Three women and a man are the adventurous, magical Rune Soldiers.

Rune Soldier. V.1, Enter the Klutz. V.2, Adventure for Dummies. V.3, A True Champion. V.4, Monsters and Mayhem. V.5, Fists of Folly. V.6, Louie Punch.
TV series (24 episodes), 2001. Director: Yoshitaka Koyama. V.1-6, four episodes/100 minutes. Price & format: DVD bilingual $29.98. Distributor: A.D.V. Films.

Ryo Mizuno is best known to anime and fantasy-role-playing fans as the creator of the mega-popular Record of Lodoss War games and the dramatic novels based upon them, which have been animated as both a TV series and several OAV features. But Mizuno also writes FRP comedy. Rune Soldier (Mahou Senshi Liui or Louie the Magician Warrior) was a 24-episode adaptation (April 3 through September 18, 2001; animated by the J.C. Staff studio) from Mizuno’s manga serial (drawn by Mamoru Yokota) for Japan’s Monthly Dragon Magazine and Dragon Jr. Magazine for gamers.

In a blatantly stereotypical sword-&-sorcery world, three women are trying to break into the macho profession of adventuring, monster fighting and treasure seeking: Genie the brawny warrior, Melissa the priestess of Mylee the god of battle and tomboyish Merrill the young thief. They need a magician to complete their group. But none of the scholarly magicians (particularly the women magicians) want to participate in anything as earthy and physical as adventuring.

The best they can find is Louie, a student at the Magicians’ Guild who is on the verge of flunking out. Louie is the adopted son of the Guild Headmaster and is expected to follow the same career, but he has a college jock personality and would rather be a warrior than a wizard. When facing monsters or villains, Louie gets carried away with battle fever and uses his wand as a club to start brawling, rather than casting a spell from a safe distance.

Despite his flaws, Louie is good-natured, and his irritating tendency to treat the three women as “just guys” like him is better than the condescension they get from all the other male adventurers. Melissa is horrified to receive a revelation from Mylee that Louie is a destined Hero whom she must serve. The three reluctantly adopt him into their team, more as a servant than an equal until he learns to use common sense and take advantage of his magical training instead of rushing at every adversary from zombies to giant slugs to sea serpents to punch them out.

The episodes are a pleasant blend of action and humor with witty dialogue, which build up the personalities of the main and supporting characters. Melissa becomes desperate to educate Louie into becoming a courtly Hero, while he continues to blunder his way to victories that work but lack dignity. The first 15 episodes are independent, but they surreptitiously add bits of information about the Kingdom of Ohfun. This starts building around episode #16 into a plot by traitors among the nobility and the Magicians’ Guild to overthrow the King.

Although the plotters find it difficult to take Louie seriously, a revelation that he is a destined Hero cannot be ignored. Louie and his companions suddenly find themselves fighting assassins in the guise of friends in addition to the obvious monsters and villains they are used to. Rune Soldier is good fun for FRP gamers and fans of adventure fantasy.