Knights & Magic

So far, the most important use for Gears has been for the mechanics who are building the new Knights.

Just as well, they should get to play with the toys they build.

Love love loved the Order of the Silver Phoenix's entrance. Two Telestale derivaties with custom equipment, customized Guair and then the GODDAMN GUNDAM KIMARIS. Two extra arms weren't enough, so he added two extra legs! The madman. I await the day Ernesti perfects the jet propulsion tech he's working on, because holy shit watch out rest of the world.

Also, freaking keys. True innovation right there.

The Ether Reactors also looked organic; it's safe to assume they're making them out of the demon beasts.

Novel spoilers:

The core of most ether reactors are mined, implied to be fossilised demon beast remains. You can make reactor cores out of freshly killed demon beasts but its implied to be more difficult since the fresh ones tend to be more powerful but less stable. The ether reactors used by most Silhouette Knights is roughly equivalent to a duel-class demon beast. Ernesti's personal unit used not one but two reactors created from Division-class demon beasts (including the Behemoth he defeated in the early episodes)

Truthfully I'm going to be worried when he finally gets a chance to reverse engineer the Levitate Engines. If he can incorporate one of those into a Silhouette Knight he is going to be absolutely unstoppable. Not that there's really anything but something like the behemoth that can stand against Ikaruga at the moment.

Episode:

The new Knights are cool and have interesting abilities, but they do need polishing. King had the right idea there.

I like how the old guy found his passion again.

The Olver guy comes from some kind of other place it seems. Weird that an ambassador would be working in a country most important military institution, so I guess the kingdom has a special relationship with his birthplace.

This series sure loves it's timeskips. By now they really should look at least a bit older.

I love how the King has a pimped out Golden Mecha that sits on a giant throne behind the kings throne. It's such a cool world building detail, because I can totally imagine that being a thing.

The Prince and the old King are both quite the characters.

Oh, it's Stefania. She really shows up with little rhyme or reason.

Dunno what's going on with the ending, but... monsters are coming, I guess?

Anyone ever get the feeling that given that Eru's family is minor nobility and that Addy is more or less acknowledged illegitimate daughter of a well placed noble that there family's have already arranged the engagement and just not bothered to tell them yet? Possibly because they're waiting for Eru to start noticing girls (having not yet realised that he's mecha-sexual)

Given the status and success Ernesti achieved before even hitting puberty, the Duke would probably be willing to marry Stefania off to him. And I don't think she would complained about it either.

If the series cared at all about this sort of thing Ernesti would be getting so many marriage proposal he wouldn't be able to beat them off with a stick.

edited 14th Aug '17 5:32:05 PM by Shlugo_the_great

Good thing he has a giant mech to do the beatings for him. Wait... That Came Out Wrong.

Also, I love that the old man just needed a push to find his drive again, and not turn into some sort of bitter villain or something.

edited 14th Aug '17 6:05:08 PM by ITNW1989

Haha, true. Good thing this is all about mecha and designing them.

Yeah, that was nice. As villian-ly as the NTR old guy looks, it's for the better that he's an ally who will help Eru perfect his designs.

Also, is it just me, or they've changed the elven elder? I remember her at least wearing a dress in LN. Or did the anime show her in her off hours?

That was nice. In fact, the mock battle was really good in general. The action itself was cool, but it was really neat how they showed that while the Silver Phoenix had stronger mechas with unusual gimmicks, the Aruvans could still hold their own thru experience. I was expecting a Curb-Stomp Battle in favor of the OP MC as per isekai standard and that was nicely averted. I can actually believe these people have been able to fight off monsters for centuries.

And as good as that battle was, it immediately gets topped by the fight between the two lions. The former king is an absolute badass.

Another thing: Raids of Valor is an excellent name.

Ernesti and friends should really look older by now.

Yeah they should. Ernie should be 15 now

Episode:

I'm getting the feeling we are getting an abriged version of the story here.

Alf village looks amazing - this series has some cool looking locations.

No other human could ever learn the alf secrets in their lifetime - Ernesti did it in three months.

Ikagura looks awesome.

There are some time skips in the novels, but what we're losing is a lot of exposition from the omniscient third person narrator. Its always the danger of adapting from a novel to a TV series or movie of any sort.

