The Sacred Blacksmith (Seiken no Blacksmith) is a series of Light Novels written by Isao Miura and illustrated by Luna, which was published from 2007 to 2013 for a total of 16 volumes. A manga adaptation was serialized in Monthly Comic Alive from 2009 to 2017, and a 12-episode anime adaptation by Manglobe aired from October to December of 2009.
Cecily Cambell, a Knight Guard of the Independent Trade Cities of Housman, is new to her job of keeping the peace in the Heroic Fantasy world she inhabits. She soon meets Luke Ainsworth, an exceptionally skilled blacksmith who is the only one who can make katanas, along with his overly cute Elfish apprentice Lisa. Circumstances soon conspire to reveal Luke has a very unusual and magical way of forging swords; a talent desired by the nearby empire, and that's not all. Demons appear in the Trade Cities along with swords that harness the powers of nature. All three are rooted in the recent Valbanill War, which might not be quite over yet....
Tropes:
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: It's been shown on a few occasions that Katanas can cleanly slice through other swords.. Even when the Katana is resting and another sword strikes it, the other sword will cleanly slice in half. See Katanas Are Just Better below.
- Adaptational Wimp: In the manga and original light novels, Cecily is one of the most badass swordswomen who can defeat enemies with her weapons. The anime version, on the other hand, gets rescued three times in fewer episodes.
- Amusing Injuries: Luke's face gets hilariously swollen after being on the receiving end of Cecily's Megaton Punch (all due to Cecily's Clothing Damage).
- Ancestral Weapon: Cecily's sword belongs to the Cambells, which breaks the first time Cecily tries to use it. Her quest is to get Luke to forge another one.
- Arms Dealer: Luke is actively avoiding getting into business of producing katana for others, and even leaders of Independent Trade Cities have a hard time pressing him into it.
- Artificial Human: Poor Lisa. She was created from her sort-of namesake's wish.
- Attempted Rape: Averted (in the manga and light novel). Just when Siegfried's attack on Cecily looks like it will end in rape he tells her he hates her too much even if he were capable of doing it. It is intended as the icing on the cake in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown aiming at breaking her spirit.
- Authority Equals Asskicking:
- Hannibal may be around 60 years old but the man knows how to kick ass! As expected from a man who's a veteran of the Valbanill War, and present leader of the town guards.
- Cecily is a noblewoman and so she counts as this in the manga and light novels. There she rallies a group of knights and mercenaries against a large number of thieves with werewolves to victory.
- Bare-Handed Blade Block: Luke barely manages to do one in episode 3 after Cecily tries to stab him with a dagger when Aria wonders if the two insulting each other meant they are a couple.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Luke and Cecily are constantly getting on each other's nerves even as their attraction to each other deepens.
- Berserk Button:
- Do not tell Cecily you would like to purchase her friend Aria. Actually, just don't insult her friends in general.
- Do not even try to say anything about Lisa being a "replacement" to Luke. While he may acknowledge it, he will, at worst, give you a black eye. What really breaks the camel's back is Siegfried attacking, stripping naked, and beating Cecily. This triggers a full-on Roaring Rampage of Revenge with a side of Tranquil Fury from Luke.
- BFS:
- Jack Stmdr is a big man and his sword is comparable.
- The demon sword Claymore wielded by Doris exceeds the size of any normal sword by a fair amount.
- Big Eater: Everyone eats a lot and then they make either Cecily, Luke, or Mayor Housman pay all the bills.
- Big Damn Heroes:
- Luke saves Cecily often. The very first scene in the anime is a Flash Forward to him rescuing her for the third time. It's defied in the manga and light novels, where Cecily decides that she's not gonna just stand there and let Luke have all the fun.
- Siegfried attacking Cecily is a subversion. While he's tearing her clothes off, Cecily screams for Luke. It's exactly the time when the reader expects Luke to appear in a blaze of righteous fury to save her, just as he's done every other time before... but he never does. Siegfried strips Cecily naked and beats her to make her feel ashamed of her gender. He doesn't rape her but only because he is physically unable to.
