Okay, looks like I'm in an embarrassing romance anime streak. Just going to have to live through it until I come out the other side. Hopefully not permanently sappier. This week it's Chivalry of a Failed Knight.
It's set in a school for magical warriors ("blazers"), who engage in mystical duels using their "Devices". Each student has something that gives them a unique skill and fighting style, and they're ranked into the usual ranks, from A to F. Our protagonist is Ikki, who is ranked the lowest of the low, and nicknamed "the worst one". He's ranked lowest because, of course, his power is technically the weakest. Even though it is secretly awesome and he can win every fight he ends up in by both his immense resolve to win and his sneakily better than everyone else's power.
And of course he has a rich girlfriend, who falls for him the minute he bests her. And a little sister who really loves her big brother. Honestly, I know it's a trope. It's just getting boring/creepy. Luckily, he is pretty good at knocking her back, so it doesn't get any more worrying than it has to. Even so, I think I've had enough of these sorts of anime for a while.
At least the main romance is halfway decent. It follows the same silliness of misunderstandings and uncertainty that is inherent to the "first love" genre, but it does thankfully fall on the more mature end of the spectrum with relatively little repeating of the same mistakes.
The majority of the appeal of this is the fights. They tend to be beautifully animated, with a powerful variety of techniques and different approaches to battle. It's a bit of a "battle of the week" series, where the main question of the episode is what cool trick the baddie has and how they'll be defeated. There's something of a plot here about why they're doing all this fighting, but honestly, it doesn't seem to be terribly important. It tends to get assembled in little bits, with stuff all over the place.
It's just a bit too scattered to hang together.
Not recommended.
Tagged: Anime Action Schooldays Fighting Hulu Dubbed