War & Princess
What they say
A genius programmer and hardcore robot otaku is reborn into a world of knights and magic, where huge robots called Silhouette Knights roar across the land! Now reborn as Ernesti Echevalier, he uses his vast knowledge of machines and programming talents to begin to make his ultimate robot. But his actions have unexpected results…?! The dreams of a robot otaku will change the world!
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
Knights and Magic episode 10 begins with an annoying diatribe from the inane narrator, who still serves absolutely no purpose. During this sequence, she tells us how the once happy kingdom is now desolate and, well, unhappy. The problem is that we can already see this from the visuals, which do an awfully good job of depicting a depressing and empty city. I have a perfectly good pair of eyes, thank you very much. I don’t need a narrator telling me what I can already see.
The story continues here with Ernesti and company sneaking into the palace. Princess Eleanora is being held within one of four towers. Ernesti has them all sneak into one of the towers and rescue the princess. While Ernesti finds Martina (the wife of a duke), the prince finds Isadola (Martina’s daughter), and Addy doesn’t find anyone. On the other hand, Kid has the fortune of meeting Princess Eleanora.
In a most surprising turn of events, it appears that Kid is going to be the one who claims Eleanora’s heart, though I doubt anything will happen right between them right now. My surprise comes from how I assumed the princess would originally become a part of Ernesti’s harem. It’s fairly standard in anime of this nature to feature the protagonist having one. That this doesn’t appear to be the case is refreshing. It changes things up. Also, by giving Kid the chance to befriend and potentially capture Princess Eleanora’s interest, it increases his presence in the series. No longer is he just that bland sidekick. That said, Addy has yet to feature any life changing moments like this.
One of the greatest highlights of this episode was definitely when the Levitate Ship tries to fight against Ernesti’s Silhouette Knight, the Ikaruga. This moment does several things. The first is to introduce a new antagonist, the creator of the Levitate Ship. While we don’t know anything about him, outside of what I’ve already mentioned, I have a feeling that he, like Ernesti, might be from another world. While there’s nothing to support this, I feel the fact that only Ernesti has been able to create anything new in this world is proof that it would take another other-worlder to create something like those ships.
The second thing this does is reinforce Ernesti’s personality. I actually really like Ernesti. Unlike so many protagonists, his only focus is for Silhouette Knights and learning new technologies. He loves them so much that everything else is secondary. It strengthens his personality by giving him this single-minded obsession. Of course, obsessions can often become dangerous. Part of me wonders if this fetish for Silhouette Knights won’t eventually become his downfall, or if maybe something will happen that forces him to expand his horizons.
In Summary
The episode was strong overall. In fact, I would say this was the best in terms of pacing and development. A good deal of interesting plot twists are thrown in, we get to see more of the side characters, and Ernesti remains as mecha obssessed as ever, keeping him from becoming an inconsistent Mary Sue. I’m actually really looking forward to seeing how all of these new plot threads play out.
Grade: B
Streamed By: Crunchyroll
