Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry – 10
Yeah, big men, beating up a little kid.
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We don’t need to follow the main couple all the time. But can someone prove their worth while losing? |
Needing to Win
Taking on Touka
Shizuku has a nearly impossible task. She has to fight the student council president Touka Toudou, who was in the final four of last year’s Seven Star Battle. And even then, she lost in the semi-finals to a gimmick: A spear user who fought entirely at range (more on that later). So Touka’s looking to get back there and win the whole thing, and there doesn’t look to be much of anyone who can get in her way.
Nene is the type to use her powers for kinda bad
Shizuku’s feeling other pressure, tho. She thinks that because she’s not Stella, she doesn’t have the benefit of the doubt from her brother. And her family history comes into it as well: Having been shown her human failings long ago by her brother, who paid the price for his moral lessons, she’s made it her goal to follow him as far as she can, and protect him as much as possible from their family. But she feels that the ‘protecting’ has been going the other way, with Shizuku being a person that Ikki will not rely on. And Ikki himself is more worried that Shizuku will be hurt in the fight than that she’ll lose.
Shizuku makes a final rush
The fight itself ends up about like you’d want a fight to go, with Shizuku putting up a good fight, not getting blown out, but ultimately being defeated by the power of the seitokaichou. As usual, with this show, they handled the fight well, and this may have been the most coherent and flashy fight that they’ve put in the show. With lots of ice, water, and lightning effects, it lended itself to a different style than Ikki’s fight against Kirihara, which was more of a fantastical forest setting. And Shizuku’s final attack sequence finally proves to Ikki that Shizuku is not someone he needs to protect or dismiss, she’s someone that he needs to respect.
Falling like snow
It’s All About the Presentation
Shizuku ain’t got time to bleed
I liked a lot of the little aspects of this episode, a lot of the ways they made it different from your usual battle episode. One thing I found really interesting was that the show never switched perspectives to Touka. This was all Shizuku’s fight, and all her episode. In fact, Touka was the silent opponent, uttering a bare three words throughout the entire episode. That’s even more parsimonious with the dialogue than she was in the previous episode, where she only had 4 words. The impression is that she’s a person of few words anyway, as Ikki said he didn’t have a chance to talk to her after the battle with the rock golem. I doubt the show will even get to the point where Ikki or Stella has to fight Touka before the end of the series, so for now, she’s this powerful enigma.
Similar, but different
One other thing that I just loved about this episode was an instance of letting the viewer figure something out. Shizuku’s big problem throughout the fight with Touka was her ability to surprise Shizuku at close range. The peanut gallery then had a bit of a discussion about the ability, which apparently Saikyou-sensei (I love that you can pun her name to mean “Strongest”) also has, learned from the same master. But what this show didn’t explicitly say was the connection to what was said earlier, about Touka losing to a ranged fighter. She identified a weakness in the fight she lost last year, and therefore she sought out someone to teach her a way to close range on her opponent. That’s one of the things I really like about this show. I feel like every other show would have had Ikki or Stella say, and I quote, “Oh, so she learned that after last year’s fight so that she could close range on her opponent.” This show lets the viewer connect the dots, and lets them feel smarter when they do.
Cavalry still is impressing me with good writing, good composition, and great characterization. Giving an entire episode over to Shizuku here worked well, and the ending with Alice ignoring her request to leave her alone worked well, just like the end of Ikki’s fight where he confessed to Stella. With a similar layout, but a much more contemplative background with the crescent moon, there’s a love between Alice and Shizuku that almost rivals the love between Stella and Ikki, and I like that the show is giving that some attention.
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 Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
The impression is that Touka’s a person of few words anyway.
Only when she’s fighting. The anime hasn’t showcased her personality outside a match yet. Hopefully this will be covered in the next episode.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
There’s not much in the way of episodes left to fit things in. 2 more episodes, and I figure that they have to get a match by Stella in and one more by Ikki. Although they might just leave out any “last” fights by Stella. Or maybe they’ll go with the circularity and have Ikki fight Stella again in the last episode.
12 rounds is a LOT of rounds in a tournament, tho, and that’s what Shizuku was just fighting in. That’s 4096 people in a single-elimination tournament, and they still have more to go (obviously, since that wasn’t the final). I have been guessing it’s some kind of double-elimination tournament, although they’ve said that people with one loss are unlikely to be chosen. But that’s a HUGE tournament.
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Congrats, Rakudai is now the 29th highest selling light novel series for the year in a latest survey!
http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2015-11-29/top-selling-light-novels-in-japan-by-series-2015/.95914
Check out #1,2,3 of the list. Who knew Hestia’s boob ribbon and Shiba Tatsuya’s OPness were still so powerful?
POWUH: Metanorn Lover with 154 comments
I like the translation “Chivalry of a Failed Knight” so much than “Tale of the Worst One”