- Chainmail Bikini: Cecily's armor leaves nothing to the imagination, resembling nothing so much as a polished metal sports bra. It's downplayed somewhat in that her fellow male knights have plating with similar coverage.
- Clothing Damage: Cecily's armor breaks during battle, being about as durable as her sword. One time, it broke when she slapped her hand against it, to her embarrassment.
- Cool Sword: So many of them from magic swords to demon swords but katanas trump them all.
- Cowboy Cop: This trope is deconstructed (at least in the manga). While Cecily possesses the single greatest weapon in the city, her unreliability and temperament (trying to punch a diplomat from The Empire because he pissed you off?) makes her unpopular with the rest of the Knights so she's viewed primarily as a Troubleshooter/thug by the city's Powers That Be — with the exception of Hannibal, though he calls her out the most.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Lisa, who is shown in the ending credits tripping to the rhythm of the music.
- Deal with the Devil:
- The Demon Contracts which uses the "death song" engraved on the victims' hearts (normally sung by their spirits upon their deaths) prematurely, killing them and combining their souls with the ambient magical energy from Valbanill to morph them into giant monsters.
- Luke believes he created Lisa using one of these, but not quite. Apparently it's also possible for some people to use their death songs to create more benign forms of demon like Lisa (and presumably Aria).
- Defeat Means Friendship: Charlotte and her gang become Cecily's housemates after Luke defeats them but they're still not quite friends. That happens after Cecily defeats all three of them herself.
- Dishing Out Dirt: The power of Doris' demonic sword is earth.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Bollock Dagger is Truth in Television: The bollock dagger (also known as the kidney knife) was an actual weapon used during Medieval Europe, deriving its name from its "unique" shape. Specifically, the bollock dagger was a style of dagger especially popular in the British Isles, with a guard shaped like, basically, two balls (in the geometrical, as well as the colloquial, sense); it was also commonly worn in front, in a deliberately suggestive position. "Kidney dagger" is a later Victorian euphemism, created explicitly so as to avoid sexual connotations.
- Double Standard: Abuse, Female on Male: Averted.Luke: You're sorry? You have a wardrobe malfunction and beat the crap out of me, and you expect sorry is gonna cut it?
- Elemental Powers: Ice, Wind, Fire, Earth, Darkness, etc. are wielded by the Demon Swords.
- The Empire: Charlotte hails from an empire. It's trying to gather the Demon Swords so it can expand.
- Enforced Cold War: According to Siegfried, this is the reason why peace exists in the first place. The war was beyond horrific to the point of severely traumatizing entire nations, which is why: A) they would do anything to avoid a war, and B) Demon Swords are so lusted after by everyone and their mothers. He might be lying, but still it makes a lot of sense in the setting.
- Entitled Bastard: In their debut episode, Charlotte and her Girl Posse attack Cecily, try to steal Aria and strong-arm Luke into working for them, then whine about people being rude to them. Then they expect Cecily, whom they just tried to kill, to put them up while they stay in the city, and worse, they're expecting to live it up and be treated like Royalty.
- Equippable Ally: Some Demon Swords are capable of assuming human form.
- Even the Girls Want Her:
- Lisa refused to stop talking about Cecily's breasts for the first two episodes.
- Aria repeatedly sneaks into Cecily's bed to use them as pillows, declaring pointedly she wants to claim Cecily for herself.
- Everyone Can See It: Everyone in the show is shipping Cecily×Luke except the two involved.
- Eunuchs Are Evil: This is the second reason Siegfried doesn't rape Cecily after beating her up; he's physically unable to.
- Exotic Weapon Supremacy: No one in Housman except Luke can forge and use katanas. For that matter, not many people in the city have ever seen a katana before.
- Partially Justified: Weapons in Housman are "forged" by pouring molten metal into a mold and then sharpening it. Luke's technique of folding the metal makes the results whole orders of magnitude stronger.
- Eye Scream: During a particularly brutal duel in the Manga, Luke takes a blow to the head that causes his fake eye to pop out onto the floor, much to the horror of the nobles watching the fight.
