Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle (Season One)
The prince of a fallen empire works as a handyman to repay his debt to society, but they don’t know of his part in the Coup d’état. Then a series of bizarre events see him being accepted into a girls’ school for Drag-Knights!
What did you watch?
This is the latest review from my A to Z Anime Challenge and will be for the letter U. I had no idea what I was going pick for this letter and randomly found myself settling in for Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle. It’s about Drag-Knights who fight monsters in a fantasy world with giant mecha. It sounds incredibly similar to a couple of other shows I watched in this challenge – Dragonar Academy and Knight’s & Magic. Neither of those blew me away, so let’s see if this one can do any better. There will be spoilers, so if you don’t want to know what happens, best to turn away now.
What happened?
Lux Arcadia was a prince in the previous empire, but when a Coup d’état ousted his family’s rule, he was forced to become a handyman in order to pay back his debt to society. One of these jobs took him into the grounds for a prestigious girls’ school for Drag-Knights. After a series of unfortunate events, Lux fell through the roof of a bathhouse, landing in the bath with the current princess, Lisesharte. She was understandably unhappy and demanded that he be thrown in jail. Lux, however, had connections at the school and it was revealed that his fate would be decided by a duel between Lux and Lisesharte.
When an Abyss, a monstrous creature appeared and interrupted their duel, Lux saved Lisesharte and gained her favour. As a result, Lux was invited to attend the school… a school for girls… What could possibly go wrong here? Anyhow, with Lux still working as a handyman, the requests came in thick and fast. Then, when things got too much, the Headmistress made a game of it and the winner would get Lux as their servant for a week! Ultimately, the game was won by Krulcifer, who has her own plans for Lux!
What did you think?
It wasn’t bad. The story is pretty straightforward and if you’ve seen one of these types of story, I doubt there will be many surprises. It did do a good job of keeping things interesting and the characters were fairly fun to be around. The Drag-Rides were fairly inventive and I felt like they were better done than the versions in Knight’s & Magic. It also had a more compelling reason as to why they had mecha in a fantasy world. Expect more on that shortly. There was definitely more mystery in this one, but again nothing too mysterious.
What was your favourite moment?
So, giant mecha in a fantasy world. Well, I actually really enjoyed the reasoning behind this and it might not be a particular moment, it was my favourite thing from the series. There were a number of ancient ruins scattered around the world and that’s where these came from. Sounds weird, eh? Well, it turned out that these ancient ruins were actually more like spaceships or relics from a more technologically advanced society. I love it when genres are mixed up like this. It always makes for some interesting details.
What was your least favourite moment?
There was a lot of things with Philuffy, Lux’s childhood friend that I felt were glossed over. Basically, Philuffy was subjected to crazy experiments and died. She was brought back as some sort of Abyss hybrid, but again things aren’t entirely clear other than that she is somehow key to the awakening of a Ragnarok, a colossal Abyss that would destroy everything. This side of things made for a fairly dark and compelling section of the series and I really would have liked to learn a lot more about what happened.
Who was your favourite character?
My favourite character was Krulcifer, the girl that won Lux as a servant for a week. It turned out that she was actually the last remaining survivor from the race that was responsible for the ancient ruins. This is another detail that really warranted more focus and was sadly kind of just brushed aside so that some dick could challenge Lux to a duel to win Krulcifer’s hand in marriage. They may have mecha’s but it’s still a fantasy world with out of date concepts. Still, Krulcifer was interesting and far more mischievous and devious than most of the other girls vying for Lux’s attention.
Who was your least favourite character?
That would be Kreutzer, the aforementioned dick. He was introduced as the pompous ass that believed he was better than anyone and everyone, especially a fallen prince. Maybe he was, but his attitude told me that he wasn’t and he almost instantly became the obvious pantomime villain in the series. With so many interesting concepts and idea floating around in the background, was this really the best way to explore any of those? I don’t think so.
Would you like some more?
As far as this series is done, I think I’m good. It was fine and there were moments that were a lot of fun, Lux dressing as a girl to help catch a groper was pretty funny and then the ensuing situations where he had to continue being a girl because he’d let things go on too long. I don’t think there’s that much more they can do with this one as it is, but I did enjoy the ideas behind it and would love to see something a little more serious in this vein. I don’t even mind the ecchi and harem elements being a part of it, just make the story a little darker and focus on the otherworldly technology.
What have you learnt?
As I said, I love the idea of mashing up genres. It does make a story harder to sell and some readers will feel cheated if they don’t get exactly what they were expecting, but sometimes it’s fun to do. I’ve always wanted to write an alien invasion or a zombie apocalypse in a fantasy world. Why must we limit these sorts of events to modern-day fiction? I know George R.R. Martin had zombies in A Song of Ice and Fire and that is one of the reasons that I loved it, but that series is far from the norm. I’d really like to experiment with genre splicing like some sort of mad author and may even try that with some shorter fiction.
Other Posts in the Series
- A to Z Anime Challenge
- Aesthetica of a Rogue Hero
- Blood-C / Blood-C: The Last Dark
- Cat Planet Cuties
- Dragonar Academy
- El Cazador de la Bruja
- Freezing / Freezing Vibrations
- Grimgar: Ashes and Illusions
- Hakata Tonkotsu Ramens
- Is It Wrong to Try to Pick up Girls in a Dungeon?
- Jormungand / Jormungand: Perfect Order
- Knight’s & Magic
- Lord Marksman and Vanadis
- My First Girlfriend is a Gal
- No Game No Life
- Outbreak Company
- Punch Line
- Qualidea Code
- Re:Zero − Starting Life in Another World
- Seraph of the End: Vampire Reign
- The Testament of Sister New Devil
- Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle
Dueling outdated? You never know Lynn, it might come back one day!
I, for one, am all for it.
That was more in reference to arranged marriages and his outdated views on women, and also to highlight that it is a fantasy world with mecha. I’m all for dueling, especially with mecha!
The harem genre is one of my most favorite in the anime as such I usually rank them from one to ten with one being the highest. My number one is Tenchi, Galaxy police, and 10 absolute duo. this falls around 7 for me. I usually like the protagonist who starts off weak but ends up strong, (if done properly) I think I watched a few episodes and quickly lost interest. If you want something really outdated as far as arranged marriages, take a gander at galaxy police they take the arranged marriage in a WHOLE NEW DIRECTION lol.
Harem anime is absolutely one of my guilty pleasures. Some of my favourites include Highschool of the Dead, Maken-ki, How not to summon a Demon Lord, and High School DxD.
This wasn’t a bad series and it had some interesting ideas. I’ve certainly watched far worse. I’ll have to track down Galaxy Police.