(L) Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry (A Chivalry of the Failed Knight) Anticipation

[Eisdrache]

Originally Posted by Marcus H.

^ Let's not be ignorant about how web novels write. Besides, there's the manga as a basis for what to expect in the anime, and you can't really say that those who are cautious of this series are talking things out of their ass.

The manga counts as source, I already addressed that in my post. It's my belief that you should judge every story on it's own regardless of how many similar ones you have read before.

[frubam]

I actually didn't mind the MC in this one. Sure, he isn't Ikta Solock, and he has his cliche moments with the female MC, but he's portrayed well. I also generally enjoy characters that are strong, but normally looked down upon for whatever reason. Guess in a way, it is similar to Mahouka , but I dont' think it'll be that bad, from what I've read of the manga.

[Sixth]

Originally Posted by frubam

I actually didn't mind the MC in this one. Sure, he isn't Ikta Solock, and he has his cliche moments with the female MC, but he's portrayed well. I also generally enjoy characters that are strong, but normally looked down upon for whatever reason. Guess in a way, it is similar to Mahouka , but I dont' think it'll be that bad, from what I've read of the manga.

But the reason for he got looked down by people is simply ridiculous.

[Mentar]

Rakudai Kishi gets an anime conversion? Really? Aha! Hang on a sec!

*moves down into the cellar and closes the door*

HELL YESSSSSS!!!!

*comes back with a neutral face, but failing to hide a smile*

Okay, let's not mince words here. For me, this is awesome, awesome news. Not because this show does anything completely new. Not because this show is particularly clever. By genre, it's a classic Ecchi Magical Fighting School show that come a dime a dozen, and if you can't stand this genre, take the next exit.

But: It has some of the most likable and endearing characters I've come across in hundreds of mangas/LNs I've read.

The male MC Ikki is called the "failed one" because the year before he totally failed the ranking exam. That was essentially due to outside interference (his "family" trying to ruin him), but he's an excellent swordfighter with some very limited (yet powerful) magic skills, but calling him Tatsuya or Gary Stu is way overblown. He's got a nice open personality and a spine. Capable, but not omnipotent, determined and confident. Once he ends up in embarrassing situations, he tries to man up and deal with them, and not shrivel away. Pretty rare nowadays.

The female MC Stella is a prodigy in swordsmanship and fire magic and the princess of a small European nation, coming over to hone her skills in this Japanese magic school. To give detractors their due: She is pretty, plot-laden and naturally tilts when the male MC walks in on her changing - par for the course. What's unusual is that regardless of her flaring temper (think fire magic) she is not violent by disposition. She is 1 parts tsun and 3 parts dere, which makes her very _endearing_, especially since the LN offers many scenes in which her POV is explained from the first-person perspective, so we get to understand exactly what moves her and why.

The huge strength of this show, and what makes Rakudai Kishi enter my personal top10 list, is the character development between Ikki and Stella. I absolutely recognize that this is my _personal_ preference, but for those who enjoy nonstandard character development, this show is a treat. I'll spoilertag their development from LN volume 1-4 to be sure. Careful, this IS spoilerish.

Spoiler:

I mean it. This _is_ spoilerish. Turn back unless you really don't mind being spoiled.

Spoiler:

Starting out extremely bad, Ikki's attempt to "compensate" Stella for his eyeful is creative, but totally crazy, and so his promise to "take responsibility for it" prompts Stella to ask him to commit harakiri

The school chairwoman makes clear that she assigned both of them to the same (double occupancy) room, and they should settle their dispute and "living rules" in a duel. Stella is livid and demands that the loser is to be the victor's servant for life. Naturally, she ends up losing (lol)... Hikki only asks for a fresh start as roommates and friends.

From this starting point on, things develop very unusually fast, so only bullet points up to volume 4:

o Both don't putz around cluelessly, but realize that they actually like the other very much
o Two separate confessions in both directions (Stella's is pretty amazing)
o Agree to become boyfriend/girlfriend (in secret due to Stella's position as princess)
o First requited kiss
o More than just requited kisses
o Marriage proposal accepted (still problematic, since Stella is still a princess)

Taking this as backbone to the show, the other ingredients which could otherwise simply ruin things like Ikki's yandere imouto with incestuous tendencies Shizuku, her trap companion Alice and the likes, work fine to _incite_ shenanigans, but they don't really overshadow the main couple. Which is what ruins too many other LNs of this kind, which neglect the main pairing for additional characters that I don't really care about.

So, to finish the rant: This show will have more than its share of oblivious Iknowitallafterwatching5minutes naysayers regurgitating wisdom from the cesspool blogs. And I don't give a wet fart.

