YMMV / Record of Lodoss War

• Awesome Art: The original 1990 OVA is known for its beautiful painterly artwork, especially how Deedlit and the backgrounds are drawn.
• Awesome Music:
  • The "Black Knight Ashram" theme.
  • The opening songs for both for the OAV (Sherry's Adesso e Fortuna) and especially the TV series (Maaya Sakamoto's "Kiseki no Umi"/"Sea of Miracles") are legendary among anime fans of a certain age. "Kiseki no Umi" is even more notable for being vastly different from virtually anything else accompanying a show in its late-90s timeframe. (The Anime Theme Song had come into vogue by then, but it was still usually restricted to rock or pop; "Kiseki no Umi", meanwhile, defies easy genre classification despite being pop-song length.)
  • Okoreru Kyousenshi/An Angered Berseker. Ominous Latin Chanting at it's finest.
  • The OAV's ending, "Kaze no Fantasia", is another classic among anime fans who cut their teeth in the 90s.
• Badass Decay:
  • More of an enforced example. Since the TV series is not terribly long and the arc that it occurs in is only about eight episodes, we clearly see how the regaining of Orson's emotions and the weakening influence that Hyuri had over him turned him from a cool, emotionless fighting juggernaut to a whiny, emotional prick. Though you have to give him credit: he can still handle himself with a sword pretty well without being a berserker.
  • More infamously, Piroutesse goes through this in the Legend of Crystania OVA, to the point where her only meaningful contribution is stabbing Ashram and Barbas with a sword that temporarily kills them.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: Orville's fight with Shadow Commander Brastos in the Legend of Crystania OVA comes out of nowhere, has no bearing on the plot, and serves only to pad out the end sequence a bit more.
• Complete Monster:
  • Wagnard is an Evil Sorcerer who was kicked out of his wizard's academy for practicing the black arts. As a result, the egotistical Wagnard has decided to awaken the destroyer Goddess Kardis and cause The End of the World as We Know It largely out of nothing more than spite and a petty grudge. Wagnard uses many as pawns, leading to large scale battles and many deaths, to catch the pure-hearted priestess Neese, who is the reincarnation of Kardis' high priestess and potential avatar Naneel. Wagnard spares no effort in trying to murder her friends, and when he has Neese captive, subjects her to Cold-Blooded Torture to awaken Kardis within her. At the end, Wagnard expresses sheer glee in awakening Kardis to kill all that lives, solely so he can reign supreme in a "Kingdom of the Dead."
  • Legend of Crystania spinoff & The Chaos Ring OVA: The evil god Barbas was one of the neutral gods who fled the war between light and darkness to the land of Crystania. Intending on conquering and subjugating the rest of Crystania and the world to his power, Barbas starts a war against all the other gods using his mortal followers against their own. Tricking the heroic King Ashram into giving Barbas his body, Barbas later annihilates a village of innocents and his own soldiers just to show young prince Redon his power. After Ashram is dead, Barbas's top general Garudi follows his plans to revive Barbas by killing countless innocents to destroy the mystical Chaos Rings, ending with Barbas's return. Declaring himself the only "true" God, Barbas kills several other Gods and begins raining death and destruction indiscriminately upon Crystania, obsessed with his own power and ego.
• Ensemble Dark Horse: Lisa Ortiz's performance in Record of Lodoss War as Deedlit still stands out as one of the best performances in the anime. One of the Japanese producers' wife even favored her performance.
• Ho Yay: Parn's fanboying over King Kashue when he first meets him somewhat resembles this, to the extent that Deedlit seems to be worried about the competition...
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Karla, the Grey Witch, was the only survivor of an ancient magic civilization who implanted her consciousness into an enchanted circlet that possesses whoever kills her host body Seeking to prevent one side from ever growing too powerful, Karla has manipulated almost every war in Lodoss's history to bring about the ruin of any nation that may grow too powerful, even secretly fighting as one of the Six Heroes to stop the Demon God from destroying the world years ago. In present, Karla serves as the adviser to Emperor Beld of Marmo, guiding his nation to the top, ending with Beld slaying the Emperor Fahn of Valis- only for Karla to intervene and cause Beld's death herself to decapitate Valis and Marmo alike. Constantly escaping death, Karla stops at nothing to ensure Lodoss's balance remains as she wills it, no matter what she has to do.
  • Ashram, the Black Knight of Marmo, is seen by many as Marmo's true ruler and the heir to Beld himself. Once a young man fighting a war against the Thieves' Guild who allied with Beld, Ashram helped Beld to unify all of Marmo while vowing to one day surpass the emperor. Enraged at Beld's death, Ashram takes his demonic sword, the Soul Crusher and masters it, destroying the ancient dragons of Lodoss to find the Scepter of Domination and control the world. While seemingly dying, Ashram returns to depose the corrupt governor Rabido and manipulates him to his death, taking over all Marmo himself with his lover, the dark elf Pirotess at his side. Seeking to create a new home for the people of Marmo, Ashram ends up achieving all he sets out to do before departing Lodoss for a new home.
• Memetic Mutation: It's become common to think Shiris is dressed as one of Santa's helpers considering how Christmas-y her outfit is in the OVA.
• Narm:
  • The kobolds look rather vicious, but their screams and howls sound exactly like your five year old brother immitating a monkey.
  • The dragon voices in the TV series when they talk are very laughable.
