I must admit a bias of mine before talking about The Heroic Legend of Arslan: I'm not a fan of medieval settings. They have a tendency towards romanticizing a more primitive time through excessive warfare and following the lives of the rich and powerful, which keeps the poorer classes at arm’s reach where they can be unabashedly killed in droves, their women raped and their cities pillaged, to evoke a vague sense of morality rather than the appropriate anger and disgust. While political machinations and strategic warfare are fascinating enough, the politics involved are usually an unmemorable mix of betrayals and alliances at opportune moments, while the strategies involved are some adaptation of a terrain-based trap. While Arslan falls into all of the above categories—minus the treatment of the poorer classes—the politics and strategies are perhaps just enough to make for an experience I enjoyed, despite my distaste for the genre. So I'll preface things by recommending the series to any lover of medieval stories, as along with Kingdom this is one of the better ones to come out lately.
Arslan follows the trend of centering around a noble, the crown prince of Pars, Arslan, but the series begins with a seemingly unlosable battle against their neighbor Lusitania, which Pars does ultimately lose thanks to the chaotic tactics of a Lusitanian general wearing a silver mask. The general routs the Parsian forces, takes their king captive, and follows them back to the royal capital, taking it in a matter of days. Arslan, fourteen years old without any wartime experience, took part in the battle and survived thanks to the powerful and loyal Parsian general Daryun, who takes him into hiding to begin gathering the remaining Parsian forces to take back the capital. They assemble a close group of fighters, from the tactician Narsus and his manservant Elam to the archer Falangies to the musician Gieve, and together they go across Pars to prepare for their assault to take back the capital.
This is a story that has been tread many times before, and initially it seems a bit poorly executed as Daryun’s brute strength and Narsus’ impenetrable tactics dominate the screen and subjugate all enemies with little to no sacrifice, while Arslan serves as a vague guiding force of absolute moral good and all other characters fall by the wayside. Watching the battle sequences is fun and intriguing as strategies and swordplay take the center, but there is little tension knowing that the Daryun-Narsus combination will keep Arslan and his forces unscathed. Likewise the royal intrigue surrounding Arslan, the king, and the general with the silver mask plays out in a clichéd manner, serving little purpose other than a motive to set the show in motion. As Arslan traverses the land and stops by many Parsian strongholds, his obvious naivity is repaid with even more obvious betrayal, which meets the most obvious conclusion, salvation at the hands of Arslan’s loyal followers. And playing to the sentiment of Arslan freeing all slaves, which is only slightly complicated by their loyalty to their masters, goes for the most part as a reassurance of his perfect leadership and morality.
Later in the show this begins to grow more grounded, as Arslan is forced to confront the external enemies alongside the internal ones. The forces of nearby Shindura attack Arslan’s band by coincidence while making incursions into Parsian land, and so Arslan decides to assist a prodigal Shindurian prince take the throne, leading a foreign campaign that stands to gain him notoriety, allies, and battle experience. They begin to adapt to foreign customs and technology, and have to deal with the racism their Shindurian allies face as the two sides merge. While the campaign is rather linear and lacking in tactical intrigue, it does challenge Arslan’s ingrained view of his home country, and give him foreign experience indispensable to a future king at war.
And with that said, I have to take major issue with the portrayal of both Lusitania and Shindura as they contrast to the rather featureless Parsians. Lusitania is completely centered around religious zealotry, and their war is motivated solely by the call to kill all heretics. Thus they lack any dimensionality past fanaticism, and their leaders lack any dimensionality past religious manipulation. Even worse is Shindura, which is a perfect replica of the Japanese image of India. The Shindurians have dark skin and many gold piercings, sitting cross-legged on foreign tapestries with women in veils and ringlets dancing, wielding war elephants and ascribing to a distinctly Hindu-esque mysticism. Yet they are treated as primitive, scheming, and weak-willed at every turn, acting in both a character sense and a skin-tone sense as a foil to the pale and powerful forces of good. It is a ridiculous form of exoticism, and it only serves to weaken the one truly unique experience Arslan has to offer.
Thankfully the experience with both groups serves to inform Arslan’s strategies to take back the capital, and so the latter stages of the show become a more refined version of the early episodes. Even the more minor members of Arslan’s party, such as Gieve and Elam, find a niche where they can serve to further Arslan’s ultimate goal, while Daryun and Narsus face opponents that actually pose a threat. Things are left ultimately unresolved, as reconquering an entire country as a fourteen year old seems a tall order to fill in a mere twenty-five episodes. But the ending is certainly not open, as the conclusion is clearly in our vision. Frankly a short OVA would be enough to bring the story of Arslan to a close—the original Arslan was an OVA itself—but a second season is already in the works with many more novels to draw from. I only hope that for the anime adaptation they don’t draw this out.
It’s funny to be making comments such as “the politics were standard” and “it shouldn’t go on much longer”, as the source material was the work of Tanaka Yoshiki, the writer behind Legend of the Galactic Heroes. Teaming up with Arakawa Hiromu, one would expect the battles and moral intrigue of Fullmetal Alchemist with a complex and incredibly nuanced sense of politics and tactics, but it seems that it wasn’t in the cards. But this isn’t to say that Arslan is a blip or a stain on either of their records. Their take on the well-traveled medieval setting is engaging enough; if they end it quickly it will be a compact narrative that told a story of a prince lost and redeemed. And without a single rape scene. Maybe they can even bring in a wave of dysentery to make a realistic medieval stage for once.