Review of Walkure Romanze

Walkure Romanze is a great Harem, Sports, Romance visual novel that garnered a bit of success, so I guess some studio had to make an anime adaptation of it. However this is simply the case where a title is better left untouched, in its original format, rather than being half-arsed like this. Because at least there, each of the girls are given enough time and development for the players to even give a damn. Watching this series gave me flashbacks of the Princess Lover anime adaptation, but in this case, the male protagonist attends a fairly prestigious academy with "Jousting" as its main extracurricular activity.Although in this universe, jousting seems to be a sport predominantly done by knights with a bit less gruff. Yes, that means young cute girls, because apparently boys seem to be useless unless they are piloting giant mechs. But even with how immersion breaking it is to see dainty little girls, covered in plated-armour, holding 2-3m lances; the actual jousting itself is handled quite well and managed to hold my interest. Unfortunately far too much time and effort is put into nonsensical stuff un-related to progressing the story, characters or relationships. In other words, pretty much every aspect a good visual novel is known for is left out, but instead all of what makes a mediocre harem is crammed into this series. Which simply is a waste considering this is a 12 episode anime and those 12 episodes should have been used to make me fall in love with the story & characters... not the character's alluring physique.

But speaking of characters, the male protagonist Takahiro Mizuno, happens to have a rather refreshing personality and in this anime with its 1:9 male to female ratio, it is nice to see that he's not initially considered useless. Just a shame that what little personality he has, is later stripped away and he becomes nothing more than a walking plot device. As for the girls that make up the bulk of this anime, it's a shame to see them as nothing but 2-dimensional tropes. No doubt they are certainly made to be appealing, depending on your tastes and a lot of the voice actresses did fantastic jobs on their characters. Nevertheless I can just imagine them being some fascinating female characters, if given the time & effort to flesh out their relationships & back-stories.

At least the animation for this anime is rather fleshed out, with its vibrant colour palette and the character's bubbly erm... personalities. Heck even when it transitioned to the 3D rendered jousting, it did not feel all that jarring. It looked all round good. Just like the animation, the soundtrack happens to be decent and ramps up nicely during the jousting. From the clashing of the lances to the sounds of the horses, it all sounds pretty good. But overall this isn't an anime I'd remember for its audio.

Walkure Romanze is just another anime I'd remember for its lost potential, when it comes bringing something interesting with its jousting and romance. And frankly there's barely a hint of romance, for it to even be in the title. So if you're just here to wet your seasonal appetite for girls partaking in strenuous activities, then you won't be left high and dry, at least once the Blu-Rays come out. But if you're actually interested in seeing an anime, balance such an unusual sport with romance, or simply just a fan of the source material, then you're likely to come out of this feeling somewhat disappointed. Having seen how Walkure Romanze was poorly mishandled, I fear to see what will happen to future visual novel adaptations (i.e. Grisaia no Kajitsu).