  • The Legend of Crystania spinoff OVA is full of it, naturally:
    • Barbas is so Obviously Evil it's laughable, and becomes even more so after possessing Ashram.
    • From the same OVA, Redon's father gets 20 arrows in his back and lasts long enough to deliver a Final Speech. That in and of itself would be enough, but later Redon gives a speech where he calls his dad "weak" despite that.
    • The fact that the Royal Cavalry (itself a really bland name) went out of its way to kill Redon's dog for no reason reeks of Card-Carrying Villainy.
    • Redon's misfortunes in general tend to end up Crossing the Line Twice due to how they happen so quickly: in the span of a bit over 24 hours he loses his house, family, and even his horse and dog.
    • His horse's death in and of itself qualifies: from the circumstances to the fact that Redon spends more time crying over it than he did over his dead dad.
    • The filmmakers try a bit too hard to establish Orville's badass cred by having him cut a horse and rider in half. In one swing.
    • The ridiculously blatant way that Lady Remina dies, making it clear the writers had no idea how to write her subplot.
    • Piroutesse's attempt to take down a guard at Barbas's castle: a ridiculously long cartwheel with a pathetically telegraphed stab at the end.
• Nightmare Fuel: Narse. Be it his mouth full of fangs, his connection with Kardis or the fact he's the size of Godzilla. Then there's his roar.
• No Problem with Licensed Games:
  • The Dreamcast game is a solid Action RPG generally held in good regard.
  • Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth is considered to be a worthy Spiritual Successor to Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
• Not Badass Enough for Fans: Deedlit in the OVA is regarded a Faux Action Girl because she doesn't have any shining moments in combat. However, she gets a lot done with shamanistic magic outside of combat: finding a way out of a trap in the pilot, guiding the group through the Forest Of No Return, protecting them from the hot air vents in the ancient fire dragon's lair, and guiding the others to Parm's location after he gets his ass handed to him by Wagnard.
• Replacement Scrappy: The OVA spinoff Legend Of Crystania introduced Redon, an Expy of Parn minus any of Parn's Character Development or likeability. The fact that it takes most of the damn OVA for him to figure out that Barbas shouldn't be trusted hardly helped his case.
• Sequelitis: Legend of Crystania: The Motion Picture and Chaos Ring are both considered to be pointedly bad cases of it.
• Subbing Versus Dubbing: The English dub often divides a lot of people; there are fans of the dub, to the point where they admit it's a favorite of theirs, while some others find it detestable. Still others think that there's a certain Narm Charm to it. Either way, Lisa Ortiz's Deedlit (her first role ever, incidentally) is considered one of its greatest assets. This is especially amusing given that Word of God is that they prefer the voices in the US dub of the OVA.
• Spiritual Predecessor: Lodoss has gained a bit more fame in the 2010s and 2020s as being, in a very real way, one of the major antecedents to modern Actual Play shows, coming from an era where proper actual play sessions would have been incredibly difficult to disseminate or get air time for, making the Comptiq articles and the novelizations far more practical. The parallels to Critical Role are especially prominent, as that Actual Play series has also spawned its own animated adaptations.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Listen to this score. Now listen to one. If you're wondering which one came first the answer is Leviathan (1989). (the OVA came out in 1990, the film came out the year before. Plus Leviathan's composer was none other than Jerry freakin' Goldsmith. Do the math.)
  • "Kiseki no Umi", the TV series' opening theme, sounds suspiciously similar to Karl Jenkins' "Adiemus".
• Tear Jerker:
  • The death of Orson in the TV series was particularly sad, having made a Heroic Sacrifice for Shiris with her begging him to wake.
  • Two in episode 8 of the OVA. Immediately after the fight with Karla. Ghim sacrifices his life to free Leylia from Karla's control. His friends, naturally, are grieve-stricken by his death. Parn takes it especially hard. "Speak to me! Ghim! NOOOOOOOO!!!"
    • Then, instantly afterwards, Woodchuck is taken captive by Karla's circlet.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • In a hilarious reminder that this trope is older than a lot of tropers, this was evidently an early reaction to the Parn/Deedlit romance in Japan - the original Actual Play series did not feature any such romance, and was an invention of DM-cum-novelizer Ryo Mizuno. However, the sheer weight of the adaptations (as well as the anglosphere getting all the adaptations decades ahead of the AP) has rendered this a barely-remembered footnote among the fandom.
  • Also, needless to say, the final five episodes of the OVA were very controversial in Japan when they were first released, because they heavily compressed the other two Actual Play arcs into adventures that Parn's party got to go on, when originally they were entire adventures featuring entirely new casts. Orson and Shiris from the second party made the jump over to be part of Team Parn (to effectively replace Ghim after his death and Wood Chuck after his "abduction") but the entirety of Spark's party ended up adapted out completely, which lead to a lot of bent noses (especially from folks who wanted to see Neese The Younger and Leaf animated). The general dissatisfaction with how it turned out was a major catalyst for Chronicles of the Heroic Knight coming to be, almost a decade later. This whole situation was virtually invisible to the anglophone fandom, meanwhile, since the OVA arrived years after its initial release and the nascent nature of the Internet meant a lot of fandom troubles didn't end up going international.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: In the Legend of Crystania OVA, Redon's father is approached by someone asking him to oppose an evil chancellor, who then sends out people who kill him. Not only is this his only contribution in the whole series, he's never even onscreen.