Saijaku Muhai no Bahamut (Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle)

When the hero fell on the heroine in the bat before we even got to see his face I totally expected a derivative cliche fest on par with Blade Dance. And for the most of episode it was. A meek, clumsy hero, a tsundere heroine, an all girl school with the hero as the only guy, hero and heroine getting into a duel, but halfway through the duel things took a turn for the better and surprised me. I honestly expected Lux to just beat Lisha with his crappy Drag-ride, to establish how great he is, but instead an Abys shows up and they team up to beat him. I found that a cool way for them to resolve the conflict.

Lux is a pretty typical harem action protagonist, with a meek personality but hiding some secrets, in a difficult place in life but hiding a great power. He's nice, brave but perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed. The biggest problem I have with him is his voice- very annoying. Aside from that he's fine. I totally expect his black sword to summon a Bahamut Drag-ride, a counterpart to Lishe's Tiamat.

Lisha is also a typical heroine but seems to be on the better part of a spectrum. She's a tsundere princess, but she's not unreasonably abrasive or condescending towards Lux. She was mad at him when she had a legitimate grievance but let go of the grudge once he proved himself to her and started to get along with him just fine. She's wilful and hotblooded but not obnoxiously so. I like her design, she's cute. I think she and Lux will make a good couple. I also like that she's the strongest and highest standing student at the school, I much prefer strong heroines than incompetent ones that other girls can make jabs at. I also love that she has a gravity based powers, those are always cool.

Airi is pretty fine as far as younger sisters go. She doesn't act bratty and doesn't seem to be a bro-con which is a good start. Will have to see more of her before getting a more refined opinion.

Creepy stalker girl is creepy. I hate this type of characters.

All in all a pretty good episode and I look forward to the next one. If they can keep this up, they will be able to hold the line for actually decent LN high school fantasy adaptations that started last season.

It was a decent first episode, if a little fast-paced for my liking.

I agree that the main character's voice is less than ideal.

Just to note the LN illustrator is Ayumu Kasuga (obviously named after that Azumanga Daioh character), whose previous animated works include Gonna Be The Twin Tail and Castle Town Dandelion.

edited 13th Jan '16 3:07:39 AM by SamCurt

The other wiki says it's her real name and born a year before the anime, being named after a Yonkoma character is unlikely I think.

Looking at her blog, her art is awesome for her character designs. The animes do not do it justice.

edited 13th Jan '16 3:52:45 AM by Memers

Weird, it doesn't look particularly similar to those two shows.

Animes rarely have character designs that completely match their source material, they hire an adaption artist to do simplify it for the show's line art and go with it.

Rail Wars for example went from characters actually wearing tight dress shirts to 'the draw the characters as if they were naked then color it as if it was a shirt' style.

The LN art for her work looks consistent to me at least.

edited 13th Jan '16 4:55:32 AM by Memers

Painted on clothes, huh? More productions should use this technique.

Checked the blog, and yeah those look good.

Second episode was cliché but entertaining. It was obvious who the Black Hero was but I thought they would have kept the reveal until a little later in the series. It is interesting that the reason he joined the rebellion seemed to be because of the experimentation on the childhood friend and that he was trying to keep casualties to a minimum.

Second episode really was a by the numbers only boy in magic school setup; at least the plot moves forward quickly.

The episode felt very rushed. Like several times we suddenly had a transition to much later and something else is going on. And some scenes seem to be just condensed to bare bones to get them out of the way.

We get the standard model of pointless childhood friend who'll serve no purpose besides getting in the way. And the episode isn't even focused on her as we go back to Lux and Lishe.

Lishe is still the best thing about this series, and I like her trying together closer with Lux and is very nice to him. I also like how she's Drag-Drive mechanic that's pretty cool. Shame she's suffering from a LN backstory disease and blames herself for feeling bad when her own father abandoned her. And of course she had to lose fight here, since it's the second episode, time for hero to save the heroine.

Lux is just like he was in the first episode, bit meek and smarmy, but a good guy all in all. And of course he has dark past and is ungodly overpowered.

Then there's that other girl, Krulcifer I think, who I think is supposed to be important, but honestly leaves no impression on me.

Pretty standard second episode. I would probably be harsher if I read the LN because I get the feeling they left out a lot.

Episode 3: Well that was abrupt. Considering how last weeks episode ended I wasn't expecting things to go back to standard harem hijinks quite so quickly. Krucifer is interesting at least and her Drag-Knight seems to be the most high-tech one we have seen so far. Jerk noble seems somewhat unnecessary though.

Even though Krucifer didn't leave much of an impression in the first two episodes, I was willing to put that on the rushed adaptation, since I've heard much good about her and her arc. This was... disappointing to say the least. Krucifer is nothing special really, a bit boring girl, and her arc is just the Boyfriend Bluff scenario, complete with engagement to some douchebag noble that creeps all over her and general is just there to be hateful. The episode felt dragged out for the most part, and it felt like they added the attack by Empire loyalists just so there could be some action in it.