- Fallen Princess: Charlotte, daughter of the emperor, is kicked out and even UnPersoned by her homeland.
- Fan Disservice: In episode seven, during the bath scene, there's an old woman sitting outside the tub. While the groping is going on in the background, the camera pans out... and out... And that's not even getting into Siegfried's assault on Cecily: He brutally beats and strips her, then leaves her lying in an abandoned barn.
- Fanservice:
- This is the Doylist reason for Cecily to be forced into a maid outfit in episode 07: she looks cute.
- In episode two, Cecily's breastplate cracks and falls off. It takes her shirt with it. There are a few other examples of panty shots and nudity.
- A Father to His Men: Hannibal, the leader of the knights of Housman, takes good care of them.
- The Federation: The Independent Trade Cities, including Housman, exist in contrast to the Empire.
- Giving Up the Ghost: This happens to Charlotte and her friends. First to Charlotte when the shock that a princess has to perform the tasks of a common servant and look the part, and then by her friends when Fio effortlessly knocks them out.
- Glass Eye: Luke's left eye is fake. His real eye was used to create Lisa.
- God Is Evil: Valbanill is the only god mentioned, and is the source of the demons. In response, the humans are gathering Demon Swords, whose purpose is to "slay God".
- Go Through Me: In the first episode, Cecily takes several blows for Luke after the ice demon breaks his katana. She continues guarding him while he forges a new one. She does this in the last episode, too... then uses the katana he forges for her to break a Demon Sword!
- Gratuitous English: The Campbell motto, "Guard, Save, Belive". It's probably meant to be that way, though. However, in a brief flashback in episode 8 the tombstone displays the motto as "Guard, Save, Believe.
- H-Game: In Haganai.
- Heroic Fantasy: RPG tropes to the max. We have knights, magic swords, demons, and fights For Great Justice.
- Heroic BSoD: Cecily has a minor breakdown when she's told she needs to Mercy Kill a zombie. Her coworkers are less than impressed. It gets worse when later in the novels, Cecily suffers a major breakdown when coming close to being raped by the Big Bad.
- He Is Not My Boyfriend: Cecily is asked this a couple of times regarding Luke by a few characters. She usually vehemently denies it.
- Hot-Blooded: Cecily puts her best into everything and walks with honor, guts, and determination. Too bad this has left her with poor self-control and a lack of foresight, which impair her abilities in politics, diplomacy, commerce, and... normal human interaction.
- How We Got Here: The first episode begins with Cecily and Luke fighting a demon at sunset and then cuts to the morning of that same day before the two had even met.
- I Am Not a Gun: While Aria realizes that she can't fight her fate, she really, really relishes her times of peace. She's also grateful that in Cecily's hands, she's used to protect people instead of slaughtering them.
- I Let Gwen Stacy Die: Luke torments himself (creating a mental block that prevents him from finishing the Sacred Sword) believing his actions led to the death of his childhood friend Lisa (pronounced Leeza, not Leesa...). In fact, Lisa died protecting him against Valbanill, but by her own choice.
- Instant Runes: Lisa's eye generates them for Luke's magic forging.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Eventually, this becomes Luke's reason for continuing to keep silent about his feelings for Cecily. He knows that his life is coming to a swift end, and he doesn't want his death to cause Cecily the same pain that Lisa Oakwood's caused him. He tells Euen that he's sure that someday Cecily will find happiness with another man. However, when Euen asks Luke if he'd really be okay with watching Cecily fall in love with someone else because of never telling her how he feels, Luke grits his teeth and doesn't answer.
- Jerkass Has a Point: Reginald, who bawls Cecily out for being unable to kill a zombie in episode 03. He calls her a coward and says that she doesn't deserve to be a Knight Guard. Harsh as his words are, he does have a point, when Cecily's reluctance to kill puts herself and others in danger.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Charlotte is making the transition to Nice Girl but is not quite there yet.
- Luke, to a much lesser degree of jerkiness. He's a great friend to Lisa but less so to others.
