal sports this.
• Badass Normal: Landers may not be comparable to Adventurers, but those that reach level 60 are considered elites. Not only do they lack advantages that the Adventurers enjoy, they gain EXP 4x slower and they reached their level without dying even once.
• Bag of Holding: Players above level 45 get the ability to acquire the "Dazaneg's Magic Bag" upon completion of a quest and with the right materials at hand. Said bag can store many heavy objects without adding any weight to the player, and this trait is carried over even after the Catastrophe.
• Balloon Belly: Shiroe after the cake eating contest in episode 22. Although Akatsuki and Minori were with him, it seems neither one of them ate any, as they both seemed more interested in feeding him instead.
• Battle Aura:
  • Akatsuki develops a brief one in episode 3, when she asks Shiroe if he thought she was just a kid. He tries to dodge the question to avoid her wrath, unlike Naotsugu, who thought she really was a little girl in real life.
  • Shiroe developed one earlier, when Marielle told him that his scary face would repel girls.
  • Shiroe once again develops one during the Round Table Conference.
  • Henrietta develops one when threatening Maryelle with work.
• Beach Episode: Episode 11 has a brief one, with several of the adventurers arriving at a beach location partly to train, and partly to relax.
• Beauty Is Never Tarnished: Subverted. In the second book there's a scene where Touya helps Isuzu to her feet while they're farming items under Hamelin. The narration suddenly goes into detail about how badly she and everyone else, including the girls, stink due to going for several days without a bath.
• Beyond the Impossible:
  • A justified case. "World Class Magic" is described as "magic that changes the laws of the world". In other words, one of the laws governing this setting allows for the changing of other laws. Shiroe's contract that transforms Landers into adventurers is described as this kind of magic.
  • Landers can't create new songs because of Creative Sterility. Thus, Isuzu singing songs they've never heard of is unprecedented. Then she goes and composes her own original song, which becomes her overskill the 43 song. It's justified because she's an adventurer and has heard many more than 42 songs in her life.
• Big Badass Battle Sequence: The Goblin King Arc features several, mostly the battle against the main Goblin force.
• Big Damn Heroes:
  • Shiroe does a non-action version of this at the end of episode 24, when he rescues the Princess from Lord Marves, just as he's about to force her to apologize for something she didn't do, possibly demolishing her reputation.
  • Zigzagged in episode 5 of season 2. Soujirou's subordinates are fighting the serial killer and about to be wiped out when Soujirou himself arrives in classic form and saves them. Then he gets into trouble and Akatsuki arrives Just in Time to assist him. Soujirou's harem escapes but the murderer overpowers Soujirou and Akatsuki, killing them both.
• Big Good: The Ancients, powerful boss-class NPCs, who make up an in-universe coalition known as the Global 13 order of knights (with one order overseeing a single "server") as far as the Landers are concerned. The lack of presence of the local Order, the Knights of Izumo, during the events of the fourth book are obviously a cause of concern. What Shiroe, or indeed anyone in Yamato is unaware of is the fact that half of the Ancients have already been killed off and the other half sealed by the <Genius> monsters, as Kanami and her companions soon find out in her spinoff.
• Bland-Name Product: The name Elder Tale itself is a combination of The Elder Scrolls and The Bard's Tale.
• Blank White Eyes: Raynesia displays some in episode 13 while spending time with Krusty.
• Bloodless Carnage:
  • Because the anime airs on a family friendly network when enemies are defeated they die in explosions of light in place of blood, but the anime still manages to do this in a way that gives it a cool video game-ish feel. The Light novel on the other hand makes no attempt to hide this.
  • Season 2 downplays this a bit, in that it occasionally shows characters bleeding, but it's never more than a small amount, such as the Serial Killer getting dripping blood on his katana after killing Kyouko or William bleeding from his head after a major attack from a boss, and it still doesn't get gory with the injuries.
• Book Ends: In the first episode, Shiroe, Akatsuki, and Naotsugu fight a monster together. In the last episode of season 2, they use similar tactics to defeat the Genius monster.
• Bowdlerization: The anime adaptation, which airs on NHK, a network dedicated to being family-friendly, features this quite heavily. All fanservice is heavily toned down to the point where the most skin shown is exposed midriff and limbs, with even the swimsuits from the Beach Episode being incredibly tame and the Hot Springs Episode completely obscuring everything beneath the shoulders, all blood and gore is completely omitted, with attacks and death instead being represented by data particles coming out of the body, and all references to sex and sexuality are at best vaguely implied, at worst outright left out, with a notable case being Naotsugu's constant perverted comments getting changed to a Running Gag where any attempt to say perverted things gets interrupted by Akatsuki.
• Boxing Lessons for Superman: A necessity of the apocalypse. Most of the adventures are ordinary people who now have the powers far beyond what they had in real life. Some have the mental attitude to cope with combat, others do not, no matter how high their level is. A number of combat guilds offer combat training classes to the residents of Akihabara .
• Breather Episode:
  • Much of episode 4 in season 2 acts like one, focusing on the activities of various characters back in Akihabara while Shiroe is still leading the raid and encountering difficulties in it. Then Kyouko, a tank for the West Wind Brigade gets murdered in the town by someone who kills her in one hit.
  • Episode 13 of season 2 gives the characters a break from all the raiding to focus largely on Valentine's Day, though some plot-related things are addressed, such as the disappearance of Crusty and more info between the connection between Inctis and Nureha.
• But for Me, It Was Tuesday: The adventurers are kind of bewildered when the realize that they haven't just been physically transported into the Elder Tale MMORPG - so have their actions online for the past decade. To the Landers, those quests and battles were life and death; for the adventurers, they were barely worth remembering. Shiroe boggles a bit when he realizes that as time passed about ten times faster in the game than in reality, the Landers have records of him going back over ninety years.
• Calling Your Attacks: The characters try to play the game with commands at first, but then realize its faster just to simply call their attacks as they're doing them.
• The Cameo: For both seasons.
  • During the crowd shot of the adventurers gathered for Raynesia's speech, one might notice a party wearing wolf masks. They happen to be Man With a Mission, the band who sang Log Horizon's opening song.
  • Episode 1 of the second season shows the participation of the characters of the Log Horizon TRPG novel LH: Replay participating in the after-Halloween competitions, as well as during Shiroe's explanation of gold drops from monsters (alternating with Kanami's party).
  • The adventurers shown during Shiroe's explanation of Raids and Raid composition come from the artwork of the Log Horizon TRPG◊.
• Cap: Shiroe and friends are at the presumably maximum level of 90, pre-Noosphere. At post-Noosphere the level cap is now 100, as mentioned in episode 6.
• Catfolk: Nyanta the Swashbuckler looks precisely like a cat, if said cat was a tall human. All Werecats are like this.
• Character Focus: Episode 13 spends the majority of its time with Krusty and Raynesia, who up until this point have had little screentime.
• Death Is Cheap: Players can die but it's not permanent. If a player's HP falls to zero they'll respawn at the cathedral.
  • Subverted for NPCs/Landers. They can genuinely die if their HP falls to zero and no one casts Resurrection before their anima fully dissipates.
  • There is one deadly loophole that seems to either return them to the real world or cause permanent player death: you do not respawn at your home-point Cathedral if you've been blacklisted by its owner. Nureha (guild master of Plant Hwayden) has used the threat of this to enslave the people of Minami and Nakasu.
  • Rudy, on the verge of death, signs a magical contract created by Shiroe to turn him into an Adventurer.
• Cherry Tapping: In the anime, Shiroe and Nyanta reduce Demikas to 1 HP with relatively weak enchanted thorns and saber attacks. He is then killed by an impromptu staff strike from Serara, a druid 71 levels below him.^note In the original Light Novel, it was an outright kill.
• Chef of Iron: Any Adventurer with a sufficient level in the Chef Subclass could count but special mention goes to Nyan-ta. He was the first in the Yamato server (and possibly the first in general) to figure out how to make edible meals, and the food he prepares is superb. As a Swashbuckler he's also capable of kicking major ass when he needs to.
• Chessmaster: Shiroe averts this, despite his nickname of "Villain in Glasses." He's more The Strategist and seeks the better for all, not for a specific personal end.
• Chick Magnet: Soujirou of the now-disbanded Debauchery Tea Party is very popular with women. This continues even after being trapped inside the game as he leads his own guild, the West Wind Brigade.
• City Guards: All cities have NPC guards that will spawn and punish players who try to PK within city limits. However, there are a lot of loopholes, in that players are allowed to harass other players and Landers without alerting the guards, and the moment you step outside the city gates, you're fair game.
• Cliffhanger:
  • Episode 19 of season 1 ends on one, with Rudy's group surrounding him, and Isuzu revealing that he's a Lander and can't be revived.
  • Episode 18 in season 2 has one as well, when a large horde of wyverns fly towards the town Minori and her group are at. The camera then pans to Nyanta who is watching it from a distance on a cliff as the ending credits play.
• Clingy Jealous Girl:
  • Interestingly, both Akatsuki and Minori invoke this trope during episode 22 in season 1 when both of them invite Shiroe to the couple's cake eating contest. Although he's allowed to bring both of them, they have to eat twelve whole cakes to win, and both girls also try to one up the other by feeding the cakes to him.
  • Soujirou's harem beats up a man who was seducing women in episode 21. However, they only do it because the man tried to hit on Soujirou himself.
• Color Failure:
  • Both Akatsuki and Naotsugu in episode 2 when eating the bland food while going to rescue Serara. This later become a Running Gag.
  • Michitaka has one in episode 11 after losing a Rock–Paper–Scissors game to Roderick and Charasin; the loser of which would be selected as the production guilds' representative in the Round Table Council's entourage to the Conference of the Eternal Ice Palace.
  • Happens to Raynesia a couple of times while spending time with Krusty.
  • Shouryuu is afflicted by this when he meets Marielle shortly after she tried to give a Love Confession to him. However, when she offers him some candy, his color slowly returns.
  • Soujirou and several of his guildmates do this when the man hitting on women in episode 20 tries to do it to him. Said guy then gets beaten up by Soujirou's harem.
• Combat Commentator: Shiroe usually plays this role through his Inner Monologue, as befitting of The Strategist, but in episode 4, Akatsuki does this in her Inner Monologue as she figures out how Nyanta defeated Demikas.
• Complete Immortality: The Adventurers are this. They do not age, and when they are killed, they simply respawn at a Cathedral. Ri Gan mentions that Shiroe had been around for almost 100 years, and hasn't aged a day since. Justified because when Elder Tales was just a game, it received numerous expansions/updates during the past 20 years, each moving the game world's story forward. Some players like Shiroe had been playing for so long that hundreds of game years had passed by.
• Compressed Adaptation: The entirety of Volume 9 Kanami go East! was fit into a single episode.
• The Computer Is a Cheating Bastard: In-universe example during episode 9 of season 2. Shiroe and his raid are engaged in one raid boss fight, and slowly learn its attacks. However, as they slowly gain the upper hand on it, two more raid bosses suddenly show up, and wipes out the raid group.
• Cool Boat: The Ocypete, most notably because it's the first Steam-ship in the world, since steam power didn't exist in Elder Tale prior to the Apocalypse, built by Akihabara's Oceanic Systems Guild. It's also big enough to transport nearly the entire Akihabara Expeditionary Force during the Goblin King arc.
• Cool Horse: The Griffins summoned using a legendarily rare flute.
• Cool Train: The Iron-Steel hover train built by Minami, which doesn't require rails for travel and can plow through an entire forest to reach its destination.
• Corner of Woe: Maryele fell into one in episode 11 after being told off by Henrietta to not neglect her responsibilities as guild master and a member of the Round Table Council.
