Soulriders 5.0: Legend of the Unending Games

The Rakudai Kishi no Eiyuutan anime is an adaptation of a light novel written by Riku Misora. It is a shounen action story of a boy named Ikki Kurogane who wants to became a mage-knight but has abysmal talent (but is actually extremely talented, as is de rigeur among shounen protagonists), and his growing relationship with the super-elite tsundere girl he meets and then curb-stomps in the first chapter of the novel.

Look, I'm currently the main translator of both the light novel (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/project/index.php?title=Rakudai_Kishi_no_Eiyuutan) and the manga (http://bato.to/comic/_/comics/rakudai-kishi-no-eiyuutan-r11615), and after spending hundreds of lonely, tedious hours turning it word by word into polished English with nothing else to occupy that time but scrutinizing the story for logic errors, all I have left in me is salt. Feel free to read the story and draw your own summary.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on the anime. (Cross-posted from the series thread at Baka-Tsuki (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=256759#p256759).)

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 1)

I'm no expert anime reviewer, but here are my thoughts:

The art style and animation were overall pretty darn good, at least compared to the few anime I've watched. However, animation tends to get worse as a series goes on, so that doesn't mean very much. The voice work is decent enough. The characters so far sound more or less like what I had in my head.

I'm enthused about the anime adding new material, and not being shy about changing existing material to fit the medium. Anime that try to do a straight copy of the adaptation source is infuriating. Going a little overboard with the early-bird cameos of later characters is kind of meh, though. Everyone else I can make an argument for, but it doesn't make much sense that Touka is in there, just to show off her presence.

The pacing is good in the sense that it summarizes a lot of exposition. The light novel front-loads sooooo much exposition, but I think the episode did smooth over the cuts fairly well. However, it kinda went too far because speeding everything up also included the dramatic portions, which suffered. The Ikki vs Stella fight, especially the latter half, went too fast, and so did the Ikki-Stella bed scene.

The bed scene was pretty badly done, drama-wise. Instead of slowing the pace down and indulging in the mood of it, instead there was... what I can only call a moment of very ham-handed fanservice. Having spent quite a bit of time in polishing the novel scene to work well in prose, I can't support this kind of change.

The speed of the episode meant there are some important relationship aspects that got cut out. And by that I mean pretty much all the deeper communication between Ikki and Stella. They took out basically everything, to the point where I don't even know why Stella is okay with being Ikki's roommate (hint: because she was wrong about Ikki and to keep the promise of being his slave, which are all we're really left with, are not actually the reasons in the novel). This really changes how the characters are portrayed. I'm bothered by this, but at the moment I can hope the story will delay establishing those things for more dramatically convenient points in the story.

The humor was mostly okay. It suffered from the pacing too, but there just wasn't enough screen time to get the comedic timing optimal. This is a limitation of twelve-episode anime in general, and no doubt everyone else knows all about that.

In conclusion, the episode has some problems in terms of how it adapted the novel, but is not terrible as an anime. I'll still keep watching, and not just because that's my job as project manager.

PS: But seriously, Japan, don't throw orgasm imagery in there like that's just fine. I mean what the heck.

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=256910#p256910))

Quote from: BotanPS. That black-white-red OP (as ED in first episode) is so darn good.

I think the opening sequence would've worked well as the series's ending sequence, but the noir-and-blood imagery is an odd choice for an opening representation of a story with this much comedy-romance.

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 2)

Well, the character art is already starting its descent.

(http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m133/KLSymph/offmodel_ikki_zps6rhuatzw.jpg)
Never change, anime industry!

The second episode didn't cut out the heart of its most central scene like the first one did, which is good. My main complaint this time is that the series flattens interesting contrast in various places.  For example, the introduction of Oreki illustrates this. In the novel, Oreki's introduction shows her as acting excessively high-spirited and healthy, up until the moment she coughs a ton of blood to reveal her sickness and frailty. The spirit of this transition lies in the contrast between her initial impression (accompanied by confetti fireworks and everything) and the graphic reversal of expectation (accompanied by blood flying). The anime flattens this contrast by giving Oreki away as unhealthy both visually with dark bags under her eyes and audibly with a very low-energy vocal delivery (though the actual words are still high-spirited), so when Oreki spits out a fountain of dark and dead-looking rather than vibrant red blood, the effect is much weaker than I expected. The rest of the class didn't respond as strongly as in the novel either. This flattening is very unfortunate, because I think Oreki's voicework and appearance are quite interesting and I would've accepted them easily if only the episode had started using them after the initial joke was made, under the excuse that she hid those expressions of her ill health for the sake of the new students, which is of course exactly what the novel said she did.

