Okay, who here has played Dungeons and Dragons? From a few livestreamed DnD games that I've seen online, I know how chaotic DnD campaigns can be, specifically because of the people playing in that campaign. On my part, I haven't played DnD since high school, but it was years after graduating that I started keeping a list on Anime-Planet of anime that aren't fully available on the Internet in English; finding anime that qualify for that list and making sure it stays updated has been quite an adventure in itself. One long-standing member of that list is "Fortune Quest L", which only has five episodes available both subbed and dubbed. As it turns out, this isn't the first anime adaptation of the light novel series it's based on got. Before Fortune Quest L was released, there was a four-episode OVA series that actually did get the fully-English-subbed treatment - one that actually mentions DnD in its description. Can this OVA, "Fortune Quest: Yo ni mo Shiawase na Boukensha-tachi", be what inspires someone to seek out its sequel and make it more widely available? Well....I'm gonna be honest, I'm not sure if I see that happening.
Fortune Quest: Yo ni mo Shiawase na Boukensha-tachi, or "Fortune Quest: The Happy-go-lucky Adventurers" in English (according to the fansubbers, anyway), follows one specific party reminiscent of those found in fantasy RPGs, led by swordsman Clay and including the likes of the thief Trapp and the mapper Pastel. Unfortunately, we do not find them in the best of positions for a party to be in; they're broke and in debt, meaning they can't buy any of the adventure modules to go on a quest. To earn some money, they take on a job to collect hot spring water from a town famous for it, but they soon discover that the water has all dried up. As it turns out, a white dragon dries up the water every ten years until a young boy is sacrificed each time; any time an adventurer sets off to kill the white dragon, they come back evil and cause chaos in the town. Nevertheless, our hapless heroes set off for the nearby dungeon to kill the white dragon....but all is not as it seems regarding this.
As you can see, the Fortune Quest OVA (as I will be calling it from now on) tells a pretty standard fantasy story; I'm sure there are DnD players who have done a campaign exactly like this before. Nothing is really done to make it stand out from other fantasy stories, either. Sure, there are a few plot twists here and there, but anyone with any familiarity with DnD-inspired fantasy stories would be able to see those plot twists coming from a mile away. Granted, I didn't really see the villain's motivation for doing the things he did coming....but that motivation was also so stupid that it's not even funny. Speaking of which, the Fortune Quest OVA is mostly comedic, but while some jokes managed to make me grin a little, nothing really made me laugh. I really wanted to laugh at these jokes, as the fansubbers found the OVA series to be hilarious, but I couldn't honestly do so; that might just be a difference in senses of humor, though.
The characters in Fortune Quest are nothing to write home about, either. I kind of thought Clay was the protagonist at first, given that he's the leader of the party, but he's mostly left on the sidelines throughout the series due to an injury he gets in the first episode; it's probably for the best, though, considering that he's either the least interesting or the second-least interesting of the party. I honestly can't decide whether he or Knoll is the least interesting; it doesn't really help that the latter doesn't get much to do, either, since he had to stay outside of the dungeon due to his large size and sent a bird after his fellow party members in his place. The protagonist actually seems to be Pastel, the mapper (who maps out the locations her party goes to, by the way), and while I wouldn't really say I like or hate her, she does have some fun chemistry with other characters, like Trapp and Shiro. Another party member, Kitton, seems like he could be an interesting character, but while there are some revelations made about him, there's not enough time to really explore it.
Finally, there's the animation and sound, which are both pretty standard. The animation was done by J.C.Staff, who would certainly go on to work on better projects and turn out better results in the years to come; it wasn't terrible overall, but nothing animation-wise really sticks out. There are some illustrations that feel reminiscent of fantasy stories of the time it came out, though, which I liked. This OVA series doesn't have an opening theme, but there are two ending themes that are used throughout its run, neither of which are good nor bad. The first ending theme, "Fortune Quest: Itsuka Kanau Yume" by Rumi Kasahara, does stick out in my mind for having an instrumental remix that one might hear in an old RPG playing at different points throughout the series, though. The voice acting was pretty okay, too, with Trapp, in particular, having a pretty fitting voice provided by Toshio Furukawa. Just a warning, though: Kumiko Nishihara's voice that she does for Rumy might sound a little grating to some viewers due to how shrill it is.
Overall, the Fortune Quest OVA wasn't quite that good, but if someone wanted to watch it, I won't stop them. It might inspire DnD DMs to create a campaign based on the adventure the main characters went on. It might not, however, inspire fansubbers to seek out episodes 6-26 of Fortune Quest L to give them the English-subtitled treatment. Oh, well. Maybe someday.
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