5 Point Discussions – Knight’s And Magic Episode 10: “War & Princess”

This 5 Point Discussion follows the series Knight’s and Magic Episode 10: “War & Princess”.
1. This episode kicked things off by going through with a rescue operation for the kidnapped royalty from last episode. In most series, that would have been enough of a plot to build an episode around. But since Knight’s and Magic moves at the speed of “Let’s get this shit over with”, the whole thing only lasts about eight minutes. And while it’s disappointing that our protagonists in the Silver Phoenix weren’t challenged at all during the rescue attempt, the show tries to make up for it with the whole sub-plot focusing on Princess Eleonora.
…Unfortunately, the attempt falls on its face. Instead of focusing on her losing her family, or even just having her be terrified of suffering a similar fate to the one that befell her father, she’s just bummed out because she doesn’t feel like she’s good enough to be a queen. I’m probably asking too much for a series that’s basically about a geek who entered a world where building giant robots makes sense, but it’d be cool if they didn’t go for the low-hanging fruit every now and again. This felt a lot less like they wanted to give some development to her character and more like they wanted an excuse to set her up with Kid.
2. As rushed as this adaptation is, it does tend to mean we aren’t left wondering the answers to questions for too long.  Last episode, the army of Zaloudek absolutely crushed the Kuschperchan kingdom with their superior mechs and air weaponry. While the mecha were obviously reverse-engineered for the one that they stole from the protagonists, the airship was an inspired piece of new tech that would’ve had to have someone special behind its creation.
And so it was—as we got to meet Zaloudek’s own mad scientist this week, Lord Gojass. I love that the series is creating so many new antagonists now, but as much as the episode tried to make it seem like Gojass was something of an equal to Ernie, the way this series moves, by the time the show ends in a couple weeks he’ll be dead.
3. Surprisingly, the series has found a way to keep that cycle of battle-upgrade-battle around. With the Order of the Silver Phoenix having left Fremmevilla to help out the nation of Kuschpercha, they find themselves surrounded by an army with vastly inferior robots to their own. I expected some upgrades, but I didn’t expect that they’d be so drastically different from what we’d seen already. I honestly assumed the story was just trying to get to Ernie’s custom Ikaruga mecha really fast and we’d stop upgrading after that, but here we are continuing this (magical) arms race. It’s not a bad thing—even a series like this should play to its strengths, and Knight’s and Magic’s strength is its appeal to long-time mecha and plastic model fans who like seeing customization and improvements over time.
4. Though the team may not have had any problems escaping with the royalty they rescued, they did have some close calls when the nation of Zaloudek sent some assassins to slay those who escaped their clutches. Probably the best thing about this episode is how it allowed so many characters not named Ernie their opportunity to shine. The assassins were mostly handled by the rest of the Order of the Silver Phoenix, who clearly learned from the last time they were attacked by the exact same people back in episodes 4-5.
This also gave us a pretty hilarious moment, as the assassins tried to steal the group’s robots for the second time only to fail miserably because of the latest genius invention of Ernie’s: keys.  As much as I hate to point out the obvious, it seems hilarious that somehow this is a world which has massive robots powered by engines of pure magic, floating ships, and giant castles…but no one’s ever thought to have keys for the nation’s secret weapons.
5. The only downside to this episode comes near the end. To ensure their mission to kill off the escaped princess and her other royal friends goes well, Zaloudek sends out their best soldier, Lady Kerhilt. Kerhilt has been around since episode 4, as the leader of the first group who attacked Fremmevilla. Despite attempts to stop her (and Ernie’s incredible levels of plot armor), she still managed to steal one of their mechs and get it back to her country to reverse-engineer. If there’s any one character in the series that ever posed a memorable threat to the Silver Phoenix group it was her…
…So of course she dies this ep. It’s not even a close match, either. She goes up against Edgar’s vastly improved mecha and gets wrecked in the last minutes of the episode. I feel like we were just getting into her development and her reasoning for why she had climbed so high in Zaloudek’s army, when suddenly they realized someone besides the core group was experiencing character development, so they offed them.  But with us barreling towards the conclusion and them needing to solve a war before this series goes away forever, I guess they had no choice.
Knight’s and Magic is available for streaming on Crunchyroll.