In case anyone was wondering (the review on ANN was) the reason that Ernesti was able to create his own Ether Reactor is because he was able to use his Silhouette Gear to act as an intermediary. Humans and Dwarves can't cast magic directly but before Eru came up with the Silhouette Gear there was no catalyst available for anyone to do the fine manipulations needed to create an Ether Reactor.

Theoretically Chid and Addy should be able to do so as well since they can also operate a Silhouette Gear directly without needing a Magius Engine but they'd essentially need to copy Eru's notes because they lack the power of a main protagonist.

So Alfs can use magic directly because they have magic stones while humans need the wands, but those don't have enough precision?

In a nutshell.

Sorry for the double post but it has been a day and different topic so...

I created a Wild Mass Guessing page and through up a theory. This is something that I got more from the anime than the novels (though the translation I read has... issues), but does anyone get the impression that the anime at least is trying to imply that Eru is part-elf (or Alv if you must)? Something about the design of the Elven elder's eyes and the way she reacted after looking into Eru's eyes.

Or am I just experiencing narrative pareidolia?

I think the idea was that she could tell that he was from a different world

My impression too.

Yeah, I was disappointed with the building mecha stuff this episode. Nice to confirm that the Ether Reactors come from the demon beasts, but aside from that most of the nitty gritty gets glossed over.

Ah, well, at least Eru gets his very own mecha, and the chance to let loose with it.

Oh, and the Alfheim was gorgeous.

I started watching the first episode after being starved for something resembling a good mecha show after the trainwreck that was Voltron Legendary Defender.

There's always a bit of fear with these types of shows that the wish fulfillment aspects are going to completely override everything else but so far that doesn't appear to be the case at a heavy degree, and the action itself is pretty good. The main character's enthusiasm for this robot stuff is fairly infectious, which is a big help. The robots are treated as being cool.

edited 24th Aug '17 12:19:02 PM by Beatman1

This is a very fun show to watch almost every new episodes there are new mecha design and are used later episodes again. I was worried how in the first episodes Eru was able to design a new level of magic and skip his classes, which the show turn will focus on how awesome the MC is and ignore everything else. Instead, a fast pace world building where everyone is competent. The king sees Eru value and the other adults passion are ignited whereas in other shows Eru would have his work stop for petty reasons. While the villain has interesting characters as well, the idiot evil prince can fight, and their airship shows that Eru is not the only person that make crazy designs.

Well at least now we know the ANN reviewer for this series isn't going to explode now that the theft of the prototypes is back in the story.

There's more I could say, but I'll hold off on the chance that the anime decided to change the order of things and put some of the explanations as a flashback in the next episode.

What the—? A large-scale plot and effective enemies? What happened to this show?

Effective flight seems to exist, so it'll be interesting to see what Eru does with that

Yep, real nice surprise that the enemies are capable of flight. This war won't be too lopsided.

Pfft, I love how stereotypical evil the enemies designs are, from their castle to their mecha. It suits them too because they are a bunch of bastards.

If they think their knockoffs will be able to beat Ernesti designs, they have another thing coming.

Episode 10: Where a madman inventor meets another madman inventor.

Loved the defense-oriented upgrade to the Kuschperchan mechas. With six Silhouette Arms, no wonder they sent the enemy army fleeing.

Kid gets a potential ship! So it'll probably be Dietrich and Addy hooking up. What? It's not like Ernesti will indulge her.

Hah! Operation Invent Some Goddamn Keys worked! The female merc got beat pretty quick, to my surprise.

Novel tidbits

The anime's said it but I'll spell it out here because the novels were a lot more explicit about it, but the reason the Silver Phoenix Knights are intervening is because Martina is the sister of the current king of Fremmeveria (daughter to the one we started with) and her husband was the younger brother of the Kuscheperan King (which they don't make really clear).

Lost in the episode was a really amusing line from Chid when he broke into the tower that basically boils down to "Wow, she's even prettier than Eru! Wait! Why am I using Ernesti as my main point of comparison?"

Also another scene during the attack by the Copper Fang Knights. Basically Addy goes full on "Dark Addy" on the Copper Fang Knights for interruping her Eru time. She's basically been sneaking into Eru's bed and been using him as a body pillow for the entire campaign and there were getting in the way of that. The results... weren't pretty.