Currently watching: Yuusha Yoshihiko to Akuryou no Kagi

This comedy continues the tradition from the first series of poking fun at RPG clichés. Our band of four heroes are brought back to life after a hundred years (and, in doing so, their skills are reset to level one) to look for a key that can lock away some monsters threatening a village.

The ghost is clearly trying not to laugh

The story is almost unimportant because, just like in real RPGs, the band of four are constantly being distracted by side quests and false leads as they undertake their quest.

The sense of humour is the same as the first series, with Yamada Takayuki delivering his ridiculous lines in a perfect deadpan style. Muro Tsuyoshi is perhaps the funniest as the hopeless wizard who also acts as a sort of ″Voice of the RPG player″, as it is usually him who points out the absurdity or obviousness of a situation.

After I saw this, I found a purple lake in Xenoblade Chronicles and thought exactly the same thing.

Also it looks like it was a lot of fun to make. The affection that the stars have for it can be seen in Takayuki's statement on the announcement of a second series, that he was going ″to give it my 70%.″ I'd love to see a ″making of ″ for this series. I did almost buy the boxed set of the DVD but, at almost £150, I had second thoughts. I still regret it a little bit. But I can cheer myself up with the continuing low-budget saga of Yoshihiko and his band of underqualified heroes.