Rakudai Kishi no Cavalry Episode 12 Discussion

InvictusRes said:
Ikki wins lol


Now seriously, I liked the way the made Ittou Rasetsu look like the opening, I didn't expect that. Good finale, but it obvious this isn't getting a second season because they removed Alice's involvement with Akatsuki. Well, it was good while it lasted. Nice episode.

RealityRush said:

To be fair, Silver Link probably wouldn't even have had the budget to make every single fight as beautiful as Ayase's fight or Shizuku's. They did the best with what the LN gave them for that last fight, and I think they had a fairly good show of it. Even if it wasn't the final episode, this show had one of the best fight scenes of 2015, which is admirable.

It also wouldn't have made any sense for Ikki to have an extended fight against Touka in his state, it would have just seemed like a huge ass-pull. So while I agree it was underwhelming, it was still a far better episode than what it could have been (and I was expecting it to be bad tbh).

Grey-Zone said:
Also while I can understand some people simply not liking the series for several reasons and rating it low, which is completely fine by itself, I still noticed a few close-minded individuals (sorry for switching off my political correctness safety for a moment) that seem to dislike the series simply for the fact that it "tries to do more than a 'mere' magic high school series should be doing and 'tries too hard' to be more than it ever can be". Seriously, if that's what you think, then fine, but keep in mind that you are basically acting in the exact same way as Ikki's father acts toward Ikki... just something to think about.

thebrentinator24 said:

You're right, it wouldn't have made sense for the fight to be long. I did point out in my original post that I wasn't expecting the fight to be long in the first place, especially since about half of the episode was over by the time they got around to the fight. But it would have been nice.

InvictusRes said:
Ikki wins lol

Now seriously, I liked the way the made Ittou Rasetsu look like the opening, I didn't expect that. Good finale, but it obvious this isn't getting a second season because they removed Alice's involvement with Akatsuki. Well, it was good while it lasted. Nice episode.

ItsMaz said:
Really, really disappointed with how this ended. I was thoroughly enjoying this show up until these last 3-4 episodes, then it just turned into bullshit.
Shame.

Grey-Zone said:
Also while I can understand some people simply not liking the series for several reasons and rating it low, which is completely fine by itself, I still noticed a few close-minded individuals (sorry for switching off my political correctness safety for a moment) that seem to dislike the series simply for the fact that it "tries to do more than a 'mere' magic high school series should be doing and 'tries too hard' to be more than it ever can be". Seriously, if that's what you think, then fine, but keep in mind that you are basically acting in the exact same way as Ikki's father acts toward Ikki... just something to think about.

FlameSpeedster said:
Could you elaborate? Saying you don't like something is fine as long as it's justified.

Fai said:
You DO realize that his family was basically running the entire country, right?

ItsMaz said:


Eh, several reasons.

First and foremost, this whole family business with everyone trying to put him down. The idea that his family could twist the rules so that he and ONLY he is somehow an F-Rank knight (which is never really explained very well in the anime, IMO) is fairly ridiculous.
Adding onto the ridiculousness was the whole imprisonment charade. You simply cannot imprison someone and put them on a fake trial because of their involvement in a relationship. Trying to make out that the relationship was 'illicit' is still completely besides the point as far as the law goes. I understand that the idea was his family was willing to do whatever it took to try and sabotage him, but the way they did it was just completely unbelieveable. It broke my suspension of disbelief and made the entire plot seem ridiculous.

Secondly, the way the last fight was handled. I have nothing against generic tropes being played out - no show can be truly original nowadays, so it's all down to how they handle these tropes. But the way they executed the fight and the time before it was horrible. I personally hate the "He's going to be disqualified because he's late due to sabotage, but oh wait! He's shown up in the last 0.34 seconds, we totally weren't expecting that!!!"
I've never enjoyed that trope, so their inclusion of it felt like nothing more than a total waste of time.
Then, the fight itself - we have all this buildup, and the fight ends in an instant. Again, I understand why the fight had to play out the way it did - due to him being imprisoned - but it still felt very underwhelming. It doesn't help that I hated the reason for him being in his state anyway, so it exacerbated my dislike of the fight.
I mean, the entire premise of him being locked up was so that he would lose his last fight and be disqualified. But there's no tension or hype at all because you know he's going to win. And when you know he's going to win no matter what, it completely nullifies any of the drama they try to include. His almost being late just felt like a waste of time because you knew it was ultimately pointless; protag-power always wins no matter what.
Bottom line is, when you know the outcome of the fight, the one thing left for the studio to do is make it flashy and entertaining. I don't care if I know who's going to win so long as they put on a good show. But due to the very nature of that last fight, there was very little they could do to actually make it a good show. It suffered completely because of the forced melodrama, leaving it with very little room to actually be a good / decent last fight.

And last but not least, Ikki's relationship with Stella. When that relationship first started, I was really happy. You almost never actually see a real relationship in these types of anime. I thought it was going to be another typical battle-harem, so it came as a wonderful surprise when they got together. Yet, sadly, even the relationship was badly handled, IMO.
They got together, then had that whole "you don't love me because you never said you loved me!!" tirade. I mean, it's totally plausible (hell, I remember being like that with my very first girlfriend at 14 lol) so I let that slide. But then as the show progressed, their relationship didn't. The scene in the shack where he made some rubbish excuses about not making love to one another was irritating. He made it sound like having sex with the person you're in a relationship with is a bad thing, which I vehemently disagree with.
His proposal at the end though just pissed me off; it was so completely out of place. They haven't even been together that long, and they're like 16 or 17 or whatever. You don't propose to someone you've known for like 5 months, especially not when you've kissed like once (And then got locked up for it LOL).
So my pleasant surprise at the relationship dynamic was ruined by how immaturely it was dealt with.

So yeah, hopefully that's enough insight as to why the last few episodes were disappointing. Sorry, this reply turned out a lot longer than I had expected it to be lol - but then, I suppose that's just a sign of my disappointment. I was enjoying this so much at the start that I've found this ending a real shame. It's took it from a 7 or 8 out of 10 to a 5 for me.
Enjoyable enough to watch, but I guess I got my hopes up too high.

FlameSpeedster said:
You brought up some pretty fair points. As someone who read the LN translations I noticed them leaving out some very important details like them preparing false testimonies of Ikki being a delinquent. So it's probably more of a problem with the adaptation than the actual source material.

Crashmatt said:
Some Shaft channelling this episode. A great end to a great series, probably my favourite of the season. How refreshing to see some proper relationship development other series need to take note. This is what made it stand out from the crowd

Sweanime said:
Think if more animes can have more Lifelike relationships like "rakudai" and "golden time" Become a couple half way, kisses, sexytime bla bla. marrage.

then just 26 eps and heres a kiss, "suki desu"