Le Chevalier D'Eon

I am acutely aware that reviews that do not praise an anime are often flagged as "not helpful," so We expect some backlash here but onward We press, as Louis XV might say.

Le Chevalier D'Eon is an anime that tries to draw off a lot of people who existed in European History, including the main character and several other characters with large roles in the show. The main hero is based on a cross-dressing French spy from the 18th century, given an original backstory to explain his gender confusion. Other, more recognizable characters, include Maximilien Robespierre, Catherine the Great, King Louis XV of France, and ... King George III of England, among others. Being something of a history enthusiast, this new take on real historical figures was the main thing that kept me watching for most of the series.

I was more than willing to take historical facts with a grain of salt. I don't want to be such a stick in the mud that I'll get hung up on the fact that the real D'Eon wasn't really possessed by his sister's spirit or that one or two of the rules of Europe didn't die in exactly the same fashion, as long as the respectful nod to history was there. The problem is that Le Chevalier takes a larger and larger dump on history as the show progresses, completely perverting people and events while still trying to give us the hook of "This is history!" I won't spoil anything important, but let's just say that certain kings do not abdicate the throne voluntarily, the Seven Years War did in fact happen (whereas a peaceful preemptive resolution is introduced in the show), George III's wife was not Mary, Louis XV's uncle did not fight over him for the throne because he DIED 30 years before the anime takes place, and his son... well, you get the idea. And I can't even say the biggest offenders, because they're major plot points.

Yet, after resmashing history into something unrecognizable, they have the gall to give us a scene at the end of the show, showing "Robespierre" selling his revolution propaganda on the streets, as if to say, "Aha! See, it's just like history!"

History aside, let's say you don't care at all about history. Many people don't. Does the show entertain? Does it have redeeming qualities? Perhaps it does, but they are few and far between.

Briefly, let's talk about the characters. Most of them have very little personality and either come across as unlikable or cliches or both. I don't even know where to begin describing the main characters aside from what they look like or what happens to them. D'Eon, he... wants to find out why his sister died. He likes France. That's about it. Teillagory, he's an old knight. He basically does nothing for the first 21 episodes except be the prototypical soft-spoken old warrior. Lia, she dies before the first episode, usually manifests back in reality only to kill something, and yet I'm supposed to care about her. Oh, and we can't forget Anna. Anna is the biggest waste of screen time in the show. I don't know how anyone can care about this vapid woman and the way she just sits in Versailles, waiting for D'Eon to come back home the entire series. She has lots of thoughts about how she misses D'Eon, and you're going to hear a lot of them! None of them advance the plot either!

The pacing deserves special mention for being a downfall of the show. You can divide the show into two parts. The first 19 or so episodes, everything sluggishly follows your four heroes around Europe as they track down bad revolutionary people for King Louis, interspersed with scenes of Anna writing letters or something equally boring. Then in the last 5 episodes, all Hell breaks lose, at the same time making a lot of the crap you have to sit through in the first 19 episodes pointless. There is wanton borderline-tasteless violence, far too many ridiculous plot twists to take seriously, everyone turns on everyone else, and it is far more of a mess than a satisfying climax of plotlines. And why is Cagliostro there for the whole show, including the finale, when he never does ANYTHING?

The end leaves me feeling rather unsatisfied, even though that wasn't my biggest complaint. Still, I felt terrible for D'Eon's sense of identity. I felt terrible that they tried to turn some of the bad guys into sympathetic figures and the good guys into bad guys and... no.

I'm glad that an anime decided to do something that isn't Japan-centric. They really tried to make something sophisticated, and in some ways it is. In more ways, the show is incredibly tacky. I have to give it points for being original, but all in all, I cannot recommend it. If you want to watch it anyway, just keep expectations at a safe level.

Well, this isn't the worst anime I've seen...but it certainly wasn't one of the best ones either. I dunno, I just didn't like this show, and as much as I am trying to search for something positive to say...I can't. I just didn't like it. It was too weird, the story was sloppy and convoluted. I'm left wondering “What did I just watch?” No really, someone needs to tell me what was it I just watched!!


ART/ANIMATION
The animation style was not bad, however, personally it wasn't my cup of tea. Not a lot of seamless movement tho I guess the sword fights were impressive ... enough, it just wasn't constant throughout the show. Overall artwise everything just seemed so somber looking.

