First Impression – Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry
There are a lot more characters in this promo shot than in the first episode…
Welcome back to the second impression for Gakusen Toshi Asterisk! Ok, yeah, I used that joke yesterday with the actual Asterisk post, but I don’t think anyone watched these two shows and thought “What are you talking about? They’re nothing like each other!” So where are the similarities, and what are the important differences? Let’s see what we think of Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry, or the horrible given English title of “A Tale of Worst One”. Seriously, anime companies, I’m now offering my services as an English idiom coach. Feel free to drop me a line with “We were thinking of going with this phrase, whaddaya think?” cause this is just embarrassing.
Another Red-Haired Princess
Could you see if the carpet matches the drapes?
If I looked like that, I’d find more excuses to take my shirt off, too.
This time, our main girl with red hair (we call them red, but in these shows it’s always pink. Red hair looks better, imo) is the late arriver, as Stella Vermillion, the second princess (but with the highest score), is the new transfer student into Hagun Academy in order to become a Magical Knight. This puts her in direct contrast to our main male character, Ikki Kurogane, who is technically “the worst”. And unlike the ill-advised actions of Ayato from Asterisk, Ikki technically doesn’t do anything wrong when he enters his dorm room to find Stella mostly undressed. And he also has quite a bit more wherewithal, as his reaction to seeing her in her underthings is to try to make them ‘even’, by stripping off his own clothes. Cause, you know, that makes them even. Just like all those hentai where the girl, having been discovered enjoying herself naked, tries to assure the silence of the guy who found her by… well, nevermind. Either way, it doesn’t really work, and gets him hauled in front of the school’s director, who lets Ikki stew for a while, before finally confirming his claim that it was his room too.
I thought there was a nice composition to this shot
Normal big-mouthed girl…
I have to say that I felt the chemistry between Ikki and Stella to be pretty good, and quite a bit better than their counterparts in Asterisk. A lot of this is because these two characters feel a bit like trope busters. If Ayato and Julis were reticent, exactly like you’d expect from characters in their respective position, Ikki and Stella are quite a bit more forward, starting with Stella’s black lingerie with garter belt, and going through Ikki’s fire-and-rant-interrupting declaration that Stella is beautiful and that’s the reason he couldn’t take his eyes off her. Usually that stuff is kept in the MC’s head, unable to be spoken of even if it dominates his thoughts. But this time it’s out there in the open right away. And this forthrightness doesn’t end there.
This is what happens when you argue
Down to a Duel
Rory Mercury came to watch
Since the Director isn’t budging on them being roommates, even though usually roommates are similarly leveled, and officially Stella is Rank A and Ikki is rank flunk. But besides the director’s flunky logic with “Best and Worst being similar”, it’s more that she knows that Ikki isn’t all that he seems. Like that overpowered Irregular from Magic High School, his scores are more that his abilities aren’t accurately measured, or don’t count toward the scores. This manifests itself in the duel for supremacy between the two, set up to decide who gets to be top dog in the room, where despite being technically overmatched, he defeats Stella by adopting her own technique, learning it on the fly, and then using an ability to compress all his ability within a minute to supercharge his effectiveness. But even here, I liked the characterization of both of them. Stella bristles at the idea, thrown in her face in the past, that she has merely survived on her talent, enduring the epithets of those who think they’ve tried harder. I like this aspect of her character. Yes, talent will frequently beat effort, but you know what beats talent? Talent + Effort.
She doesn’t mind the loss
Gotta get a piece of dat…
And perhaps the real turning point in the relationship between Stella and Ikki here in the first episode is during their duel when Ikki acknowledges the effort that Stella has expended to become as good as she is. And even though Ikki wins, Stella doesn’t get impetuous and haughty about it. What she does get energized by the feeling of losing, much like Souma Yukihira.. The other thing she gets is curious about Ikki, and takes the opportunity of his unconsciousness to do some reciprocal exploring. And when the demand comes from Ikki, the ‘order’ he can make from winning, it’s “Be my roommate”, because, as I said before, there’s definitely a chemistry between these two.
Just say no to fist bumps, anime.
