Horses dashing gallantly... Knights challenging their own limits... Magnificent, heroic battles highlight the horseback lance sport of jousting. One of the many people fascinated by this proud sport, Mizuno Takahiro, acts as a begleiter (an assistant) to jousting knights as he lives his rather tedious life at Winford Academy. This is the story of Takahiro and these female knights in their passionate, noble battles.
For tropes pertaining to the Visual Novel instead, please see the related page.
Tropes in the show include:
- Absurdly Powerful Student Council: After Mio is issued a duel challenge by Bertille, she tries to protest that she isn't even training to be a knight. However, the student council says that a knight's honor is on the line anytime they do something like this, and allows this duel on the grounds of it being a training session. The only alternative is to quit the school, but Mio refuses that option, since it wouldn't allow her to be close to Takahiro, so she reluctantly agrees to the duel...
- The Ace: Celia, sometimes to her chagrin like during the beauty contest, where when it came her turn, just by being up on stage the judges already gave her score before she could even do her talent segment, much to her disappointment.
- A-Cup Angst: Lisa has some slight insecurities about her chest size.
- Alternate History: Seems to be the case with the show's setting, although the actual point of divergence from our own's isn't very clear. We know that it takes place on some version of Earth since real world locations like England and Japan exist, and Celia even refers to a story of president Theodore Roosevelt (meaning that the US also exists and that it's, at the very least, sometime after his presidency). We also know it's the modern day because miniaturized electronics (such as earbud speakers) exist and everyone behaves like modern day humans (from wearing modern day underwear to treating school and hanging out afterwards like modern day teenagers would). At the same time, something has clearly changed since architecture and fashion all follow a version of the medieval or Renaissance aesthetic, jousting is considered a popular sport (practiced by both men and women) and the nobility, such as Noell's family, still possess wealth and power. Furthermore, episode 7 of the series raises some questions regarding the world's history of war, since at least one of the windmills near the school still has a stock of clean, functional weapons (implying the last war didn't happen all that long ago)... the most advanced of which appears to be a flintlock musket.
- Animals Hate Her: Played with. Fiona does not like the cat that sticks around Lisa.
- Attractiveness Isolation: Celia is gorgeous, kind and bar none the best knight in the school. Because of this, people have a hard time approaching her, resulting in her having few friends and suffering from social insecurities.
- Balanced Harem: In the anime, none of the girls have a significant lead over the others towards Takahiro.
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: Happens a couple of times during the jousting matches, to show off the girl's determination to win and strike their opponent.
- Broken Bird: Two of the girls have a troubled past:
- Lisa was a The Ojou until her mother died, leaving her largely alone, and her relatives more interested in splitting up the fortune than take care of her. She uses jousting as a means to express herself and become less reliant on others.
- Noel feels guilty because of her younger sister becoming a parapalegic due to a horse riding accident.
- But Not Too Foreign: For a bucolic English countryside town, Helen's Hill has an unusually large number of Japanese residents.
- Cant Hold Her Liquor: Bertille gets drunk off fruit juice at the end of episode 12. One of her friends points this out.
- Career-Ending Injury: Takahiro appears to have suffered a leg injury preventing him from jousting. However, due to his skills, he is still very useful as a Begleiter, and several of the girls want him to be theirs, and possibly more...
- Cliffhanger: Episode 11 ends on one, during the semi-finals match between Noel and Celia. Both girls are tied and the scene ends before we find out who won.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: A few of the girls display this from time to time. Used most by Fiona towards Lisa.
- Cute Little Fang: Noel has one.
- Defeat Means Friendship: Bertille towards Mio after the latter defeats her.
- Defrosting Ice Queen: Lisa, who is cold towards several of the others but gradually warms up to them after she spends more time with them.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: The anime has several instances of this, usually involving Mio doing rather suggestive sounding things while training with Takahiro on how to joust.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Takahiro is often on the receiving end of this from the girls.
- Ear Cleaning: Noel does this in episode 9 during the beauty contest.
- Fanservice: The anime is chock full of this, such as the beauty contest in episode 9, and during episode 7 when Takahiro finds a naked Celia and Akane in a windmill after the two girls lose their clothing in a windmill during a rainstorm.
- Gentleman and a Scholar: This is what draws the main girls to Takahiro. He was a skilled jouster, adept at both the physical and strategic aspects of the sport, making him very useful as a squire. His reasons for leaving the sport, other than the last major injury he took, are unrelated to choosing between the girls.
- Gratuitous German: The title makes a lot more sense when you realize that Walkure is the German spelling for Valkyrie.
- Heroic Second Wind: Noel receives one during episode 11, when her father makes it to her semi-final match, and instead of harboring hatred for jousting due to Mireille's injury, he cheers her on. While she admits it was embarrassing, it gives her some renewed confidence.
