Le Chevalier D'Eon

Historical Fiction? Supernatural? Mystery Thriller? HECK YES! Execution of the premise... ah well... (inhales sharply). 'Rose of Versailles' has 21st century successor with a Gothic (in the old literary sense) twist that gets it started with a bang, but a muddled middle act that's only partially counterbalanced by an emotional but not entirely coherent ending. Like 'Psycho-Pass', this leaves me wondering what could have been.

-Story-

'D'Eon' begins with the best first episode I have ever seen, hands down. It's fast-paced, exciting, and establishes the setting clearly without resorting to infodumps. I was completely hooked and expecting the ride of my life. And it's a very good ... ride for the first arc, but when the second arc starts things begin to go off the rails. While 'D'Eon' establishes itself as a supernatural murder mystery set in pre-Revolutionary France, it makes a jarring transition to political conspiracy about halfway through. The cast seems to forget exactly what they came to do and get tied up in political arcs that are only tangentially related to finding Lia d'Beaumont's murderer. The ending certainly has emotional impact, but so many *WHAT A TWIST* moments are thrown on screen that it can be hard to piece everything together. The magic system behind the supernatural elements is never fully explained, there seem to be no hard and fast rules such as "Equivalent Exchange" to give it order and structure. But it does have plenty of 'cool' factor in that the spells are activated by quoting various Biblical Psalms (although the one quoted most often is not Biblical but written specifically for the anime).

The main theme of the story is loyalty: what are you loyal to? The old order is being challenged by the rise of the Enlightenment and the French monarchy is blissfully unaware of how close the country is to a full-scale eruption of chaos and ambition- exactly who and what do you swear loyalty too? Family, individuals, institutions, ideals? What price are you prepared to pay for your loyalty? How far are you willing to go? And what happens when loyalties conflict? The topic is covered in moderate depth, but never truly delivers any revelations beyond how hard it can be to pick the right side when the world is shaking around you- good but not earth-shattering. In short the story needed tightening up and better flow to take full advantage of its cool elements.

-Art-

When the art wants to be beautiful, it can be beautiful. During fight scenes animation fluidity is excellent even by 2015 standards, the lighting is dramatic, and the backdrops are gorgeous. The catch is that more low-key moments clearly have more basic art. Detail drops noticeably during long-distance shots and you can occasionally catch the character designs going off-model. If quality could have been consistently maintained this would be a 9 or 10, but alas it's hit-and-miss. The character designs are solid, none truly stand out as unique, but given that this story takes place within the context of (alternate) history there's only so far that they can go. Still, the designs made the characters immediately recognizable, which is important given the size of the cast. The CGI is fairly well integrated for its day, but the CGI's best work is in a case where it DOESN'T fit perfectly: the mercury blood of the Gargoyle monsters is done in CGI and doesn't quite match the 2D animation it's paired with- which gives it a very otherworldly feel. The art has its stunning high points, but it's clear money and effort was spent unevenly.

-Sound-

A high point of this anime. The English dub actors all manage to fit the characters well, and Funimation avoided reusing well-know voices (as they are known to do fairly often). D'Eon sounds confused but passionate about his cause. Durand gives little verbal clues that he's cynical, calculating, and not showing all his cards. Robin sound young and devoted without being annoying (not the easiest feat), and Teillagory fits the cool old man archetype to a 'T'. The side characters have no weak points worth mentioning. I do have a pet peeve in a couple scenes where a ship's horn is clearly heard, even though it's a century too early for such an invention. The opening fits but doesn't stand out, while the excellent ending song "Over Night" by Aya has a very brooding, cold, and distant tone that has me looking it up on YouTube to this day. The background music sets the tone, but does little else.

-Characters-

There is some potential to work with here (The Queen of France carries around the skull of a small girl- don't tell me there's nowhere that could go) but overall development is fairly weak. The high point is Durand, he actually surprised me by showing sides of his character that didn't mesh with his initial impression, but still made sense given the development shown. D'Eon has an intriguing premise in that he is constantly battling his sister's vengeful soul for the possession of his body (Jekyll and Hyde conflicts are fascinating for me) but his exact goals as a character are unclear. He DOES want to find his sister's murderer, but that storyline loses impact with all the aforementioned detours and delays the plot takes (though I believe he's supposed to be a conflicted character, so I'll go a bit easy on this weakness). Robin's arc was fairly obvious (nobody that idealistic gets through an anime like this unscathed), and Teillagory got rushed and not entirely convincing development at the last minute. The villains are uninspiring as well (except for a gleefully psychopathic man-child in Peter III of Russia) with no clear motivation beyond starting the French Revolution ahead of schedule.