• Creative Sterility: "The gods" only gave the landers 42 songs so it's impossible for them to compose new ones. Rudy explains that by spending time with adventurers they can overcome this; a lifetime's skill development can be compressed into one month if the lander lives in Akibara.
• Cruel to Be Kind:
  • In episode 20, Shiroe seems like a complete Jerkass to Rundelhous when he first runs into the latter. However, the reason he did it was because he wanted to make sure Rudy had the conviction to continue living. Nobody was even sure if this would've worked, but Shiroe did what he thought would make for the best possible outcome. Fortunately for them, it works. A more lighthearted example occurs at the end, when Rudy wakes up in the cathedral, and Isuzu repeatedly hits him on the head and treats him like a dog, even having him give his "paw" to her.
  • In episode 25 he does it again, this time towards Raynesia. While it seems cruel to her at first, he was purposely acting that way in order to let Krusty and the other guild leaders of the Round Table look good and call out Malves on his attempt to make her look like a fool.
• Curb-Stomp Battle:
  • Shiroe and his friends deliver some to some random monsters in the first episode. They then do it again to a random Player Killer group who thought they had the upper hand in an ambush.
  • The PKers that went up against Soujirou and Isaac in the West Wind Brigade side-story face this, easily slaughtered after fleeing the WWB guild members.
  • Three raid bosses did this to Shiroe and the Silver Sword when two of them left their lair and intervened mid-fight.
  • The adventurers who aid in the goblin king event when Raynesia asks for their help. Due to a combination of more adventurers fighting, their higher levels in general, and the use of coordinated strategy and tactics between groups scattered far across the lands, they successfully defeat the horde armies.
  • The murderer in episodes 4 and 5 of season 2 delivers these repeatedly to the adventurers. It's made much worse by the fact that he's doing it in Akihabara, a safe zone where PvP usually brings down the wrath of the Royal Guard NPC's (who are mysteriously absent during this time). Everyone who's gone up against him and didn't get a chance to escape has died, including Soujirou and Akatsuki.
• Cuteness Proximity:
  • Everyone triggers this for Guild Master Marielle, even Naotsugu!
  • Henrietta is normally The Stoic, but loses it when she spots Akatsuki and brushes her hair with a happy smile.
  • Exploited and weaponized by Shiroe during the Festival arc, by using Souchiro's legion of attractive fangirls to cool down the minor incidents and complaints happening around the city.
  • Serara summons a tiny wolf to help Touya and Rudy scout ahead in episode 17 of season 2. It's so adorable even the summoned skeletons Roe 2 summoned to help them have hearts flying over them.
• Damsel in Distress:
  • Serara of the Crescent Moon Alliance is separated from her Alliance in a faraway town and attacked by Player Killers. Another player rescued her and Shiroe's group sets out to bring her back.
  • Minori turns into one as well when Shiroe learns of her situation in the Hamelin guild and vows to rescue her and the others trapped there.
• Dances and Balls:
  • The League of Freedom Cities Eastal invite the Round Table Council of Akibara to one as a cover for information gathering and political/trade deals.
  • There's a second one after the first victory over the Goblin King as a celebration and more rank-and-file adventurers are present.
• Darkest Hour: The Landers were on the brink of collapse due to a 60 year Hopeless War against the demi-humans, until 240 years ago, a divine summoning spell was used which summoned the messengers of the gods: the Adventurers (or at least Beta Testers).
• Deadly Euphemism: "I'll send you to the Cathedral!" is the worst you can say, since adventurers cannot permanently die.
• Death by a Thousand Cuts: What Akatsuki and the others are forced to resort to to fight against the murderer, since he gains power and stats based on how many adventurers are within fifty meters of him. She and Marielle lure him to various points where other raid members are, and they whittle him down while healing the former two as much as possible. Subverted in the end as they don't kill him, but rather just destroy his cursed sword, so as to free him from said curse of wanting to kill adventurers.
• Death Is a Slap on the Wrist: Everyone was immensely relieved to find out that they can't be Killed Off for Real by being killed in battle. Unfortunately, that encouraged some people to become Player Killers. Subverted after Shiroe learns about the Spirit Theory. He hypotheses since Adventurers lose EXP when they resurrect, when Elder Tales became real, it translates to a loss of memories. This is proven true when Krusty, whom died twice since the Apocalypse, could no longer remember the name and appearance of his pet cat, despite his good memory. This leaves the terrifying implication that dying in the new world means gradually losing your memory of the old one. Krusty himself says this is a double subversion because he figures one would have to die dozens of times before the memory loss became more than a "mild inconvenience". Comparatively speaking, that's still pretty cheap. A lot of this is also mental, as William Massachusetts notes that he and his guild mates have died countless times in raids since the Catastrophe, and each time they do, they are forced to relive their My Greatest Failure moments; the psychological burden of doing so repeatedly has significantly thinned his guild's roster by the time Shiroe visits him in Susukino early in Season 2. In Episode 9 of Season 2, we see Shiroe affected by both of these firsthand, as he wanders around his hometown in a world of his memories, and he is unable to recall the name of a restaurant he used to pass by. When he sees his child self sitting on a bench in a park like he often would do when he messed up, he realizes that he has come to this place as an adult because yet again, he has failed. He describes the memories and sensations raging in his mind as filling him with regret and a desire to die.
• Death Seeker: The Odyssey Knights, a group made up of Adventurers who hate having been trapped in Elder Tale and want above all else to go home. They've become convinced that if they "die" enough, they will return to their own world. The resulting gleeful charges into overwhelming enemy odds only to get mass-slaughtered are rather creepy.
• Declaration of Protection: Akatsuki declares that she will protect Shiroe like a ninja protects her lord.
• Deep-Immersion Gaming:
  • Since the Apocalypse, players are increasingly uncertain if the MMO world of "Elder Tale" is even a game anymore.
  • Akatsuki takes it to extremes, where she never breaks out of her Ninja character!
  • Nyanta never drops out of his Cat-folk character!
  • Misa Takayama (Krusty's bard assistant) never drops her military shtick!
• Deconstruction: Of MMORPGs. What happens if the players get transported into the game and it becomes real and they retain all their abilities/benefits as MMO characters? How would player nations change the political landscape of the world? Shiroe's response is to recreate society; government, economy, public safety, etc. "This is our reality" In-universe, both Adventurers and Landers concern themselves that neither side behaves as before. This has unfortunate outcomes later as Adventurers don't receive regular quests from the now-sentient Landers, thus becoming less able to prevent events from snowballing into true disasters for Landers, nor are adventurers assured to gain game-standard equipment (such as their Bag of Holding).
• Deconstructed Trope: When Death Is a Slap on the Wrist, then murder is seen as less severe. This leads to casual PKing and other crimes become greater evils. In practical terms, killing someone is no different from mugging since they respawn at the Cathedral with fewer items. When Shiroe starts the Round Table Council, he says that enslavement is comparatively a more heinous crime and so it should carry a heavier punishment.
• Desperately Looking for a Purpose in Life: There is no goal for the trapped players to strive for and there's nothing to do other than slay monsters for money to spend on food and lodging. Shiroe hypothesizes that the Player Killers are resorting to their acts out of boredom.
• Did We Just Have Tea with Cthulhu?: The overall mood of negotiations between the League of Freedom Cities Eastal and the Akihabara Round Table Council. The Landers hope to Do Not Taunt Cthulhu and retain friendly association with the Adventurers. Fortunately for them, the Round Table Council have no dreams of conquest and desire to peacefully continue mutually beneficial relations. During this period, the novels mention that in the army of one of the nobles, there are perhaps fifteen knights who are level 30. The rest are guards, mercenaries and other low-level Landers. Akihabara is host to fifteen thousand Adventurers, and half of them are level 90. Akihabara could dominate the entire continent with perhaps a score of Adventurers, if the Round Table was of a mind.
• Diegetic Interface: The interface menus that are a staple of MMO's are seen by Adventures and can be accessed without casting a spell or wearing special gear.
• Diegetic Soundtrack Usage:
  • In the second season of the anime, Isuzu sings a slow version of the first season's Ending Theme. Afterward, she describes it as "a cover of something I heard long ago".
  • And then in the very next episode, she covers the second season Ending Theme
  • In-Universe, the Eastel band often plays the Elder Tales theme music at balls. The Adventurers greatly enjoy listening to it.
• Disappears into Light: What happens to adventurers who die, is a flash of light rather than gore (as least in the anime) and then are subsequently resurrected.
• Don't Think, Feel:
  • It's understandably difficult to input commands during fights in virtual reality, so the game allows the players to activate their skills via voice and/or motion activation. However, Shiroe points out that simply activating and using their skills properly are completely different, not unlike real life athletes needing to properly train and practice to succeed.
  • This is the case with food. Food bought from the NPCs or created through the game interface comes out bland and tasteless. However, actually physically cooking the food will have it taste the way it should. The trick is that you need a high cooking skill to prevent the food from instantly burning up the moment you try to cook it.
• Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Played with. Isuzu's treatment of Rundelhous (hitting him, calling/treating him like a dog) isn't mean-spirited on her end and she doesn't actually think much of it. If Shiroe is any indication, most of the other guild members seem to see it as a harmless, if bizarre, quirk of hers. Rundelhous, however, does not like this treatment at all—he's just learned to keep silent because she hit him whenever he protested. By the events of volume 8, he's come to the conclusion that it's an Adventurer custom and just keeps his thoughts to himself, though he still hopes she'll stop one day.
• Draw Aggro: Naotsugu's (and all Guardian-class players aka tankers) job is to tank and have the enemies focus on him instead of weaker allies such as Shiroe and Akatsuki.
• Drunk with Power: The worst Adventurers revel how they can bully the lower leveled, commit horrific crimes against defenseless Landers, and find ways to circumvent game system punishment. This instills a Humans Are the Real Monsters mood when it happens.
• Dub-Induced Plot Hole: In the first episode of the dub, Shiroe says that when he's partied up with Akatsuki in the past, they were raiding parties. Akatsuki having never been involved in a proper raid is a plot point in the second season.

E to J

• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • Rezarick of the Black Sword Knights, Takayama Misa and Rieze of D.D.D, and other characters make cameos in the anime, most of them during the Round Table Council. Rezarick and Misa both get speaking lines before their light novel counterparts.
  • In the first episode, Minori and Tohya are seen wandering around around the same time Shiroe and Naotsugu run into Akatsuki. While many other characters that will show up later are also given brief appearances, the duo are seen at least three times, once while walking around, another while leaving for the outside world, and again when being recruited by Hamelin.
  • Rundelhous pops up in Episode 7 enjoying a Crescent Burger.
• Easy Sex Change: It's possible with a very rare potion that's obtainable in an event quest, which is no longer available. Later on, the production guilds figure out a way to create a weaker one, but it became necessary because they found out that their avatars are slowly overriding their real life genders.
• Eldritch Abomination:
  • Not encountered in the main story so far, but have made their presence known in Kanami's spinoff. They are powerful creatures with alien powers and mannerisms; some of them have cthulu style tentacles. Translated so far as <Genius> monsters, they have apparently been systematically exterminating or sealing off the Ancients (powerful Hero-class NPCs) in each "server". Kanami and her companion Leonardo manage to save Elias Hackblade, one of the Ancients and apparently The Hero of the Elder Tale metaplot, from being sealed by them. They're also apparently Genre Savvy, possess Medium Awareness, and are extremely creepy.
