Based on the eroge “Walkure Romanze: Shoujo Kishi Monogatari” made by Ricotta, the visual novel company that also created “Princess Lover!”, “Walkure Romanze” gets the anime treatment this autumn season.
Taking into account this is an eroge adapted into a mainstream harem anime, and that the original visual novel is by the same company that made “Princess Lover!”, veteran viewers should know what to expect from a series like “Walkure Romanze”.
With harem series a dime a dozen each season, “Walkure Romanze” makes no attempt to break the mould, but alas is as generic and mediocre as they come, the show barely achieves to provide sufficient entertainment.
So expect absurd situations and plot elements all for the sake of having several girls fall for the same guy, these gimmicks include a horse with a penchant for tearing off cute girls their already short skirts. Unfortunately, since “Walkure Romanze” does try to market itself as a romance series with medieval inspired jousting action, such comedy scenes often fail to appeal.
Although the various heroines who fawn over the oblivious male lead are cute, they fall short of making any lasting impression because they all conform too rigidly to known standards, both in terms of character type as well as visual design.
Ultimately, this series is likely to appeal most to fans of the original eroge or Komori Kei’s art. Compared to studio GoHands’ work on “Princess Lover!”, the character animation created by studio 8bit for “Walkure Romanze” does stay much closer to Komori Kei’s original illustrations for the visual novel, which is one of its few positive points.
Overall animation quality by studio 8bit is as average as the series itself and falls short from the level they achieve for “IS: Infinite Stratos 2”. Although, when looking at both series, it is obvious that some scenes such as character close-ups receive more attention and care than many other scenes where the studio seems to cut corners.
Noticed several times in the first few episodes of “Walkure Romanze” that the horses were more convincing when cgi animation was used compared to when they were rendered with more traditional animation.
Perhaps the biggest surprise about this series is that it has somehow managed to keep me watching it every week, even though it is beyond a doubt a mediocre show.
If however you are looking for a run of the mill harem anime to watch and are not expecting anything exceptional or particularly good, then “Walkure Romanze” might be worth your time.
