Anime Review: Chivalry of a Failed Knight
Okay, so I was wrong. Eureka Seven wasn't my last anime of the summer. I found Chivalry of a Failed Knight a little while ago, and it was so short, I could watch it in one day. (And have time left over!)
One reason I wanted to watch this was simply that it's pretty. (Yeah, shallow, I know.) I like the art style, and I think Stella's pretty. Plus, the premise is a bunch of people learning to be knights, manifesting weaponry and magical powers. Sounds fun, right? Well...I have mixed feelings about this one. Mostly, I think they had some good concepts, but I feel the execution was pretty poor. Sadly, it's another case of a series having good bones, but failing to live up to its potential.
First, the characters. I actually liked most of the regular cast, though I will say that the supporting/background characters never got the development that they needed. There were a few times we were introduced to someone, and they gave the impression that this person was important, or maybe even that we should recognize their name, but nothing was ever explained or fleshed out. It felt kind of awkward. Plus, some of them were just plain weird. Like Yuri, the teacher who vomited buckets of blood every day. (Literally. And no, it wasn't a gag.)
Back to the main cast. Stella really wasn't what I expected, going in. I expected a stronger personality from her, honestly. But I guess I can see her being shy and awkward. Being a princess would probably be very isolating, socially speaking. So, her not knowing how to act around a boy she likes isn't that odd, I guess. (Heck, loads of 'normal' girls struggle with that.) She was pretty tsundere, though. I would have liked her to be just a little stronger, to back it up. But she was okay.
Ikki was surprisingly a decent character. I went into this kind of dubious about him...the whole idea that he's the literal worst in the whole school, yet he beats Stella (who's one of the best) in the very first episode? But they laid it out in a way I could believe. One of the adults said something about how the students are ranked purely on their magical/'Blazer' abilities. Ikki sucked in that area, but he'd built up his more mundane swordsmanship to compensate. But that was never taken into account in the rankings; just pure magical power. I think she actually said something like, 'there's no way to actually rank him'. Which made sense. By saying he's the worst, that doesn't actually mean he's hopeless. His strength just lies in another area. And he was actually a decent guy, so yay.
Probably the only character I disliked at all was Ikki's sister, Shizuku. And that's less about her personality and more because incest squicks the hell out of me. And I'm sorry, but any character who proceeds to lock lips with her brother practically the first moment she's on screen? Is always going to leave a sour taste in my mouth. (No pun intended!) Her whole bit about how the entire Kurogane family hated Ikki, so she wanted to give him the love he deserved, was sweet enough, I guess. But I wish they could have kept it familial, rather than crossing over into blatant incest. Not to mention that she looks seriously underage. Bleh. She'd have been an okay character, if not for that.
I honestly really liked Alice! I wish we could have seen more of her. Or is it him? It seemed that Alice was physically male, but I'm not sure if she actually identified as female, or if he was just a really effeminate man. Alice told Shizuku to consider her a 'big sister', and mentions 'woman's intuition', plus using 'Alice' rather than her real name, makes me wonder. Ah, well. Whatever his/her gender identity is, I liked the character.
And the pairing in this show is Ikki/Stella, unsurprisingly. I actually ended up liking them together, though Stella's awkwardness got a little...well, awkward, after a while. I will say, though, that they didn't belabor the relationship drama. So, kudos for that. For instance, in one episode, Stella's worrying because even though they've been dating for two weeks, Ikki hasn't done anything at all couple-y with her. No hand holding, no kissing, nothing. She frets about it for a bit, then Ikki wants to talk to her. He says pretty much the same thing; that he'd noticed it, and wanted to talk about what they should do. She misunderstands, thinks he's breaking up with her because she didn't move fast enough for him. But he's pretty much just asking how they should proceed. They actually end up yelling at each other, which was surprisingly a bit funny. ("Why are we even having this fight?" "I don't know!") They finally talked themselves around to realizing they both wanted the same thing, and then they were able to move on. In some other series I've seen, that little bit of drama would have been dragged out for several episodes. Here, they did it in less than one.
I actually found them to be kind of a sweet couple. My only problem was again, the series was too short. They didn't have enough time for their relationship to mature much past the blushy, afraid to ask for a kiss stage. And then Ikki proposes at the end? I mean, sure, I ship them, but yikes. That's too fast. You've been dating less than a year!
As for the plot...this is where the length of the series is a problem. They barely had time to do anything in just 12 episodes. The big thing was that Ikki had to win that big inter-school competition to be able to graduate. But the anime only covers him winning the right to represent his school in said competition. They needed another season, at the very least.
