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「Secret & Quest」
Gentlemen, I think we have a winner for the speediest arc resolution ever. Not even Game of Thrones’ latest offering this week tops K&M’s speed, where we literally completed an entire story in less than 12 minutes. No matter one’s opinion on rushing you have to admit it’s an impressive bit of narration, made all the better by the fact K&M didn’t fall apart at the seams. The show may have its weaknesses, but damn does it know how to keep its material interesting. After all, Ernesti just realized his dream in the other 12 minutes.
I never thought K&M would ever get around to explaining what the ether reactor was—because plot—but lo and behold Ernesti learning the secret after liberal application of mecha porn. The battle with the totally-not-Chimera Ant shellcased may have mostly served to showcase the effects of mecha chariots and single pilot horses and give the prince something to do, but it was a decent point to expand Ernesti’s horizons. Explaining the reactor removes the last limiter on Ernesti’s OPness and throws open the doors to some seriously crazy robot design. The kid may scream Gary Stu at times, but I cannot help by grin at the unabashed joy and eagerness he gets from learning new things and conceiving ways of applying his new knowledge. Frankly this is how you do overpowered characters right, you let them go wild in their natural habitat and leave the extraneous details (i.e. everything else) for the (un)fortunate sidekicks to deal with. Plus it also helps the show has kept an upbeat, positive attitude. In a way this show is like playing with Lego, it’s fun because creating and building are fun. Try and make it serious or take away the sandbox appeal and you take away the point of it all. Creation for a purpose is grownup work, and Ernesti isn’t a grownup. Well, officially.
Besides the reactor, however, K&M has dropped some interesting tidbits which may or may not come back later on. The difficulty of tuning catalyst crystals from demon beasts offers a few possibilities for potential problems in some of Ernesti’s later designs, particularly if provided to pilots with less magical control than him. Having an Ernesti-approved mecha go berserk would fit nicely with Ernesti’s lack of design polish, and gives some room for the other cast to shine. Then there’s Kitley the Elder, who besides that impressive body seemingly knows exactly where Ernesti hails from. I’m not sure she knows Ernesti is a man from another world yet, but she definitely knows he’s not natural and is fit for further investigation. Probably won’t see anything further on this front this season, but I can easily see an enemy eventually learning about Ernesti’s past and finding a way to take advantage of it (i.e. make a mecha out of it).
Random musings aside, it seems K&M’s next big thing will be some good old fashioned war, if the hints of some foreign state moving on an ally are any indication. God knows Ernesti’s new Ikagura needs field testing, and what better method than mowing over a few (mecha) enemies. Mecha is what K&M does best, and you can bet the bank that strategy won’t be changing anytime soon.
Preview
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https://randomc.net/image/Knights%20and%20Magic/Knights%20and%20Magic%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2005.jpg
DEATH! DEATH! DEATH!
ROHIRRIM! CHARGEEEEE!
*Ride of Rohirrim soundtrack playing on the background
Knights’ JP wiki states the anime will only be 13 episodes, released across 3 Blurays.
The anime’s finished covering Vol 3 already.
Vol 4-5 is one continuous battle-themed arc, so the anime is likely to end on Vol 5 (like Danmachi & Akashic Records).
Vol 1 – 2 eps (skipped most of Vol 1’s early, non-mecha half)
Vol 2 – 3 eps
Vol 3 – 3 eps
https://randomc.net/image/Knights%20and%20Magic/Knights%20and%20Magic%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
Yes! Hell Yes! Next week is going to be awesome! (unless they do another talk no jutsu episode)
https://randomc.net/image/Knights%20and%20Magic/Knights%20and%20Magic%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
It may be just me, but i find the elf queen/princess/head honcho quite ugly and I’m not sure why. I admit that she has the bod, but something turns me off.
https://randomc.net/image/Knights%20and%20Magic/Knights%20and%20Magic%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2008.jpg
This is one of the laziest animation i have ever seen. They just erased the bugs from the screen!
Am guessing it’s her mental voice (she sounds really old like, marchioness old) which throws off the hot bod she has, I know I felt that disjoint. (although she’s supposed to be that old since she was towards the end of the natural life span of the elves, based form the LN she’s seen six generations of Fremivia’s Kings with Ambrosious being the sixth)
Agree on the Gordesleo part from what I recall from the LN it’s supposed to be a wind type overtspell attack (ie giant tornado type attack), not a megalazor type attack :p
IMO, Blast Howling is a weaponized magius jet thruster. So that should put it in line with LN description while still fit to the animation. So its actually magically expelling a superheated compressed air, thus explaining the need for it to deploy its back mounted recoil compensator.
I mean, THERE ARE 4 EMITTER FOR THAT THING, FOR GOD SAKE. Without deploying its recoil compensator, it will be sent flying instead when firing.
Lazy or not, still better than Vatican Miracle Examiner. I swear every shot there has the least movement I’ve seen in an anime.
5eps for the SIlver Phoenix Mechants? yeah that’s plenty of room to maneuver.
