Lance N' Masques is not a series for everyone. In particular, if you are someone who needs their anime to be heavily realistic, or full of grit, or to have some deep message to it, then you might as well just close this page now and walk away as this anime won't satisfy you in the slightest. If, on the other hand, you are after a fun and quirky series, that mixes together a fairly large number of genres in a way that still feels comfortable, then this might just be what you are after. There are many different ways of interpreting and watching this series, butin my view this series is, at its heart, a comedy, although there are certainly sections that are not comedic in the slightest (including, incidentally, pretty much the whole of the last episode). However, I believe that in general treating it as a comedy is the best way of watching it - enabling you to appreciate that the lack of realism is deliberate, and done for comic effect. This, the absurdity or at times sheer imagination of what is being presented, is the main source of entertainment in the series, rather than gags or laugh out moments.
Some of the action scenes, particularly those not involving the main character himself, seem designed to attract the curiosity of the viewer rather than to engross them with the suspense of the action, whilst others are more of the more standard type, rooting for the hero's success. Whichever type they fall under, though, there is nothing even remotely realistic about any of them, and indeed several of the fights are won in ways that wouldn't even make sense in reality, which would obviously detract from the series still further for the viewer who craves realism.
The cast of the series is centred around Yotaro, the protagonist, but each of the fairly large number of characters has a distinct personality, and every one of them has their own distinct relationship with Yotaro, which vary from the obvious to the outright absurd. The characters are, indeed, another of the series' strengths.
That said, not all is positive about this series. The art style in particular is, to say the least, rather unusual, and most noticeably so when it comes to the characters faces. Some of their heads are literally as wide as they are high, and I swear there's something odd about the noses as well. This will likely take a few episodes to get used to.
The plot itself is in some senses rather repetitive, and not everything that happens fully makes sense either. Certain themes, such as kidnapping/hostage taking, show up rather more often than they should do, to the point where someone just watching for the plot may find themselves getting tired of it by the end. There is, though, enough variety that this doesn't detract from the series if you don't let it do so.
In short, the plot is weak, and the art style can take a bit of getting used to, but the characters are good and so is the humour.
Given that, as already mentioned, this is a comedy series (no matter what MAL's genres may claim at the time of writing), the latter two things are, in my view, rather more important than the former two, and thus, again in my view, the series is a good one overall.
(My scores for the individual sections, incidentally, were: story 5; art 3; sound 7; character 9; enjoyment 8; overall 7.)
QuQuentinHahn
December 17, 2015
Not Recommended
I looked at the other reviews and was surprised at some peoples perspectives, and then in agreement with others. So allow me to shove my bias opinion down your throat. First off, this show is bad, like really bad. A lack of interesting characters, a simplistic story which jumps all over the place and lacks an over-arching story/goal, cookie cutter characters who face “wavering” in their ideals yet never show any character development as result, boring art style; all in all it makes for a boring and uninteresting show. If you can complement this show on anything it would be the music. While not amazing itis nothing to scoff at; from the above average intro sequence which was nicely choreographed and pleasing to the eye, to the multitude of either upbeat and fun fighting or atmospheric music.
Enjoyment: 3
To put it simply, I did not enjoy this show at all. I watched the first episode and for the time assigned a 5 to the show seeing as how it was ok I didn’t know where it would go from there. I wasn’t excited or disappointed with what was given to me. I proceeded to pick the show up again 3 weeks and 3 episodes later. Watching episode 2 and 3 I gained new hope for the show. As my grade on MAL was supposed to raise to a 6. I am used to harems so I thought that the show would follow the usual harem route. Oh boy was I wrong though. Soon after considering raising the grade, the show dropped to a new level as did my interest. I realized that the show was trying so hard to come off as edgy, but it just wasn’t. Eventually I found myself barely managing to get through each individual episode.
Characters: 4
Usually after watching a show I usually have a best girl, however there wasn’t really any character I really rooted for in the stupidly shallow harem Youtarou was building. Out of the many characters the only ones that I felt were above average, and slightly interesting were Yoriko the maid and Shirohime the horse (I found the damn horse more interesting than most of the other character, and she can only yell her annoying puryuu. I both hated and loved the character)
Character Development: 3
The only reason I didn’t give this a 1 was due to the ending monologue given by our main heroin Makio, she actually does grow as a human by the end of the show. If only she could have made such growth without the need of our all-powerful main protagonist. I understand that the show wants to pose as a romance but does she really have to have character development thanks solely to Youtarou’s actions. I was disappointed with all of the characters to say the least
Plot: 3
Wait, your telling me there was an actually reason behind all the fighting, because if there was one I didn’t notice it. Aside from acquiring more girls, protecting said girls, there is no plot development worthy of notice.
Pacing: 3
Only reason why this section actually gets points is because it at least has a conclusion (if you can call it that). Everything is terribly jumbled up in that the fights are not well directed and quickly lose my interest, especially seeing as its hard enough to actually keep my interest when the characters keep breaking out into boring conversations mid fight in order to advance the plot.
Art: 6
The art was average, in other words it gets a 5/10. Normally that would be the case however, I am raising it up by one point due to the very nice intro cinematography.
Music: 7
Music wasn’t bad, nothing to write home about, but still nice.
Total: 41/100
Recommended
I'm going to be the odd one out and say that this anime was actually really good for what it is, but it is only for a specific audience. When I started looking into this and watching it I thought it was kind of boring and cliché, but I realised that this is the kind of anime I would have loved to watch when I was a little kid. Through this realisation I was able to draw a lot of enjoyment from the show, and was able to watch it through the eyes of a child. I've never been too picky with anime, but I definitely struggleto find large technical faults with Lance N' Masques that would be dealbreakers. It delivers humour, emotion and character development, and that's all I could really ask for.
I'll agree with some of the negative feedback that the plot is full of lolis (though that might be a positive to some) and gets repetitive, but again, you can't expect all anime to be the same or of the same calibre. I don't believe that this anime wanted to achieve anything like that -- it is just a genuinely laid-back story meant to be light entertainment.
Concluding, Lance N' Masques is DEFINITELY not for everyone, but I think if you're still a child at heart you'll appreciate it. While I wouldn't go out of my way and recommend this to people, I believe that if you're even slightly interested, you should give it a try.
RyRyuKlinge
January 26, 2016
Recommended
This was an anime that took by surprise because I wasn’t planning on watching it till I saw it’s name on the list. Well you had two things that catch my eye in the title Lance (I love weapons) and Masques (I blame this one on Kamen Rider and super heroes lol.) So basically it had enough interest to draw me to it. This was something else, it had a lot of weird moments that I wasn’t sure what they were doing but those moments reminded me of some friends I had so they turned those weird things into part of it’s charm. Honestly Ithink Yotaro went through one of the weirdest but extremely badass stories of accepting your destiny instead of fighting it, and becoming the knight he was born to become. All the supporting characters were amazing and even got lots of amazing focuses in the episodes it just wasn’t the Yotaro show all the time and I love that in anime. Yoriko, Makio, Silvia, Yufeng, Alice, and all the others were so much fun. The characters in this story are why I love it so much, their stories and how everyone grows make up for some of it’s problems like it’s plot that’s a little all over the place but is explained by the end and it makes a lot more sense. This anime is full of a lot of charm, it might not be the most mind-blowing thing in the world but it’s a solid story, with great characters, awesome action, and is very entertaining, I highly recommend it to everyone, and I hope it comes back for a second season if not it’s a pretty solid one and done season.