- Hypocritical Humor: During a training session, the girls thank Bertille's friends, which causes Bertille to start talking and taking in said compliments. Her two friends protest, saying she shouldn't be answering for them, and Bertille says that they're essentially an extension of her, so it's natural that she should answer. Later, they thank Bertille, and her friends immediately answer, causing Bertille to protest. The two friends then use the same explanation she used earlier on her.
- Important Haircut: Mio has one before her duel with Bertille.
- Improbably Female Cast: While guys do seem to take part in jousting too, as evidenced by Takahiro, the show focuses exclusively on the female participants. Even Takahiro doesn't actively joust in the show due to his injury.
- Instant Expert: While Mio does have to get trained to joust, she picks it up surprisingly fast despite not having done any of it before.
- Instant-Win Condition: Hitting an opponent's feather on their helmet, known as a "Feather's Fly", instantly causes whoever struck it to win. Interestingly enough, hitting an opponent in the helmet is also extremely dangerous, and also disqualifies you if you hit their head. Which means this move is best left to experts.
- Jumped at the Call: While Mio only did it because she was forced to at first, she eventually comes to love jousting and starts taking part in it.
- Lonely Together: Lisa and Fiona, both who came from Loners Are Freaks pasts and for the most part were unable to make friends with anyone else.
- My Greatest Failure: Takahiro is haunted by his failure from his last jousting match where he fell off his horse and earned a look of disappointment from Celia's brother. He claims he's reluctant to become any of the girl's begleiter because he feels he wouldn't be able to live up to the high standards he set for himself to serve them.
- Noblewoman's Laugh: Bertille does one after running into Mio for the first time.
- No Guy Wants to Be Chased: In the anime, every time the girls put Takahiro on the spot regarding who he'd pick, he's understandably nervous and unable to choose, particularly as all of the girls are there at the same time.
- Non-Action Guy: While he was a jouster in the past, during the show Takahiro takes a support role for the girls as the battle each other.
- No Romantic Resolution: In the anime. Takahiro is confronted by the girls again at the end of episode 12, when Mio asks him who he would have been a begleiter for had the horse situation not of come up. He panics and backs up, and a timely distraction by Fiona and the cat gives him enough time to state that the horses need his attention, and he runs out of the cafe. The girls chase after him as the credits roll.
- Not So Above It All: An outtake at the very end of episode 12 shows Sakura as voiced by Takahiro, claiming to have been the main character in the show. He mentions various girls and wanting them to "ride" him. "Sakura" then turns out to be Takahiro wearing a horse costume, and then is spotted by the girls, who are unimpressed by it.
- Not What It Looks Like: Takahiro is often caught up in these situations.
- Oblivious to Love: Takahiro seems largely ignorant of the girl's affections towards him.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend: Takahiro often end up having to explain to the other girls that he's not dating anyone.
- So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Celia's beauty is so great that it distracts people from the fact she's also a person beneath it. For example, she's instantly and automatically nominated winner of the school talent show based only on the judges' absurd declaration that she wins by existing.
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Spiritual Successor: To Princess Lover!. - Super-Deformed: The characters at the end of episode 12.
- Student Council President: Celia.
- Sustained Misunderstanding: In episode 9, Bertille fails to pay attention to what her two underlings tell her, and later misinterprets it as "whoever wins the beauty contest is the one Takahiro will become begleiter for". Naturally this causes every single one of the main girls to enter the contest as well, only to have him clear it up after they all lose.
- Tamer and Chaster: Similiar to its predecessor, the anime doesn't include any explicit scenes shown in the game. That said, the anime team use every opportunity to insert Fanservice scenes as much as possible.
- Throwing Down the Gauntlet: Bertille does this to Mio after the latter tries to run away from Sakura, and causes the former to also run when the horse chases after both of them due to Mio running in her direction.
- Throwing Off the Disability: In episode 12, Mirielle manages to regain the use of her legs after watching her sister in the tournament. Although she loses the match, Noel is still happy she took part and especially because her sister recovered.
- Tournament Arc: The school holds a jousting tournament starting around episode 10.
- Troll: Surprisingly enough, Sakura, Takahiro's horse. In one instance, she steps on a hose he was using, then lets off of it when he tries to figure out why it stopped letting out water, only to then have it splash onto Celia. She neighs shortly afterwards, as if laughing at him.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Subverted. Mio might have a great deal of natural talent and worked very hard to train before the tournament, but at the end of the day, she still wasn't able to beat The Ace Celia. She did, however, come close, something that no one else has ever been able to do.
- Unwanted Harem: Although most of them don't actively chase after him, virtually all of the girls want Takahiro. In the anime, even when they try to corner him and force him to choose, he manages to weasel his way out of it, largely due to having to assist a pregnant horse give birth.
- Worthy Opponent: Lisa and Akane towards each other, after both are unable to gain the upper hand against the other during their jousting duels. Bertille considers Mio one after their first two matches.
