October 03, 2015

Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry -- ep 1

This was actually pretty good. Nothing astounding about it, yet, and a lot of romcom tropes to be sure, but there's spirit in it, life. And It's growing on me.

Our hero is Ikki Kurogane. In the school his rank is "F", which means he's flunking. His nickname in the school is "The Worst". But he isn't sullen or resentful; he is upbeat and cheerful and he's working his best to be as good as he can be, even though he has next-to-no magic. He attends a school in Japan for Magical Knights, so his lack of magic is a serious impediment.

Stella Vermillion is a princess of a foreign land whose magical power ranks "A". She has decided to attend this school, for reasons which come out later. The school headmaster assigns her to share Ikki's room.

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Boy meets Girl, who has a spectacular figure and exquisite taste in lingerie. Shortly thereafter she powers up and is about to try to kill him, when the headmaster shows up to inform them both that they've been assigned as roommates.

Well, Stella ain't happy with that, and to settle the whole business they are going to fight a mock duel, using something like the rules and magical protections used in the InterMiddle championship in Nanoha Vivid.

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The match is announced and a crowd shows up to watch it. Can't you just feel the excitement?

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Given Ikki's reputation, and his nominal rank of "F", Stella assumes it will be an easy win. But she finds herself struggling, so she eventually decides to haul out her magic and become a supersaiyajin.

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It isn't really a spoiler to reveal that it doesn't help, and that she loses. That was pretty much a foregone conclusion.

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So the two of them come to an accomodation and agree to be roommates.

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Stella had a talk with the headmaster about Ikki, and her main reaction was that categorizing him as "F" was blatantly unfair. The headmaster tells her that the problem is that the evaluation algorithm isn't tuned properly for someone like Ikki, because it only evaluates the ways in which Ikki is weak, without giving any credit for the multitude of ways he's actually really good.

When Stella first arrived, she told the headmaster that the reason she was there was because she was constantly put in a box back home, a box labeled "genius", and couldn't free herself from it to try to work to improve herself. That seems to be why the headmaster assigned her to Ikki as a roommate. She tells Stella that she should try to learn from him.

This is a harem show and in this first episode we met at least two other girls who are probably going to end up in the harem, but it's clear that Stella is the first girl, and the others are just going to be complications.

And I'm intrigued. There's plenty of potential here for this show to go completely off the rails, of course, but there's also potential here for a really good series.

The best thing is Ikki. He isn't a Marty Stu but he isn't a potato-kun either. He's just a really nice guy who is doing his best to overcome some serious failings, and trying to make himself as good as he can be. Ikki isn't competing with anyone else and he frankly doesn't care what anyone else thinks about him, which is why his nickname of "The Worst" rolls off him without leaving a mark.

If they maintain that, and don't descend into idiotic romcom tropes, it could end up being pretty good. Stella is giving tsundere vibes and the best thing would be for that to fade out, though I suppose that's too much to hope for.

Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry gets a tentative thumbs-up.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste in General Anime at 07:11 PM | Comments (9) | Add Comment
Post contains 643 words, total size 4 kb.

1

Not the most original show available this season, but Episode 1 was actually entertaining - and it did not make me turn it off in the first moments because I found it completely impossible to suspend any part of my disbelief (Code Geass still holds the record for that.).

Heavy Object is sounding like a mess from the get-go.

Posted by: cxt217 at October 03, 2015 08:10 PM (y6GqJ)

2 This really wasn't bad. I like Ikki's response to catching Stella in a state of undress: apologize by taking off his clothes.  Ikki is not nearly as much of a Marty Stu as Mahouka, which is refreshing because I could see similarities in how this show could progress. I like that he only has a minute to execute his magic--he's the Tiger & Bunny of knights.

I do have to ask though: where are the horses? I mean, they're usually the big part of why cavalry is cavalry, right?

Posted by: wahsatchmo at October 04, 2015 09:19 AM (VFkGH)

3 If you like it I'll have to give it a shot.  Are you going to give Asterisk War a one episode shot?  Was wondering because it has a similar premise, new male student runs a foul of powerful ace female student on first day of school.

Posted by: Doyen at October 04, 2015 09:28 AM (sKral)

4 I was actually looking forward to all three shows mentioned in this thread.  So far, this one's the only winner, and that's mostly because the lead characters are well thought out and realized.  Unfortunately, it is going to have some problems with romcom tropes, although not as much as Asterisk.
It's hard for me to separate the two in my mind... They are just so similar in some ways:  Noble (in spirit) Japanese boy matched up with red-headed, fire-powered magical noble (in blood) European girl.  Both sets of protagonists pair off tightly with each other, and the other girls are mere complications.
But Asterisk's backstory is a confused mush, while I don't even remember if Cavalry has one.  We'll have to see how they play out, but my money's on Cavalry winning.

Posted by: ubu at October 04, 2015 10:43 AM (GfCSm)

5 Asterisk War is not on my list. It didn't seem like it was going to be any good, and early reports confirm that.

Posted by: Steven Den Beste at October 04, 2015 11:02 AM (+rSRq)

6

Asterisk War does possess significantly better production quality, given that A-1 Pictures is producing it and Aniplex is part of the production committee.  The action sequences, in particular, are significantly better than in Chivalry.

In terms of story - for what they are - I would give to Chivalry after the first episodes of both series.

The only major problems I have with the series right now is that Sentai signed an exclusive deal with Hulu to stream the show - and you need to be a Hulu Plus member to watch it.

Posted by: cxt217 at October 04, 2015 01:33 PM (y6GqJ)

7 And that's what drove me back to bittorrent after a couple of years of being mostly legit (via Funimation, RACS, and Crunchyroll)

Posted by: ubu at October 05, 2015 07:12 AM (SlLGE)

8 Ubu, the fall season and 'Chivalry of a Failed Knight' are the reasons I finally signed up for Hulu Plus.  To be honest, I'm trimming back my other TV services, so the 'No Advertising' plan actually works for me.  Hulu has a huge anime library and they seem to arrange contracts where they can keep it for a long time.  Heck, they still have Ergo Proxy up there.

As to the story, I kept hearing 'Irregular Magic at High School' throughout the teacher's explanation of Ikki's powers.



Posted by: Tom Tjarks at October 06, 2015 07:57 AM (J0lM9)

9

Hulu does not have contracts to keep most titles available in their catalog, which is how Netflix does it.  Rather, each content provider who holds an account with Hulu can decide which title they want to be available for how long, and whether it will be available free and premium, or just premium.

The arrangement seems to work pretty well, since Justin Sevakis at ANN has commented that quite a number of the content providers of anime get tens of thousands of dollars each month at least, from Hulu.

Posted by: cxt217 at October 06, 2015 03:00 PM (y6GqJ)

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