-Enjoyment-

I was hooked from the very first episode, which played directly into a lot my biases by using a number of my favorite genres. But this anime suffers from a clear case of 'The Sagging Middle' and some episodes between the first and final arcs I simply watched in order to not risk missing anything important. A re-watch also showed some cracks in the story I overlooked back on the first run through. Still, it's a historical fiction Gothic horror mystery thriller, so I never hated it (I can't exactly find a lot of anime in THAT particular genre anyway) and it's positives do make it moderately enjoyable.

-Overall-

A series that blew its potential is worse than a series that never had any, in my book. Refocusing on a more simple "Find the guy who did it and get him" plot would probably have helped the story (the recent American film "True Grit" used this plot very well) and digging deeper into the characters never hurts anything. But for all its faults, it's still worth a watch for people who like its genre (but fans of other genres will probably be harder to win over). DANG IT I REALLY WANTED THIS TO BE EXCELLENT AND ALL I GOT WAS A BIT ABOVE AVERAGE. (I'm going to go read 'Dracula' or 'Jekyll and Hyde' now, I need some Gothic Horror...)

I was disappointed with Chevalier. I usually enjoy shows with a historical backdrop, and this is the reason why I first approached the series. Actually, that might have been the only saving point of this show, how it utilized actual historical events and fit them into the fictional existence of the Psalms and D'Eon's sister Lia.

I rated the story as mediocre because it starts out in a promising way, the first couple episodes carefully setting up the plot points and characters that will eventually develop, these few first episodes are crafted well enough to hook your interest in the series, and they made me genuinely ... curious as to where it would all develop, yet as the story progressed, while some enigmas were answered (which honestly you eventually suspect on your own), the use of the Psalms, their meaning, significance and ultimate goal become so convoluted and contradictory it made me feel that this particular element was misused in the story or unnecessarily exploited it. The last episode compressed some of the progress I would have rather seen explored within the series itself rather than packed as an epilogue.

Why is anyone giving high ratings to the art? Besides the first DVD which is lovingly and crisply animated, the remainder of the show the quality goes down the drain. This was ultimately proven when one of the characters has a flashback of his journey with his comrades, and in every scene he was in he looks slightly different, yes you know it's him, but there was such differing drawing standards from one episode to another, sometimes the drawing just looked downright lazy. Backgrounds are always lush and beautiful though, plus the use of 3D is well done, I'll give it that.
Another pet peeve for me was the costume choices... for a historical piece I was expecting more accuracy in the depiction of the fashion of the period. Most of the female characters are dressed in styles from different fashion movements, and Lia's "lolita-esque" ensemble with ankle length skirt would simply be nonexistent and inappropriate at the time. The lack of variety of fashions (ok, fine it's anime they will wear the same outfit over and over) was also a disappointment since these characters were nobles and would not be caught in the same outfit twice.

Characters were given a 6. D'Eon was bland. Lia's potential was not explored further. The rest of the cast fit into some sort of expected role. The only two that were of interest or showed some growth were Robin and Maximilien. I simply could not get over how plain Ana was, every single time she came on screen... that short hair? No noble woman in the Palais Versailles would ever have her hair styled in that manner during that period... agh Ana...

Music was wonderful.

Overall, halfway through the series I considered dropping it since I had a feeling of where it would all go, but kept my hopes up for something better after reading other reviews. Now I regret sticking to it instead of watching something else. The ending was not completely unsatisfying and they do their best to tie up all lose ends. Yet, it did not leave me with great excitement to share this with other people.

Let me begin by being perfectly honest. I hold a deep disdain for historical fiction titles that take themselves too seriously to hold any relevance or entertainment. I am also intensely confused by the Francophile tendencies of the anime industry. Le Chevalier D'eon is based loosely on the story of Chevalier D'eon who was a French spy who once donned women's clothing to carry out the King's will in Russia. Naturally, Production I.G. could not resist adapting this EPIC story of a cross dressing, French spy from the 1800's into a TV series.

