Shangri-La Frontier is a fun story about a VR MMORPG that focuses on the details

01.10.2023 - 14:51 / destructoid.com

I recently had the opportunity to check out the first episode of Shangri-La Frontier, a new anime about a VRMMORPG. Now, this genre in particular has gotten a bit saturated in recent years due to the success of Sword Art Online, Log Horizon, and even Ready Player One. However, the art style of the trailer piqued my interest, and the press release indicated SLF would have a bit more of a focus on world-building and game mechanics.

Shangri-La Frontier is by C2C Studio, a Japanese animation studio that has been around since 2006. C2C’s popular recent works include Reincarnated as a Sword and Otaku Elf. I have to admit, I only recently got back into anime and have been extremely picky so I haven’t seen either of those. But, after watching the trailers for both, I’m even more impressed with the visuals in Shangri-La Frontier. That’s not to say the other two titles look bad by any means, but SLF is definitely their best work yet in terms of visual quality.

The premise of Shangri-La Frontier is simple enough. The main character Rakuro Hizutome is an odd one, preferring to play scuffed games that are considered trash by others. He finds enjoyment in learning how to navigate and appreciate a title’s bugs, as opposed to getting upset by them. But after a recent playthrough of Faeria Chronicle Online, Rakuro heads to the game store to check out something new. A poster for Shangri-la Frontier, a massively popular VRMMO catches his eye. He feels it’s time to try what some would consider a god-tier game, as opposed to a trash one.

It’s fun watching an anime that clearly cares about gaming. While Rakuro is in the local game shop, a “Comic Frontiers” poster is in the back with the same font and art style as Sonic Frontiers. Not relevant to the story, but still fun to see.

While creating his character, Rakuro settles on Twinblade Mercenary as his class and chooses Wanderer as his Origin story. His preference to focus on acquiring the best weapons and ignoring armor results in him selling all his starter armor. However, he doesn’t want to be running around naked if everyone can see his face, so he also grabs a blue bird mask to hide his face. And so his character, Sunraku, is born. Rakuro logs into Shangri-La Frontier for the first time, and his adventure begins.

It’s here that the worldbuilding and focus on game mechanics really start to kick in. Rakuro begins grinding on Goblins found in the forest he spawns in, keeping track of their spawn rate as well as the experience gains and item drop rates along the way.

He also encounters a rare spawn that gives noticeably more experience. More importantly, the rare spawn has a cool-looking weapon that surely deals more damage than his starting weapons. Unfortunately, the