I think the problem of using Demon Beasts catalysts crystal is that they’re not worth the effort to secure them. ie smaller demon beast hearts are not efficient enough, while the bigger ones like the Behemoth and Shell Queen are rare occurrences and can cause so much damage and casualties that they’re not worth the effort to go after on a regular basis.)
Unless Ernesti’s Ikagura proves to be miles ahead of the competition. Guaranteed the risk-reward concerning demon beasts will be quickly reevaluated then 😛
Extra LN info:
https://randomc.net/image/Knights%20and%20Magic/Knights%20and%20Magic%20-%2008%20-%2011.jpg
The shellcased attack was due to that swarm being displaced from its home by another stronger swarm, and now it was looking for a new habitat.
https://randomc.net/image/Knights%20and%20Magic/Knights%20and%20Magic%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2017.jpg
The LNs describe the elves as having typical pointed ears; the bunny-ears look is anime-original. In addition, the anime’s site uses the term アルヴ (aruvu) to refer to their elves instead of the usual エルフ (erufu). I’ll give the anime credit for wanting to stand out from the usual pointy ears.
https://randomc.net/image/Knights%20and%20Magic/Knights%20and%20Magic%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2036.jpg
Ernesti purposely named and designed the Ikaruga in the Japanese style as tribute to his past life.
PS. The LN points out it was extremely tiring and cumbersome for Ernie to handcraft his reactors, to the point he could only manage a few magic script lines a day. It took him nearly a year to finish the 2 reactors.
That’s something which should arguably have been mentioned IMO, considering the time was taken to specify how long Ernesti spent learning the knowledge in the first place.
Concept art for mecha cockpit interiors:
https://twitter.com/TENJIN_hidetaka/media
Note how Ernie’s pre-Ikaruga cockpits come with booster padding on the chair and pedals on account of his small size.
More seriously is how some art dates back to Jan-Feb 2017. There was a lot of prework involved in preparation for Summer.
I personally loved how fiendishly complicated Ikaruga’s control scheme is. Even on the joystick there are 2 sets of control buttons for each hand. A bit reminding me to Evangelion’s joystick configuration somewhat
I would also award this series the fastest mecha turn over rate even. Usually you get quite a few battles in before a round of upgrades. Here we get them for upgrades sake. Quite frankly, unless the main villain, whomever that ends up being, has to have either an evil Ernesti or steal a lot of Ernesti’s work to be even a mild challenge at this point.
I imagine that’s where the previous bit concerning the stolen mechas comes back into the picture. Probably the only way to give Ernesti a true challenge at this stage: have him fight against his own designs.
However, it seems that the idea of ‘activation key’ is not too commonplace there. Thus considering that Ernesti’s design from Telestale onward implement it as basic security equipment, whoever try to steal it will face some very unpleasant surprise.
For the older fans:
https://randomc.net/image/Knights%20and%20Magic/Knights%20and%20Magic%20-%2008%20-%20Large%2005.jpg
Ben Hur in Mecha Porn… Well some kind
I wonder if the next arc will be about someone trying to steal the Ikaruga.
And out of curiosity: is Ernesti aware that he is reincarnated?
Yes, Ernesti knows he’s reincarnated since the beginning.
Let’s just say the next arc will answer why his experimental Tellestales were stolen by Kerhilt back in ep 5.
It’s a shame the anime doesn’t put any emphasis on this (Ernesti being aware that he is reincarnated).
To be fair it isn’t really necessary, the knowledge comes up every time Ernesti mentions programing or scripts. It would be weirder if the kid didn’t know he was resurrected, yet had all this “special” understanding no one else does.
“It would be weirder if the kid didn’t know he was resurrected, yet had all this “special” understanding no one else does.”
From my perspective though, the anime makes it look like such. Nevertheless, it’s a minor gripe, one I won’t lose sleep on. Just thought it would be cooler if he had some internal monologue with where his voice sounds like his old self (ala Conan).
Also it’d be pointless to try to steal Ikaruga sa it’s greatest asset is also it’s greatest flaw as the controls designed specifically for Eru to be able to tweak and adjust it as he goes along. (So anyone else would find it impossible to pilot)
The enemy wouldn’t know that though. All they’ll probably know is that this shield nation has this new toy, and that they must get their hands on it, only to realize that the controls are different. An indirect troll move, if you will.
Looks like Ernesti is here the Amadeus Mozart of Constructing Mechas in this World
I didn’t read the LNs, but given the pacing, are they trying to end the series with a massive mecha vs mecha war instead of the Demon Beasts?
Yes. Mecha vs mecha war is Vol 4-5 of the LNs.
So first 100 years they operate like normal humans. 200-300 they get sedentary. From then till 500?
– Blast Howling is a weaponized magius jet thruster, lolz
– The only way to improve Tzendolimble from this current incarnation is moving the cockpit to rear mount similar to KMF, and filling the empty cavity with one of Blast Howling emitter, then treating it like high speed real life tank destroyer