It's hard to tell if I'm being fair to Rune Soldier. It was funny, and has great visual appeal...but I can't help feeling it promised something it didn't deliver in the area of dungeon-and-dragony adventure. That may be part of its parodic intent, of course.

The Good:
As I've said, the show is funny, mostly in a broad, slapstick sort of style. Louie is a big-mouthed idiot who can be counted on to make a hilarious mess of everything, and the priestess Melissa (whose god has appointed Louie as her champion, and who sulks, pouts and agonizes about it for half the series) is also funny in her total resistance to Louie-ness. Merril's miserly ways are good for a laugh. Jeanie is the only totally stock character, th tough female warrior with a tragic past. The fact that all the characters in this swords-and-sorcery epic have prosaic modern Western names is another source of subtle humor (though I can't tell if it's intentional, or if it's another "the Japanese just don't get it" thing. Visually, the colors are very rich and saturated, and it makes for an interesting look to the show.

The Bad:
Well, maybe it's just me, but the typical D&D setting and siuations at the beginning of the series led me to expect a good dungeon crawl or two to be part of the show. Instead, apart from the initial goblin battle, a trip to the Elf forest, and the investigation of an abandoned building, nearly all the action takes place in urban settings, with Louie competing in various contests and intramural adventures. Even the finale is more about intrigue and army-evading than sword-swinging and monster-bashing. Again, this may be intentional parody, but it feels more to me that the series lost its way and was meandering around killing time till it could tackle the big ending of the story arc. Another inconsistency--while Merril is very clearly called a thief at the beginning of the series, toward the end, she refers to herself as an 'adventurer girl' and there's an entire episode about how the other party members take over her many part-time jobs while she's sick. Part-time jobs?! What self-respecting fantasy thief would wash dishes instead of cutting purses? I also must admit that, while I enjoy slapstick, I got tired of Louie being smacked around and used as a beast of burden by the gals long before the series got tired of it. (Though I found Melissa's 'It's against my will' prayer endlessly hilarious, however often it was repeated.)

All in all, though, it's a perfectly acceptable series for those who enjoy broad humor, goofy characters, and fantasy settings.