YMMV / Log Horizon

• Angst? What Angst?: The Main Characters and other former members of the Debauchery Tea Party take their unexpected transportation to the world of Elder Tales surprisingly well, and complain that most of the other players are getting too worked up over it. There are many players who angst about it, but those players are not the main characters. It helps that their lives are not directly threatened; they respawn when killed. The players are more concerned about incertitude and social troubles than surviving.
• Arc Fatigue:
  • The episodes/arcs that revolve around the junior members of the Log Horizon guild are found to be quite fatiguing for some people, and want the spotlight to move on from what they see as less interesting characters to follow along with, and would rather see more of Shiroe's adventures, or perhaps pass the spotlight onto characters that they've felt have gotten the short end-of-the-stick in screen-time such as Nyanta and Crusty. Adding to this, Minori suffers from major Die for Our Ship regarding her ''crush'' on Shiroe.
  • As mentioned in Broken Base, Akatsuki's character arc in Season 2 was this for some because they think it dragged on unnecessarily long.
• Broken Base:
  • The animation studio switch from Satelight (season one) to Studio DEEN (season two and three) split the fan-base as to whether it was an overall upgrade or downgrade. You may even be in the third camp stating that nothing feels different.
  • Akatsuki's character arc in season two where she goes after the Christmas killer is very hit-and-miss amongst the fans. Some found that the arc didn't need to drag on for four episodes, and were getting impatient, because what they truly wanted to see was the action going on in Shiroe's raid on Elder Tail's gold stash. Others were fine with it, stating that Log Horizon is best known for building up the problem before finally dealing with it, and eventually got to what everyone was begging for; an action-packed final episode of the arc dealing with the murderer. Akatsuki's Character Development seen throughout this arc is also a huge plus for some people as it was something that was constantly asked for all throughout season one due to her popular status.
  • William's speech is very divisive among the western fanbase. Some see it as a waste of time, others find it very relatable and loved it. It's very much a cultural issue, as the Japanese fanbase absolutely adores William for it.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Serara became highly popular among viewers after her debut in the anime, and she's not even a member of Log Horizon!
  • Nureha, one of the rivals for Shiroe's affection, has a significant following among Japanese readers, though for an entirely different reason. She's the one with the Courtesan (娼姫, literally "whore princess") subclass, by the way.
  • Isaac, one of the guildmasters, had a surge of popularity, at least amongst the Japanese fandom, after the release of the Black Knight vs. Berserker Drama CD in volume 7's special edition.
  • Silver Sword has a large fan following despite being prominent in only one volume.
• Fandom Rivalry:
  • With Sword Art Online, due to the similar premise. Interestingly enough, many Log Horizon fans seem to be former SAO fans that weren't satisfied with how it progressed.
  • With .hack to a lesser extent, due to the latter being the "original".
  • Overlord has now shown up on the radar, thanks to a 2015 anime announcement, and is either praised or panned for being a Darker and Edgier variation.
• Fan Nickname:
  • "Tankbro" and "Brotsugu" for Naotsugu.
  • Minori is sometimes called "The Villain With A Smile," because she's The Apprentice to "The Villain In Glasses".
  • Due to Jovan Jackson's (an African-American) acting re-imagining Nyanta from a upper-class gentleman to a literal cool cat, so to speak, some fans have taken to affectionately refer to the dubbed version as "Sexy Black Nyanta".
  • Scrub Horizon: The Cast Herd of the junior members of the Log Horizon guild (Tohya, Minori, Isuzu, and Rudy), along with Serara (who's part of the herd despite being a member of the Crescent Moon Alliance).
  • Lawn Dart - Londark, simply because his name sounds similar.
  • At least during the early days of the anime, Kanami's party was generally referred to by people who had read ahead as "Best Party" due to being perceived as more unique and interesting than, and their adventures being more exciting than, the more relaxed tread of the comparatively sedative main characters.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Minori and Touya's Early Bird Cameos, for those who haven't read the novels, as episode 8 painfully shows.
  • Although the source material for Log Horizon: Destruction of the Round Table episode 5 was published in web novel format in 2016-2017, the timing for the episode itself in early 2021, as well as its plot, was uncomfortable for many viewers due to how recent the "stop the steal" rallies over the 2020 election and the insurrection of January 6, 2021 were.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Much of the beginning of Season 2 involves Shiroe trying to figure out how to generate enough funds to pay for the Round Table's upkeep costs for maintaining Akihabara's infrastructure. He then comes across an idea to exploit a hole in the game's logic: mainly, if monsters drop gold, where does the gold come from? His investigation takes him to an underground raid zone rumored to be holding an endless supply of gold. Basically, Shiroe is looking for the fabled Loot Cave.
  • This franchise takes the Elder Scrolls series as one of its inspirations; then came The Elder Scrolls Online in April 2014. There was even a guild named Log Horizon there to boot.
• It Was His Sled: Although the Log Horizon guild's roster stands at 11 as of Volume 13, it is generally assumed that Roe2 will join the guild as its 12th and final member in Volume 16 due to character groupings from the defunct mobile game (said character is listed after Tetora and before Marielle), as well as teasers from Volume 16 at the Re:Fraction event in 2018 where said character meets Shiroe in person to "compare answers".
• Moe: Akatsuki is darling and huggable. It's acknowledged in-universe.
• Seasonal Rot: Season 2 is this according to some fans. It's mainly an issue of personal preference as the story's focus is much wider, breaking up into largely separate plots that spotlight different characters. There's also the aforementioned Broken Base over DEEN's animation quality.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Some fans have complained about Shiroe taking significant damage in their first battle, instead of only trivial amounts in the novel... even though his dwindling health is only used as a cliffhanger for the In Medias Res opening scene, and isn't brought up when the full battle is shown.
  • Some of the censorship in the anime, such as the lack of blood, Naotsugu's perverted lines being cut off (courtesy of Akatsuki's flying knees) as a running gag, and Nureha's backstory being hidden have caused complaints about the show. However, this is justified since the show airs on NHK, which is a publicly funded network that caters to children.
• They Copied It, So It Sucks!:
  • This is not the first anime to have a "trapped in VR" storyline. Sword Art Online and .hack came before, and some people see no difference in this one. Which is kinda silly, given that TRON and Neuromancer have been doing it since the early 1980s. Even those weren't all that original either: Tron was criticized as a computerized inferior version of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland back in the day.
  • Readers of Sword Art Online have claimed that a major plot twist of Log Horizon (the NPC population is sentient) was also in the former. It's really a Cryptic Background Reference, but cited on a few occasions (once in the anime) as a reason for why Kirito dislikes having innocent NPCs killed during Boss Raids. Because SAO is mostly focused on the protagonist, the matter isn't explored beyond Yui's involvement (and Fina to a lesser degree). TRON and Neuromancer also did this first, so it's silly to nitpick.
  • The premise of an MMO being real, with humans having a profound impact on it (and vice versa), was a climactic reveal in the video game Star Ocean: Till the End of Time.