It delivered in all the areas that I was already expecting with great art and fights. It then however came through with a pretty darn good story/backstory as well as very good and likable charries even the sides. Even fairly original and un common with Alice. Of course some things where shortened and so on but you can really tell how well written the story is from the light novels. The backstory and all of the charries storys is where it really shines. Looking at the plot bio you would think it's going to be a typical battle tourny anime but it's not. I love though that while being different and having a much better written story and more in depth than the usual type from this genre it still also delivered on all the points you would be expecting from the usual ones. It also surprisingly does a better job with the romance aspect than even most "romance" anime do. It's not to obviously rushed and the mcs relationship actually progresses instead of having awkward nothings happen all show then the last episode maybe having a confession or kiss.
I don't really like to rate anime on very technical aspects. I like to go more by how much I enjoyed and got into them but I will touch on some things briefly. Obviously with most newer anime unless your just into the very old anime art styles the art is great and the battle animations are very well done. The music is solid through out and is great in episode 12. Something it done fairly well that is a huge thing most anime fail at these days was pacing. If you want to be very picky you could say it was a slight bit rushed maybe but honestly it's very well paced for a 12 episode battle anime with all that it covered and covered pretty well. I also enjoyed this anime alot. To my surprise I enjoyed it more than I have an anime in a while especially of this genre.
If there is one bad point for Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry though I would have to say there is a bit to much fan service. I am not one for it and really could do without it period so that may be just me but if I had to pick at something that is it. It's not to bad but there are points where it seemed a bit to much to me though even with this being someone who dislikes fan service it was down in a sort of cute way and a big thing with me a way that didn't break story or make the charries seem stupid/to pervy/out of character. Also obviously with the show being made from a light novel series the ending leaves alot of things your going to want to see. It doesn't end badly however just leaves you wanting more which is the point I suppose being that most of these anime are made to promote source materiel and they did that very well. I haven't even touched the light novels and can pretty much see an idea of where it goes from where the anime left off and would love to see it. Just kind of annoying for those anime watchers out there who don't also read light novels. There usually isn't a season 2 for this sort of promotion anime but hopefully there will be.
Overall I give Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry a 8.5 and could easily give it a 9 if they laid off the fan service just a bit. I would also probably go up a bit if the way they did the ending wasn't so obvious that it was made pretty much solely to promote the light novels. I get it and understand but being someone that is not really into lns and mainly being into anime it get's a bit frustrating knowing all this anime are pretty much made with intent in mind of having no second season unless it just completely blows up like an SAO or Tokyo Ghoul and was just made to get Japanese to buy the lns. Being an american anime fan really is s struggle sometimes lololol. Definitely recommend watching though!
