Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry

I never got so much excited about fantasy action school rom-coms until I saw this series. Wait, this is not a rom-com? Damn, son.

Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry is among those “fantasy action school romance” Light Novels that were adapted into anime in the Fall 2015 season, but I want to put the series in the “Anime of the Season” list, and here’s why.

The story is about F-rank knight Ikki Kurogane and royal “prodigy” Stella Vermillion, who met each other in a way that light novel readers can relate to: Guy meets Girl dressing herself, and Girl gets furious because “muh privacy” and stuff. The backstory: Stella was put in the same room where Ikki stays, and he didn’t had a clue about that. It’s pretty much like they’ve been set up by “fate” (referring to the school principal in this case) in one room.

In the next episodes we will see Ikki’s beloved younger sister Shizuku paired up with an effeminate guy name Nagi, to be called Alice throughout the series. All that I hear of Shizuku is a tsundere Karen Kujo at most, but that must be because it’s Nao Toyama doing her role; but she did give one of the series’ fantastic action scenes.

During the latter part, I was focusing my attention to how the pair throbbed my heart the same way AlDub did it to me (and probably BossMac as well, since he’s a fellow fan of the loveteam). Let me describe the feeling this way: There’s Ikki on the left, Stella on the right, and a plywood of problems and hindrances in between, referring to the way Ikki is treated by his results-oriented “family” (who doesn’t really give a damn) and the challenges he took to show his love to her.

I was reminded of one instance in the middle part of the whole story where Ikki told Stella he will do his best to make her feel proud of him. Whose person will not be proud of Ikki after seeing his struggle? Come to think of it, I’ve read over on Reddit that he’s not a bland male character and the story really progresses their relationship from being in love to being engaged. These two are their edge among countless LN-turned-anime titles which featured puppy love, crushes, multiple routes and such.

That feeling escalated further as the qualifiers for the Seven Star Battle moves to its conclusion—and I want to speak in expletives over how I love the pair as the story progresses: Put tank in a mall, AlDub you! Sh*t, kinikilig ako! We’re suckers for stories of success (like this one), but another thing that makes this series stand out is how the backstory (Ikki’s struggle) was meaningful to the plot as a whole. On another note, it would be a very stupid mistake to compare this to AlDub since Ikki and Stella went on to see their bodies (not to mention, I got a few hints about Stella’s sexual activity as she played an eroge and liked it).

I find the opening theme a bit awkward but I was able to tolerate it until the end. The ending theme is from Ali Project, which is something that should not be questioned. At all. Between the two, I’ll prefer listening to the ending theme more as the only thing that I liked in the opening is the chorus part (which we can play it in piano jazz).

The animation were not that special to me, but there’s just one scene in the final episode where they went all the way and hyped the actions up. What Silver Link did in the last episodes is that they set a gloomy tone (a suspending monochrome set-up), and escalated the story to its conclusion (a color-filled hope worthy of crying joy for).

For a 12-episode run, Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry is something that definitely should be on your binge-watch list. This recommendation may seem to be hyped (I wrote this after wacthing the last episode), but come back to me in a few weeks and I’ll still recommend this to you. I repeat: Go watch it.

One more thing: I don’t mean to piss off—I’m serious.