Le Chevalier D’Eon
The first episode of Le Chevalier D’Eon offered everything I wanted – swords, magic, twists and turns, intrigue too, and all of it taking place in historical European settings!
In fact, I remember after seeing the opening being pretty thrilled, feeling sure that I’d found a show that I knew I would love. And I would definitely put the first episode (D’Eon∴ Lia) up against most of the first episodes of my other favs for sure.
And in the end, I did love the series but I hit a wall in the middle.
I think I know why – it’s the pacing.
Now, I mentioned pacing here in one of my previous ‘Abandoned’ posts – there was a point where I felt a slight drag on the forward momentum, because I knew that our four leads were going to visit a new town, catch up on local politics, help out, and then collect a few scraps of info on the main quest.
At one point, that pattern repeated itself for enough episodes to deter me, and it took a while to come back to the series, even though at the mid-way point I should have been totally unable to set Le Chevalier D’Eon to one side.
And what’s interesting to me is that I love episodic storytelling but this time around it felt like mini-arcs with not enough of the main plot woven throughout to satisfy my curiosity.
On the other hand, I certainly finished Le Chevalier D’Eon because there was so much I want to know by the end. In addition, the characters, settings and magical elements are all great – along with the swashbuckling too, of course.
But it’s not really an adventure show (despite escapes, conspiracies, monsters and swordplay etc) because as I’ve mentioned before, intrigue and politics feature heavily here. There’s even a touch of romance, but the magic (Poets and Psalms used to destroy and manipulate) are probably the main focus, along with a slew of changing loyalties.
The price of loyalty too, is a huge theme in Le Chevalier D’Eon and one that I enjoyed plenty.
I think another stand-out aspect is the range of (loose) historical elements; not just things like the various royals that our leads meet (or figures like Comte de Saint Germain and Maximilien Robespierre), but aspects that had me reading up on the real-life D’eon. In fact, it seems a shame that the existence of Lia in the anime clouds important details about D’eon.
Finally, I guess I should say, be warned, by the end there is very little left for the surviving leads to celebrate – perhaps unsurprising considering the setting.
Still, the anime was compelling for me, even when its storytelling sometimes became a little opaque or even if, as I see it, giving D’eon room to process truths about his sister is somewhat swept aside by the scope of other events.
4 Stars
(This series is sometimes compared to Gankutsuou: The Count of Monte Cristo, released a bit earlier, since both are somewhat similar in themes and settings).
The Review Heap 
I remember watching the first DVD volume of this series a long time ago. Weirdly enough, I didn’t realize Le Chevalier D’eon was a real life historical figure. That name came to my attention after watching a documentary about Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges who was a composer, violinist, fencer, and the first Black general of the French army in the 17th century. He actually had a fencing match with the real-life D’eon during their respective lifetimes.
LikeLiked by 1 person
With a different focus to the ending, it’d be a top ten for me, I think – but I still liked it a lot, and I think you might too if you come across the full thing somewhere 🙂
And yes! I hadn’t realised that D’eon lived as a woman for so long.
And wow, nice trivia. (What a list after his name too – ‘composer, violinist, fencer and general’, impressive.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Gotcha. I may check it out in the future to watch the whole thing since it’s been such a long time since I’ve watched it.
Yeah, and it was interesting learning about that real history of that figure.
No problem! He was a man of many talents. I even heard that one of his operas was played for the first time in modern ages last month with one of the symphonies in Los Angeles.
LikeLiked by 1 person