Sigh.

Shizuku's introduction scene also suffered from this kind of flattening of contrasts. For starters the two main points of context for her introduction in the novel were excised from the anime: we don't have Ikki's reminiscence on Shizuku from their childhood, and we don't have Ikki's fight with his male classmates right before Shizuku's entrance--and just as importantly for this particular issue, we don't have Ikki's girl classmates fangirling over him. This deprives Shizuku's introduction of two vital points of contrast that the audience was primed with in the novel: we don't know how Shizuku acted toward Ikki as a child (because that is very different from how Shizuku will act toward him now), and we don't know how average people act toward Ikki at the moment (because that is also very different from how Shizuku will act toward him now). It's a subtle effect, but this makes the kiss less personal for both parties, turning it into generic surprise incest instead of generic surprise incest but also wow your classmates respect you for the first time and there are suddenly a lot of girls who want to get to know you and oh god now you just got kissed and also your sister completely inverted her personality! Cliche is cliche, but the difference between cliche that's just cliche and cliche designed for a specific situation can be that tiny, and Shizuku's intro is worse for it.

It's also worse for a few other reasons. Like with Oreki, there just is not as much other people reacting to what's going on. In the novel, these sub-minor classmate characters still spoke and acted, yelling out support and such as faceless nameless individuals (not even counting Manabe and his friends starting a fight). The people in the anime's hallway are entirely paper cutouts spouting murmurs at best except for one specific line in unison. Kagami can't carry everyone else's responses in this fashion, not when she has to represent herself as a unique minor character (though otherwise I'm happy that her introduction is exactly what I hoped it would be). This lack of a more involved background gallery, and the stronger retorts they gave in the novel, detracts from the contrast with Shizuku's abnormal actions. Going beyond the contrast problem, Shizuku's demeanor just has weaker impact. The anime uses generic yandere audiovisual cues like the patch-of-shadow and a sharp sound effect on revealing her expression, but they are all obviously comedic in nature. And the comedic sound effects are pretty decent for the comedic bits, like the misunderstanding over Ikki telling Stella to sleep with him. But I wish that the anime could've taken just a moment away from comedy, dropped all the sound effects and music into dead silence to show Shizuku's reaction to that misunderstanding as legitimately scary as Ikki thought it was in the novel.

Oh well.

The most important scene in this episode (though not for the novel chapter) is probably the scene where Ikki tells Stella about his past that was missing in the previous episode. My only problem with this scene is that Ryouma's delivery of that inspiring speech about Ikki not giving up on himself was vocally delivered in a very uninspired way. In the novel, all that was described about Ryouma's demeanor was that he gave those words with the smile of a young man. This isn't reflected in the episode at all; Ryouma just said it in an old man voice in an old man tone, making the very important scene just not very interesting to me (and like the bed scene in the previous episode, I spent quite a bit of time polishing this speech in the novel to sound more appropriately dramatic, so it kind of irks me). Beyond that, I found the scene competently handled. The music was nice, and having the explanation happen against a backdrop of the setting sun is certainly better than having it happen in the dorm room.

Though I demand someone explain to me: if Ikki knew nobody cared about him and he wasn't going to attend the family's New Year's party, why was he dressed in a suit jacket and bow tie?

I don't mind how this exposition was relocated, but I wish the anime made an effort to rewrite the story around that change. Much of Stella's actions make less sense when she received the explanation later. For example, there is no reason for her to announce that she's Ikki's slave in order to answer Shizuku's question about why she's related enough to Ikki to get in between the siblings, since Stella's relationship with Ikki seems much weaker without her knowing his circumstances. In addition, the anime uses Shizuku's indignation to kick off the topic, which I'm... not exactly disapproving of, but it feels slightly off, because now Shizuku is shown to be hot-headed in a way that contradicts her previous presentation as cold in her way of losing her temper. Less forgivably, the anime also uses the incident as a way to throw Arisuin's first impression straight into the trashcan. The anime presents Arisuin in a way that ignores major aspects of his character: the introductory gender joke is annihilated, of course, and so is the idea that Shizuku is highly misanthropic and wouldn't talk about herself with others, and Arisuin somehow managed to get her to open up with sympathy. Now the presented course of events is that Shizuku started talking on her own out of anger and Arisuin just kind of went along with it. Both character traits, gone. Not what I was hoping for.

I darkly suspect the anime will still try to play Arisuin's gender mystery joke straight. If so, they'd better be very clever about it.