Ikki is one of the most reasonable and likable MCs I know. Stella is among the most endearing tsunderederes out there and a joy to behold (and no, I'm not just talking about her ample plot). And the development of their relationship is so uncharacteristically _pleasing_ to follow that I'm going to pray that this show gets a good animation team.

So there, I'm really psyched! One of my favorite guilty pleasure shows gets a conversion! YAY

[Kismet-chan]

Originally Posted by winhlp32

GUYS! It's not cliche I swear!
It's actually not a harem, I swear!
The main protagonist is actually a badass in this one, unlike all the other wimpy teenage boys, I swear!
Unlike other crappy LNs, this one is different and actually good, I double swear!!

I can't tell if you're being serious or not.

This series just sounds and looks like literally EVERY harem series from the past year and a half. Loser protag who eventually becomes badass, super proficient super special mage chick who's also a ~*princess*~, a forced/fated partnership, "battle school" setting, big tits and red ponytail style, that stupid and contrived as hell "he walked in on her while she was getting dressed! LOL!" bullshit...

I also love how there's extremely little diversity between the novel volume covers. It's like the artist is in on some joke the author doesn't get, screaming "HEY everyone! Look! MORE of the SAME!"

All we need now is for the girl to transform into a freaking vampire fairy demon dragon when hyper-pissed, get in the inevitable "the protagonist ignored her or/and she was captured and tortured, so now she's EEEEVIIIIIIL, but his kiss + cheesy speech will save the day" episode, and we'll have FULL fucking BINGO.

[GreyZone]

Originally Posted by AntonKutovoi

Oh look, another cliched magical-school comedy. And I swear I've seen a girl's design at least five times in a different series. The most recent one - Mio from Shinmai Maou no Testament.

It's definitly not "cliche".

Originally Posted by Amiluhur

Spoiler:

I've read few manga chapters and honestly . . . It was so soul-crushingly bland. The first meeting with the heroine was totally unbearable (how many times already we've seen "MC bumps into naked heroine and punishes him in retaliation" crap?), the very concept of the Mage Knight just seem trying too hard at "being special soldiers" and made up of overused ideas seen on million times already, the expository bits were especially cringeworthy how they were cramed in the dialogues of each characters. "Failed Knight" is a nickname grating on my nerves given how easily the MC trashes the ridiculously powerful heroine. And finally, i dropped it when the MC turns out to be having "tragic past" that's forcibly shoehorned into the narrative

While the premise is not very original you seem to have stopped reading so early that you stopped at the premise itself and didn't even get a glimpse at the story.

Originally Posted by noobita

The main character is Mahouka v2.

How is that"failed" again?

Another blatant lies.

Wrong. He is definitly not Tatsuya, not even close. He can get super strong for a minute, but then becomes unable to fight for multiple hours afterwards. I am pretty sure Tatsuya has no such limitation. Also Ikki does not have any invincibility hax like Tatsuya.

Why are so many people complaining about the "similar setting" only now? Maybe you should look at the differences to other series instead, because those are the things that really define this series.

Originally Posted by noobita

Then the title should renamed to "A chivalry of the badass knight."

His personality is "badass" and his fighting capabilities are "very creative", but do not manage to reach the level of "badassness". Ikki is not what people would consider a Gary Stu.

It's more like Rock-Paper-Scissors, where certain skills are the weakness of other skills in a circular fashion. the first volume of the LN should make it obvious. Ikki's real "strength" is being creative and adaptable, not someone who blows away the next enemy who appears just by using pulverisation magic, as a certain someone does in Mahouka...

[The One Above God]

Originally Posted by Mentar

Rakudai Kishi gets an anime conversion? Really? Aha! Hang on a sec!

*moves down into the cellar and closes the door*

HELL YESSSSSS!!!!

*comes back with a neutral face, but failing to hide a smile*

Okay, let's not mince words here. For me, this is awesome, awesome news. Not because this show does anything completely new. Not because this show is particularly clever. By genre, it's a classic Ecchi Magical Fighting School show that come a dime a dozen, and if you can't stand this genre, take the next exit.

But: It has some of the most likable and endearing characters I've come across in hundreds of mangas/LNs I've read.

The male MC Ikki is called the "failed one" because the year before he totally failed the ranking exam. That was essentially due to outside interference (his "family" trying to ruin him), but he's an excellent swordfighter with some very limited (yet powerful) magic skills, but calling him Tatsuya or Gary Stu is way overblown. He's got a nice open personality and a spine. Capable, but not omnipotent, determined and confident. Once he ends up in embarrassing situations, he tries to man up and deal with them, and not shrivel away. Pretty rare nowadays.