Speaking of plot...there were a couple of things that confused me a bit. For one, Ikki and Stella are first-year students. Freshmen, basically. Yet he's talking about needing to win that competition to graduate...that just seems like something he wouldn't have to worry about until his senior year, or something. But then, a lot about how the school handles things is pretty ridiculous. Like co-ed dorms. I doubt there's a school on the planet that would deliberately put a boy and a girl as roommates. I mean, if they were married, sure. But otherwise? Besides the whole bit with Ikki and Stella, when Shizuku goes to her dorm for the first time and meets Alice, all I could think was how wildly inappropriate it was. This little, probably underage girl, being put in the same room with an older guy? Like that isn't begging for her to be abused in some way. =/ (Granted, Alice ended up being awesome, but still.)
And the whole bit toward the end, with Ikki being imprisoned because someone took a picture of him kissing Stella? (And it was a totally chaste kiss, seriously.) I mean, I could see it creating an international incident, if someone accused him of raping her or something. But they never said anything like that. They did accuse him of sleeping with her, but never forcing her. And seriously...she's (probably) a teenager at school. Her having a boyfriend (or even having sex, honestly) is not a shocking idea. And yeah, I know that his family (or some minion of theirs) was deliberately trying to ruin Ikki, but if you're going to do that, you'd think they'd make actual, believable accusations. =P So that whole bit was badly done.
And finally, the elephant in the room. The fanservice. There's a lot. And some of it is pretty blatant and ridiculous. I mean, yeah. I'm a straight girl, so all fanservice seems pretty obvious and stupid to me. But this was the most blatant I've seen in a long time. Plus, in a lot of series, the fanservice consists of a quick panty shot or boob grab. This one has at least two or three lengthy scenes that felt a little porny, honestly. No graphic nudity, but more...sensual than just 'whoops, her skirt flipped up'. Some people enjoy that, some don't. Just keep it in mind, if you want to try this one out. It's not for kids! XD
Final verdict? Mixed. The concept is neat and the main cast are likable. But this show suffered from being far too short, and some odd plot choices. Plus, there's a lot of fanservice. So, it's a toss up. According to Wikipedia, this was based off a light novel series, and there's also a manga. I might look and see if I can find either of those to flesh out the plot a bit.
One reason I wanted to watch this was simply that it's pretty. (Yeah, shallow, I know.) I like the art style, and I think Stella's pretty. Plus, the premise is a bunch of people learning to be knights, manifesting weaponry and magical powers. Sounds fun, right? Well...I have mixed feelings about this one. Mostly, I think they had some good concepts, but I feel the execution was pretty poor. Sadly, it's another case of a series having good bones, but failing to live up to its potential.
First, the characters. I actually liked most of the regular cast, though I will say that the supporting/background characters never got the development that they needed. There were a few times we were introduced to someone, and they gave the impression that this person was important, or maybe even that we should recognize their name, but nothing was ever explained or fleshed out. It felt kind of awkward. Plus, some of them were just plain weird. Like Yuri, the teacher who vomited buckets of blood every day. (Literally. And no, it wasn't a gag.)
Back to the main cast. Stella really wasn't what I expected, going in. I expected a stronger personality from her, honestly. But I guess I can see her being shy and awkward. Being a princess would probably be very isolating, socially speaking. So, her not knowing how to act around a boy she likes isn't that odd, I guess. (Heck, loads of 'normal' girls struggle with that.) She was pretty tsundere, though. I would have liked her to be just a little stronger, to back it up. But she was okay.
Ikki was surprisingly a decent character. I went into this kind of dubious about him...the whole idea that he's the literal worst in the whole school, yet he beats Stella (who's one of the best) in the very first episode? But they laid it out in a way I could believe. One of the adults said something about how the students are ranked purely on their magical/'Blazer' abilities. Ikki sucked in that area, but he'd built up his more mundane swordsmanship to compensate. But that was never taken into account in the rankings; just pure magical power. I think she actually said something like, 'there's no way to actually rank him'. Which made sense. By saying he's the worst, that doesn't actually mean he's hopeless. His strength just lies in another area. And he was actually a decent guy, so yay.