Lastly, the bathtub scene was fanservice. It was fanservice in the novel, and it's fanservice here. The reason is different (one-upsmanship on Shizuku versus... I don't know, pity toward Ikki's family situation?) but it doesn't matter much here, because the scene was unabashed cheesecake. It was competent. I didn't find it especially arousing, but the funny parts were funny. I wouldn't have ended on Ikki getting slapped, personally, but it's consistent. Stella is already established as a slapper in the anime. That ship has sailed.

Edit: small appendum to conclusion

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=257061#p257061))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 3)

Quote from: Episode two reviewI darkly suspect the anime will still try to play Arisuin's gender mystery joke straight. If so, they'd better be very clever about it.

Nope, they didn't try to play that joke, and instead used some new content to patch together the gaps in the novel's narrative. This is exactly what I wanted the anime to do, and I am very satisfied. As a whole, the entire episode was put together very competently. A lot of detail was stripped out (I don't remember the term "Rebellion" being mentioned at all), but all the narrative-central points of volume one chapter three is there and consistent. The humor was good, and the fight was dramatic--swiping the "I don't need color vision" bit of chapter two's fight against Manabe was a nice touch. The scene of Stella stripping maybe could've lingered a bit longer to hit the mood perfectly, but what's there works. Kirihara probably could've used a bit more time to make his personality more memorable, but he's not a deep character and what's there established the necessary part. For cramming an entire chapter into the space of a single episode, this is about as good as I can hope for.

Since I don't have anything substantial to complain about, maybe I'll share what I liked most about these episodes instead? Coming at this series as one of the translators/editors of the light novel, it's very difficult to judge it on its own merits rather than compare it to the novel, and to my own novel translations/edits in particular. That makes my judgments less applicable to everyone else, but oh well, perhaps that perspective is interesting to a few people. The way I approach this, an adaptation of a source can--when confronted with a story element--either try to copy the source or to create new content. If the adaptation tries to copy the source, then it naturally should be judged on how successfully it copies the element, in terms of fidelity to detail and in terms of creating similar audience reaction. This kind of copying either "succeeds in copying the source" or "fails to copy the source"--on its own, it rarely elevates the adaptation above the source. On the other hand, creating new content has more potential for improving over the source--but of course, it's more labor-intensive and expensive, and there's greater risk that the new content works poorly. In the end, I personally prefer that an adaptation takes risks and tries to do new things so that it can be better than a source I've probably already seen, because otherwise what's the point? The worst thing I think an adaptation can do is strive for pure fidelity of detail, because it's a goal with no better resolution than mimicking a story I've already read, and since perfect fidelity of detail in adaptation is physically impossible especially for changes in story media like text to animation, every little deviation from the source makes the adaptation worse.

The things I like most in the previous Rakudai Kishi episodes reflect my preference. In episode one, what I enjoyed most of all was a split second expression on Ikki's face during Ittou Shura not present in the novel or the manga:



It's just a moment, but I've always wondered why Ikki could use a technique that burned through all of his power and yet talked and acted exactly as calmly and analytically as he always did. This brief expression of sheer mania much better suits my view of how Ittou Shura should affect Ikki's mentality, and I thought it was an excellent change.

In episode two, what I liked best was Oreki's very weak-sounding but somehow bright vocal delivery. This vocal work that seems very original to me (though I'm not very knowledgeable about this, since I don't watch much anime), and really expresses Oreki's ill health effectively while letting other parts of her personality shine through. What's important to me is not necessarily that a new detail matches what I expected, but that a character detail makes that character more interesting, and this change does so.



In episode three, everything was competently executed, so it's hard to find a particular thing I like more than others. At the moment, I'd give it to the new Arisuin intro joke, which remixed elements of other jokes in the novel and added a bit of gratuitous Boys Love imagery to create an intro that's quite entertaining.



Thus far in the season, I consider the anime competent in executing action and humor scenes. If that was all Rakudai Kishi was to me, then I would go into episode four in high hopes. However, I am not yet sold on the anime's ability to execute dramatic scenes, especially those that deal with subtle details and personal dynamics. For me, the acid test is the climax moment in volume one: the moment that Stella announces she loves Ikki in front of the entire school during his match with Kirihara. If the anime can execute this one scene--which, fair warning, is another of those scenes that I spent a good amount of time polishing and thus will be very critical about--then I can be confident in the anime as it moves on to the rest of the season and the considerable amount of drama there. If not....

