Orphen

Alternate Titles: Sorcerous Stabber Orphen, 魔術士オーフェン

Original Japanese Release Date: 24

Episode Length/Run-time: 1998

Summary:

The tower of fang is the most prestigious school of magic in all the land.  Orphen wears the seal of the tower of fang and despite being one of the most promising scorers the school has ever seen he left the school to chase after a dragon known as the Bloody August.  But what link does Orphen have with the dragon? And what link does the dragon have with a woman named “Azile?”  Orphen sets out with the Sword of Balthanders, the only sword said to be able to break the curse, along with Cleao the sword’s owner and Majic his apprentice to put an end to the Bloody August.

Review:

Orphen is a hard one for me, because it’s so dear to my heart.  It was one of the first anime I set out to buy and watch in full rather than just watching it on TV.  That being said, I’ll try to remain unbiased as possible.

Orphen is one of your standard fairytale stories.  Though that’s almost refreshing in this day in age of moe and high-school everything.  It has most things which you find in your classic fantasy: dragons, wizards, magic swords, relics, masked men, a misunderstood evil, and more.  The story is simple but that’s not always a bad thing. It only becomes bad because the anime ends up relying on filler to progress.  It could likely be cut down to a 12 episode series and be perfect.  Unfortunately it does seem to drag at times, and there’s a lot of mini arcs and excursions the characters go on that you end up asking “what was the point of that?”

The characters are lovable though.  Majic is your standard innocent idiot kid.  Orphen is a badass.  And Cleao is the head-strong girl who ends up getting herself into trouble because she thinks she can take on the world.  Two other characters are Volcan and Dorton, minor characters really there for comic relief but they’re pretty good at that.  Definitely worth a few chuckles.

What really redeems this anime is that it takes an unexpected and dark twist toward the end.  Which was very surprising as a viewer.

It’s about your average anime.  The music and animation is dated now, and despite being painfully simple it does have a lot of charm to it, especially if you’re someone like me and are into fantasy.

I will say though, NEVER touch the second season.  It’s a steaming pile…

[starrater]