Walkure Romanze
The Knight Boom Makes Its Way to Anime
Visual novels are probably my most consumed form of Japanese media besides anime. They take a long time to play, but it's worth it. That gives me time to get invested in these characters. Granted, most of the VNs I play rarely get adapted to anime, but I am familiar with their general storytelling style. And adapting them is tough. Omnibus format and combined both have their downsides, and a medium that relies primarily on first-person narration transitioning into a third person anime is not going to be easy.
There's a lot of VNs about knights coming out lately. KimiKishi, Noblesse of Rogue, St. Brunhilde, the next in the Koi Kishi series. It's a profitable thing. But Walkure Romanze's parent company already had an anime adaptation, so they were first out the gate. For me, this was a chance to hear Kei Mizusawa (or as I primarily know her, Rino Kawashima), in an anime.
Perhaps because of the way VNs are, it felt a lot like a show from a few years ago. It was presenting a lot of its ideas with sincerity, and that's not a bad thing. The cast was very clearly locked in their archetypes, but the way they bounced off each other was fun to watch. Comedy, fanservice, and even a bit of drama - each element never completely overpowered the other. Romance was downplayed in favor of jousting, but it wasn't completely excised either.
My favorite of the cast, besides Celia, was probably Bertille. I like the kinds of characters whose egos are so overblown that they end up getting themselves in further trouble. The way Ema and An kept insulting her even as they acted as her hangers-on was an amusing dynamic to watch.
As far as the fanservice elements, the innuendo gags were played a little strongly early in the show, but other kinds of fanservice were used later, and with more variety. The entire windmill episode comes to mind. That one also pinged my yuri goggles a bit. There were a lot of relationships like that, actually. The contrast between the armored form of the knight and the beauty of the girls is something Japan likes to play up, and, boob armor aside, it was used well here. The rules of jousting were used smartly in a way that made for drama, too.
I also liked the SD segments at the end of each episode. The romance elements... I can see the kind of reactions this probably drew, it's the same every time. Takahiro's heart belongs to jousting for now, but he at least implicitly chose Mio by participating with her in the final round. Who he actually chose was never all that important to the central themes of the show. It was more focused on exploring the various reasons why people are participating in jousting. More of a show of the common route than any actual choice. Something has to go in these cases, just the way things are.
The OP and ED were both pretty nice and listenable.
Final Thoughts: Those watching for romance may be disappointed. Those watching for the jousting are likely satisfied. Mio's arc, everyone's arc, was plotted well enough given the amount of material they had to cut down to one cour, and the themes were presented in a good fashion. Visual novel anime may not be that common these days (and eroge anime even rarer). I'd say this is an above average representation of one. It's competently put together, and the characters all feel defined, archetypical as they are. A pleasant watch.
The Knight Boom Makes Its Way to Anime
Visual novels are probably my most consumed form of Japanese media besides anime. They take a long time to play, but it's worth it. That gives me time to get invested in these characters. Granted, most of the VNs I play rarely get adapted to anime, but I am familiar with their general storytelling style. And adapting them is tough. Omnibus format and combined both have their downsides, and a medium that relies primarily on first-person narration transitioning into a third person anime is not going to be easy.
There's a lot of VNs about knights coming out lately. KimiKishi, Noblesse of Rogue, St. Brunhilde, the next in the Koi Kishi series. It's a profitable thing. But Walkure Romanze's parent company already had an anime adaptation, so they were first out the gate. For me, this was a chance to hear Kei Mizusawa (or as I primarily know her, Rino Kawashima), in an anime.
Perhaps because of the way VNs are, it felt a lot like a show from a few years ago. It was presenting a lot of its ideas with sincerity, and that's not a bad thing. The cast was very clearly locked in their archetypes, but the way they bounced off each other was fun to watch. Comedy, fanservice, and even a bit of drama - each element never completely overpowered the other. Romance was downplayed in favor of jousting, but it wasn't completely excised either.
My favorite of the cast, besides Celia, was probably Bertille. I like the kinds of characters whose egos are so overblown that they end up getting themselves in further trouble. The way Ema and An kept insulting her even as they acted as her hangers-on was an amusing dynamic to watch.
As far as the fanservice elements, the innuendo gags were played a little strongly early in the show, but other kinds of fanservice were used later, and with more variety. The entire windmill episode comes to mind. That one also pinged my yuri goggles a bit. There were a lot of relationships like that, actually. The contrast between the armored form of the knight and the beauty of the girls is something Japan likes to play up, and, boob armor aside, it was used well here. The rules of jousting were used smartly in a way that made for drama, too.
I also liked the SD segments at the end of each episode. The romance elements... I can see the kind of reactions this probably drew, it's the same every time. Takahiro's heart belongs to jousting for now, but he at least implicitly chose Mio by participating with her in the final round. Who he actually chose was never all that important to the central themes of the show. It was more focused on exploring the various reasons why people are participating in jousting. More of a show of the common route than any actual choice. Something has to go in these cases, just the way things are.
The OP and ED were both pretty nice and listenable.
Final Thoughts: Those watching for romance may be disappointed. Those watching for the jousting are likely satisfied. Mio's arc, everyone's arc, was plotted well enough given the amount of material they had to cut down to one cour, and the themes were presented in a good fashion. Visual novel anime may not be that common these days (and eroge anime even rarer). I'd say this is an above average representation of one. It's competently put together, and the characters all feel defined, archetypical as they are. A pleasant watch.