  • This doesn't take into account the ones who created them, the Navigators, who are implied to be responsible for the Apocalypse in the first place, and that the result isn't even out of malice. It gets explained by Roe 2 that had they known that the residents of the world, or at least the adventurers, were intelligent past the minimum threshold, then they would have been left alone, as the resource being harvested, Psyche/MP (called empathions by the Navigators) belongs to those who live on the world.
• Empathy Doll Shot: Tohya sees some goblins picking up a doll at a nearby settlement in episode 16. Recalling the little girl who owned it, and realizing her fate, he attacks the goblins with some help from Rundelhous.
• Encyclopaedic Knowledge: Shiroe's vast knowledge of the Elder Tale game helped a lot of people out, as he reveals in episode 3. Then he finds out that they mostly want to use him for his extensive knowledge of various parts of the game, and is one reason why he shunned being in a guild. But the Tea Party group seemed interested in him largely because they want to have fun adventuring together, which he seems to like.
• Engrish: Between the Japanese audience and English audience, one has to wonder what they think of an opening where each side can only understand half of it (unless, of course, they are bilingual).
• Enlightenment Superpower: The Overskills are unconventional in that they are not learned like other skills. The basics of all of them are as simple as can be, but they can't be taught. Instead, a given adventurer simply realizes them in the right state of mind after facing themselves and training.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Soujiro. Dolce probably joined his guild for him. Magus, the mastermind behind the PKers and Hamelin, is also blatantly in love with Soujiro, even stating so in one of their confrontations.
• Evil Counterpart: Minami to Akihabara. At the same time that Shiroe was trying to unite the major guilds and form the Round Table Council, Nureha was manipulating the Lander nobles and managed to purchase the cathedral, thus gaining full control of Minami. Every Adventurer in Minami was then forced to join Plant Hwayden. Having only one guild united the Adventurers of Minami and solved the issue of large/small guilds. The city closed itself to the outside world, to the point where even Shiroe could barely obtain any intel. However, this created a dictatorship and rule by fear, as the Adventurers are terrified of losing access to the cathedral. Minami is essentially what Akihabara could have become had Shiroe failed in creating the Round Table Council or had he chosen to solve Akihabara's problems in another way.
• Evolving Credits: Season 2's opening uses the same song from the first season, but displays new characters introduced that season, along with some of the first season characters wearing new outfits.
• Exact Words: Henrietta wasn't lying during the negotiations with the guildmasters of the three biggest production guilds in Akihabara: the Crescent Moon Alliance was undertaking an important campaign, the guild required a large amount of gold to make it possible, and the rewards at the end would be new recipes for food. It's not her fault that Charasin, Michitaka, and Roderick assumed it was an in-game quest, rather than a campaign, in the real-world definition of the word, to make Akihabara a better place. Also, the recipes were recipes ... just the literal kind, not the in-game menu kind.
• Experience Booster: EXP Pots. They double XP gained and remove the XP penalties from fighting lower leveled monsters.
• Expy: The Goblin King is very remeniscent of Ganon. A minor character in the raid against the Royal Guard is someone who looks like Tuxedo Kamen Then in Season 2 episode 14 we got Chun Lu... with her trademark buns. Also is episode 14, we've got Leonardo.
• External Retcon: The light novel doesn't detail how Shiroe and company learn about how death works, just that they had learned that you would respawn if you died. This is further explored in the West Wind Brigade side story, when Shouji is killed by City Guards. He's indicated in the manga as being the first person to die; the anime is unspecific about who it was but by all appearances the guy shown as being the first person to respawn in the anime adaptation was NOT Shouji. In fact, the West Wind Brigade manga has a number of instances such as this.
• Famed In-Story:
  • Debauchery Tea Party, of which Shiroe was a member, is fairly famous among the Elder Tale community due to its existence outside of the guild system and its many accomplishments.
  • Shiroe himself has some fame due to his role in the Tea Party and skills as a free-lance raider. This goes even further when it's revealed the Landers have kept chronicles on the Adventurers from when Elder Tale was a game. Ri Gan is in awe of Shiroe and Kinjo refers to him as "the Archmage of the Tea Party".
• Fanservice: Downplayed, in the anime. Being aired on NHK, even partial nudity is forbidden.
• The Fellowship Has Ended: The Debauchery Tea Party traveled together for years with the goal of exploring Elder Tales and having fun together. Shortly after Kanami and several other members had to leave for personal reasons, the group parted ways and barely talked to one another since.
• Fighter, Mage, Thief:
  • The initial party and proto Log Horizon guild included Naotsugu (Guardian), Shiroe (Enchanter), Akatsuki (Assassin— not Ninja).
  • Back then during the glory days of Debauchery Tea Party, it was Naotsugu, Shiroe, and Nyanta (Swashbuckler).
• Five-Man Band: The rookies of Log Horizon (plus Serara) form a rather unconventional one. Minori is The Leader following in Shiroe's footsteps. She is not the team's best fighter (in direct combat she's the team's backup healer), but rather their strategist and tactical commander. Touhya is The Lancer because he is Minori's main combat partner and the team's best fighter and tank. Rudy is The Big Guy despite also being a Squishy Wizard because he has a loud and boisterous personality and is The Team's primary damage-dealer as a mage. Isuzu is The Smart Girl because while she's not the 'smartest one' of the team (that's Minori) her combat role is providing a myriad of Buffs and Debuffs. Serara is The Medic because she's the team's primary Healer (and also their cook).
• Flavor Text: Interestingly, the various descriptions on items that was originally just miscellaneous background information is starting to become real.
  • Blacksmiths find that they can write flavor text on new equipment. This leads to repercussions when a sword with the description that it belonged to an Ancient raid boss finds its way to a Royal Guard, and Misa's Calamity Hearts description ending up being Exactly What It Says on the Tin.
  • Shiroe's knowledge of the Sage of Miral Lake was flavor text on items, as he describes verbatim in the episode, "World Fraction." What made this text important was that Shiroe discovers that the Sage not only existed but invites him to talk, giving him a substantial insight into the Apocalypse, side effects in Adventurer deaths, the history of the world as the Sages had documented it, and the true scale of magic spells.
• Forced Sleep: The Astral Hypnos spell used by Enchanters.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Prior to the big reveal, the anime did everything but say outright that Rundelhous is a Lander. This included flat-out showing it ( His name display was always that of a Lander), and simply saying nothing about it.
  • Due to Volume 6 and 7 of the light novels occuring simultaneously, events that occur in volume 6 foreshadows what will happen in volume 7.
  • The end of episode 24 essentially foreshadows the upcoming events of season 2.
• For the Evulz: One reason for players who have taken up Player Killing; they couldn't get away with such an evil act in real life so here it is fun.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus:
  • The game interfaces provides a quite a lot of information whenever they briefly appear on screen. In Episode 1 for example, Shiroe's griffon whistle is shown while he is browsing his inventory list. His friend list also contains quite a few Early Bird Cameos. More significantly, before Shiroe accessed his friend list, he scrolled past a status box which showed that the public zone he is in is available for purchase.
  • There's an instance is during episode 14, when Minori and her companions were having breakfast, specifically the scene with Isuzu and Rundelhous, which displays their status. Isuzu's displays as "Human/Adventurer", while Rundelhous' shows "Human/Sorcerer" instead, and whats more the latter's status shows a different color to Isuzu's (green to Isuzu's blue). Also, Isuzu can't add Rundelhous to her friend list. This is a hint that Rudy isn't an adventurer at all, but a Lander pretending to be one.
• Funny Background Event:
  • In episodes 2 and 3, Naotsugu's griffon could be seen trying to chew Naotsugu's head in the background while Shiroe and Akatsuki were having a conversation.
  • Another instance is Misa, Krusty's aide, quietly putting six spoons worth of sugar into her coffee during the discussion in episode 12, and looking absolutely delighted while she was doing so.
• Game-Breaker: In-Universe example. Later books introduce the concept of "Kouden", translated more commonly as "Overskill". For the majority of players trapped in Elder Tales, these are abilities that are rumored to transcend old class skills in use, giving them a near-mythical reputation. In truth, the so-called Overskills are existing class or subclass skills, just used creatively in ways the original game never intended before it became "real" for everyone. For example, Nyanta's way of cooking food with real flavor is considered this. Many of the book characters are confirmed to be users of these.
• The Game Come to Life: Everything looks real, but the pervading presence of game mechanics mixed in keeps reminding the trapped players of Elder Tale the game. On the other hand, the NPCs are far more life-like than they were in the game and their world has history beyond the game's flavor text. This leads Shiroe to hypothesize that they are not actually in a game at all.
• Genre Savvy:
  • Shiroe and his friends discussed the similarity of their situation to fantasy manga and light novels, even considering the possibility of dying in real life if they lose their HP.
  • Nyanta. First in the anime to deduce how to utilize game skills to manipulate real life (though this is how combat is performed, it isn't shown that Shiroe makes this connection). The fact that he has demonstrated that game mechanics can be invoked by actually performing the task (cooking) while simultaneously demonstrating that real-life mechanics can be augmented by game skills (only high-level chefs can actually create recipes and food) is reaching high levels of savvy in this genre.
• G.I.R.L.:
  • Averted for the most part. Because Elder Tale mainly uses voice communication rather than keyboard, most players ended up making their avatar the same as their gender.
    • Episode 6 of season 2 presents that those trapped in the wrong body slowly gain characteristics of the other gender, such as their voices becoming more feminine (or masculine for a girl in a guy's body).
  • Inverted. Akatsuki is a girl in real life but she can't hide her unmistakably feminine voice, and quaffs a model-changing potion to have a more fitting appearance.
  • Played more straight in Volume 7 with Tetra, who was a male who just so happened to be trapped in a female cleric avatar. Only Shiroe figures this out. Episode 13 of season 2 has Touya and Rundlehaus discuss how obvious it is, and the complications in addressing him/her.
  • Magus from the West Wind Brigade manga spinoff turns out to be one as well.
  • Alakshmi, a character from the fanfiction-turned canon novel D.D.D Diaries is also one.
  • During his time on the beta testing server, Shiroe had a female Summoner called Roe2.In season 2, she shows up, having gained her own intelligence.
• Girl's Night Out Episode: In Volume 6 of the light novel, with Krusty/Issac off raiding the Goblin King and Shiroe/Naotsugu off on a mission to Susukino, the novel centers on Akatsuki and various girls of Akihabara as they deal with a crisis in the city.
• Girly Girl: Cute and friendly girls who often think about romance are the key to solving a crisis that had Shiroe stumped. The random social disturbances in the Libra Festival, ranging from antagonistic merchants to domestic quarrels, can't be countered with any other means.
• Giving Up the Ghost: Henrietta does this in episode 8 of season 2 after being overloaded with Cuteness Proximity due to the pajama party they were taking part in.
• Going Commando: Much to the dismay of the Adventurers, underwear doesn't exist in Elder Tales. Once its revealed that players can craft items manually, a massive demand erupted over the manufacturing of underwear (especially among the female Adventurers). It got to the point where it became one of the most profitable profession with the average piece of underwear selling for the same price as a mid-tier magical item.
• God Is Good: Implied. Automatic respawning in a cathedral has a "saved by divine grace" air to it.
• Godlike Gamer: The titular Log Horizon guild, who are renowned as a legendary guild in the RPG Verse they are trapped in. This is especially the case for The Protagonist, Shiroe, who is a master strategist. The guild's strength lies in their ability to work together in perfect coordination in accordance with Shiroe's exceptional planning skill.
• Gondor Calls for Aid: Raynesia offers to go to Akihabara to ask the adventurers directly for help in defeating the goblin armies after talks between the nobles and adventurer leaders goes nowhere. Although she doesn't think anyone would seriously help, they're all smitten by her speech and looks, as well as being hyped up for a major event/quest in the game. As a result, practically everyone present volunteers.