But enough of that, despite a satisfactory and complete ending, Le Chevalier D'eon ... suffers from miserable pacing issues which damage any sliver of suspense it tries to build with a convoluted plot and arrogantly-written, flowery language. While the animation staff does a satisfactory job choreographing fight scenes and adapting the anime style for this rendition of Western history, the animation is nothing to call home about. And in a sweeping attempt to create drama, the creators decide to kill 90% of the characters for no apparent reason in an act that would have reached true comedic tragedy if it weren't so humorless in its tone. Jokes and sarcasm aside, Le Chevalier D'eon does not fall as flat as most series and can still be entertaining for those of you who've seen all the good titles; just don't wooed by the pretty promotional material :3.

written for Minitokyo's Newsletter: MT-Maigetsu

First things first. My "reviews" system is explained on a blog entry. Which can be found through my profile.
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✦Story
Let's keep it short. Story is pseudo complicated. Giving you some political insight of the world that is presented and the role of various parties. Whilst the focus is on the "secret service" members who essentially search and research for various reasons around few countries.

Now... here comes the comical part. The plot or setting itself is fairy interesting and unique. Starting with rather unusual location for Anime to be placed at and an odd setting that mixes bible and zombies with some supernatural powers. Sounds interesting right?

No... ... truthfully the story tries to be convoluted, tragic and rather grand. But in fact it feels more like a a really bad stage play that attempts to be serious, but feels too much of a comedy to be a serious.

I simply got extremely bored almost the whole time I were watching this Anime, but because of the setting/plot I didn't want to drop it as were somewhat intrigued how it would end. And in short.. I felt I wasted my time.

If you want a bad stage play that takes place in France and few other countries that has zombies in it and bible verses. Then check it out. Otherwise, it was simply boring for me.

✦Art & Sound
Artstyle was unique I guess for the most part. Although the way characters looked, I did not like that much

As for OST, it was good enough. Few noticeable soundtracks.

✦Character
Sigh... bad actors? That is how I sum the up. Characters felt forced, boring and fairly disappointing. I were more interested in side characters than main ones. Only main one I somewhat enjoyed was the tip fedora old man.

As for side ones . Can't mention as the reason I somewhat liked them would be spoilers.

But anyhow... "meh".

✦Enjoyment & Overall
To sum it up. I don't like stage plays. And this Anime felt like one. As well lot of boredom and disappointment were also in the mix. Fairly unique setting/concept/story idea....but everything else was simply dead dull.

It was a while since I watched the series so my review won't be long and very detailed, I will try just to bring main points that caught my attention.

For one, this anime had it highlights and downfalls. Mostly it seemed to be not the interesting since there was not enough suspence in my opinion and I couldn't geat attached to most characters.
However, the main highlight was the arc with Queen which I actually found very enjoyable. It had some interesting characters like Queen herself and some unexpected turn of events which were good and sad.

What completly ruined the series for me was the set ... of unexpected events that started to happen in several last episodes one after another. For me they seemed to be there just for the sake to be unexpected without having any actual thought behind them. A lot of the things that happened looked so random and out of place that I just couldn't comprehend them and was in WTF mode for the whole time... there could be so many other solutions yet we got the worst possible scenarios and mostly out of nowhere.

Because of that I can only give series 6.

First of all - what have I just seen? This is an anime focused on actual historical personalities, which heavily involves fantasy elements and magic references.

Unfortunately, it comprises of the worst superficial characters ever, which have zero development, while the series progress. Everyone acts and feels the exact same way as if nothing around them changes. They do not grow or even make decisions - they only repeat the same lines over and over again as a magical chant, never analysing the messages of life.

Without revealing anything, I would say that the lead character won my utter outrage with their final decision on how ... their life should be. I do realise such events do mess with your mind, but should anyone really end up like D'Eon? What is the message at all? Most likely, this was just an attempt to "patch up" the storyline to the actual historical events...and it was made poorly.

The anime interpretation is quite a letdown compared to the actual Chevalier D'Eon, who is a complex and somewhat tragic individual with a peculiar story, still surrounded by mystery; someone with actual diplomatic achievements.

I believe the challenge of interpreting world history got the best of this anime's creators, so their fear of "messing up" resulted in bland, unlikeable characters, who only act, when forced to.

The "revelations" and "plot twists" happened during the last three episodes, which made them look under-cooked and uncalled for.

My last disappointment was the music, which was almost absent. Having in mind you are in lavishing Versailles, this is rather unfulfilling.

Bottom line is, I have watched this after Gankutsuou, as I was looking for a similar feel, but Le Chevalier D'Eon failed quite miserably.

I am giving the anime 5/10 for the art, which is beautiful and because unfortunately, I have seen much worse.