Berserk, I’m already aware of. I bought one of the DVDs years ago on a whim and was hooked. I don’t know how well it works in the sense of Fantasy as good vs. evil, but it’s definitely a world in which evil is a manifest thing. Good? That’s another story.

I recognize the name Twelve Kingdoms but hadn’t ever sought out information about it — From your description it sounds pretty interesting. I’ll be on the lookout for the book (though I fear I’ll probably never find it amidst the shelves and shelves of harem mangas at local bookstores).

In truth, much of my exposure to fantasy really came from anime, starting from The Record of Lodoss War. I’m not sure if I actually recommended it for viewing, but I do remember reading that the entire anime was loosely based on a series of D&D sessions (or at least the original manga/novel was). It actually seems to play out that way in the original 1990 TV series, especially with the rather stark division between good/evil, and the main protagonists spending much of their time being witness to great things happening around them rather than being part of it. The 1998 OVA “Chronicles of the Heroic Knights” series does have more gray in it, though (Yet it also had worse animation… 8 years later…). The Slayers is another series I remember being the result of D&D sessions, but it has a much more comedic approach.

Though if you’re looking for swords-and-magic fantasy in the anime world that really blur the lines between good and evil, I would suggest Berserk or The Twelve Kingdoms. Berserk is more of a shounen (guy’s) series which manga series it spawn from has been described to me having a similar construction to a classical Greek tradegy. Pretty good stuff from a manga writer who started the series inspired by older Conan the Barbarian comics. Keep in mind that the series is seriously gory (the manga much more than the anime, though the anime does have some really bloody scenes).

As for The Twelve Kingdoms, not only was it the series that really pushed me into looking into anime more heavily and has still topped my list for most favorite series, it also has the surprising quality that the original novelist had never read a fantasy book before writing the first book in the series. She got her degree in Buhddists Studies and got much of her inspiration of this fantasy world from Chinese mythology. I’ve heard this novel being termed “The Lord of the Rings of Japan” in some circles largely because of how complete and alive the world she had built seems, and after reading Tolkien’s work and watching the series based on her novel, I can see why. The official tranlation of the first book was released by Tokyopop (titled “The Twelve Kingdoms: Sea of Shadows”); it’s unfortunate that it’s a pretty short read at a around 464 pages. I guess something about the Japanese language really makes it harder to make longer novels?

Well, I should stop here. This is getting much longer than I intended.