Walkure Romanze

Title:Walkure Romanze
Valkyrie Romance: Girl Knight Story (literal translation)
Walkure Romanze: Shoujo Kishi Monogatari
ワルキューレ ロマンツェ
Overall:Watch
Keywords: , , , , , , , , , , ,
Notables: Original Concept - Ricotta
SHIMIZU Ai
YAMASHITA Seiichiro
Walkure Romanze's story revolves around Takahiro Mizuno, a student studying at an academy with jousting as its main focus for sport. Takahiro acts as an advisor to the riders of the sport. Takahiro goes through each day tediously until the time of the annual competition draws near. Due to some odd circumstances, his childhood friend Mio Kisaki is enrolled into the competition. As she has never even rode a horse once in her life, Takahiro senses the fear in his friend and becomes Mio's coach.
(Synopsis courtesy of ANN)

[TV series, 2013, 12 episodes, 24 min; based on an adult visual novel/eroge by Ricotta for Windows from 2011; the title is ↗German for "Valkyrie Romance"]
Episode Details 
1893
OverallArtAnimationCharacter Design MusicSeries StoryEpisode StoryReviewer
Unevaluated Devil Doll [series:2799#752]
This series has way too much focus on ecchi scenes and soon turns into a harem scenario during episode 2 where all kinds of girls are jousting not only for the championship but for Takahiro's heart. I can have that without the fantasy add-on in dozens of other shows.

I did take a glimpse into episode 4, only to see a standard scenario develop with additional contenders for the forthcoming jousting competition, and Takahiro being better than any of these but not willing to participate and helping several of the rivaling girls instead, thus probably causing additional conflicts in later episodes.

Episode 7 has more nude skin than anything else - only to be followed by the onsen episode 8. But after the swimsuit competition of episode 9, the real jousting finally begins in episode 10.

Last updated Wednesday, December 18 2013. Created Tuesday, October 15 2013.
Watch Stretch [series:2799#628]
(Watch+)

(All episodes watched):

As ridiculous and hokey as the first episode of Walkure Romanze seemed early on, at the end I couldn't help wondering how things would work out. Pink-haired air-head Mio gets herself challenged to a jousting match at a strange academy where that medieval sport seems to be the most popular way of spending time. This show certainly won't be anywhere near as good, but I'm reminded of Revolutionary Girl Utena, what with the uniforms and military academy flavor and all. After Mio gets challenged to a jousting match, Takahiro (for all intents and purposes, he is the only male student) agrees to teach Mio the basics of the sport overnight. For some reason, which is being kept from us, Takahiro nowadays refuses to take part in jousting himself, even though he once quite good at it. I guess after the episode Mio had done enough talking to ingratiate herself as a likeable character that I care about. Where ten additional episodes could possibly go after that I had no idea, but I wanted to see how this would work out.

I thought that the show would swiftly devolve into a cheap harem series, but while there is a good deal of fanservice I was pleasantly surprised that I still enjoyed myself and got a serious laugh or two out of it. I think the secret is that whereas most series use fanservice as a cheap substitute for good jokes or writing, whoever wrote this one was a genuine comedian and managed to keep things fairly funny. I don't mind fanservice if I don't feel that I'm being patronized, and I didn't here. While I will never pretend that this is a brilliant series, I think it at least does one thing right, and that is to tell a simple yet interesting story. A girl gets involved in a strange sport, no doubt finds herself attracted to a guy who is involved in it as well, and therefore carries on with it. The romance never really goes anywhere, but the various girls don't throw themselves at Takahiro in an cheap and unrealistic manner either, like they do in most harem series. There are a good number of provocative 'accidents' with hot girls, to be fair, but they generally include a decent joke. And what happened to Takahiro, to make him give up jousting himself? So, Walkure Romanze held my interest enough for me to keep watching it.

Or maybe rather than 'a simple yet interesting story', what I really like about Walkure is it's sense of humor--the fact that it has one to begin with, to be exact. In episode seven two girls lose their clothes and find themselves hiding naked in a windmill. In most anime I wouldn't have gotten a single laugh out of a situation like this, instead crass, suggestive nudity would be dealt to me (perhaps the girls would start fondling each other, and getting turned on) without any attempt whatsoever at jokes, plays-on-words or ridiculous but scandalous situations coming about. If I'm laughing, and I was, there's more than just cheap fanservice going on. So, while not every episode is as good as this one, Walkure deserves credit for at least trying to tell a few decent jokes.

The story of Mio's budding career as a jouster ends with a championship match in the final episode. The match was OK, though I didn't get terribly excited. Takahiro's secret was pretty unremarkable, too. Still, I thought the story ended in a (relatively) dignified and satisfying manner, rather than with the shallow stuff that one expects from harem series. The jokes were the best part, though they were scattered thinly throughout the series. Perhaps one reason I liked Walkure Romanze was because it restored a little confidence in me that harem-ish series can be funny and fun too, if the makers are willing to put a little effort into making it so. While it wasn't brilliant, it had a little bit of charm to it and I don't regret watching at all.

Last updated Thursday, January 02 2014. Created Monday, October 14 2013.

Other Sites
NameURL
Walkure Romance @ Ricotta Official Web Site http://www.ricotta-soft.jp/products/walmore/

Community Anime Reviews

anime mikomi org