The Pioneers

The Pioneers is the twenty-fifth episode of the Log Horizon 2 anime and is the final episode of the Noosphere arc. It first aired March 28, 2015.

It corresponds with the fifth chapter of Homesteading the Noosphere, although the episode was adapted based on notes given to the animation team by Mamare Touno; the volume was not yet written at the time production started on the season.

Synopsis
The Shibuya Raid Team begins another assault on the Calling Fortress. Luckily, Shiroe comes with a plan to lead the moths to another section of the building by transferring MP to another team. The plan works, and the Adventurers dispose of the monsters.

Finally, Shiroe's team breaks through to the roof. There they find the raid boss, Taliktan, the Genius of Summoning. The Adventurers try to communicate with the monster but to no avail, and it summons a swarm of eternal moths. To make matters worse, they attack the raid team and engulf Shibuya and the other cities.

Taliktan puts a severe strain on the antenna, and Shiroe has the party take the battle into the concert hall below. Even though the raid team inflicts a tremendous amount of damage to the Genius monster, they still get knocked down by its powerful attacks. Luckily, Shiroe's figures out Taliktan attack patterns and manages to block them.

Shiroe raises the stakes with his Full-Control Encounter leading the party to destroy Taliktan.

In the aftermath, Regan sets up the radio equipment, and much to everyone's surprise, Kanami comes through. She's in the Chinese server. Kanami goes on to tell him that she has a three-year-old daughter, which Shiroe already knows. Kanami then asks him to look for a way to travel between the real and Elder Tale worlds. Furthermore, she tells the Akiba adventurers that the missing Krusty is with her. But before they can ask any further, the radio device breaks.

Elsewhere, Nureha and Plant Hwyaden decide, albeit against Indicus's wishes, to work with Eastal and the Round Table to fight the threat posed by the Genius monsters.

After the battle with Taliktan, the Log Horizon members make plans to celebrate their victory.

In the epilogue scene, Log Horizon holds a victory party outside. Regan stops repairing the radio device to join the party, much to the West Wind Brigade's consternation.

Differences from the Light Novel
Note: This episode aired before the web novel and light novel versions were released.


 * While Shiroe is kiting the monsters, the Shibuya Raid Team's second party (Souji, Nazuna, etc.) isn't present in the light novel; they'd gone on ahead and attacked Taliktan so he himself wouldn't be drawn towards Shiroe.
 * Additionally, the parties are slightly reorganized before this episode's equivalent in the Light Novel, so that it's the West Wind Brigade members—Kurinon, Isami, and Fragrant Olive, in addition to Soujiro and Nazuna—who lead the charge and are first to engage Taliktan.
 * When enacting the plan to draw Taliktan away from the antennae, Shiroe doesn't have time to explain the plan to the others in the light novel like he does in the anime.
 * The anime does not mention Shiroe using the spell Fly to lessen their fall damage.
 * In the anime, Shiroe uses the spell Singularity, which is a Sorcerer-exclusive spell. This was corrected by the time the light novel was written.
 * In the light novel, after defeating Taliktan, other research crews from Akiba came in to assist with research at the Fortress of Call, which isn't seen in the anime.
 * The anime does not add details about Kanami's husband that are found in the web novel and light novel, likely because it wasn't devised when Mamare gave them the information about the arc.
 * In the light novel version of Shiroe and Kanami's chat from Volumes 10 and 11, the communication link is severed on Kanami's side after the connection weakens and Kanami breaks her communication equipment with Tiger Echo Fist in response. On the Yamato side, there was no indication that the cables Li Gan was maintaining had broken, while Kanami and Leonardo were having a brief slapfight after the fact on the Zhongyuan side.