• Good Feels Good: Why Shiroe is helping the Crescent Moon Alliance; they're friends and he'd rather do good than player kill.
• Got Volunteered: The Adventurers when the Round Table is invited to attend a conference organised by the Eastal League. To summarise, Krusty doesn't really want to be there because he's lazy but is volunteered by Isaac and Soujirou, Shiroe is basically ordered to go by all ten of the other representatives, and the crafting guild leaders have a best-of-eleven match of Rock–Paper–Scissors, ending in the other two saying Michitaka would be happy to go (while Michitaka himself is washed out of all color and apparently crying on the table).
• Gratuitous English: Loads
  • The series name (and eponymous guild name) Log Horizon. Shiroe's gives it a Japanese and an English name, and the Japanese name properly translates to "Horizon of the Records", as in records of a...database.
  • A ton of in game terms, cooldowns being referred to as "recast time" is common.
  • The opening theme Database is 3/4 English.
• Green-Eyed Monster: All of the patrons at the cake eating contest in episode 22 look at Shiroe with envy as he's sharing cake with both Minori and Akatsuki. To make matters worse, both girls also insist on feeding him, causing him to think that fighting multiple raid bosses would be a less difficult situation than the one he's currently in.
• Grew a Spine: Shrinking Violet Princess Raynesia's decision to appeal directly to the Adventurers for help.
• Half-Identical Twins: Minori and Touya. Although Touya's hair is cut very short, they look incredibly similar down to having identical heights.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: This trope is discussed between Rezarick and Shiroe regarding training landers for combat. Rezarick suggests leading the landers to monsters far above their level and then keeping them in the background while his Black Sword guild kills the monsters. This way the landers can share the experience and level up quickly without doing any hard work. Shiroe notes that while this may increase their stats it won't make them any better at fighting. They ultimately settle on a mixed approach.
• Heavy Equipment Class: The only classes who can equip heavy armor are the frontline tank classes "Guardian" and "Samurai", and the Clerics, who are frontline healers. The rest have to contend with light armor or no armor at all.
• He Is Not My Boyfriend: What Isuzu says to Minori and Serara in episode 17 of season 2 when they ask what her relationship with Rudy is. She then turns the tables on them, and asks Serara about her relationship with Nyanta, while asking Minori about hers with Shiroe.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Even the heavily-armored Guardian-class characters generally don't wear helmets.
• Henpecked Husband: To everyone's surprise, Demicas is this to Upashi. For double the irony, his wife is a Lander, the same people he and his guild abused indiscriminately during the first book.
• Heroic Sacrifice: Rudy gets the attention of the two dire wolves attacking Tohya along with a hobgoblin, since the three are too much for the latter on his own. The wolves do massive damage to him, but he also casts a large explosion spell which knocks both of them out of the picture. Unfortunately the damage was extremely severe to Rudy himself, and the group finds out that their revive and healing spells don't work on him.
• High-Pressure Emotion: Akatsuki's face is completely red with steam rising from her head after Shiroe catches her secretly learning how to dance in episode 13.
• Hopeless War: In the world of Elder Tales, the Landers were on the brink of collapse as the result of an endless war with demihumans. The reason is because demihumans just reincarnate after death, whereas Landers die permanently.
• Hope Spot: Zigzagged in episode 20 of season 2:
  • Played straight with the Odyssey Knights. The Landers look to them for protection when the wyvern horde shows up. Unfortunately, though they eventually take care of the problem, many buildings in the town, and presumably Landers, get destroyed in the process. Shortly afterwards, they get up and go, forcing the Landers to clean up the mess they made out of the town, and giving them a more negative opinion of adventurers in general.
  • Averted with Isuzu's song. She at first thinks the Landers will lump their group in with the Odyssey Knights due to being adventurers, and therefore being blamed for the destruction of the town. However, they begin hearing Landers sing the song she created, giving them a new song they've never heard of before, as well as the hope they so desperately needed to start rebuilding. Several of them comment that eventually the song will spread to other areas, meaning all their efforts ultimately didn't entirely go to waste.
• How Do I Shot Web?: After Elder Tales become real, people have trouble using their menu-activated skills in the heat of combat. Fortunately, Don't Think, Feel happens to apply.
• Hub City: In Yamato, Akihabara, Shibuya, Minami, Susukino and Nakasu are the major cities where Adventurers operate from. Akihabara is the main Adventurer city of Yamato and the only one that remains stable. Of the others, being a newer city, Shibuya is all but abandoned, Susukino fell into anarchy with most of the population fleeing for Akihabara until the Silver Swords kicked out Brigandia and brought order, Minami became a dictatorship after Nureha purchased all the major buildings, including the Cathedral, and Nakasu's status remains unknown. In North America, the main hub city is New York City, which in the wake of the Apocalypse, fell into complete chaos.
• Huge Guy, Tiny Girl:
  • Almost any adult male character will be this next to Akatsuki.
  • The giraffe-suited summoner from the Black Sword Knights in episode 10 is also this compared to all of her male comrades (not just Isaac). Her giraffe headdress reaches most of the guys' chests. She herself is at their waists.
  • Krusty when he's around Raynesia, especially when wearing his armor.
• Humanoid Abomination:
  • Adventurers look human to the Landers but they have alien thought processes, re-spawn like demi-humans, and possess superhuman abilities. There's also the fact that they arrived from beyond the skies after the second use of World Fraction, a world-class magic spell. Also, the Genii.
  • See also player alts and bots, which after the apocalypse gained life and intelligence of their own.
• Humans Are Cthulhu: To the Landers. Unlike them Adventurers have automatic access to combat abilities and magic powers, regularly slay monsters for fun and profit, can harm other Adventurers and Landers, possess knowledge of a completely alien reality outside the game world (i.e. Earth), can innovate things never imagined before... and so much more. However the fact that Adventurers are effectively immortal and Landers die permanently, is the strongest awe and fear factor.
• I Am What I Am: William's speech to his guild after their Total Party Kill involves him accepting the faults of his own character and refusing to give up because raiding is what he loves.
• Imagine Spot: Serara has a couple of these in episode 17 of season 2 when thinking about Nyanta.
• I Like Those Odds: When Naotsugu and Tetra learn the odds, they persist in joining Shiroe anyway.
• Immortality Field: Adventurers revive in a cathedral when they are killed because of the world's mechanics as an MMORPG. However, Landers don't.
• Infinity +1 Sword: Phantasmal-class gear, so rare that only one copy can exist per server.
• Ink-Suit Actor: In-Universe. Shiroe notes that his and Naotsugu's avatars are spot-on in terms of facial features. He theorizes that this is true for everyone, but wonders exactly how it works for non-humans or Cross Players.
• I Owe You My Life: Akatsuki is extremely loyal to Shiroe because he saved her from having to live with dissonant appearance.
• I Shall Taunt You: In episode 4, Shiroe keeps on taunting the Brigandia guild master Demikas by purposely mispronouncing his name ("demi-glace" and "delicious") to enrage him and get him separated from his main party. All According to Plan.
• Istanbul (Not Constantinople): The Japanese server of Elder Tales is named as "Yamato" and its five regions have their names derived from their corresponding regions in real life Japan. Ezzo Empire corresponds to Hokkaido (Ezo being the old name for Hokkaido), League of Freedom Cities Eastal corresponds to the Kanto region (lit. "east of the gate"), Holy Empire Westelande corresponds to the Kansai region (lit. "west of the gate"), Fourland Dukedom corresponds to Shikoku (lit. "four provinces") and Ninetail Dominions corresponds to Kyushu (lit. "nine provinces").
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: An unforeseen development in the wake of the Catastrophe, and no, this isn't connected to the Landers at all. Showcased through Coppelia, a Chinese gold-farming and real-money transfer bot that gained sentience when Elder Tales became "real".
• Item Crafting: Players can craft items using a menu system to automatically produce goods based on their skill level. It is eventually discovered that players are not limited to the crafting items within Elder Tale's database, and can manually create their own inventions with their own hands. This leads to the discovery of cooked food with taste, and inventions like a steam engine, which is further refined by adding magical components, effectively creating Magitek.
• Japanese Mythology: The explanation for how the respawn and resurrection mechanics work is actually a very clever nod to Shinto mythology. Particularly, the "kon" (or "psyche") and "paku" or ("animus") are directly lifted from Shinto belief on the Anatomy of the Soul.
• Japanese Spirit: This trope is subjected to a Decon-Recon Switch in this series. Atypical of most anime, the main character is not an Idiot Hero or Book Dumb, and thus the story does not bend over backward to make sheer Determination the highest virtue possible. In fact, the Training Camp arc goes out of its way to demonstrate how fighting spirit and Training from Hell alone are a recipe for disaster. At the same time, however, it's still shown that Resolve (another of the three virtues of the trope) has its purpose, and that although strategy is absolutely necessary, there are times when you need to act. At one point, they even paraphrase a Samurai mantra which states that failure to act when necessary makes one no better than those already dead. Thus far, the Japanese Spirit trope is kept in delicate balance with pragmatism.
• Jerkass: If there's one constant across the novels and its spinoffs, it's that Hamelin is a guild completely composed of irredeemable jerkasses, and deserve everything that's coming to them. Funnily enough, the level of douchebaggery of Hamelin varies between media. In the main novels and Honey Moon Logs, they're shown as abusive perpetrators of child labor, while in West Wind Brigade they also apparently do player killing and sexual assault on the side. Add these together, and it's no wonder no one sympathizes with them.
• Justified Trope: EVERY game mechanic has a justification in the lore.

K to R

• Karmic Death: The player killers who try to ambush Shiroe and his group in episode 2 get utterly curbstomped by them.
• Killed Off for Real: In the first episode, Shiroe's group discuss whether or not this is the case now that Elder Tales is a VR. The second episode confirms this is not the case because a guy respawns in the cathedral like normal. However, any Lander whom dies is Killed Off for Real and can never be resurrected once their anima fully dissipates. But it doesn't mean you can't Take a Third Option.
• The Leader:
  • Shiroe was formerly the head tactician of Debauchery Tea Party. After being trapped in the game he acts as the de-facto leader of his party and eventually becomes the leader of his guild.
  • Kanami acted as the leader of Debauchery Tea Party, leading the group all sorts of adventures in the name of having fun playing the game.
  • The Akihabarian Army that marches to fight the Goblin King's army is lead by a triumvirate; Krusty as the general, Shiroe as the strategist and Raynesia as the figurehead/morale builder.
• Lethal Chef: Anyone who doesn't have sufficient levels in cooking produces either tasteless mush or toxic waste.
• Level Grinding: The reason why EXP Pots are valuable commodities is that they increase the pace of EXP gain and thus help guilds like the Black Swords climb higher.
• Lightning Glare: Poor Naotsugu is caught in between one between Tetra and Marie in episode 12 of season 2.
• Loners Are Freaks:
  • While Shiroe has lots of friends^note his friends list is massive and is sociable with everyone around him, he has an aversion to joining a guild. He eventually gets over it, though Log Horizon is still one of the smaller guilds.
  • Akatsuki shuns being part of a guild, though her reasoning is that assassins are lone wolves and doesn't have anything to do with social trauma.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Within cities, the powerful guard NPCs step in to punish any player who harms another. However, this only applies to actions that lower Hit Points, so things that simply cause pain don't count, or sexual assault.