- Katanas Are Just Better: Played with.
- Played straight initially when Luke cuts a giant claymore cleanly in half with his katana, then subverted later on in the same episode when Luke's katana is broken by an ice demon.
- All of the other blacksmiths in the city make their swords out of unfolded slabs of cast steel, so it's no wonder they're brittle. On the other hand, Luke's katana is magically enhanced and he tries not to cut armor or other weapons. Even Lisa admits that any sword can be broken by abuse and Luke tends to break his katana fairly frequently.
- Lisa gushes on the virtues of katana.
- Averted in that the most powerful sword in the city, the "demon sword" Aria, takes the form of an estoc.
- Kick the Dog: Siegfried's sexual assault of Cecily proves, once and for all, that he is an asshole.
- Made of Iron: Cecily can absorb an insane amount of damage and be fine by the next day/week, when a normal warrior would be crippled for life if he was lucky. She also can bleed around 40 gallons in one go.
- Magic A Is Magic A: To instantly turn tamahagane ores into katana, Luke has Lisa conjure some Instant Runes (by apparently tracing them with one eye), then recites the steps of forging a katana.
- Meido:
- Inverted by Fio, who is closer to the Almighty Janitor than the classical version of this trope, meek and submissive.
- Then she makes Charlotte, her bodyguards, and Cecile dress up as maids and do chores. They play it straighter.
- Nosebleed: This happens to Luke when Cecily's armor cracks and falls off, exposing her naked breasts.
- Old Soldier:
- The veterans of the Valbanill War are all getting on in their age. Some of them can adjust to peace, others not so much. All of them are formidable fighters.
- Hannibal is the oldest character on the show (the only one who ultimately remains alive) and also the most badass. He's a veteran of the Valbanill War, after all.
- Please, I Will Do Anything!: At one point, Cecily begs Luke to help her save Aria, and promises him anything he wants. "If it's money, I will work for you until the day I die. If it's my body, you can do whatever you want with me." Luke doesn't ask for anything.
- Plucky Girl: Though Cecily's anime incarnation lacks the manga and light novel versions' skills, she certainly doesn't lack guts. She knew Jack Stmdr was a seasoned veteran but still challenged him to fulfill her duty as a knight. She didn't stop fighting until her sword broke.
- Power Degeneration: Because their work involves shaping glowing, white-hot pieces of iron, most blacksmith develop damage to one (or both) of their eyes. Luke starts to lose the vision in his one remaining eye. This turns out to be a lie Luke tells to comfort Lisa but the trope is still being played straight. Luke is using his own flesh for "Demon Sword Materialization".
- The Power of Love: Played with: Luke is convinced that he lacks sufficient hatred to complete the Sacred Sword, but it's the Power of Love that finally allows him to finish it... kinda. He had already completed it but it took even more love to convince him he had succeeded.
- Pretty Freeloader: Defied. Charlotte and her bodyguards think they're going to be fed and such at the Cambell house until Cecily's maid Fio puts them to work. It's likely that Fio is also punishing them because they ganged up on Cecily and tried to steal Aria from her.
- Rape as Drama: While Sigfried doesn't actually rape Cecily, the scene where he beats the crap out of her, strips her naked, and tells her that she's pretty for a country girl while straddling her naked body, as well as Cecily's reaction to it, crying out for help that never comes, and vomiting afterwards, all evoke this trope. This is especially the case when one remembers that rape isn't just about sex, but about power and control, which Sigfried clearly robbed from Cecily.
- Razor Wind: Aria's magic sword power cuts from a distance with air.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Siegfried's criticism of Cecily is as harsh as the brutal beat-down he deals out at the same time. He broke every bit of her entire psyche until he left her broken in a barn... because he didn't care enough to finish her.
- Red Shirt: In the anime at least, Cecily's fellow Knight Guards (all of whom are male) are about as competent as she is. Note that they all use the same kind of Western European sword; it seems this world runs on the principle of Katanas Are Just Better.