MUSIC/SOUND
Mediocre music both OP and ED were not unpleasant but not memorable, just dreary sounding. There was also no BGM=background music as far as I can remember and if there was, that should serve as proof positive how forgettable it all was.

PLOT/STORY
To twisted for words. The protagonist D'Eon's sister is murdered, so he goes undercover as her...only...to become her? There is also some legendary book of Kings [of unexplained origin] that names who the next king of France should be? But is it only the French that have such a book? Is there another book for England or Spain? Where did this book even come from? I mean if it's only France that has such a book then why is England and Queen Mary involved?? It failed to carry a steady pace or flow and just too illogical in some parts....however it does get better after episode 18.

CHARACTERS
There was an obvious departure from the standard anime character design, they weren't super thin with huge eyes, a pointy chin and spiky hair. The art seemed more realistic but also more western. I also thought a lot of the characters were too pale. I suppose that's how the Japanese view the Europeans. Also, eventho I understand they were trying to capture the androgynous nature D'Eon, he just looked freakish. Either way I disliked it the design, I meant, it just didn't appeal to me. Personalitywise, the heroes I thought were OK, however a lot of the supposed villains in this series I felt were bit too hokey and caricature-ish.

ENJOYMENT
Don't waste your time, there are plenty of good animes out there. This ain't one of them. This is only worth watching if you are stuck at your in-laws for the Holidays and it's the only thing you have on your laptop to watch. And if you got this as a gift, make sure you have a receipt or at least trade it in for store credit.

Story - Dreadful. Most pathetic story I have come across for a while. The ending wasn't so much depressing as it was just extremely disappointing. It just got worse as it went on. From the beginning, I noticed something was off because the narrator sounded very old and very depressed. Having someone narrate the story to you in the past tense from the get go takes you out of the real-time immersion of watching an anime, besides the fact that the old man's voice gives an ominous foreboding, which I hate. The most jarring thing about this anime (a hard thing to pinpoint, since there ... were so many) is probably the whole magical Psalms of the King idea. Somehow, reading the Bible gives you magical powers such as controlling other people's bodies and body parts and killing them in a painful way. It's like I'm watching a shounen series. Text just randomly appears and scrolls along the floor, walls, ceiling, and across people's bodies, including their eyeballs. Am I watching Naruto? The second most jarring thing about this anime is how seriously it seems to take history, whilst not being historically accurate AT ALL. At least Samurai Champloo stated outright that it's not historically accurate at the very start. This anime pretends to be historical when it's anything but.

Art - The art itself is fair, although the postures are bad. Characters are not drawn consistently, and tend to be QUALITY at least half the time. D'Eon is drawn exactly like a woman. If I hadn't listened to the voice, there would have been no way to tell the difference between D'Eon and his sister. Yes, this IS a bad thing. I expect a fully grown man to have a more prominent chin, heavier jaw and jaw muscle development and thicker orbital eyebrow bossing than his sister. Also, the third most jarring thing about this series was the 3D CGI. Besides the fact that I hate 3D CG with a passion, it looked absolutely horrendous in this series. The water, the building collapse, and sometimes EVEN THE FACIAL EXPRESSIONS. I am not kidding you, it is that bad. However, the fight scenes are animated quite well (I'm not talking about the choreography, only the portrayal of motion) so that's something to look forward towards if you're a big fan of sword fighting.

Sound - Mediocre. The ending song is okay, I suppose. The voices aren't particularly great.

Character - Poor. The dialogue is terrible, there is not a shred of originality. Everyone says they want to serve France (or Russia), except for one or two guys who just want money, or to watch the world burn. It's boring at best and downright nauseating when you're subjected to the same trivial inane pretentious ass-kissing suck-up garbage from nobles who "just want to serve their country". Is it possible to create believable, consistent characters? Not according to the writers of Le Chevalier D'Eon. The characters are there to show the struggle between "honor and loyalty". That's about it. In case you don't understand how honor and loyalty can conflict with each other, allow me to illustrate using a simple example from the anime. Teillagory is loyal to the deceased Louis XIV, but his honor compels him to overthrow Louis XV and replace him with Louis XIV's brother, because Louis XV sent knights to die on dishonorable missions. How does this make any sense? It doesn't. Characters switch allegiances every 5 seconds, it's hard to remember who's fighting for whom anymore. It's hard to build sympathy for characters who constant betray their comrades.