  • Being a minor guild of only four people (at the start), Log Horizon would ordinarily have been excluded from any conference involving the high-level guilds, but because Shiroe called for and organised the Round Table conference, that earns him a seat at the Round Table Council.
  • In episode 22, Shiroe is allowed by the organizer of the couple's cake eating contest to take both Minori and Akatsuki. Unfortunately this earns the ire of every other patron, particularly when the two girls insist on feeding him. On top of that, they have to finish twelve whole cakes (as opposed to slices that the other couples had) in order to win the competition.
  • Unlike Adventurers, when Landers die, they die for good. This very nearly happens to Rudy following his Heroic Sacrifice in the Goblin King Invasion arc. As he's dying, Shiroe draws up a magical contract which would theoretically make the former an Adventurer, thus saving his life. It works... by making "Adventurer" his Sub-class.
• Lord British Postulate: Not for an NPC this time, but one of the topics the conversation between Shiroe and Nureha go over is whether or not it's possible to permanently kill off an adventurer, who would just respawn at a cathedral anyway. While for Shiroe it becomes something of an intellectual exercise, for his companion it's a big deal as she believes that she's haunted by the spirits of the adventurers she blacklisted from accessing Minami's cathedral.
• Loss of Identity: As time goes on, Adventurers are finding that they are becoming more and more like their avatars. GIRLs are starting to act more and more like their avatar's gender along with their voices becoming more masculine/feminine. This along with the loss of old world memories after every death means that eventually, all Adventurers will truly go native in Elder Tales.
• Lost Technology: Many of the MMO aspects such as the banking system, Fairy Rings, Royal Guards, and the currency system are all ancient Alv technologies. No one knows how they work and they cannot be replicated. The entire Kunie clan are charged with managing these technologies, having sworn an oath to remain completely neutral and stay out of politics.
• Love Epiphany: Minori realizes this in episode 22 towards Shiroe. Unfortunately she also realizes Akatsuki likes him too, after seeing her rubbing Shiroe's forehead in a romantic fashion. She runs off crying.
• Lover Tug of War:
  • Naotsugu is caught in one between Tetra and Marie in episode 12 of season 2.
  • Shiroe is caught in a three way version between Akatsuki, Minori, and Tetra in episode 22 of season 2, after all three insist he go with them to get their various favorite sweets. Several others look in horror as the three of them pull him.
• Love Triangle:
  • Between Shiroe, Akatsuki and Minori. Brought up to Love Dodecahedron as Henrietta also shows signs of interest, and Nureha seems very interested in Shiroe's actions thus far.
  • This crops up again in episode 13 of season 2 during Valentine's Day. Nyanta is understandably hesitant to get involved when both Minori and Akatsuki ask him for help in preparing some sweets for Shiroe. But Tetra sees some amusement in it, and suggests they both work together on it.
• Magic A Is Magic A: The Spirit Theory, which is an actual theory within the world of Elder Tales on how Landers permanently die and Adventurers/demihumans respawn. Shiroe uses this theory to develop a contract to give Landers the Adventurer subclass. The implications of this are earth-shattering, to say the least, and Shiro is keenly aware of it. For this reason, he's sworn to keep it an absolute secret.
• Meaningful Background Event: The opening Info Dump of Episode 13 details demi-humans, specifically talking about goblins. The end of the segment displays the main place goblins can be found and shows that their numbers are growing, hinting at the coming of the Goblin King the adventurers will have to deal with later.
• Meaningful Name:
  • Coppelia, a gold-farming bot, who is named after the doll girl from the play, Coppélia.
  • The guild "Hamelin" does what the eponymous piper of the "Piper of Hamelin" folk tale did - lure away children with sweet talk, promises and entertainment. The children, young low-level players in this case, were then enslaved and forced to create items and give away Exp Pots farmed to be sold in a mirror version to a drug cartel.
• Midseason Upgrade: Akatsuki learns a new hidden skill in episode 8 of season 2, as well as obtaining a new weapon to help her defeat the murderer roaming around Akihabara.
  • If you pay attention to the second seasons ending song, all of LH's sub level 90's will be getting one soon.
• Mission Control:
  • Minori briefly acts as this in episode 17 for her group.
  • Shiroe's tactical tent in episode 19 featured a half-dozen girls performing this role for his real-time telepathic command and control network.
• Mistaken for Gay: In episode 22, Minori tells her brother Tohya that she likes Shiroe. He says it was obvious, and says he admires him as well, causing her to assume he liked Shiroe this way. He immediately clarifies his position to her.
• Mistaken for Pedophile: When college-aged Shiroe takes Minori and Akatsuki to the cake-eating contest, the fact that the two girls he's with are apparently both middle schoolers just adds to the ire of the staff and patrons. One of their cakes even had "Die lolicon" iced on top of it.
• Moe: invoked Shiroe weaponizes this during the Libra Festival. To combat Lord Marves' plan to stir up social unrest and undermine the Round Table Council, he uses Soujiro's harem. "It's hard to cause trouble when you're surrounded by young girls".
• Moment Killer: Done twice in episode 13 of season 2:
  • Akatsuki warps in to wherever Naotsugu was at with Marielle to kick him in the head before he says anything perverted, only to then disappear right away.
  • After feeding Shiroe a cake baked with a fruit that's supposed to make them confess who they love, both Akatsuki and Minori are unable to ask. Touya then returns from training, and asks what's for dinner, only for Shiroe to then say he loves curry.
• Money Spider:
  • Defeated enemies very blatantly drop coins and potions. This becomes a plot point later on in the story. Where does all this gold come from?
  • This causes annoyances for hunters trying to collect meat. Killing a 200-kilogram animal will result in the corpse despawning and dropping two kilograms of meat. The only way to get a reasonable amount of meat is to capture it alive and bring it to a chef who can butcher it properly.
• Mook Horror Show: Shiroe realizes that for the Kunie clan the raid on their base of operations must be horrifying. To them, the raid is an army of superpowered warriors wiping out their most powerful defenses. Even if they're killed they'll just get back up and keep fighting like zombies.
• Mr. Exposition: Shiroe does a lot of explanations on how the world works, as well as various spells and attacks used in Elder Tale.
• NEET: Princess Raynesia, who'd rather spend her day in her room the whole day wearing comfortable flannel pajamas rather than attend a stuffy meeting between nobles. Krusty's ability to manage her is in part because his sister's a NEET as well
• Mundane Made Awesome: In episode 25, Minori compares the Libra Festival's Management to a dungeon raiding party. Granted, a lander noble was engaging in social sabotage and stirring up domestic unrest so it was something of a serious battle but when she says things like "I will defend the rear line with my life" and sets down to push papers, it sounds like this trope.
• Never Say "Die": Played with. They talk about it at first but once they find out that perma-death is impossible, they only talk about 'sending you to the cathedral'.
• Never Tell Me the Odds!: In book 7 and in episode 10 of the second season, Shiroe reveals to both Tetra and Naotsugu that he has a new plan after the Silver Swords raid group gets wiped. The catch? Even then he thinks they only have a 15% chance of succeeding anyway.
• News Travels Fast:
  • Phantasmal-class items are incredibly rare items where only one exists per server. When someone obtains one, their name is broadcasted to the entire server.
  • The news of "good-tasting food" travels pretty rapidly with people coming from other towns and cities to try it out. One guy rushed to tell his guildmaster, only to find that the guy was already eating a Crescent Moon burger.
• Next Sunday A.D.: The flashback scene in episode 14 showing the log-in screen of the Elder Tales beta version reveals that it was released in 1998, and considering that the game has a 20-year old history, this would mean that this series is set in 2018.
• New Life in Another World Bonus: There are perks for simply being an Adventurer. Gaining experience at four times the rate as a native of the world, coupled with the ability to come back after death. In addition, the majority of Aventurers start off at high levels already. What makes this series unusual is that every former Player gets this, rather than it being unique to the protagonists.
• Ninja: Akatsuki calls herself one, but technically she's an assassin. She justifies it through her subclass of Tracker in combination with her main class, making a close proximity.
• No-Harm Requirement: Following the discovery of how to create real food in the game world, the adventurers begin collecting wildlife for use as ingredients. However, only someone with the chef subclass can get the most out of any one kill, which necessitates having to capture the beasts alive and bringing them to the chefs, which is considerably more difficult than killing them outright.
• Not a Date: Isuzu touring the festival with Rudy isn't a date, it's "walking her dog."
• "Not So Different" Remark:
  • Magus calls Soujirou this, trying to get Soujirou to help him in his venture to "bring back" what Elder Tales used to be.
  • Despite Shiroe's moodiness, awkwardness, and tendency to isolate himself, the Abyssal Shaft raid party members acknowledge they're in little position to judge, since they're all gamers with poor social skills and many of the same personality traits.
• Off the Rails: Ever since Elder Tales became real, quests/monsters can go beyond their established roles and scripted events can lead to this.
  • In one incident, a raid drop sword flavored as containing the spirit of an insane Ancient raid boss found its way to Akihabara, where it was picked up by a Royal Guard and got possessed by said Ancient, granting it all its abilities. In the game, the boss gained HP based on the number of characters in the zone. The original method of defeating it was to escort all NPCs out of the zone in order to reduce its HP to a manageable level. Now, because its in Akihabara with 15,000 Adventurers and thousands of Landers, on top of being a Royal Guard, it became unkillable and rampaged for days in the city before Akatsuki and the girls Take a Third Option and shut down Akihabara's Royal Guard system.
  • In another incident, Shiroe and the Silver Swords were raiding a dungeon and fighting one of the bosses when they received a VERY unwelcome surprise as the two other raid bosses within the dungeon had left their respective lairs to assist the one they were fighting. Since each boss is individually designed for an entire raid to defeat, it quickly led to a Total Party Kill. One raid boss even intentionally damaged itself in order to spawn additional monsters.
• Older Than They Look/Younger Than They Look:
  • After the events of the Apocalypse, all the players ended up in the body of their game avatar, with the only thing retained being their real life face. This means it's impossible to judge someones age/gender by their physical appearance. However, most players made their avatar similar to their real body.
  • Akatsuki turns out to be in college, much to the guys' shock.
• Once an Episode: Someone will adjust their glasses, or mimic the motion of arranging their glasses, despite not wearing any themselves. The total number of times this happens over the course of the series was, of course, tracked◊.
• Online Alias: Most characters also use username instead of their real name even some of them have their friends who learnt his/her real name.
• Only Known by Their Nickname: Justified as players frequently use his/her/their Online Alias and only, sometimes not, your guildmates know their name. Being Japanese, they must think it's rude to call someone by name which they are not-formally-introduced.
• "On the Next Episode of..." Catch-Phrase: Several, all delivered by Shiroe. The first season started with "This is our reality"; during the training camp arc, it switched to "Always look thirty seconds ahead." The final catchphrase, "We will change the world," appeared about when Shiroe turned Rudy into an Adventurer. The second season used "Rise up, once more" for the Akihabara and Abyssal Shaft raid arcs. The Kanami arc is using "I have friends to run with me."
• Ontological Mystery: Before the series began, Elder Tale was just an ordinary, non-VR RPG. The players have no idea how they got stuck inside a real-life version with a broken logout button, but they suspect it has something to do with the anticipated 'Homesteading the Noosphere' update.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: an understated but significant one. When Shiroe doesn't complete his glasses push in season 2, episode 24, there's a brief reaction shot of the people close to him looking surprised. It happens again later that episode, after it becomes clear Shiroe is definitely not on the ball.
• Outside-the-Box Tactic: Due to the game becoming real, its possible to utilize strategies and twist the established game rules to do things people had never thought of before. Examples of this are the Overskills, which utilizes/combines class skills in such a way to create something entirely new, and the plan Rieze came up with to defeat the Murderer. Because Lugrias would increase his stats based on the number of Adventurers within a 50 meter radius, they could only fight him with a bare minimum number of people to avoid increasing his stats too much. Attacking him with long range spells is also not an option since longest range for spells is only 20 meters. Her solution to this? Lure him into the bottom floor of a multi-story building while her group is on the top floor (and thus outside the 50 meter radius), cast a bunch of ice spells, and let gravity do the rest.
• Painful Transformation: Akatsuki's change in body model. She screams as if she's being murdered horribly!
• Palette Swap: The bosses of the Depths of Palm raid dungeon are reskins of bosses from earlier raids. Its even commented upon that "data gets reused all the time".
• Persona Non Grata: Because it would be extremely difficult to punish any offenders within the confines of a city, the method that the Round Table Council uses to deal with people that violate the laws of Akihabara is to simply blacklist them from the city bank, effectively cutting them off from their money and items and forcing them to leave for another city.
• Pinned to the Wall: Happens to Rundelhous in episode 12 when his group encounters some skeleton archers.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Akatsuki is small (especially compared to Shiroe and Naotsugu), but deadly.
• Player Killing: Shiroe thinks some players resorted to this in episode 2 because of the lack of a goal and anything better to do in the game.
• Player Versus Player: Whether or not this is allowed is part of each area's description.
• The Plan: Shiroe's plan to enforce order in Akihabara can be seen as this. First, to obtain the funds he needed, he sought help from the Crescent Moon Alliance, whom he trusted, to open an eatery utilising Nyanta's revolutionary cooking discovery. The eatery was an instant success and not only procured some funds but also attracted the attention of the large guilds. He then persuaded Marielle and Henrietta to negotiate with the large manufacturing guilds for an investment in the eatery in exchange for its secrets. This secured the funds Shiroe needed. Next, he seized the opportunity to call for a meeting among the largest and most influential guilds and proposed the formation of a self-governing council to maintain peace and order in Akihabara and appealed to the guilds through the benefits of doing so. When that failed, he revealed that he had purchased the Guild Hall building, effectively granting him the ability to deny other players the right to access this vital structure. This forced the invited guilds to reach a compromise and the Round Table Council was established. It is later revealed that in case his previous gambit failed, Shiroe has yet another trump card in his sleeve. The Strategist indeed.
• Portal Network: It's offline, forcing players to walk through the game-world from one place to another.
  • This in turn necessitates the Serara Rescue Arc, since she can't simply warp from Susukino to Akihabara. Furthermore, the road out of Susukino is blocked by the Brigandia guild, the leader of which has serious beef with Crescent Moon Alliance.
  • It also supports Shiroe's plan for the Round Table Council. The Guid Building Banks are linked but without the Portal Network, traveling to a different guild building is difficult and certainly not practical.
• Power Armor: The Royal Guards are actually Landers wearing ancient Alv magical power armors. Their power can be adjusted and is currently at the equivalent of a Lv 110 Adventurer. However, they require tremendous amount of magical energy to even function, and each draws upon magical energies from a gigantic magic circle under each city. They are also specifically tuned for the magical circle of city, so they will be useless if any attempts to leave the city they're tied to.
• Rare Random Drop:
  • Normal-Class: Exists for the sole purpose of either being sold to shops or are consumables like arrows.
  • Magical-Class: Common item drops. Can be found everywhere and can be purchased from Landers. Higher level players tend to sell them though.
  • Production-Class: Items created by other players. Depending on skill level, their power ranges from Magical to low-level Artifact-Class tier equipment.
  • Artifact-Class: Obtained via quests/dungeons/monsters.
  • Phantasmal-Class: The rarest of the rare is the Phantasmal-Class items, of which only one of each exists per server. These can only be obtained via raids (quests/dungeons/bosses that require multiple parties to complete). Shiroe, Naotsugu, Soujirou, Krusty, Takayama, Issac, William, some Silver Swords members, and Tetra are all known owners of Phantasmal-Class items. When a player manages to obtain one of these items, his or her name is broadcasted throughout the entire server.
• The Power of Friendship: Akatsuki is able to defeat the murderer in episode 8 of season 2 after she learns to accept her limitations, and trusts in her friends and teammates to help each other out to overcome various difficulties they all face.
• Punched Across the Room: Akatsuki suffers this a few times from the murderer in episode 8 of season 2.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Isaac of the Black Sword Guild and Krusty of the D.D.D. Guild, both of them combat focused guilds and members of the Akihabara Round Table Council. Isaac doesn't wear red clothing, but he does have red hair coloring and the fiery personality to match.
• Really 700 Years Old: Invoked during episode 14. After Ri Gan mentions that Shiroe first appeared in their records 98 years ago, Akatsuki asks him if he's really that old. Shiroe understandably denies it, then remembers that time in the game world goes much faster than in real life, so the 98 years in the game equated to about a little over 8 years in the real world, which was the total elapsed time since he started playing Elder Tale.
• Recurring Extra: The PK-ers Shiroe fights in episode 2 make multiple appearances, basically playing as representatives of average players.
• Rescue Arc:
  • Starting from episode 2. Shiroe must rescue and escort Serara from Susukino to Akihabara (850 km in real life, 425 km in the game) so that she may reunite with her fellow guild members in the Cresent Moon Alliance.
  • After rescuing Serara, Shiroe transitions to freeing Touya and Minori from the Hamelin guild.
• Respawning Enemies: Discussed Trope. After they are killed, Demi-Humans (ie: trash mobs) reincarnate into a new body but with no memory of their former life.
• Revenge by Proxy: Shiroe is convinced by Minori and Akatsuki to enter a cake-eating contest with them, only to have his reputation in Akihabara worsen dramatically. When a restaurant punishes him for this (a contest for whoever can eat the most cake, top eight eating for free, results in Shiroe being given twelve cakes rather than cake slices), he quietly excuses himself, goes back to the guild hall, calls Soujirou and advises him to take his entire 64-person guild and enter the contest, just so they can win and get their money's worth.
• The Reveal:
  • You can have food that doesn't taste like nothing, but you have to cook them while having a decent level in cooking. You know, just like Real Life.
    • Turns out to have farther reaching implications EVERYTHING you could do in real life can be done in game now if you can get the materials. You just have to be able to do it by hand.
  • Rudy's group finds out from Isuzu that he's a Lander. Isuzu knew about it, but was asked to keep it a secret from the others at the time.
• Rousing Speech: Raynesia's appeal to the adventurers of Akiba is surprisingly effective; surprising even herself.
• Run or Die: Played for Laughs in episode 12, after Tohya, Minori, Rundelhous, Serara, and Isuzu do this after they attract more monsters than they can handle. Rundelhous is hilariously still stuck on the wall when they start this. (In the light novel, he just takes the arrow to the head.)
• Running Gag:
  • Naotsugu saying something perverted, causing Akatsuki to knee him in the face and then ask Shiroe for retroactive permission while Naotsugu complains about said acts. And in some cases she doesn't even bother with asking.
  • Henrietta's vulnerability to Akatsuki's cuteness and, later, her unending quest to shove Akatsuki into adorable outfits.
  • Any character with glasses (namely Shiroe, Henrietta, and Krusty) pushing them up. This is so pervasive that even characters without glasses make the motion whenever they want to be seen as crafty. Naotsugu calls this "air glasses".
  • Marielle rolling around on the ground and repeating a whining statement three times whenever she really wants something.
  • Isuzu thinking of Rudy as a golden retriever.
  • Ever since one was first shown in Episode 1, goat slimes pop up in random places throughout Season 2. Sometimes they're shown off front-and-center before acting as scene dressing, other times they act as a Funny Background Event.

S to Z

• Sanity Slippage: By the time of the latter half of season 2, a lot of Adventurers have ended up in this state. As Nyanta notes, the Catastrophe itself was an insanity-inducing event, and there are many Adventurers who never wanted to come the world of Theldesia. Furthermore, they can't go home, no matter how much they want to, which sends them into a downward spiral. Indeed, Nyanta and the junior Log Horizon members had just crossed paths with such Adventurers who were coping especially poorly, such as Londark and the Odysseia Kngihts.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Unwilling to be Henrietta's dress-up doll, Akatsuki runs from the scary lady to hide somewhere in the guild building. Unfortunately, the doors can't be opened and she is doomed to dress as a waitress.
• Secret-Keeper: In episode 19, Isuzu reveals that she knew Rudy was a Lander. However, she was asked to keep it a secret from the others, because Rudy also claimed he was going to become an Adventurer like them, and thus be immortal. Unfortunately, he suffered some major injuries due to some high level monsters attacking their group.
• Senseless Sacrifice: Defied. When Rudy says that "[death] is a natural consequence of battle", Shiroe bitterly decries him for it and says that the point of being an adventurer is not to give up on living so easily, but to learn to do whatever it takes to survive.
• Sequel Hook: For all three seasons.
  • The very end of the first season shows plot points that will figure prominently in the second season: the rogue Guard at Akiba, Demicas and William at Susukino, and the source of all gold coins in Yamato.
  • At the end of the second season, RoE2 is shown on a certain island busy fighting the monsters there, preparing a "gift" for her young friends in Log Horizon as a responsible "onee-san" should be doing. Said island happens to be in Tanegashima, and her "gift" turns out to be an intact launch pad for a space rocket, which is exactly what the heroes need to get to the Moon.
  • At the end of Destruction of the Round Table, the senior members of Log Horizon and Li Gan meet with Shiroe on the balcony of the guild's house as they begin to discuss his planned goodwill visit to Minami, which takes place in the (on hiatus since March 2018) 14th volume of the web novel.
• Serial Killer: One shows up in Akihabara in episodes 4 and 5 of season 2. He manages to murder adventurers inside Akihabara while somehow avoiding triggering the Royal Guard who normally show up when they detect PvP in a safe zone. Some of them also comment that despite landing hits on him, they haven't even put a dent in his health. Raynesia and Akatsuki learn that the murderer stole a set of the armor the Royal Guard uses, which doesn't trigger the alarm, and also makes him nigh invulnerable due to drawing powerful magic directly from a magic circle underneath the city to boost his stats beyond adventurers. The adventurers in Akihabara are forced to deal with him in an unconventional manner due to his ability to gain stats based on how many adventurers are within fifty meters of him.
• Serious Business: Akatsuki in episode 22, regarding finding suitable clothing to wear while attending the cake eating contest with Shiroe. She initially considered Henrietta's advice, but goes against it and instead asks two of the merchant guild leaders for help instead.
• Sexy Santa Dress: Raynesia is put in one in episode 4 of season 2. After she asks if Santa was a guy, none of the characters answer her, until Akatsuki tells her he was. Henrietta then "punishes" her by putting Akatsuki in a cute reindeer outfit next to Raynesia.
• Shout-Out: see the subpage.
• Show, Don't Tell: Something that had to be done, as the long-winded exposition found in the light novels don't exactly translate well when animated. A good example would be the mechanics of area ownership, which Henrietta demonstrates in episode 7 by making Akatsuki helpless while she was within the Crescent Moon Alliance's territory.
• Simultaneous Arcs: Volumes 6 and 7 of the light novels occur at the same time, from Akatsuki and Shiroe's point of view.
• Sleep Cute: During the end credits of Season 2, Akatsuki is sleeping on Log Horizon's couch and looking more adorable than usual in her various postures. Humorously, when Naotsugu walks in, Akatsuki's legs happening to be pointed in the right direction and when she comes out of her Imagine Spot, he has indeed been knocked to the ground.
