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Chivalry of a Failed Knight
Episode 9

by Rebecca Silverman,

How would you rate episode 9 of
Chivalry of a Failed Knight ?
Community score: 4.2

I came very close to giving this episode a C – in fact, the first half of it really is pretty average in terms of both plot and presentation: Ikki and Stella get to go to a school “training camp” that Stella is convinced will be a romantic weekend but it turns out to be a ploy to get them to help the student council clean the place. Between the poorly hidden misdirection and Stella's dreamy loss of her grip on reality, it plays out pretty much like any other joke episode meant to relieve the tension between story arcs. (Though it gets points for both the insane badminton game and Southern Belle council member tucking up her skirts to clean.)

Things get much more interesting once Ikki gives in to Stella's burning desire to see a waterfall that they passed on their way to the camp. Stella comes down with one of those sudden anime fevers, causing them to get caught in the rain. They take shelter in a convenient (and conveniently well-stocked) hut, where Ikki suggests that Stella take off her wet clothes in order to better warm up – and hey, he'll strip too so that they're “the same!” (Never mind that the naked human body has some definite differences depending on sex.) Since this has been established as something Ikki does before, it does work, and the scene is actually much better handled than you might expect. Similarly to the way Chivalry of a Failed Knight consistently treats Alice with respect, this almost-sex scene is also handled with a delicacy and taste that most other similar shounen stories wouldn't bother with. Ikki never attacks Stella, both ask questions of each other about what's okay and respect each others' answers, and neither is made out to be “bad” or “slutty” because they have normal responses to each other. That Stella doesn't freak out when she notices that Ikki has an erection (kept off camera) feels like a big deal in a genre that more often treats such things with slaps to the face and screams of “Pervert!”

Shortly before all of this goes down, we see that Ikki and Stella are not really alone – there's a guy in a tree observing them, and if you think back, you realize that he's one of the few other passengers on the bus that brought them to the camp in the first place – we see him sitting in the very back of the bus while Ikki and Stella are talking. (He's also got a shady boss who looks like a nasty Chinese stereotype, but that's rather less impressive.) This little bit of foreshadowing that I barely registered at first also helps to make this episode better, indicating some thought into how things were presented aside from the pivotal relationship scene. Sadly that doesn't quite follow over into the glimpses we get of Shizuku back at the Kurogane family manor, which feels like it could have been much more enlightening than it actually turns out to be, although I'll admit that I chuckled when I learned that her cat was named “Onii-tama,” a play on both a traditional cat name and “onii-sama.” There are also a few inconsistencies with Stella's personality/knowledge base: when she begins to get sick, she seems to honestly think that a kiss could have gotten her pregnant, so when Ikki asks her if she knows what she's saying when she asks if he wants to sleep with her, her “yes” rings a bit false...or at least the story's depiction of her basic sexual knowledge does. Her breasts also get a bit out of control in terms of size and how they move when she breathes – seriously, this gives a whole new meaning to the romance cliché of “heaving bosoms.” Luckily the rest of the art and animation is at its usual level.

Basically this is a mixed bag of an episode, perhaps moreso than usual. It combines some thoughtfully done moments with cheap, overdone gags and misses out on at least one subplot that could have been much more interestingly done. But it what it does well it does well, and that's worth more than you might think.

Rating: B-

Chivalry of a Failed Knight is currently streaming on Hulu.


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