The female MC Stella is a prodigy in swordsmanship and fire magic and the princess of a small European nation, coming over to hone her skills in this Japanese magic school. To give detractors their due: She is pretty, plot-laden and naturally tilts when the male MC walks in on her changing - par for the course. What's unusual is that regardless of her flaring temper (think fire magic) she is not violent by disposition. She is 1 parts tsun and 3 parts dere, which makes her very _endearing_, especially since the LN offers many scenes in which her POV is explained from the first-person perspective, so we get to understand exactly what moves her and why.

The huge strength of this show, and what makes Rakudai Kishi enter my personal top10 list, is the character development between Ikki and Stella. I absolutely recognize that this is my _personal_ preference, but for those who enjoy nonstandard character development, this show is a treat. I'll spoilertag their development from LN volume 1-4 to be sure. Careful, this IS spoilerish.

Spoiler:

I mean it. This _is_ spoilerish. Turn back unless you really don't mind being spoiled.

Spoiler:

Starting out extremely bad, Ikki's attempt to "compensate" Stella for his eyeful is creative, but totally crazy, and so his promise to "take responsibility for it" prompts Stella to ask him to commit harakiri

The school chairwoman makes clear that she assigned both of them to the same (double occupancy) room, and they should settle their dispute and "living rules" in a duel. Stella is livid and demands that the loser is to be the victor's servant for life. Naturally, she ends up losing (lol)... Hikki only asks for a fresh start as roommates and friends.

From this starting point on, things develop very unusually fast, so only bullet points up to volume 4:

o Both don't putz around cluelessly, but realize that they actually like the other very much
o Two separate confessions in both directions (Stella's is pretty amazing)
o Agree to become boyfriend/girlfriend (in secret due to Stella's position as princess)
o First requited kiss
o More than just requited kisses
o Marriage proposal accepted (still problematic, since Stella is still a princess)

Taking this as backbone to the show, the other ingredients which could otherwise simply ruin things like Ikki's yandere imouto with incestuous tendencies Shizuku, her trap companion Alice and the likes, work fine to _incite_ shenanigans, but they don't really overshadow the main couple. Which is what ruins too many other LNs of this kind, which neglect the main pairing for additional characters that I don't really care about.

So, to finish the rant: This show will have more than its share of oblivious Iknowitallafterwatching5minutes naysayers regurgitating wisdom from the cesspool blogs. And I don't give a wet fart.

Ikki is one of the most reasonable and likable MCs I know. Stella is among the most endearing tsunderederes out there and a joy to behold (and no, I'm not just talking about her ample plot). And the development of their relationship is so uncharacteristically _pleasing_ to follow that I'm going to pray that this show gets a good animation team.

So there, I'm really psyched! One of my favorite guilty pleasure shows gets a conversion! YAY

Meh, you summed it up quite nicely

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by Kismet-chan

I can't tell if you're being serious or not.

Neither can I. What he wrote is right, though. It is no harem, I think Ikki can don the 'badass' cap even though he doesn't try to be, and the show is indeed unusual in some aspects.

This series just sounds and looks like literally EVERY harem series from the past year and a half.

No harem, but yes, its genre is Ecchi Magic Fighting School. Big surprise that you'll find common elements everywhere. Naturally the same is true for every other genre, too...

I also love how there's extremely little diversity between the novel volume covers. It's like the artist is in on some joke the author doesn't get, screaming "HEY everyone! Look! MORE of the SAME!"

Smart people might be able to realize that this means that this show is not a harem after all, but that this indicates a true pairing.

All we need now is for the girl to transform into a freaking vampire fairy demon dragon when hyper-pissed, get in the inevitable "the protagonist ignored her or/and she was captured and tortured, so now she's EEEEVIIIIIIL, but his kiss + cheesy speech will save the day" episode, and we'll have FULL fucking BINGO.

Ah, snap. No Bingo, then

[Kismet-chan]

Originally Posted by Mentar

Neither can I. What he wrote is right, though. It is no harem, I think Ikki can don the 'badass' cap even though he doesn't try to be, and the show is indeed unusual in some aspects.



No harem, but yes, its genre is Ecchi Magic Fighting School. Big surprise that you'll find common elements everywhere. Naturally the same is true for every other genre, too...



Smart people might be able to realize that this means that this show is not a harem after all, but that this indicates a true pairing.



Ah, snap. No Bingo, then

Smart people might also realize that the majority of my post was me being facetious.

Minus the harem part. Fine, it's not a harem. Whatever. Genericism still persists throughout most of the rest of it at an initial glance. Keywords being "initial glance".

[MAX_COLA_POWER!]

In spite of the yay/nay comments, I'm personally looking forward to this adaptation.

[omega253]

Originally Posted by LG-MAX 2.o

the girl was kissed by another man who is not the protagonist?