- Replacement Goldfish: Subverted. Luke thinks he created Lisa in this way, but it turns out that the original Lisa was the one who did it, in order to give Luke someone to help him around the house.
- Roaring Rampage of Revenge: After Luke learns what Siegfried did to Cecily , he absolutely goes ballistic.
- Royal "We": Queen Zenobia speaks in this fashion because QUEEN!
- Share the Male Pain: In the manga, Cecily and her squad find a group of bandits... responding to nature's call. Cecily immediately shrieks "I'll cut them off!" and her men all cover their crotches.
- She Cleans Up Nicely: Cecily is initially mortified to be seen in a dress and then totally flummoxed when Luke compliments her on it.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: Jack Stmdr was in the last war and it broke him. Now he's a shell of his former self.
- Shout-Out: A rather ingenious nod, at least in the dub.
- Single-Stroke Battle: Cecily versus Siegfried comes close, although it's actually four strokes total.
- Skinship Grope: The Meido episode includes a Furo Scene where Charlotte and her Amazon Brigade take the chance to play with Cecily's boobs.
- Straw Nihilist: Siegfried is one of these, talking about the pointlessness of peace and stuff like that. He gets violent when Cecily tells him to shut up.
- Thanks for the Mammary: A lot of people on Cecily and her gag boobs, may it be willingly or accidentally.
- Luke, mainly as Accidental Pervert.
- Aria, for Skinship Grope.
- Charlotte and her Girl Posse, same as Aria (every time they can catch Cecily disrobed).
- Siegfried takes a good handful too, even though he is the only one not played for laughs.
- Who knows? Maybe even other people, the more they go on the more the only requisite seems to be to pass near enough Cecily's chest.
- Took a Level in Badass: Cecily's anime incarnation takes her first level in the fight against the fire demon and keeps improving from there. Her second fight with Charlotte's handmaidens/bodyguards is a complete reversal of her first, with her splitting them up and then soundly beating each one with tactics specifically designed to counter their abilities. Hell, even the first fight (three against one and she held her own) showed she had improved. In the manga, she manages to take down all of Charlotte's handmaidens/bodyguards one after another without splitting them, sniping Margot behind from a wall and fighting off the other two.
- Transformation Is a Free Action: This is an Averted Trope. Luke usually has Cecily keeping his opponents busy while he's making a sword or they're so stuck up they think it's fun to watch him struggle.
- Tsundere:
- Luke is a type A (default:tsun-tsun) because he is generally aloof or jerkish.
- Cecily is Type B (default:dere-dere) because she is generally friendly or at least well-meaning.
- Ultimate Blacksmith: Luke is the "Sacred blacksmith" from the title.
- The Unfair Sex: Cecily is often unfair to Luke though more from being too Hot-Blooded and impulsive for her own good than any malice. She will verbally attack Luke without provocation (or information) because she can't handle her own feelings. When she snarks about his sorest point (the death of his first love) before fleeing in tears Lisa insists that he be the one to apologize.
- War Is Hell: The last war terrified entire nations and created people like Jack Stmdr.
- Weapons Breaking Weapons: At least twice in the anime adaptation.
- Luke makes his grand entrance into the series by cleaving through a claymore with his katana like it was a hot knife through butter.
- Later in the series, Cecily demonstrates that Luke's Sacred Sword is ready by challenging Sigfried to try to cut through it. Luke's sword is planted tip down in the tabletop, but it doesn't budge when Sigfried tries to break it, though his own sword is cloven by the effort.
- "Where Are They Now?" Epilogue: The final credits show the citizens rebuilding the city, Aria paying her respects at Elsa's Grave, and Charlotte and her Girl Posse returning to Housman.
- Women Are Wiser: It's invoked as Hypocritical Humor. Luke even asks Cecily why (despite all evidence) she feels qualified to give him advice about his relationship with Lisa. Her answer? "I'm. A. GIRL?!"
- Wrecked Weapon: Happens twice in the first episode. Then said weapon crumbled to pieces by Episode 2.
Have we mentioned that Katanas Are Just Better?