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=257462#p257462))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 4)

Quote from: KLSymphFor me, the acid test is the climax moment in volume one: the moment that Stella announces she loves Ikki in front of the entire school during his match with Kirihara. If the anime can execute this one moment--which, fair warning, is another of those moments that I spent a good amount of time polishing and thus will be very critical about--then I can be confident in the anime as it moves on to the rest of the season and the considerable amount of drama there.

In episode four, I thought that if Stella's performance at the climactic moment was properly and convincingly emotional, and the rest of the episode captured all necessary the plot points of the novel chapter, then the anime would deliver the dramatic core of the volume's story and I could therefore trusted the anime carrying the rest of the season as well. In conclusion, Stella's voice actress executed the climactic declaration to Ikki perfectly, with a vocal delivery of sincere anguish that was a shockingly exact match to my own emotional interpretation of the novel's text, and I was wrong. This episode delivered the exact thing I cared about the most while destroying with clusterbomb precision my entire reason for caring about it.

I've spent five days trying to find a coherent way to describe the problems in this episode, but they just multiply and point into each other forever, so at this point I'm just going to list the major topics. The word "undermine" will show up frequently.

• Moving the talk with Arisuin to just before the fight, and combining it with the the Kirihara remembrance scene, juxtapositions them in a bad way; the line about Ikki smiling all the time because he can't hear the cries of his heart loses a lot of contrast when he isn't smiling in that scene due to remembrance and to worry over the upcoming fight, compared to the novel's version when he's out having fun with friends. This undermines the credibility of Arisuin's entire statement.
  
• Kirihara was very poorly used. First of all, what's with the forest? His Device is "Misty Moon", so why add a plant motif to it? I understand the urge to have interesting visuals, but forest terrain makes his own fighting tactics weaker, so why would he use it when it's clear from episode three that he doesn't have to? Secondly, his character presentation undermines his credibility. Why is he visible so much of the time (and not even fake-invisible-translucent), and why does he sound so emotionally invested in the fight with Ikki? Kirihara is presented in the novel as a popular jock-archetype character. He's supposed to be mean-spirited, but also comparatively aloof and condescending, because he considers Ikki so far below his level that he'd only offer backhanded gestures because he has nothing better to do, and when Ikki turns the fight around he's supposed to go to pieces and reveal himself as a wimp. Every instant the episode keeps showing his face is an instant I believe in his character less, because the episode has him looking and sounding unhinged before that turning point occurs, which undermines both that final reveal and also whatever tiny bit of depth Kirihara ever had.
  
• The rest of the students of the school are absurd. They're almost completely static and monolithic in character art and animation and behavior, expressing no meaningful personality. They don't react to Ikki's injuries, so when finally Kirihara does get them them to react over Ikki's graduation topic, they come across less as people expressing opinions and more as a stadium full of cardboard cutouts saying what the author wants them to say. In the novel, you at least had Ikki's classmates disagreeing with the majority and Tsukuyomi expressing concern to Saikyou about Ikki's injuries to show that the minor school characters weren't a perfectly homogeneous bloc, but neither of those things happened in the episode (even though Kagami could've stood in for the class and I can't find any other reason she would be in the scene). It undermines the impact of their disdain about Ikki, even though the episode is clearly trying to convey some gravity in their insults. And then after the match, you can hear them cheering for Ikki. If they were all literally chanting in unison that Ikki is a loser, and he got up and won very suddenly, why would they react with cheering instead of sitting there in shock and confusion, if not continued hostility? Everything about the audience rings false.
  
• Ikki had almost none of the novel's personal introspection during the match, and by cutting that, the episode undermined... no, discarded the entire rationale behind the climax of the selection battle scene, which means it erased the entire point of the chapter and the volume. The episode shows Ikki going down to Stella yelling at him to get up to Ikki getting up and thanking Stella without explaining to the viewer why. The sequence of events in the scene gives the viewer the false impression that the climax is about Ikki losing confidence and Stella restoring it, and that's such a fine example of scooping out a man's innards and wearing his skin as a disguise, I should probably use it as a Halloween ghost story.
  
• I hardly care about the medical room scene by this point. Sure, fine, whatever. I want to ask, though, how many times does that cherry blossom animation have to be played? The movement draws the eye away from the characters (you know, the part of the image that matters), and it also makes the comparative lack of detail and animation in the character art way more noticeable.

In summary, I liked Stella's voice performance at the climax, and I'm trying to find a way to throw the rest of the episode into the sea, then the sea into the sun.

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=257530#p257530))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 5)

Wow, my first impression is that the character art swan-dived off a cliff. Especially for minor characters, and especially for distance shots. It looks so janky so often.