• Sliding Scale of Gameplay and Story Integration: As the story progresses, the flavor text of items eventually becomes significant, with it have real effects in the world of Elder Tale. Prior, it was just meaningless backstory.
• Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism: Unlike most anime where the theme of being trapped in a MMORPG (i.e. Sword Art Online, .hack) tend to be cynical, this anime takes this concept into the idealistic side. First, the protagonist serves as a Big Brother Mentor who prefers to work as a group or a team. Second, the mood is very light-hearted with more heartwarming and funny scenes (as opposed to Sword Art Online where there are more Tear Jerker and dramatic moments). Finally, there is no permanent death, meaning getting killed is really cheap (across from losing a few items and gold). Until the reveal that dying causes you to gradually lose your memories.
• Smart People Wear Glasses:
  • Shiroe, the mage-strategist and resident Enchanter, wears glasses.
  • Krusty, the leader of D.D.D., who's shown himself to be just as shrewd as Shiroe, albeit in different areas (Shiroe is better with long term, Krusty is better with short term).
  • Henrietta, the brains behind Cresent Moon Alliance.
  • Indicus, the Man Behind the Man of Minami.
• Smurfette Principle:
  • Marielle is the only female member in the 11-member Round Table Council. No longer the case with the restructured New Round Table Council, which Princess Raynesia was elected to lead, and where Rieze is also a sitting member.
  • Inverted with Akatsuki's Raid Group in Season 2. The Maidens of Watermaple is made up of female players.
• Sneeze Cut: In episode 8 after Henrietta commented on Shiroe's notoriety, the scene cuts to him sneezing, making him wondering whether it is possible to catch a cold in the new world.
• So What Do We Do Now?: Most players are thrown into existential angst after realizing that they can't permanently die, let alone have any idea of what they should do. Some of them unfortunately turn to Player Killing.
• Spanner in the Works: Malves Garitier attempts to cause disruption during the festival in Akihabara, by making the Round Table and Reynesia look bad with a lot of disruptions from the Landers. But thanks to Minori, Shiroe is able to figure out what Malves was up to, and with the help of several of the other Round Table leaders, calls Malves out on his bluff, and he ends up leaving in a huff after they come up with counters to everything he tried to complain about.
• Speed, Smarts and Strength: the protagonist Shiroe is The Strategist and brains, his Bromantic Foil Naotsugu is The Tank and thus brawn, and their new friend Akatsuki is a Ninja and thus speed.
• Spell My Name With An S: The update which transported the players into Elder Tale is often translated as "Novasphere Pioneers", a meaningless Word Salad Title. But in some cases, it is translated as "Homesteading the Noosphere", which the author confirms is a reference to this essay. In fact, the essay was the basis for the series.
  • Some of the names in this series in the Crunchyroll translations are transliterated differently from that of the original novels, most notably "Lenessia" for Raynesia.
  • The anime can't even agree on the correct spelling for Rundelhaus. It's been spelled: "Rundellhous Kode" in the anime itself (his voice actor chose this name), "Rundel Haus" (BD 4), and "Rundellhaus" (BD 5). Of course, the light novel gives its own spelling: "Rundelhaus".
  • The Yen On English-language localizations themselves have switched to "Rundelhaus" and "Marielle" by Volume 4.
  • Funimation picking up Destruction of the Round Table and going back to sub the first two seasons compounds this even further. On one hand, they do match the Yen On localized names in some cases, such as calling Akiba as such where Crunchyroll would call the city Akihabara. On the other hand, they call Touya "Toya" and render the West Wind Brigade as the "Brigade of the West Wind", among other changes, and render Raynesia as "Rayneshia" and Iselus as "Itherus" among further differences.
• Spiritual Antithesis: To Sword Art Online; No permanent death, no apparent goal, and a more lighthearted tone in general. Even the protagonists of both series are antitheses; Kirito of Sword Art Online is a solitary swordsman, while Shiroe is a magician who relies on well-executed teamwork. Also, SAO is largely Kirito's personal saga, while Log Horizon is the story of Shiroe and friends, the eponymous guild.
• Spit Take: Akatsuki does one in episode 13 of season 2 after Tetra asks if Kanami, the old leader of the Debauchery Tea Party, was his girlfriend.
• Spoiler Opening: For all three seasons.
  • The season 1 opening reveals many spoilers from the original novels for the keen-eyed viewer. Examples include showing the Mare Tranquillitatis, Shiroe's young guild members, Princess Raynesia's appeal for a volunteer army, Rundelhous' "death" and the founding members of the Round Table Council, among others.
  • The season 2 opening continues with this tradition. Akatsuki's death from the Akiba murderer, as well as the Overskill she gains and uses against him, the younger members of Log Horizon going on their own quest, Roe 2 appearing in the world, Nureha in her Dariella guise wandering off on her own, Nyanta vs. Kazuhiko...
  • The Destruction of the Round Table opening picks this tradition back up after several years, showing Eins' defection from the Round Table Conference and his being granted the title of Duke of Akiba by Westelande's House of Saiguu; Shiroe's reactivation of the Intercity Transport Gate; Krusty and Gumon on Mount Lang Jun; Krusty meeting Bucaphi at Kunlun on the moon; Elias being corrupted by Youren and dueling with Leonardo; Minori using her White Coat of Minerva skill as she leads the Akiba Guild Hall Raid Party; the Genius Eirenus skewering members of the raid party with its mental-based attack; the Mofur sisters joining the raid party and then Log Horizon after the raid's conclusion; and the members of the New Round Table Council, with Raynesia replacing Krusty as The Face and William Massachusetts joining. The opening shot, with the demolition of Akiba's Guild Hall, actually happens to the Guild Hall in the dungeon that Eirenus had created based on the city.
• Status Effect: Sleep, Paralysis, Plague, Poison, Stun, Root, and Confusion exist in the game.
• Start My Own: In episode 6, Shiroe decides to form a guild of his own. This later extends into the formation of the Round Table, an alliance of the top fighting and merchant guilds, to help establish some semblance of order back in the town.
• Stat-O-Vision: Adventurers use their Diegetic Interface to call up information on another person's (or monster's) Character Class, health condition, power levels, specializations, and similar data at a glance.
• Stumbling in the New Form: The premise of Log Horizon involves players of the MMORPG "Elder Tale" being transmigrated into their in-game avatars in the game's world. Early in the novel, it's noted that small differences in their meatspace and cyberspace sizes (like an inch or two in height) already need some adjustments. Akatsuki, whose in-game avatar is a lot taller than what she actually is as well as being of the opposite biological sex make her situation disabling, and needs to beg Shiroe for a gender swap potion so that her body can turn to something more similar to her meatspace body.
• Stupid Evil: The evil guilds. They enslave as many low-level adventurers as they can to use as cannon fodder. The problem is, high-level adventurers attract high-level monsters, and the low-level adventurers are completely useless against them. The high-level adventurers blame the low-level ones, then continue doing the same exact thing.
• Squishy Wizard: Sorcerers, Summoners, and Enchanters have high magic stats and impressive spells but their HP, strength, defense etc. are pitiful in comparison. Even at high levels they could be overwhelmed in physical combat. The protagonist Shiroe also has this vulnerability, since he's an Enchanter.
• Stranded with Edison: While Elder Tales was still a game it attracted a large number of science and engineering students. Combined with the massive resources available to high-level adventurers, and the pre-existing organisation provided by guilds, this resulted in a cast well-equipped to begin studying the physics of their new world and recreating familiar technology.
• The Strategist:
  • Shiroe. He's an Enchanter instead of a Sorcerer, so no hurling fireballs or other direct attacks for him. He's so good at it that he doesn't/didn't need to establish a guild to make people do what he says: He was one of the leaders of the legendary raiding party Debauchery Tea Party, serving as their tactician and strategist.
  • Minori is Shiroe's apprentice in this regard. She practices his methods and emulates his Full Encounter Control. She gets to lead the Akiba Guild Hall Raid Party in the last arc of Season 3 accordingly.
  • Rieze, in Season 2's Akiba Raid arc.
  • Indicus, another strategist of Debauchery Tea Party
• Strategy, Schmategy: The major antagonist of the Festival arc employs this by causing random disturbances throughout Akihabara. Shiroe spends hours trying to find a pattern in the chaos, and he's horrified when he realizes that no such pattern exists. Not having a strategy is the enemy's strategy.
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: In episode 11, Shiroe asks Henrietta why she's with their group instead of at the training camp with the others. She claims to be heading to the meeting solely as an observer, but then he asks about the piece of blue cloth hanging from her magic bag. She claims that it's totally not a summer dress she intends for Akatsuki to wear.
• Swarm of Rats: Shiroe's party encountered this while traversing through the Palm's Deep in Episode 3.
• Swashbuckler: Nyanta not only duel-wields two rapiers, but dresses in fine clothing and has no problem in politely questioning your parentage and/or combat prowess as he challenges you to fight.
• Synchronous Episodes: Episode 9 of season 2 shows us Shiroe's perspective after he meets Akatsuki in the spirit world after she was defeated by the murderer in episode 6.
• Take a Third Option:
  • When Shiroe hears about one of Marie's guild members being stuck in a distant city, he contemplates the situation. She simply wants him and his friends to watch over the guild while she takes their strongest members out to rescue her. But he realizes that they wouldn't stand a chance out there between all the monsters and Player Killers out there. While he's hesitant to suggest it, both Naotsugu and Akatsuki are already set on heading out in their stead.
  • In episode 16, Minori suggests that instead of protecting the town and trying to evacuate the citizens, they should go and attack the goblins before they reach the city.
  • Raynesia offers one in episode 17, after the lords and adventurers are unable to agree on what to do regarding the goblin invasion. She offers to go to Akihabara herself and ask for volunteers there.
  • Shiroe does this when faced with taking either Minori or Akatsuki to the cake eating contest for couples. He ends up being allowed to bring both girls, but they have to eat more cake to win the competition as a result.
• Tastes Like Chicken: Played with.
  • Even if they look like a king's feast, all food tastes like Japanese rice crackers and all drinks taste like tap water. Ingredient items (sugar, fruit, etc.) taste like they should but preparing them from the menu results in mush and cooking them results in the same. "Salty mush today, sugary mush yesterday".
  • A player that cooks for real and one possessing sufficient levels in the cook subclass can make truly delicious meals.
• The Team: Teamwork is crucial in Elder Tale.
  • Shiroe, an Enchanter, has abilities that weaken enemies and support allies but lacks any substantial offensive capabilities. Naotsugu is a Guardian and his abilities are based on defending allies. Both of them can only truly shine when they work in a team. Isuzu's bard abilities are nothing special by themselves, but when used in combination with a tank and a mage they can be Simple, yet Awesome.
  • There are many guilds present in Elder Tale. Parts of the first episode show the various guilds scrambling to rebuild/reorganize and secure a base of operations.
  • Shiroe, Naotsugu, William Massachusetts, Krusty, and many high-level players are veterans of 24-man raids, for which teamwork is far more important than simply being high-leveled or having the best equipment. Raids in particular are a setting where even players like Shiroe or William can prove to be great teammates despite their real-life difficulties socializing.
• Team Shot: The final scene of the S1 and S3 openings shows all of the current members of the Log Horizon guild viewing the sun over the horizon together.
• That's No Moon: Specifically, Shiroe learns that Elder Tale's moon is the test server, at least when it was still a game. It's also a sort of temporary afterlife, as he only gets there after he dies.
• There Are Two Kinds of People in the World: According to Naotsugu, all men are either openly perverted, or closet perverts. He's the former. This dichotomy doesn't apply to women.