Having written about both Asterisk and now Rakudai Kishi, I find my early opinion diverging a bit. While after the first viewing I thought they were kind of even (watching Asterisk first helped its case quite a bit, I now realize), I find that I’m liking the characterization in Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry quite a bit more than the shinier visuals in Asterisk. I think Silver Link did well enough in the visual part that the difference is that this premiere really focused on the two main characters, and I think that was to its benefit. It allowed for a lot of nuance in their developing relationship, and a lot of nuance in each character as well. It also allowed these two VAs to shine, with good performances from Ryouta Osaka and Shizuka Ishigami, who has been shining recently as Ayame Koujou in Shimoneta and Ikumi Mito from Shokugeki no Souma. I’m hoping that both shows improve, but after rewatching the two, I think that this is not only the better of the premieres, but also the show with more potential.
Bonus End Card
Helloooooo Stella!
About Highway
Proving that you don't have to be young to love anime, I enjoy all genres and styles of shows. If it's not hurting anyone else, you should never be ashamed of what you like!
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
This is beginning to bring back bad memories of a very recent season with so many copies of a same show…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
So far, both shows are better than any of the 4 crummy shows that season. And given that we’re talking about A-1 Pictures and Silver Link / Nexus, rather than Diomedea, 8-bit, or Arms, they’d be hard pressed to be as bad as any of those shows.
Also, Yoshitsugu Matsuoka is only in one of them.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
While both shows wears their initial tropes on their respective sleeves, Calvary is doing better while cleaving away, and Asterisk might get worse by cleaving towards.
Stealla just has more Umph than Julis. You can see not just the Tsun, but what will make up the Dere. Not so much going on there in the other show. Also, she has something of a complete arc to her character during the first episode. Her realization about “putting people in boxes” was a welcome breathe of fresh air in a premiere. Will Julis have a similar arc in a cour?
Ikki is a dude. Where as the other guy came off as aloof and bland, Ikki is a dude. It’s kinda unspoken, but they could have played it like “Oh, by the way, you won’t believe this Stella, but my abilities aren’t measurable, so this Rank thing might not be so important”. Nope, I got the notion he kinda wanted to take her by surprise. For a lady, so few men are surprising.
And…most important! They gave us a LOLi in the first episode. Clear Winner!
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Stella’s realization of her categorization of Ikki does at least make it a good start. So often, one of the main characteristics of these shows is that noone has any self-reflection or insight, and needs to have it beat into them through being an idiot for a long time. That Stella would go that “I learned something in this loss” route, as well as the “I’m sorry, I judged you the way I hated to be judged” route is one of the things that appealed to me in this show.
I had the impression that Ikki wasn’t as confident in his abilities, and kind of felt like he didn’t get much chance to fight. So he was sorta surprised that he was able to stick with her and defeat her, but it wasn’t any sort of “Yeah, I showed you” kind of thing. It was “This was a tough fight, I’m glad I won, you were a good opponent.”
I really hope it keeps up with this.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
I’ll trust your view on Ikki since you, you know, watched it more than I did.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Well, I start to worry that maybe I’m seeing things that aren’t there, having watched it maybe too much. But at this point I just hope it keeps going with what I think I’m seeing.
POWUH: Meta Team and Meta-Analyst with 3844 comments
Obviously this is a plus.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
If I looked like that, I’d find more excuses to take my shirt off, too.
Matsuoka Gou would’ve accepted Ikki’s apology the instant he took of his shirt.
“━━\(゜∀゜)/━!!!!! APOLOGY ACCEPTED!!”
Time will tell with the plot. Cavalry only has 12 episodes to tell its story, compared to Asterisk’s 20+.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
There are plenty of shows that tell fine stories in one cour. And there are a lot of stories that blow it in the second cour.
