I suggested this series as playlist material because it is a good, solid, old-school style fantasy series. The reviewers on anidb are unnecessarily harsh on it because of that. In short, not much in the way of moe crap that you get with shows like The Sacred Blacksmith.... it is more at the Berserk end of the fantasy spectrum (although not nearly as grimdark as Berserk is).
As the wiki article states:
The Guin Saga (グイン・サーガ, Guin Sāga?) is the title of a best-selling heroic fantasy novel series by the Japanese author Kaoru Kurimoto, in continuous publication since 1979. A record 100 volumes were originally planned, but as of the author's death in May 2009 the total stands at 126 volumes, with 21 side-story novels. She was working on the 130th volume of Guin Saga up until 23 May 2009, after which point she became too ill to write. After the 100th book in the series was published in 2005, an event to celebrate this was held in Tokyo, with 600 attending. Guin Saga is the longest continuing single-writer's work in the world with total circulation exceeding 28 million worldwide.
On April 12, 2005, Micott & Basara (Japanese investors) announced plans to create an anime based on Guin Saga. In October 2008 more details surfaced which revealed Atsushi Wakabayashi is directing the anime, while famous video game composer Nobuo Uematsu is creating the score. This is to be Uematsu's first full soundtrack for an anime, and Wakabayashi's first directing role. Animation production will be handled by Satelight and the background art by Studio Easter. The anime debuted on April 5, 2009. On April 3, 2009 an English-dubbed trailer was posted on the anime's official website.
The anime is expected to adapt the first sixteen volumes of the light novels.