How can you collect Record of Lodoss War in English?
For thirty years, English Lodoss meant the anime first and the books barely at all. That is finally changing.
The West met Lodoss backwards: the OVA arrived through Central Park Media (subtitled in 1995, dubbed in 1996) years before any book, and CPM’s manga line followed. The novels, the franchise’s foundation, waited until December 2017, when Seven Seas published The Grey Witch in English for the first time. Collecting Lodoss in English is therefore a story of three eras: CPM, the drought, and the rescue.
THE THREE ERAS
1995 to todayThe CPM era · 1995–2000s
Central Park Media’s VHS and DVD editions of both anime series, and CPM Manga’s Grey Witch, Lady of Pharis, Chronicles of the Heroic Knight, Deedlit’s Tale, and Welcome to Lodoss Island!. The period English shelf, now secondhand only.
The drought · to 2017
CPM’s collapse left both anime out of print in North America for over a decade. A planned Media Blasters Blu-ray was announced and dropped. For years, the tapes and discs were the only legal English Lodoss there was.
The rescue · 2017
Funimation licensed the OVA and TV series on April 14, 2017 and released both on DVD and Blu-ray that July. Seven Seas’ Grey Witch followed in December: the founding novel, in English, twenty-nine years late.
WHAT EXISTS NOW
Novels, manga, games, audioThe novels: one of seven
As documented by Seven Seas, only The Grey Witch is licensed and published in English so far; the publisher has said more depends on its sales. A Grey Witch audiobook, narrated by Dan Bittner, arrived July 10, 2025.
The manga: the new line
Udon Entertainment’s edition of The Crown of the Covenant manga (2019–2021) is the first Lodoss comic published in English since the CPM era.
The games: two doors
The Dreamcast’s Advent of Cardice (2001) and Deedlit in Wonder Labyrinth (2021) are the only Lodoss games officially released in the West, twenty years apart, with Mugen Gaming’s English Sword World RPG announced for the tabletop side.
What to verify before buying
Edition statements matter here more than usual: CPM and Funimation anime editions differ in packaging and extras, and the Japanese novels’ first editions hide under reprint imprints. Match the imprint and date to the edition you mean to own.