One thing I didn’t mention is that the director for Cavalry is Shin Oonuma. I know of a few people that just don’t care for his work, but in general I find it acceptable, if not usually exemplary. And some of his more recent shows are ones that I quite like, like Rokujouma no Shinryakusha?! and Prisma Illya. If we’re talking pedigree, that certainly beats Asterisk‘s Manabu Ono, who did Mahouka and Saki, but not much else.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10997 comments
Yep, on the flip side, more-cour can me more opportunities to screw it up. Eureka 7 AO, Last Exile Silver Wing….And yes, we pay a great deal of attention to the idiosyncratic-auteur directors to the exclusion of less showy, This is the Job so Do It ones.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Thinking about it more overnight, I’m actually getting my hopes up with Shin Oonuma on this. I have a real soft spot in my heart for Rokujouma, which I thought was a cleverly done show that, much like Jitsu wa Watashi wa, let a bunch of idiosyncratic characters be themselves. In particular, I thought the way it handled Yurika was masterful, a character that never crossed the line from piteous to contempt.
And while I know there are people who dislike the focus of the Prisma Illya series, I have enjoyed it, much more than if they spent all the time on the repetitive fights. I don’t think they softpedaled them too much, I have always thought that series gave them their due, getting the point across in the fight, but without dragging it out like Fate yakity-yak “fights”. And then they have been able to spend the rest of the time on character and world building.
It is probably too much to hope for, but if Rakudai Kishi ended up anywhere near either of those two series, it would probably be one of the best examples of a specialty school harem.
POWUH: 400-499 with 445 comments
Im not gonna lie, this show and the manga its based off is the definition of generic. However, the saving grace to this story is how the cast of characters dont beat around the bush with each other. They are honest and learn from their mistakes; they try to improve and tackle their dilemmas even if it may be hard for them. all of this is done without dragging out these said dilemmas for too long. Viewers will see what i mean the show progresses. And it’s definitely a plus that stella is more dere than tsun or my god would this have gotten annoying real fast. She actually has a head on her shoulders and makes me tolerate her significantly. Plus the fist bump between our two male leads exemplifies the future of their relationship quite well. This is not a show i think is good..but it does handle certain things decently enough that there is a charm to it, ultimately making its 20 mins easy to digest
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Episode 1 covered Chp 1 of LN Vol 1.
In the book, Ikki’s title, “The Worst One”, is written with the kanji 落第騎士, Rakudai Kishi – The Failed Knight.
(Worst One is written in furigana as ワーストワン).
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
I actually don’t have a problem with his title being “The Worst One”. That’s a title and it works fine. The problem with the show is that they put the text “A Tale of Worst One” right on the Title screen. And there is nowhere in the english speaking world that that is something that would be said. It wouldn’t take much: Make it “A Tale of The Worst One” and it works fine. Or use “A Tale of The Failed Knight”. That would work too. But nah, they don’t even bother.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
And while it’s hard to compare books by chapter length, I really felt like this show told the right amount of story in this first episode. Also, unlike so many shows, I really felt like they at least gave a plausible start to a possible relationship between Stella and Ikki, without going to the super-overused “He saved me!” While you might argue that forcing her to reevaluate her biases is a form of ‘saving’ her, it’s a lot more subtle and a lot more realistic.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Whew, if not for the different titles and slight difference in settings, I’d have sworn this was Asterisk again. Both series are near mirror images of one another. What kind of game are the studios playing this season? Not bad for a first outing and it’s a series with no difficulty getting behind of. Though, since it’s a single cour, I wonder how much story is intended to be told.
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 163 comments
This was actually one I was looking forward to this season. I’ve been following the manga closely, and it’s one I enjoy mainly due to the genuine relationship of mutual respect and admiration the two MCs have for each other, and how straightforward and honest it is.
I thought art was better in the Manga, but this did well enough that I’ll follow this show this season.
I consider it better than Asterisk by a fair margin (which I’ve also read the manga for).
Of course – my wife tells me I dot have the highey standards in anime entertainment – so there is that.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Bah, it’s still possible to tell the difference between something good and something bad. 🙂
It’s good to hear that I’m not the only one who felt like the relationship between Stella and Ikki was different from what we usually see, and I’m glad that it seems like it will continue.
I also like the speed they adapted it, getting through one chapter out of four of the first LN in one episode. There are 7 LNs out, so there’s no problem with the amount of material, I just hope that the quality doesn’t fall off like a certain series from last season.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Just an update that Vol 8 of the LN will be released this 14 October 2015.