Funny thing that even in an arc focused on another girl Lishe was still the best part of the episode; all the really entertaining parts focused on her.

Also, the jump between the last episode and this one is pretty weird. It ended with Lux using Bahamut in front of Lishe and others, but this episode treats this as an afterthought barely worth mentioning, and instead jumps right back harem hijinks.

Oh and for some reason Lux voice sounds different.

6/10 episode, just okay nothing more.

Episode 4:

So Lishe finds out that they are pretending. Well that went over easily. I guess it's easy to understand why Krulcifer wouldn't want to marry that asshole.

I like how Lishe have no intention of hiding that she likes Lux.

The princess of a country doing a maid play with the dethroned prince of the previous dynasty... only in harem anime.

Huh, I expected this to go directly to the duel, but there seems to be some bigger event going on. This is actually getting interesting.

We could really use an explanation of what Ruins are and where they come from.

For someone who can see the future Krulcifer has a really hard time hitting the Abyss.

The revelation at the end left me confused.

Episode 5:

Wow, this arc turned out to be a disappointment. For moment it looked like it was going somewhere with the Ruin stuff, but that was quickly put aside for more jerk fiance who is a jerky jerk stuff. The fight was so so but I just wanted it to end so the jerk fiance would shut up. Aha, Krulcifer is still boring.

Maybe next arc will be better.

This series is somewhat odd as both the arcs so far have (to me at least) felt unfortunately unfinished. Also, it is a shame we didn't get to see the butler's Drag-ride as they are the things I am most interested in with this series.

edited 9th Feb '16 7:43:28 AM by SebastianGray

To be honest the whole series so far seems rushed, as if the creators took the complaints about similar series being too slow and went to the other extreme.

What struck me in episode five was how little feeling for politics this show has, when its hero is not just the last surviving prince of the previous empire, who apparantly as a child was banished from the court with his mother and sister, then conspired with or against his elder brother to bring about the downfall of the empire as the Black Hero who destroyed its elite fighters and who finally has had to survive the past five years as a living reminder of a hated fallen regime, with various rebel factions meanwhile agitating against the new kingdom.

Yet he still is your standard action harem protagonist, rich in emotion and nobility, not given much in the smarts department and painfully naive and trusting, not to mention a dweeb when it comes to women. You'd wish it was all an act in service of his own, successful attempt to restore the empire.

I don't feel like it's been very rushed at all? People who read the light novels keep complaining about it being a very poor adaptation and a rushed mess but I'm just not seeing what would give people that impression.

Well...

Episode 1: eeeh, ecchi, ecchi, hentai, I'll kill you before you can join my school Episode 2: I love you let's make babies

Ep 1: nobody knows who the Black Hero is who brought the downfall of the oppressive regime Ep 3: oh, it's you.

Ep 4: oh no! We're trapped in the ruins and nobody can save us! Ep 5: Behold! The drill that can pierce the heavens! You're safe now!

Etc.

Seriously. Episode 2 ends with the big reveal that Lux is the Black Hero. Episode 3 treats that as an afterthought so it can move on to Klurcifer matrimonial problems, and then this episode we still have little idea what Ruin is because it get shoved to the side.

Even putting aside the silliness that is Lux, the show seems very prone to forgetting that Lishe is the princess. as in the heir of the kingdom . You'd think that come up more often, but no, it's just a little quirk.

While I totally agree it would be nice if there was more to Lux than fumbling his way into helping the girl of the week with her problems, why would the person responsible for the empire downfall would want to rebuild it?

Episode 6:

Lux crosdresses, because there's no end to his humiliations. And sadly his voice is more fitting for a girl.

Unfortunetly the plot barely moves forward as we instead focus on another girl, this time one we didn't even met before this episode. Why shoud I care?

Oh and Lux got himself in another duel. That's gonna happen once per arc, won't it?

Episode 7:

After being talked about and hyped for last several episodes, Ragnarok turns out to be... a big squid. And gets beaten really easily. What a disappointment.

So now that we got the focus arcs of the main girls out of the way, will we get some bigger plot going on?

It's also a repeat of the first episode, what with the duel interrupted by an enemy attack and the general uselessness of anybody not called Lux Arcadia.

Lux has to fight a duel with someone every arc, but this time it was really a rehash of the first episode. Generally I'm not sure Celistia is even different enough from Lishe to warrant her existence.

At least in the first episode, Lux and Lishe took down the abyss together. Here, nobody helps him for no good reason, since the Ragnarok is not even that strong.

edited 23rd Feb '16 10:37:09 AM by Shlugo_the_great

Episode 8:

Okay, this is getting confusing. It's one thing that they skip some things, that's just how adaptations work. But I get the feeling that they are skipping a lot of important stuff, because I have little idea of what's going on.

Also, the "each girl gets an focus arc" formula is killing this series.

To be honest, I don't think it would be much better than mediocre anyway no matter how faithful they did the adaption, as from the start this has been painfully generic.