(12 episodes)
What’s it about ?
Jousting !
Characters
Mio, our protagonist. Dumb as a bag of hammers, she’s not a jousting knight. She’s attending a completely different department from this jousting high-school, and is terrible at handling horses. So of course a series of contrived coincidences is going to put her on the saddle by the episode’s end. (Well, nearly. But she’s already been challenged to a jousting match.)
Takahiro is just about the only male knight we ever see. Well, except he stopped jousting after some accident, so for now he’s just tending to his temperamental horse Sakura, and angsting about his future. He’s completely oblivious to Mio’s affections (despite all the effort she spends hovering around him)… and doesn’t particuly care about the various top females knights wanting a partnership with him either.
Those include Celia, the Student Council President With Drill Hair, and Noel, her devious self-proclaimed rival.
Bertille is a lower grade of alpha bitch, cultivating her own reputation among her pair of hanger-ons… but being the first to run when Sakura comes charging in. Thoroughly humiliated, she challenges Mio (who just about managed to rein the horse in) to a jousting match.
Production Values
You know a show has its priorities straight when every single female knight wears a (very short) skirt. And panty shots are featured starting right from the OP sequence. Also, the horse keeps eating those skirts, which means that Bertille spends half her screentime in her underwear.
It’s a shame, as the jousting sequences do look quite good ; those cell-shaded CG graphics are impressive.
Overall Impression
I’m watching this so you don’t have to. I’m sure I’ve lost a few brain cells here.
… Actually, I enjoyed watching this one a bit. It’s one of the dumbest shows in a season that’s not really shined for its intellectual prowess so far, and the fanservice is kinda skeevy, but it makes me a lot less uncomfortable than the wrestling one. If I’m going to keep watching a guilty pleasure show, it may well be this one.
