English Dub Review: Ulysses-Jeanne d’Arc and the Alchemist Knight “Who Was the Promise For”

Forget that, who was that armor made for?!

OVERVIEW (SPOILERS)

Philip arrives in France on a mission from Burgundy to negotiate a French surrender, not knowing of the chaos going on at the castle. Charlotte and the unconscious Jeanne are still under attack by the bear-headed assassin named Gerard while Montmorency confronts his step brother in the dungeon. La Hire and her men are finally paid for their work, though she gets the sense that it’s meant as hush money for not interfering with Montmorency’s capture. Said capture is to keep him from messing with Philip’s planned talk with La Tremoille, who will sell out Charlotte in order to make his and Montmorency’s family the new royals of France after surrendering to England.

Luckily for them, La Hire won’t just let this happen and storms the dungeon with her men to save Montmorency and Richemont, but La Tremoille escapes. The group then makes their way to Charlotte to fight Gerard, who is only after the power of the stone. Jeanne tells him of the elixir and how it only comes from Montmorency’s mouth, so he covers it in his magic spit before handing it over to Gerard. Gerard ingests it and briefly becomes more powerful, but it turns out the elixir evaporates upon contact with the air, meaning he swallowed it dry, so he explodes. Charlotte is inspired by Jeanne’s selflessness and bravery and names her a saint.

While everyone has some light-hearted bickering about who should get to kiss Montmorency (solely for gaining power obviously), Philip arrives for the negotiations. She and Montmorency get a chance to reconnect briefly, where Montmorency suggests his plan to unite the leadership of France, as well as Philip helping sign a truce between them and Burgundy, which would force England to surrender. The promise they made as children will finally come true and end this long war…but the ghost of her late father, killed by the French, keeps her committed to her task. As Montmorency begs her to stay and reconsider, she kisses him goodbye. However, this was secretly to obtain some of the elixirs, just as her father wished.

Charlotte rallies her troops, along with the newly knighted Jeanne (and her completely ridiculous outfit) and making Montmorency the second in command of the troops. Meanwhile, La Tremoille continues to plot against them.

OUR TAKE

Seriously, look at this friggin knight getup Jeanne has (you can find it in the promotional material). No armor except on the arms and knees, and one giant open slot of flesh down her tiny twelve-year-old torso. I know she’s immortal and wouldn’t get immediately killed by the first few stabs, but who is this look FOR, really? Wait, don’t answer that. Yeah, I know they keep making it a point that Montmorency kissing her is the only way to get the elixir across, but all that tells me is they are REALLY going out of their way to have this guy keep kissing her, and now that with this costume only makes it clear who the target demo for this show is:

English and French historians. And I’ll have NO PART IN THAT.

Oh, and also pedophiles.

Anyway, with that said, I did get the sense that uniting the four friends was likely going to be harder than simply putting them all in the same room again. It’s good they’ve gotten Charlotte to come to her senses and Richemont out of the dungeons, but Philip is the one who has the closest link to the English armies, and so will be the hardest to turn. Plus, having a former friend on the enemy side is a surefire way to generate relatable drama, and having them all make up this soon would only leave a bunch of faceless and boring bad guys to plow through for the next eight episodes. So, as much as I mock and deride this show for all the reasons it deserves mockery and derision, I can see it knows when to hold off on certain things when it needs to.

I can’t say for certain what Philip will be doing with the elixir she gained from Montmorency, especially since I have no idea how long it stays in a body to be useful. As far as we know, there’s only one Philosopher’s Stone, so there has to be a bigger plan than just “hold your spit indefinitely just in case your side somehow manages to get your hands on the other half of the stone”. And I guess there’s nothing saying they can’t just keep dividing the stone and give it to all the girls so they just have slightly less power than Jeanne but still have to kiss the guy.

…That’s it, isn’t it? That’s how they can have their Harem Route Ending after the war is over and France is free.

God, I hope that’s not it.