Ehm, no. Mentar sums it up quite nicely.

Originally Posted by Amiluhur

Spoiler:

I've read few manga chapters and honestly . . . It was so soul-crushingly bland. The first meeting with the heroine was totally unbearable (how many times already we've seen "MC bumps into naked heroine and punishes him in retaliation" crap?), the very concept of the Mage Knight just seem trying too hard at "being special soldiers" and made up of overused ideas seen on million times already, the expository bits were especially cringeworthy how they were cramed in the dialogues of each characters. "Failed Knight" is a nickname grating on my nerves given how easily the MC trashes the ridiculously powerful heroine. And finally, i dropped it when the MC turns out to be having "tragic past" that's forcibly shoehorned into the narrative

Well, at least you tried it.

[Amiluhur]

Originally Posted by GreyZone

While the premise is not very original you seem to have stopped reading so early that you stopped at the premise itself and didn't even get a glimpse at the story.

Whenever i see a series, be it manga or anime, that introduces itself as such, i can always immediately realise that it's not going to do anything for me. Because let's be honest, it'll probably spend way more time cramming their content full with tedious stereotypes and tiresome clichés than dealing with narrative complexity and thematic depth. As a matter of fact, it made me jaded towards LN adaptations for quite some time.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by Amiluhur

Whenever i see a series, be it manga or anime, that introduces itself as such, i can always immediately realise that it's not going to do anything for me. Because let's be honest, it'll probably spend way more time cramming their content full with tedious stereotypes and tiresome clichés than dealing with narrative complexity and thematic depth. As a matter of fact, it made me jaded towards LN adaptations for quite some time.

In this case, I'm sure that nobody would find a statement like "This show is nothing for me" contentious. But if you word it in the form "This show is cliche crap because", then wouldn't you agree that you should first know a bit more than ~30 pages?

I'm not saying that you necessarily fall into this category, but it's an observation I made that most of those people who love to regularily denigrate shows for being "cliche" and shallow tend to have the least factual knowledge on them. They can't be bothered to find out what a show is about, so they pick up the first few obvious points and use them to "verify" their preconceived notions (which all too often turn out to be objectively wrong). And while this is still perfectly fine in the "Nothing for me" area, this is just oblivious and sloppy in the "Nothing for anyone" area. *shrug*

RnK is a member of an overbooked genre, but it has several very unusual features that _in my opinion_ lift it above the fray - for those who share my interests.

[Amiluhur]

^30 pages? I said in my first post that i've read few chapters of it. I was waiting til it did something interesting, which it didn't.

[dexecutioner]

Originally Posted by Mentar

No harem, but yes, its genre is Ecchi Magic Fighting School. Big surprise that you'll find common elements everywhere. Naturally the same is true for every other genre, too...

It's not even that Ecchi despite the heroine having big bazongas. Even the panty shots are seldom there. It's sad that people judge a series as Harem right away (Most light novels are the victim of this) just by it's covers and illustrations without thinking it just may be a marketing strategy or gimmick to lure the readers.

I hope diomadea is not gonna animate it. They've destroyed a lot of good LNs.

But I have to say lot of GA's series are getting animated... What's next Bahamut? I sure wish so.

[Mentar]

Originally Posted by Amiluhur

^30 pages? I said in my first post that i've read few chapters of it. I was waiting til it did something interesting, which it didn't.

...until his backstory was thematized, you wrote, which was on page 28. *shrug*

But hey, whatever. You didn't like it, that's fine. I still do object to people claiming that it's all generic and cliche, since when it comes to characters and character development, this show is _very_ uncommon.

[homohominilupus]

Talk about lucky,I started reading this about a week ago and now the anime is anounced
Looking fowrard to this

[Sagitta Luminis]

I may be beating a dead horse here, but I am sick and tired of the cliched harem and light novels tropes. Actually, I am sick of seeing these sorts of series at all. The poor Gary Stu everybody makes fun of and call a loser, even though he is ridiculously over-powered; the way too-perfect heroine that is supposed to be really awesome, but ends up being nothing more than the MC's love interest. This entire genre is nothing but a teenager's wish fulfillment. The fact that these stories are popular and sell well enough to justify such a lunatic amounts of novels and mangas that basically tell the same story over and over again, is both amazing and depressing.

[bastek66]

I can't remember when last time here freshly announced anime got so much shit on so fast.
Anyway, Stella is Love

[Sagitta Luminis]

Just to clarify, I am not shitting on this particular adaption, as I am not familiar with either it or the source material. It very possibly could end up as a very entertaining anime, I just wanted to use this opportunity to let out my frustration at the lack of creativity in a medium that I love for its creativity.