The episode remixed a lot of scenes. The Manabe scene was moved here, and although that's an inferior choice because we lose on the things it sets up for the first arc's climax, I don't otherwise care too much because the anime gives Manabe and his fellows a slightly different motivation so it still mostly makes sense. The resolution of the Ikki/Stella relationship problem--the pool scene--was moved up before Ayase is formally introduced, substituting Kagami in her place (and overall making Kagami much more important to the story).

The pool scene is highly problematic for me, because Ayase's conversation with Stella there was the most humanizing moment for Ayase right before her issue with Kurashiki was revealed, and then her betrayal of Ikki. Taking this characterization away from Ayase will undermine the sense of tension a viewer would feel between her candid personality and her darker actions, which will discredit the dramatic resolutions later. I suspect this episode foreshadows another apocalyptic failure of emotional drama at the climax of the arc, just like in episode four.

The anime also inserts Shizuku and Arisuin's conversation about Shizuku's feelings for Ikki into this episode and juxtaposes it with Ayase's conversation  (now delivered by Kagami) with Stella. That seems... weird. I don't know what the anime is trying to get across here, because I see that parallel and think they're trying to push Shizuku as Ikki's love interest. It may be related to the Shizuku/Ikki scene in volume three... somehow.

The actual matter of the Ikki/Stella relationship problem was mostly competent. The talk under the fountain was fine. The character art was so mediocre that I couldn't really get into it, though.

I haven't watched this and I don't have an opinion on the series itself, but I am reading this and I enjoy the reviews.

Felt like someone should say it, y'know?

Thanks! Now I have three responses across two forums!

Luckily, I have years of fanfiction to inure me to nobody responding to my posts.

Quote from: KLSymph on October 31, 2015, 07:14:42 PM
Thanks! Now I have three responses across two forums!

Luckily, I have years of fanfiction to inure me to nobody responding to my posts.

Hey, upside to everything?

Well, I glance, but I remember the series as one which the premise failed to sell me.

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=257835#p257835))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 6)

Ayase's presentation is handled mostly competently. We see a decent range of emotions, and her voice actress is as good as the rest of the cast. We do lose out an important aspect of her character because we no longer have her pool-side conversation with Stella, but the rest appears pretty decent. Unfortunately, the visual presentation of her posture being corrected by Ikki is somewhat flubbed. While her actual reactions--the embarrassment, the twitching, the gasping, the facial expressions--are all excellent, for some reason the character art slapped a uniform pink glow over her entire body, which is extremely lazy. What is that supposed to represent, blushing? Because I know nobody blushes so hard that white sleeves become pink and black hair becomes purple. Also, does sweat emerge on legs and form well-defined rivulets like that?

Well, at least the anime put some serious effort into keeping Ayase's character art relatively high-quality throughout the entire episode, because they absolutely put no similar effort into Kuraudo. That's the volume's main antagonist, so why is his art so bad? Why does his mouth open and close when he's laughing "ha ha ha"? If people click their teeth together when they laugh like that then I've been doing it wrong all my life. Am I the weird one here?

If the anime presented Kuraudo like this, and it presented Kirihara like in episode four, I'm scared of how they'll present the third volume's antagonist Akaza.

Lastly, I don't even know how badly you'd have to misunderstand cliffhanger design to end the episode on "is this going to be a trap" instead of "yes it's a trap and now you're in terrible trouble". Whether or not Ayase is trying to spring a trap on Ikki can't be the basis for the cliffhanger because the only thing creating the mere possibility in the anime's story that Ayase might do so is Arisuin's suspicion, and that alone just isn't enough to carry the question against an entire episode of showing Ayase as nothing but a nice person (the fact that she mutters "I have to be stronger" sometimes doesn't add to this because that's also the sentiment driving Ikki and Stella, who are never suspected of doing bad things).

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=258038#p258038))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 7)

I had to compare the end credits because Ayase's vocal delivery was so different I thought the anime had changed the voice actress between episodes. I mean, wow. And while It's great that Ms. Yuu Kobayashi has the skill and range to provide such completely separate voices, it made the character less believable for me, because instead of sounding like the usual shy Ayase but emotionally colder, the character suddenly sounded like a middle-aged woman. Her voice dropped like an octave, and I'm not knowledgeable on voice work so I can't describe this well, but it sounds throatier or something. It was so consistently dissimilar from Ayase's previous portrayal across the entire current episode I couldn't suspend disbelief and accept that they were the same person in any scene with Ayase in it. You can (and have to) change the character's presentation to account for the betrayal, but you can't change the character's behavior and facial expressions and vocal delivery between two episodes like that, leaving no thread of reference except... her clothes I guess, without it feeling like discontinuity (hint: having Ayase displaying some of the changes in the previous episode by not ending it before she speaks would ease the transition). I've watched the episode a few times again and I still can't get it to click enough to actually comment on whether Ayase's emotional breakdown in the match works. In the abstract, the voice work is pretty good, but otherwise I'm not really feeling it.

