I first started Walkure Romanze because of a longtime love of knights and horses. The hope of an anime accurately portraying girls learning to joust crashed to the ground the instant i saw the opening theme, which shows them all riding in miniskirts. While that could have been excused as an artistic choice to make the opening look nice, it’s the same in the episode itself. A few girls, such as the student council president, wear what look like tights but are hopefully sturdy leggings to protect their legs. Most don’t, however, which means it’s a miracle any of these girls can walk upright, giventhe horrible saddle sores they must have – especially the girl who jousts in lingerie.
I kept watching because of a sick fascination of everything they get horribly wrong. For example, the main character, Mio, who’s never even touched a horse before in her life, is challenged to a joust by a more experienced girl. Mio’s friend spends the next episode teaching her how to manage a lance, but she almost never gets on a horse until the day of the match. There’s a slight problem with that. Even inanimate modes of transportation, such as bicycles, motorcycles, or cars, require a lot of practice before you can comfortably use them. Horses have a mind of their own, in addition to the rider having to learn how to signal to them where to go. The type of horses that would be used for jousting are much more strong-willed than beginner’s horses. The best case scenario, given the situation, is that the horse Mio borrows stands still and doesn’t listen to a thing she says, while everyone else in the school laughs at her. There are other scenarios equally likely. One: Mio makes the common beginner’s mistake of squeezing with her calves to stay on when the horse starts moving, which tells the horse to go faster. Sakura will run away with her, right past their opponent, and Mio won’t be able to get her to stop because everything she does tells her to go faster. She becomes the school laughingstock. Two: the weight of the lance pulls Mio off balance until she falls off and becomes the school laughingstock. Three: Mio leans too far back and to the left while trying to balance the weight of the lance, so she falls off and becomes the school laughingstock. In the worst-case scenario, she breaks her neck when she falls. Or she gets a concussion. Jousting is very dangerous even when you wear a helmet, which a good many people here don’t usually bother with. However, since these are wonderful magic~ horses who defrock anything in a skirt, things go just peachy for Mio. They only wear helmets in matches, and apparently then just for show, as evidenced when one girl is unsaddled. Her helmet goes flying, and she falls in a different direction, thus hitting her head rather badly and getting a concussion. Except she doesn’t get a concussion, because this is anime. There’s a reason riding helmets come with chin straps, people.
But enough about that. It’s not as though this show is actually about jousting or horses. It’s just a framing device for the same goofy harem ecchi that shows up in a lot of shows and gives anime a bad name. Walkure Romanze is full of huge-breasted girls and one guy, who accidentally gropes pretty much every girl in each episode, because isn’t accidental groping great? Because he’s the only guy of a reasonable age at the school, all the girls either want to get into his pants or each other’s. Noel is especially rapey towards Mio, which is shown with lots of random groping and sex disguised as stretching. Or the other way around. It’s hard to tell with this show. Of course, they couldn’t leave out the hot springs episode! Lots of nekkid groping, pillow fights, and people in the wrong bath at the wrong time hijinx for your enjoyment! (Or lack thereof.) Rather than individual characters, we have a bunch of typical anime stereotypes. There’s the offensively naïve and stupid main character, the nice guy, the elegant student council president, the kuudere albino, the crippled imouto, and so on, none of them with anything resembling personality. Everything feels very rote, like they’re following a formula for bland anime. Honestly, the only reason i rated it above a one was because the jousting idea was pretty original.
The predictability of the plot (as opposed to the characters) shouldn’t really be held against it. You can’t bring any interest to a sports story, anime or no, without a big tournament. Still, though, the progression of newbie falls in love with the sport –> defeats a few minor opponents –> becomes tournament underdog and does surprisingly well didn’t feel like they were trying to bring any originality or flavor to it. Again, very formulaic. It only managed to surprise me once, with the end of the very last match in the tournament. I won’t say what happened, but i will say that it followed common sense more than you’d expect from anime. The best part was the music. Not the opening and ending – those are just as dull and interchangeable as the characters. But the background music was very nice, classy instrumentals similar to medieval music. It helped build the mood that ‘these are knights in training’ much better than anything else the show tried to do.
So, all in all, i don’t think it was worth it. If you like ecchi and/or the discussion of a lance as if it were a penis, then this is the anime for you. But if you have even the slightest interest in jousting, horses, or girl knights, you’re better off reading old Tamora Pierce novels.
