Reviews

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.