• Those Two Guys: The PKers Shiroe's group curbstomps early in the anime make recurring appearances from episode 2 on, doing various odd jobs.
• Thou Shalt Not Kill: In the Yamato Server, the Adventurers leading both Akiba and Minami seem to be in agreement on this when it comes to the Landers, the former NPCs set to be a far lower level than they, and who, most importantly, cannot revive after death.
  • In Season 2 Episode 20, Mizufa, the commanding Westelande officer of the mission to conquer Eastal, keeps insulting and provoking Nyanta until he is genuinely enraged enough to try and kill her. However, just as he's about to skewer her throat with his Rapier, he is stopped by Kazuhiko, his old Tea Party friend now in the leadership of Plant Hwayden in Minami. After the mission is cancelled and Kazuhiko breaks off from Nyanta one last time, he muses that this was for the better, as Nyanta didn't have to kill a Lander.
  • In Season 2 Episode 23, Isaac finds himself in a situation where he's desperately defending Iselus, Raynesia's 9-year old brother with a level to match, from many power-leveled assassins from Minami. After using a special skill to force them to attack him and him only, he goes out of his way to subdue them with non-lethal force, only knocking them unconscious with his bare fists or the blunt end of his BFS.
• Thousand-Yard Stare: The Odyssey Knights group leader that Minori and the others see in episode 17 of season 2 appear to have this look on his face while his guild is carrying a portable resurrection device with them. Rudy mentions their seemingly lifeless looks, almost as if it were a funeral procession. Though they pass without incident, the leader turns his head to stare back at Touya right before the ending credits roll.
• Timed Mission: The "Return of the Goblin King" was a semiannual event back when Elder Tales was a game. The goblin tribes spend a week deciding on their next king and the players have until then to kill the heir apparent. If they do, they score rare items and the goblins go back to bickering amongst themselves for another six months. If they don't, then a goblin king is crowned, the goblin tribes are united, and the encounter rate for all goblin races increases dramatically. Because the adventurers were so busy trying to make the world livable for themselves, they forgot all about it. An army of ten thousand goblins march to Eastal's capital in Episode 16 and a smaller, but still big, raiding party marches to a coastal town.
• Title Drop: When Shiroe reveals he's forming a guild while proposing the Crescent Burger plan to Maryelle and the Crescent Moon Alliance. As he explains the guild's name in the English dub:
  Shiroe: We bear the story of those who challenge the edge of the earth. We are Log Horizon.
• Took a Level in Badass: Literally and figuratively done by the beginner players during the "Return of the Goblin King" event and the defense of Choushi. Also, Akatsuki after Akiba Raid arc.
• Translator Microbes: Back when it was just a game, Elder Tale had an auto-translate feature that allowed people from all over the world to engage in chat without concerns over a Language Barrier, and when the game became reality this turned into an automatic vocal translator, which ends up being handy because the People of the Land have their own language separate from those on Earth, and is especially good for the Japanese Kanami because her traveling companions are the American Leonardo, Chinese Coppelia, and Lander Elias. However, Season 2 shows that the translator can't perfectly translate everything said, such as for some examples Rudy getting confused when Isuzu talks about Earth-based music-speak while Isuzu and the other junior members can only hear him and other Landers say "a forty-two" when they try to mention songs.
• Trapped in Another World: Technically it's just a game on Earth, but for some reason the players in this game can't log out, so they are essentially stuck.
• True-Breeding Hybrid: The Alv race has been extinct for centuries with the first Half-Alv being the children born when Alv slaves were raped. Modern Half-Alv are their descendants who display signs of their non-human heritage but are unlikely to genetically be half-Alv.
• True Companions: Debauchery Tea Party. They have/had stronger bonds than most of the guilds, despite being an informal grouping. And then later on, the eponymous Log Horizon.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: The story eventually splits into two distinct but interweaving plots; in volumes 3 and 4 of the light novel, the "A" story focused on Shiroe and the Round Table Council delegation's interaction with the Landers while the "B" story focused on the beginner players and their travails.
• Undying Loyalty: Akatsuki makes such an oath to Shiroe in gratitude for the appearance changing potion.
• Unexpectedly Realistic Gameplay: An actual rule of the world. As time progresses, the game world is becoming more and more like the real world, with game mechanics either being changed or handwaved.
  • In season one, the Round Table council gains possession of the Guild Hall for a ridiculous sum of money, with season 2 revealing that after purchasing a number of other important buildings they are going broke from the maintenance costs, which are roughly double that amount per week
  • The world is expanding to gradually become the same size as Earth.
  • Flavor text is no longer meaningless.
  • The description of an early-game quest was to kill a Goblin Chieftain before he became a serious threat. Because of all the issues of the change, nobody took up the sidequest, and the Chieftain became a serious threat.
• Uneven Hybrid: There is lore about Elder Tale saying that since the Alvs had a very low population, and since they historically intermarried with humans they've basically become extinct. However Alv genes live on in Humans in the present day. Their genes are plentiful enough that occasionally a Half Alv will be born to a human family due to the Alv genes being recessive.
• Unsettling Gender-Reveal:
  • Gender-Inverted. Shiroe had played Elder Tale with Akatsuki for years, but never knew she was a girl in real life; her unexpectedly female voice shocks both him and Naotsugu. She uses one of his avatar-changing potions to replace her male-avatar-with-a-female-voice with something resembling her actual body. Naotsugu then decides she's very attractive.
  • Averted as Shiroe was not at all unsettled that Tetra is truly a boy. Naotsugu has yet to find out.
• Valentine's Day Episodes: Episode 13 of season 2. Naturally several of the female characters are excited by this day.
• Video Game Cruelty Potential: Thoroughly explored.
  • Because death is not permanent, player-killing is common.
  • Because the People of the Land are NPCs, players enslave and rape them without a care.
  • Shops in games only exist to take the player's money, right? So why not bust the store and take what you want?
• Virtual Reality: "Homesteading the Noosphere" expansion pack has turned Elder Tales into one, but as the story progresses, it becomes evident that this is not the case. For one, "Elder Tale" didn't actually use any kind of VR interface, just a standard keyboard/mouse/headset setup. Also, one of the major plot-points is that the arbitrary game rules are breaking down, allowing things like regular cooking without using the game interface and the creation of objects that didn't exist in the game prior. Then there's the fact that all of the NPCs are now fully sentient people, to the point that Shiroe was able to turn one into an Adventurer.
• The World Is Just Awesome: When they finally emerge from the Palm's Deep, Shiroe's party is greeted with the sight of sunrise, which they view from a cliff.
• Warp Whistle: Even with the Portal Network gone, Warp Whistle will still bring you to the last settlement you visit. This means that some people are stuck in frontier towns unless they are strong enough to traverse the wilderness.
• The War Sequence: These were apparently available back when Elder Tale was still a game as so-called 'Legion Raids', which required upwards of 100 participating players.
• Welcome to Corneria: The Non Player Characters used to do this—a player is shown asking an NPC for directions and another flirts with her, but she just replies with the same welcome message. But they appear to have acquired emotion, memories, hopes, fears, and desires since the upgrade patch, and Shiroe notes that the players may be the strange entities in this world, given their immunity to death and video-gamey magic abilities.
• Wham Episode: Episode 22 of season 2 reveals that there may in fact be a third faction at work in players getting forcibly stuck in the lands of Elder Tale. Shiroe hypothesizes that they may be able to find a clue as to how to escape from the world if they can get in touch with these beings located on the Moon. He suspects they can trust the letter written from Roe 2 to him because he recalls being on the moon and seeing a beach there while he was dead and awaiting a resurrection earlier in the season.
• Wham Line:
  • Akatsuki delivers one in episode 3, when she tells Shiroe and Naotsugu that she is a college student in real life, despite her avatar's small stature.
  • Shiroe delivers one in volume 4. He tells a few members of the Round Table Council his theory on how the death system works in the new world, that you would not only lose just EXP, but your memories of the old world as well. The terrifying implications of this was confirmed by Krusty, whom died twice since the Apocalypse and could no longer remember details about his pet cat.
  • Rodrick delivers four consecutive ones in volume 6. He tells members of his guild that 1) According to their latest research, Adventurers are starting to be able to successfully cook/craft without the required skill. 2) Yamato (and likely the world) is slowly expanding and becoming the same distance as the real world. 3) Adventurers real life selves are slowly being over-ridden by their avatars. 4) Flavor text on items, which were previously just misc lore material, is starting to become true. All this indicates that the world is under-going a major change and they have no idea what may happen.
  • Dariella seems shocked in episode 17 of season 2 after hearing Minori mention Shiroe's name. Though it's also established that she is actually Nureha in disguise, so seems quite pleased to now know that the adventurers she's with is familiar with him.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Touya pulls this on the leader of the Odyssey Knights in episode 19 of season 2 after the latter tells his guild to bring the fight into the city so they can kill the wyverns more easily, as well as die in the process. The former asks him about the collateral damage to the buildings and the deaths it would cause to the Landers. The leader explains that they want to get out of the game, and every time they die they can glimpse parts of the real world. So what if some NPC's die, it's not like they matter anyway to him.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
  • Some players believe the People of The Land are beneath contempt because they do not exist outside the game even if they do look human. Ironically, Shiroe points out that since all Landers have names, personalities, emotions, memories, and most importantly, can permanently die, it makes them more human than the players.
  • Log Horizon is one of the few series where this works both ways. As revealed in the West Wind Brigade spinoff, the Landers endured years of interacting with the hordes of "inhuman" and "robotic" adventurers, and treated them as such. Which is why many of them are frankly stunned when the adventurers started acting like people to them.
  • The Odyssey Knights treat Landers this way. Though they typically try to protect them, the knights don't care if they end up fighting in a city during combat, and if some buildings get crushed and NPC's die, so be it. Touya gets really angry about this.
• Wretched Hive: Susukino under the rule of the Brigandia guild. Murder and theft are common, NPCs are enslaved, and a violent marketplace is normal. Anyone that tries to leave is killed. The Silver Sword guild straightens them out and the city is a nicer place to live in at the start of season 2.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Nyanta's big revelation (see The Reveal, above) is gained from not thinking of things in game terms. Even Shiroe admits that he fell short in that regard.
• Yaoi Fangirl: Many of Soujirou's fangirls seem to be this. In episode 24, when Shiroe affectionately (and platonically) places a hand on Soujirou's shoulder, some of them react with confusion, some with jealousy, and some with pleasant interest.
• You Mean "Xmas": Mostly averted. All the Adventurers decorate Akihabara in Christmas decorations, but Rundlehaus asks if Christmas is at all related to Snowfall, the Earthling analogue to the holiday.
• Your Mind Makes It Real: Averted. Death only means you get teleported back to the nearest Cathedral and you lose some money and items. However, this is lampshaded in a conversation between Shiroe and Naotsugu, where Shiroe points out that this is a distinct possibility since they didn't know if death still followed game mechanics at the time.
• You Shall Not Pass!: Soujirou does this towards the murderer in episode 5 of season 2 to buy some time for his guildmates to escape. Akatsuki advises he do the same, but he instead holds his ground, as he's much more interested in taking down the murderer, along with making sure his guildmates are safe from harm. Unfortunately both of them are killed by him.
• Zerg Rush:
  • The young adventurers get attacked by a swarm of demi-humans at the end of episode 15. Even the higher level players there are shocked by the sheer number of them.
  • Episode 25: Lord Marves uses a swarm of paperwork, unhappy merchants and domestic disputes to overwhelm the Libra Festival's management and stir up unrest. Shiroe's response is to overwhelm them with Soujirou's harem.

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We will change the world.