Recommended
Jousting is widely agreed to be the true sport of nobles and is a main focus of the idealized Medieval Europe and Chivalry. While chivalry lives on in every fedora wearer's heart, Walkure Romanze enacts upon it instead of posting self loathing status updates on social media sites. Following Princess Lover which came out in 2009, Ricotta has sent another one of their H-Games out onto the battlefield of anime adaptions. Ricotta is well known for their pandering to specific fetishes and classy atmospheres. As expected, Walkure Romanze has both of those traits. While Walkure Romanze and Princess Lover both share a high class atmosphereand catering to very specific fetishes, that is where the similarities end. Walkure Romanze focuses more on the sport of jousting and surprisingly has significantly less smut. In this adaption they even omit much of the pandering, unless you are horse that is. This makes it a quite peculiar show and puts it in a weird position in regards to genres and target audiences.
As expected of a show in this genre, the story is nothing outstanding. However, this does not make it particularly bad. It is enjoyable, albeit predictable and cliché. It features all of the typical activities that you will see in a generic eroge adaption such as your beauty pageant and a hot springs episode. You know, the finer things in life. However, the jousting storyline made this show stand out amongst other eroge adaptions. It is a rather unique setting which as mentioned previously, is Ricotta's specialty. What also made this particular show unique is the overall lack of fanservice and smut. If you were to take a look at the game CGs you would definitely see many vulgar things, even during the regular parts of the game and not just during the h-scenes. Not to say that it lacks fanservice altogether, but it is definitely lacking compared to what you would expect out of something like this. 8Bit and Ricotta must have taken the high road in this adaption, which is a bit different from the norm. They must have been targeting the gentleman’s market, unlike what GoHands did with Princess Lover. The story does not get dipped into the toilet with the bathroom humor that was featured in both the game itself and in the Princess Lover adaption. Some may say that this is an upsetting omission, but those people are plebeians and not true gentlemen.
The characters of this show all feature tropes that any veteran anime viewer has seen a million times before. The male lead is a bit of a doormat, somewhat dense, and has a troubled past. Very unique and groundbreaking I must add. The girls on the other hand range from strong independent women (who don't need no man) to ones that are completely dependent and helpless. This is to cater to both the strong alpha male and the beta apathetic male who wants a cute doormat housewife demographics. You have to tip your fedora to Ricotta, they can really make a game appeal to a wide audience. However, this show features a unique paradox amongst the female characters. Despite many of them being “strong and independent” they need a man to be their squire and then resort to petty fighting over their mediocre catch of a male lead. This may have a deeper meaning which states that no matter how far we go in modernization, traditional gender roles still rule. If anything, it shows that chivalry is not dead, so go out there and start holding doors for women. If they get angry at you and say they can do it themselves, just grit your teeth and bear with it since they will eventually want a true gentleman such as yourself.
When the news broke that 8Bit was going to be three shows simultaneously this Fall, I was a bit worried. One would expect that they would give the single cour H-Game adaption the short end of the stick over Infinite Stratos S2 and Tokyo Ravens, but they surprised everyone. The artwork was mostly on point with excellent backgrounds and very few off model character shots. The artists kept up with the classy theme quite well, thankfully it also lacked the terrible blue filter that GoHands used in Princess Lover. In regards to the sound, it was quite well done as expected. The voice acting cast is filled with veterans who you are sure to recognize if you play enough eroge, and the music was on point. As a whole, the artwork was surprisingly well done and the sound lived up to expectations.
All in all, I must say that I did enjoy this show. It was very entertaining to watch each week and it never came off as being dull. For a cliché storyline such as this, that is an impressive feat. What is ironic is that 8Bit made two separate shows with a similar harem premise, and the show with the lowest expectations came out on top. Despite it being mostly good, there are still some flaws to it that I must mention. I feel that the route direction could have been done a bit better rather than just focusing on harem antics and in the case of this show, horse husbandry. I dislike that aspect in many of these adaptions, I would prefer to see a specific route done well rather than a hodgepodge of them all. What is also funny about this show is that the horses seemed to be more important than the main characters, it is like some sort of sick television show that caters to horses. It even features similar pandering aspects from the human “side” characters. Regardless, this adaption is a glorified advertisement for the game so if you would like to know more, you have to buy it. The overall lack of fanservice is another potential negative for this show. Most viewers of this genre generally expect a bit more, especially considering the specific fetish pandering that the game features. Hopefully they will make several H-OVAs for this like they did with Princess Lover in order to cater to the other fans of this series. Regardless, this show is quite entertaining and I leave you with the most powerful quote of the series: “The horses are waiting for me”. That itself sums up Walkure Romanze perfectly.
