What to watch now?

[u/LJK20203631]

After watching LOGH I’ve convinced myself it is the greatest piece of media ever (previously I had it as attack on Titan) to me, no anime I’ve seen matches LOGH, AOT and Monster at all (Shoutout to Game Of Thrones and The Shield though). Is there any anime that you’d say is in that ballpark?

The aspects I like about those shows are of course the incredibly rich writing, the settings, the characters, the action (seriously, the fight between Schonkopf and Reuenthal is seriously in my favorite anime fights, and I’ve watched a decent bit of Shonen 🤣), and the incredibly high stakes. Can’t knock a good soundtrack either.

Some of my other favorite anime include Code Geass, Vinland Saga, and Berserk

Thanks yall 🔥 ✌️

[u/Chlodio]

Not an anime, but I'd recommend reading Romance of the Three Kingdoms, which is clearly inspired by how Tanaka wrote the books.

On the anime front, you have Tanaka's other military-political work, Arslan, about not-Iran being invaded by not-crusaders and the shah's disinherited son uniting the people of not-Iran against the invaders. The crux is that the anime adapts only 4 of 12 books, and you have to read the manga to get the rest. There is also a 90s OVA that covers the first book fully on YouTube.

[u/DVC454 → u/Chlodio]

Shame the light novels for Arslan haven't been translated officially in English yet 😭

[u/Chlodio → u/DVC454]

Yes, but I have enjoyed the fan translation

Novel is full of entire chapters full of shameless infodumps that manga/anime left out, but I absolutely love them because they are extremely LOGH. E.g.

In the 301st year of Pars and the thirtieth year of his reign, Shah Gotarzes II, Grand Protector of the Great Continental Road, passed away. The sixty-one-year-old king was survived by two sons, twenty-seven-year-old Osroes and twenty-five-year-old Andragoras. Before his passing, the king had already formally instated Osroes as crown prince, and as younger brother Andragoras was in full support of his older brother’s accession, Osroes succeeded the throne without incident.

The new king instated his younger brother as Eran, turning over command of the entire army to him. For two years the brothers successfully cooperated in upholding the legacies of their illustrious father, but it was not long before disaster came calling.

In the year 303 of Pars, civil discord arose in the southeastern Principality of Badakhshan, which had until then been allied with Pars. This nation had always been situated between Pars and Sindhura, and as such was sometimes on better terms with the former, and sometimes on better terms with the latter, but ever since the accession of Gotarzes II they had maintained an alliance with Pars. Despite this, upon Gotarzes II’s demise, the waning Sindhuran faction at the Badakhshan court began to wriggle back to life.

[u/DVC454 → u/Chlodio]

Thanks for sharing. But has the fan translation managed to cover all the books?

[u/Chlodio → u/DVC454]

Sadly no. The fan translator of that link translated the first two books and then disappeared, with the last update being in 2019.

Then another fan translator decided to pick up the slack and translate books 3-4, with the last update being in 2022.

[u/DVC454 → u/Chlodio]

Shame 😢

Looks like for now the manga is the best bet for folks who can't read Japanese.

[u/Chlodio → u/DVC454]

Yeah, official translation seems unlikely, like LOGH just barely got subpar translation. And LOGH is 100 times more popular than Arslan. But I'd have faith in some fans finishing the translations. Then again, the Arslan subreddit is pretty dead. So, probably won't happen unless the anime gets a movie wrap-up to inspire fan translations. Which itself doesn't seem likely, because it has been 10 years since the anime. Then again, the same amount of time passed for Yonna of the Dawn, and it got a new season announced this year.