English Dub Review: Knight’s & Magic “Trial & Error”

Nothing happens, but epic gets built.

Overview (With Spoilers. Not the kind you find on the back of your car, though.)

After the Telestale was stolen from the Order of the Scarlet Rabbit, two new orders were founded. One is the Order of the Silver Phoenix, headed by Ernesti and tasked with pushing the boundaries of Silhouette Knight design. The other is the order of the Azure Hawk, under the command of Dixgard, who function as clandestine security for the intellectual property the Silver Phoenix is developing. In order to see what Ernesti is really capable, one of the Telestale units is sent to the Silhouette Knights Laboratory, who will design their own unit based off it. In ten months, which is before our heroes’ graduation from the academy, SKL and the Silver Phoenix are slated to have a mock battle. In the meantime, Erni almost gets himself killed attempting to create a flight-capable Silhouette Knight.

A quick rundown of the upgrades: SKL increases the power output of the crystal strands of the Telestale, and adds new capacitors to solve its gas-guzzling in their Darsch model. Silver Phoenix builds a new unit, the centaur-like Tzendolg. Alongside it, they unveil two Telestale derivatives that show off their new Option Works system and a customized version of Dietrich’s Guair. Erni also develops Silhouette Gears with internal mana supplies so that they can be used by anyone, which speeds up production. He also builds special daggers that act as keys for the Silhouette Knights, so that they can’t be stolen anymore. Phew!

So… A lot gets unveiled in this episode, but we don’t see much in the way of events. The way things evolve, we are given some tension to build up to the fight, but most of this episode could have been reduced to a montage. We get a sequence where Addy wrecks the Tzendolg, and she and Helvi go off to bathe, while the boys complain about cleaning. The scene is meaningless and does nothing for the plot, the tech, or character development. The scene after Erni crashes his flight unit repeats itself a bit and could have been cut down considerably. What we see here is an episode that is bloated with excess scenes and dialogue. Had the writers trimmed the fat here, we could have seen the fight in this episode. Alternately, they could have introduced more character development, political intrigue, or taken more time showing what the SKL lab was doing. I’d like to note just how quickly we are burning through the plot available from the novel series. We are currently in book three! At a rate of one book every two episodes, we’ll be done in four more episodes, so they’ll have to draw it out a bit with the coming action sequences.

The jet mecha wreck scene is important because it is the first instance we see of character development, which may be this show’s downfall. While new mecha and technologies are constantly popping out of the works, the characters don’t grow and change. This episode shows a negative aspect of Erni’s personality and shows that he realizes he needs to deal with it, but doesn’t show him actually doing so. He is so wrapped up in perfecting his ideas, that he is acting rather recklessly, putting life, limb, and property at risk. When it fails, he just jumps right back in. This could get him (and others) killed. Although he hasn’t realized it, he has a tendency to brute force an issue, which results in high yield, but at great cost.

I would have liked to see how SKL managed to reverse engineer the Telestale. I’m surprised that the SKL comes out stating a 30% increase in this and solving problem that. There’s a part of me that wonders if they actually accomplished that. As it is, it feels they just slapped a new coat of paint on the Telestale. We are given the feeling that the head of SKL is a sketchy guy, more concerned with fame than actually advancing technology. In fact, he outright states that he’ll build mass-production versions of the Telestale, and get all the glory for the new units. However, Erni meets every challenge by thinking outside of the district of the box. His experimentalism yields handsome units with high performance.

The Tzendolg interests me. It seems to have great land speed and maneuverability. Instead of a sword, it uses a halberd. This suggests it is intended to do bull rushes and to break through enemy lines. It does not carry a shield and does not have back weapons, so it seems limited in its options. We also get to see it equipped with a trailer, allowing it to carry along the other three units. This concept revolutionizes Silhouette Knight Warfare. Before, Knights either had to be carried in horse-drawn wagons or walked from place to place. A Tzendolg with trailer allows a total of four Knights and additional equipment to be transported at what appears to be three to four times the speed. I would like to see if another Silhouette Knight could directly ride a Tzendolg, possibly utilizing rods and Option Works to act as added artillery for the exceptionally speedy unit.

Our Take

Visually, this episode was exciting. The new units are dramatic-looking, even the mass-production Darsches. As a nerd for this sort of thing, I would love to jump into the cockpit of any one of the new units. The animation is great for… just about everything. I don’t spot any errors in the traditionally drawn scenes, but where this episode shines is in its CG. Nobles present for the mock battle comment that the Darsch radiates strength. The animation shows this. Not necessarily with bulky, loud movements, though. It seems as agile as a Telestale, but the animation embodies the power available, almost like a compressed spring ready to pop. The Tzendolg feels light, but with a similar level of power. The opening of the trailer feels almost like a Megazord sequence out of Power Rangers. I was half way expecting the Knights to assemble into a bigger robot. Suddenly, I’m afraid of Ernesti building Voltron...

In listening to the voice acting this time around, I’ve noticed that the actors are pretty much holding the line. They don’t push their performances, but they don’t let them slide. All of the characters are believable but lack vocal depth and emotion. That may be because there isn’t much to work with. The show doesn’t seem to do character development at all, which saddens me. Tossing in great characters and watching them grow would take this from being an imaginative fantasy mecha show into an instant classic. Instead, the writers have settled for characters with a light amount of quirk. Since there isn’t much depth to the writing, the voice actors don’t have much to play off of.

While this episode has great animation and some impressive looking mecha, it is severely lacking in the plot and character department. Instead, it bloats unnecessary sequences to fill time. As such, I can really only give the episode six Tzendolg Sleigh Rides out of ten. Admit it, you want to take one, too.