On the story side, I dislike that the exposition on Ayase's father was delivered by Shinguuji in this episode before the match with Ayase. Though it's not a deal-breaker for me, knowing Ayase's situation at that detail weakens Ikki's entire "I want to have faith in her" narrative, compared to when he was running more on actual blind faith. Also, good job Ikki, saying you're not going to talk to Shinguuji about why you smashed up the building and then immediately asking Shinguuji about Ayase. Nobody will connect the dots on that.

For the life of me, I can't figure out what taking Stella to the meeting with Oreki was supposed to add to that scene. Did the anime really need two separate characters doing spit-takes?

The next episode is the last of volume two. The important things there will be whether Ayase and Kurashiki will come across as genuine. My expectations are low, and I look forward to the anime finding some way to get it wrong beneath my lowest expectations, as the series tends to do.

Edit: added some thoughts after re-watching episode

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=258215#p258215))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 8)

Quote from: KLSymphThe next episode is the last of volume two. The important things there will be whether Ayase and Kurashiki will come across as genuine. My expectations are low, and I look forward to the anime finding some way to get it wrong beneath my lowest expectations, as the series tends to do.

Yeah, basically.

At the surface level, the episode was a series of events describable by the sentence "I can see what you're trying to do, and it's almost good, but it just doesn't quite get there." The flashback about Ayase's past with her dad, with its stylized use of voice-overs on sepia photographs and calligraphy is almost interesting, but because it lasts a minute and a half and because there was a regularly animated flashback sequence in the previous episode, it ultimately can't escape the dark shadow of "you're obviously presenting it this way to save money on animation." The Sword Eater fight was not great. Most of the individual parts were fine, but too much of it seemed to be essentially Kuraudo standing and waving his arms, Ikki standing and blocking, and the girls giving exposition. Overall it just didn't feel quite as dynamic as I was hoping for. Kuraudo's Marginal Counter was primarily represented with the same slap-a-single-color-over-him visualization that I complained about for Ayase (except orange instead of pink), which makes even less sense because what does a flat glow over the body have to do with advanced reflexes?

At the emotional and personal level, it's... pretty much the same as the volume one climax.

Regarding Kuraudo, the big reveal about him in the novel is that he's a bully but he's also a strange sort of idealist. He's a battle-maniac who came in and destroyed Ayase's life, but contrary that simple first impression, he also stayed around for two years hoping that Kaito would recover or Ayase with improve so that they could come back for a rematch, instead of continuing on like the delinquents attached to him might have. He wanted a good fight more than he wanted to just go around hurting people, and his actions were based on a sincere hope that he could get it. As the story points out, he's not so different from Ikki in terms of being an idealistic warrior. Sure, it's a self-serving idealism, and sure, it's not very deep or very original characterization of that character archetype, but as far as antagonists with hidden depth go, it makes Kuraudo "a bully, but also idealistic" Kurashiki quite a big step higher than Shizuya "a bully, but also gutless" Kirihara or Mamoru "a bully, but also greedy" Akaza. So does the anime get this character across? Almost all the details are there, except that in the anime Kuraudo never gave the line about not understanding why his delinquent buddies are satisfied with just being delinquents. Not setting up with that vital contrast between him and the normal delinquents takes the extra spark out of the character for me.

Regarding Ayase, the dramatic climax for her is the realization that she was wrong about her interpretation of the fight between Kuraudo and her father. Instead of Kaito being regretful about not being able to protect his dojo and students, he's actually sorry that he couldn't give Kuraudo a proper match. Ayase, not understanding this, threw away her pride to try and get back the things she thought Kaito was regretting he lost, but her realization of Kaito's true intent gives her a new perspective on her father, and thus gives her hope in becoming stronger in continued emulation of the ideal of swordsmanship she always admired in her father. Kaito regretting not giving Kuraudo a good fight wasn't what she expected, but even so, it was a proud warrior-like sentiment. So does the anime get this reversal across? Ayase's anime response to the revelation is to... fall to her knees and cry.



What was the point of this climax, Ayase? Was it to show you that you were too dimwitted to understand your own family, and make you so depressed that you think yourself unworthy of carrying on your family style, until Ikki reminds you that you've imitated Kaito's techniques really well? So you're going to become stronger and become worthy of succeeding the family style, based on this reaffirmation that you can imitate Kaito's techniques really well? Isn't "not being strong except in imitating Kaito's techniques" the exact same problem you had at the beginning of your character arc?

Here's what Ayase looks like when she's changing her perspective instead of wasting everyone's time. (http://bato.to/reader#8704a2743b467018_31)

Lastly, at the end of the fight, there's this:



This is apparently original to the anime. It's not in the manga or in the Baka-Tsuki translation, and I haven't found it in the Japanese text either.

This line pretty emblematic of the anime's misunderstanding and/or disregard of how elements in the story work together. First of all, it reemphasizes the idea that this fight is just about getting the dojo back and avenging Kaito, and distracts from the more important part about Ayase regaining her pride as a swordsman. Second, Ikki's whole "with my strongest/weakest" catchphrase has been used to emphasize a specific type of situation, in which a) Ikki is born weak and the opponent is born stronger, and b) the opponent is looking down on Ikki because of the difference in their in-born strength, and c) Ikki is about to apply something he developed in response to his own weakness in order to seize victory despite that difference. That's what the whole "strongest/weakest" thing means, as far as I can tell. In this case, the catchphrase is misused because a) Ikki isn't even speaking to his opponent Kuraudo, and b) Kuraudo isn't looking down on Ikki despite their difference in in-born strength--to say nothing of Ayase who Ikki's actually speaking to, and c) Ikki is going to use Ten'i Muhou, which is not something he developed. This makes the catchprase an ill fit in this situation, as if someone made Ikki say it without considering what it actually means.

In summary, episode eight is about as devoid climactic drama as episode four. But it's not as disappointing as episode four, because I've already lost faith in that aspect of the anime narrative, and also because volume two isn't as important as volume one. So, you know, improvement.

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&p=258841#p258841))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 9)

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...You know what? I'm okay with it.

Touka's intro could've been better though.

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=259415#p259415))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 10)

This was my favorite episode so far in the season. No dramatic problems popped out at me, Shizuku's emotional setup and payoff were both competent, there are new material and remixed material that all work together well, and the fight was visually impressive, probably the best I've seen in recent memory. It's even better when contrasted with the volume four fights that I've been translating, which are piles of hot steaming garbage.

Not a lot to say this week either. This arc has been quite good thus far.

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (http://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=260187#p260187))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 11)

What are you animators even doing? If you want to use that vintage film scratch effect and the monochrome gray in the scenes where Ikki is under investigation in order to emphasize the feel of isolation and despair, hey I'm all for a bit of fancy cinematography to create contrast, but you applied that same effect to almost the entire rest of the episode, including the school scenes that don't involve Ikki and even Stella's flashback. That completely breaks the sense of isolation/despair for me, since none of the other characters are supposed to be in Ikki's particular emotional state. It also makes most of the second half of the episode look terrible. Have you heard of restraint?

As for the revelation about Itsuki and Ikki's relationship... well, the basic components are there, but it doesn't quite have the same feel, mostly because Itsuki's exposition on his own views was cut from the anime. In the novel, Itsuki came off as heartless because he had his own sense of ethics that were more important than family relationships (in contrast with Ikki who really wanted to have the family relationships), because Itsuki explained some of that ethics, about how his actions make the public more safe or whatever. In the anime, Itsuki came off as heartless because... nothing. Because he wants his job to be easier, at best. In the novel it was much easier for me to believe that Itsuki really did acknowledge Ikki as his son (for example, he actually went to meet Ikki on his own, although I can also see that as an intentional attempt to rattle Ikki and the fact that both reasons could be true at the same time is itself interesting) and sincerely didn't understand why Ikki was sad because their mindsets are so different. He seems like he has his own agenda which leaves him a poor father, and this gives him a bit of character depth. In the anime that complexity doesn't have enough time or detail to come together, even though they use the same dialogue, and all the black-and-red art and melodramatic music thrown in there doesn't cover up the lack of substance.

Well, next is the last episode of the season. The climax is in Ikki's mentality turning away despair at having no one holding expectations for him, which is already a step behind because that idea was only introduced in this episode, which means there really wasn't enough time to set it up properly. Really the anime should've made regular subtle references to this concept from the beginning of the season, but oh well too late. For what it's worth, the anime probably can't ruin this climax any worse than the light novel did, but I do look forward to seeing it try.

(Crosspost from Baka-Tsuki (https://www.baka-tsuki.org/forums/viewtopic.php?f=44&t=9843&p=262343#p262343))

KLSymph's review of the Rakudai Kishi anime (episode 12 - finale)

And as we come to final episode of the anime, we've come full circle all the way back to the first problem of the first episode: speeding up the pacing so much that the dramatic portions suffered. The scene of Ikki stumbling toward the match while lost in his suffering is compressed to around one minute's length. One minute! At least the novel wove the conversation with Akaza through the narrative to provide the illusion that Ikki was suffering longer. What the anime shows is just not enough to get that feeling of despair--to the point that Ikki couldn't even think straight anymore--to set in properly, which makes weaker the climactic moment in which he realizes he shouldn't be in despair.

The imagery of Ikki grasping the flame of his relationship with Stella is also poorly used. Ikki's stumbling along all grayed out in despair, and then deep inside of him he finds hope in his promise with Stella, which appears as a burning light before him that he reaches for. When he grabs onto it, the heat radiates through his hand and into him, restoring his color, and then he falls down and Shizuku catches him. That certainly matches the superficial sequence of events. The problem is this representation doesn't properly, explicitly show the core meaning of this scene. It's easy to see Ikki regaining color as a sign that even if he falls, he has already regained enough of himself to get back up and push onwards. That's something we know Ikki can do. But the reason in the novel that Ikki was falling despite having clutched that remembrance is his feelings for Stella aren't enough to carry him on in this case. That's why Shizuku and all the people she brought to cheer him were necessary. If Ikki could just think of Stella and keep going, then this arc's climax would be a complete retread of the first arc against Shizuya. In the novel, Ikki hits the climactic realization that he's not as alone as he thought from seeing all of his friends and supporters, and is ready to go on to the fight against Touka. Then Stella comes with her medal and gives him an extra little boost. The anime stills shows Ikki still stunned and confused even after seeing all of his supporters, and only gets the energy to keep moving after Stella arrives, phrasing it as remembering he had made a promise with her. For the third time, the anime manages to so perfectly slice out the fundamental meaning of a volume's dramatic climax that I suspect the anime staff are wizards in making things pointless and lame.

(http://i103.photobucket.com/albums/m133/KLSymph/spirit_bomb_zpsiwfdxizw.jpg)
Can you put the crowd any farther away!?

On the fight with Touka, I've seen here and there on the internet that people were afraid such a one-slash fight would be anticlimactic for the anime. This was never a real worry for me because the climax of the arc was the emotional reversal described above, and the fight afterward with Touka is part of wrapping up the story. As far as plot goes, it isn't supposed to be any more climactic than the fight with Shizuya after Stella gets Ikki back up in volume one. So I watched that part of the anime hoping to see some novel visual representation of the match, and--you'll want to sit down for this--I was really disappointed. What an impressive wind-up, with all the color work and the blood flying, and then... nothing. The moment of impact isn't animated. Everyone stares in silence, and then Touka's Narukami slowly shatters.

Let's try to picture what this sequence of images implies happened: Ikki and Touka swing their swords at each other... and then their edges meet... and then the edges bounce off each other because neither edge actually cut into the other... and then Ikki and Touka stare at each other for a long moment because they're standing face to face and there's nothing else to do... and then Narukami breaks and Touka falls down.

Thanks, Rakudai anime, for that ridiculous image. I didn't put that much importance in the Raikiri match, but you still managed to make it a little more awful, as is your way.

Looking back on the anime, there were some high points, and overall the anime is of an average competence (which is a compliment!), but speaking as one who's invested a great deal into the Rakudai Kishi story, I'm not very happy with how the anime turned out. Don't take it too seriously, though. It's just my opinion, and the purpose of the anime is to entertain, so if you enjoyed the anime then it's a success regardless of what anyone else thinks, myself included. The only thing I can comment on with some authority is the merit of the anime as an adaptation to the light novel I've had a part in translating, and I'm only giving these comments because my perspective as a translator might be worth some thought or discussion. Writing up these thoughts was fun, and that counts.

Years and years later, I've finished translating the manga adaptation of Rakudai Kishi, which can be found at Fallen Angels (https://manga.fascans.com/manga/rakudai-kishi-no-eiyuutan) (with the defunct Underdog Scans's first six chapters on MangaDex (https://mangadex.org/title/11615/rakudai-kishi-no-eiyuutan)). The light novel has been officially licensed, with the first volumes coming out in two days, so I've closed the Baka-Tsuki project as well. And thus ends this project that's taken up five years of my life, huzzah.

Congratulations! Glad you were able to finish it.