English Dub Review: Knight’s & Magic “Hero & Beast”

He’s a nerd, he’s a geek, he’s gonna take down Gamera.

Spoilers Below

Ernesti (who, if you’ll remember, is a computer programmer/mecha otaku reborn into a world of magic and giant robots) has a rather disturbing theory. The recent stampede of smaller demon beasts was quite a startling danger, but he believes that they weren’t running at the students. The only thing that would get all those different animals going in the same direction as if they were running FROM something. Something big. Something like a Division-Class Behemoth crashing this way. The Knight Runners defending the wall have all been flattened or vaporized by his fire beam. Now, he’s after the kids. Those knights defending the students leap into action as the evacuation continues. To begin, the knights use guerilla warfare to keep the monster distracted, rather than kill it outright. This works just fine until two of the guys get cocky and try to go after the slow beastie straight out. One is melted into slag. The other, Dietrich, turns tail and runs until he can’t run anymore. Ernesti spots him and follows. He asks if Dietrich ran like a little coward, and when the answer is yes, shoots the knight. Don’t worry. It’s a stun spell. The kid isn’t that cold-blooded.

Why did he do that? Not out of justice or patriotism. Ernesti wants the dude’s, Silhouette Knight! Little issue. He’s too short. He can’t reach the controls! So, he does what any computer specialist would do. He kludges it. A little hack here, a little slice there, and his wand blades now act as direct links into the programming of the mecha. He leaps into action, stabbing the creature in the eye and giving the remaining knights time to escape. From there, the battle isn’t so easy. This Behemoth’s magic makes him impervious all around. After some experimentation, Ernesti casts a spell through the Silhouette Knight’s hand, grasping hold of the still-embedded sword and channeling lightning through it to fry the beast from the inside! The next morning, the surviving Knight Runners are astonished to find that the man who saved them was not Dietrich, but Ernesti! This even catches the eye of the King, who is a bit concerned that a young boy could defeat what trained soldiers could not. All the same, Ernesti is even more set on building his own Silhouette Knight!

So, just as the episode starts up, I hear the opening theme. It wasn’t placed normally in the pilot, so I wasn’t sure that this was it. Now that I’ve heard it, I recognize the artist: Fhána. She has a very expressive voice, and I remember her primarily from Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid. Man, that was my first anime here with BubbleBlabber, such good memories. Anyways…

This anime excites me. Much like Log Horizon, the main character and I are on similar mental wavelengths. He doesn’t fit in the cockpit? Fine, hack it! I actually was expecting he’d do this during the first episode, but this was a good way to pull it off. It also shows just how adept and adaptable his control method is. He’s able to move with such fluidity, grace, and speed that even seasoned knights are amazed. I’m a bit underwhelmed by how he actually pulls this hack off, though. He just exposes the cables of the control column and wraps them around his wand blades. No plugging things in, no connecting crystals, nothing. Just a little wrap. I also take a bit of an issue with the amount of narration going on in this episode. It’s nice that they don’t have a Mr. Exposition running around telling you stuff you don’t know, but having a disembodied narrator chiming in every five minutes isn’t all that much better. Some of those concepts could have been better explained elsewhere in the series, I feel, and others didn’t need stating at all.

Most of this episode was done in CG. That’s fine. It’s solid CG. The mecha is well animated, and don’t move stiffly at all. They have weight to them, but they don’t just feel like soulless masses. Whenever we were looking at a person, we saw the traditional animation, and the style of coloring is a high point here. The characters have incredible eyes to them. The voice acting wasn’t bad at all. Ernesti (Justin Briner) sounded like he was having the time of his life, but also had a tinge of the monotone that the programmer should have. On the other hand, Dietrich (Christopher Wehkamp), was utterly hilarious, screaming the entire battle like a little girl. The way they cut through the shot of him screaming was funny and made you feel he really was in the middle of the cry for his mommy. The more I watch this show, the more of it I want. Keep it up 8-Bit Studio! I give you eight magical SCSI boards out of ten.