Probably the only character I disliked at all was Ikki's sister, Shizuku. And that's less about her personality and more because incest squicks the hell out of me. And I'm sorry, but any character who proceeds to lock lips with her brother practically the first moment she's on screen? Is always going to leave a sour taste in my mouth. (No pun intended!) Her whole bit about how the entire Kurogane family hated Ikki, so she wanted to give him the love he deserved, was sweet enough, I guess. But I wish they could have kept it familial, rather than crossing over into blatant incest. Not to mention that she looks seriously underage. Bleh. She'd have been an okay character, if not for that.
I honestly really liked Alice! I wish we could have seen more of her. Or is it him? It seemed that Alice was physically male, but I'm not sure if she actually identified as female, or if he was just a really effeminate man. Alice told Shizuku to consider her a 'big sister', and mentions 'woman's intuition', plus using 'Alice' rather than her real name, makes me wonder. Ah, well. Whatever his/her gender identity is, I liked the character.
And the pairing in this show is Ikki/Stella, unsurprisingly. I actually ended up liking them together, though Stella's awkwardness got a little...well, awkward, after a while. I will say, though, that they didn't belabor the relationship drama. So, kudos for that. For instance, in one episode, Stella's worrying because even though they've been dating for two weeks, Ikki hasn't done anything at all couple-y with her. No hand holding, no kissing, nothing. She frets about it for a bit, then Ikki wants to talk to her. He says pretty much the same thing; that he'd noticed it, and wanted to talk about what they should do. She misunderstands, thinks he's breaking up with her because she didn't move fast enough for him. But he's pretty much just asking how they should proceed. They actually end up yelling at each other, which was surprisingly a bit funny. ("Why are we even having this fight?" "I don't know!") They finally talked themselves around to realizing they both wanted the same thing, and then they were able to move on. In some other series I've seen, that little bit of drama would have been dragged out for several episodes. Here, they did it in less than one.
I actually found them to be kind of a sweet couple. My only problem was again, the series was too short. They didn't have enough time for their relationship to mature much past the blushy, afraid to ask for a kiss stage. And then Ikki proposes at the end? I mean, sure, I ship them, but yikes. That's too fast. You've been dating less than a year!
As for the plot...this is where the length of the series is a problem. They barely had time to do anything in just 12 episodes. The big thing was that Ikki had to win that big inter-school competition to be able to graduate. But the anime only covers him winning the right to represent his school in said competition. They needed another season, at the very least.
Speaking of plot...there were a couple of things that confused me a bit. For one, Ikki and Stella are first-year students. Freshmen, basically. Yet he's talking about needing to win that competition to graduate...that just seems like something he wouldn't have to worry about until his senior year, or something. But then, a lot about how the school handles things is pretty ridiculous. Like co-ed dorms. I doubt there's a school on the planet that would deliberately put a boy and a girl as roommates. I mean, if they were married, sure. But otherwise? Besides the whole bit with Ikki and Stella, when Shizuku goes to her dorm for the first time and meets Alice, all I could think was how wildly inappropriate it was. This little, probably underage girl, being put in the same room with an older guy? Like that isn't begging for her to be abused in some way. =/ (Granted, Alice ended up being awesome, but still.)
And the whole bit toward the end, with Ikki being imprisoned because someone took a picture of him kissing Stella? (And it was a totally chaste kiss, seriously.) I mean, I could see it creating an international incident, if someone accused him of raping her or something. But they never said anything like that. They did accuse him of sleeping with her, but never forcing her. And seriously...she's (probably) a teenager at school. Her having a boyfriend (or even having sex, honestly) is not a shocking idea. And yeah, I know that his family (or some minion of theirs) was deliberately trying to ruin Ikki, but if you're going to do that, you'd think they'd make actual, believable accusations. =P So that whole bit was badly done.
And finally, the elephant in the room. The fanservice. There's a lot. And some of it is pretty blatant and ridiculous. I mean, yeah. I'm a straight girl, so all fanservice seems pretty obvious and stupid to me. But this was the most blatant I've seen in a long time. Plus, in a lot of series, the fanservice consists of a quick panty shot or boob grab. This one has at least two or three lengthy scenes that felt a little porny, honestly. No graphic nudity, but more...sensual than just 'whoops, her skirt flipped up'. Some people enjoy that, some don't. Just keep it in mind, if you want to try this one out. It's not for kids! XD
Final verdict? Mixed. The concept is neat and the main cast are likable. But this show suffered from being far too short, and some odd plot choices. Plus, there's a lot of fanservice. So, it's a toss up. According to Wikipedia, this was based off a light novel series, and there's also a manga. I might look and see if I can find either of those to flesh out the plot a bit.