Enjoyment - Practically none. It was a chore to sit through the labored, expository dialogue and the totally baffling nonsense that was the entire plot. Every time someone died, I felt a sense of elation as that was how the story moved forward. The entire story made no sense at all. Robespierre dying and then coming back to life and then dying again? WTF?

Overall - About as historical as Naruto. If you enjoy watching fencing then this anime might be for you. Otherwise don't bother.

Style - The animation is pretty good, although it did use 3D REALLY badly at some points and faces are often stiff and/or badly drawn. 2 out of 3.

Character - The characters seemed to serve little purpose other than to advance the plot by doing unexpected things. There are very few moments of character development (D'Eon writing a letter to his lover does not count as character development) where we learn about a character's past and his motivations. As a result, the actions of characters such as Durand and Teillagory are completely unintelligible to us, simply because nothing has been revealed about their past ... or their motivations. 0 out of 4.

Story - Anything but historical. You might do well to know that not only did D'Eon not have a sister called Lia, but that Lia did not even exist, only tales which claim that D'Eon disguised himself as Lia to meet the Empress of Russia. But this is missing the point. The entire anime is based around the Psalms Of The King which has the magical power to choose who will be the king. Oh and, you have to kill the Empress of Russia and use her blood to read the book. Oh and only Lia can read the book because she was somehow supposed to be the king of France. Also, the book only allows certain chosen people to lift it. Also, Robespierre gets resurrected. A certain phrase comes to mind ("It's magic I don't have to explain shit"). Actually, I understand where this occult interpretation of the Bible comes from. When the Japanese first encountered Christianity, they thought it was a book of spells that allowed them to kill enemies and reanimate the dead. So much for that. 0 out of 3.

Overall 2 out of 10 for inconsistent art, incomprehensible characters and nonsensical story.

Le Chevalier D'Eon - a quite old anime,which is about XVIII century France.Well.
In my ass it is.

Le Chevalier D'Eon - a disappointment.at first,i thought that it's an interesting anime connected with historical events but i have found out that it is just a pathetic cartoon with nothing useful. There are some characters based on real historical figures but most of them are changed and do not reflect the life of real people who lived in XVIII century France. A good example should be the main character Charles d'Éon de Beaumont . His sister dies,and after some "woodoo magical orgies" she occupies his ... body when he has to fight (seems like the anime creators say that Charles d'Éon de Beaumont was an awful swordsman,hmm.) And how about the real historical person? Well, this Charles d'Éon de Beaumont had no sister but disguised as a woman to save his life since he was a spy. hmm...the story is far away from that. And how about this Robespjerre character?It's nothing like a real one.Some kind of bishie who is crazy for occult and ruling the world. The real Robespjerre was lawyer who had a tremendous fancy white wig and was the leader of the Jakobine.at the end of this hilarious anime we see that little ginger kiddo takes Robespjerre's name,which is ,obviously,absurd.as if Robespjerre "give the name to that kiddo".Pathetic.let's not forget the lovely enemies - zombies. oh really,zombies were the most common enemies in XVIII France,really. Now let's discuss lovely faces of the characters. well,firstly,they weren't lovely at all. most of character's faces had barely any features and every character looked like cheese.but an interesting thing is that the costumes of all characters were more appealing than character's faces,but shouldn't it be the vice versa?anyway, we can truly say that anime creators loved the Louis XV time clothes,most likely even "lived" in those times,and that would explain why this anime is such crap.

I never make reviews. But this anime is so shitty that I couldn't help it. This is just horrible.
First of all it is boring. It took me MONTH to watch all episodes when previous anime I chose, I watched in one day.
Characters are just pathetic, retarded, stupid etc. (I can write here whole vocabulary of negative adjectives). I don't want to write spoilers here but I will say that mainly it has to do with the so-called loyalty to their king. Come'on, who would be loyal to such pathetic retarded trash? Louis XV was shown here as the biggest trash ever. It is ... no longer called loyalty but stupidity (to know why watch it to the end by I advise you don't even try - I admire myself that I managed to finish such a shit and I started suspected if I am not masochist, the only reason I didn't drop this anime is that I never drop anything I watch).
Ending is plainly stupid and senseless.
Don't watch this shit - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED :)