English Dub Review: Knight’s & Magic “Knight & Dragon”

When a win feels like a loss, and defeat can be interpreted as success, you’re probably talking about military intelligence.

Overview (Spoilers)

The Vyver launches a blast from its mouth, incinerating the outside of the castle. Ernesti and the Ikaruga fly up to attack, but this enormous mobile weapon was ready for that. Not only does it have its tail and claws for attack, but its body is littered with small, integrated Silhouette Knights that have been turned into quad-fire turrets. These can act not only as anti-air batteries, but can create a field of lightning that blocks incoming spells and attacks. As the two duke it out in the sky, terrestrial Knights clash below. Dietrich fights against the sword-crazed swordsman, and the battle is gruelling. Making full use of the Guerlina’s dash thrusters, he’s able to force the enemy into using his Ether Supplier. Eventually, that Supplier burns out, and the enemy is forced to flee on foot. Addie arrives to the battlefield in her Tzendribble, and armed to the teeth with Missile Javelins. Though most are deflected by the Vyver’s lightning field, one gets through, giving the Ikaruga an in to attach to it and take out some of its ether generators. The Vyver shakes him off and releases a smoke screen made up of a special mixture that eats away at the enchantments on the Ikaruga’s magical jet engines. Ernie is grounded, but manages to fight off a pair of blasts from the Vyver’s breath weapon. These blasts eat up the last of the massive weapon’s mana reserves, and they have to retreat. Both sides lick their wounds and look to counter what they’ve just seen. The Zaloudek engineer creates a massive ether reactor for the Vyver, hoping to overcome the weakness of its distributed power system. Ernie integrates a filter into the jet engines, but also has a secret weapon in the works for the Queen’s new plan: attack the enemy stronghold straight on with their full power. And for this, she’s joining the fight! That way, they don’t have to worry about a battle on two fronts! Everything is on the line for one more fight!

The Vyver is an impressive mecha to say the least. I was having fun analyzing its design. So much of its armament is really cobbled together bits of other units. Ernie is right in classifying it more as a warship than a mecha. As cool as its turrets are, I find that one Silhouette Knight torso stuck on its head a bit clunky. I have a hard time believing that the Vyver is maneuverable enough to take on the Ikaruga, as it is just so big. The Ikaruga’s Rahu Fist reveals why he never put integrated rod weapons in his back arms. The Rahu Fist is great for grappling the enemy, and can probably be used like that taser thing they’ve got.

The Vyver’s final solution to the Ikaruga is an interesting one, but it is significantly different from the books. In the novels, the fight goes up into the stratosphere. There, Ernie starts to feel a ton of pain as his body (and the Ikaruga’s ether reactor) begins to overproduce mana. He begins to surmise that ether is not truly found in the air, but in space. The ether the reactors use is mixed in the air because it trickles in from above. That close to the void, there is more ether that can be safely turned into mana. The anime’s switch here might have made the episode easier to write since they wouldn’t have to explain as much.

Our Take

This episode was loaded with great action, and it was all pretty easy to follow. Nearly every weapon in the good guy arsenal came out to play, and it makes the fights all the more intense. My favorite parts were actually the Guerlina parts. It was fast-paced and focused on maneuverability. Really, my issue with the episode lay with how heavily they leaned on narration. They could have written things where the characters discussed their plans in the war-room, interspersed with montages of them winning certain fights. Instead, there was a discussion, followed by a narrator telling us what is happening. It’s lazy writing, even if the narrator has a great voice.

Speaking of voice acting, I couldn’t hear anything that bothered me in this episode. The acting wasn’t really special, with one exception. The Queen gives a speech to her troops, and it’s solid. Her every word is pent up with feeling and effort. There is an anger and determination in her speech that carries on its coarseness. Her voice actress didn’t overdo it with force. That could have led to her sounding screechy. Instead, she keeps all of the efforts in her lower registers and adds a scratchiness to it. It probably would have inspired me if she was my ruler.

So, looking at the animation is definitely impressive, even though it’s primarily CG. I couldn’t really see anything exceptional in the traditional animation that was used. The art of the giant reactor is impressive. It reminds me of the behelit from Berserk for some reason. I really did enjoy the episode, because the action is good. I would like a bit more meat in the plot, but we are reaching the end of the series, so introducing new elements at this point might be too much.