Chivalry of a Failed Knight is a Japanese light novel series written by Riku Misora and illustrated by Won. The story is set in a fantasy world where the titular failed knight Ikki Kurogane meets Stella Vermillion who is considered a genius. The two make up for each other's weaknesses and form a relationship while training to become great knights. The first volume was released on July 15, 2013. An anime adaptation aired in late 2015. The series has been well-received. The light novels have sold 1.5 million copies in print by February 2017.
Plot
The story is set in an Alternate Earth world where humans called "Blazers" have supernatural abilities. These Blazers can materialize weapons known as "Device" which are made through a person's soul. At, Blazers are selected as representatives for the Seven Star Sword Art Festival, an annual tournament event held by the seven Mage Knight Academies in Japan to determine the strongest Apprentice Knight. Hagun's performance ranking in the festival is falling and academy director Kurono Shinguji is determined to find a solution. Ikki Kurogane is the academy's F-Rank Blazer and is considered "The Worst One" for his low magical abilities, but Stella Vermillion, the princess of the European country Vermillion, is one of the top A-Rank Blazers. On Stella's first day at Hagun, she is arranged to share a room with Ikki as a transfer student of the academy. When Ikki inadvertently discovers Stella half-dressed, he is challenged to duel where the loser has to be obedient to the winner for life. She ends up losing the duel, but they agree to become roommates. The series follows their adventures as they train to qualify as the school's representatives for the festival.
After winning an award for his previous light novel series Danzai no Exceed, Riku Misora decided to write a sport-related novel in the vein of Akamitsu Awamura's Mugen no Linkage.
Media
Print
The original release of the series was in light novel format which was written by Riku Misora, and illustrated by Won. Chivalry of a Failed Knight has been published by SB Creative's GA Bunkoimprint since July 16, 2013. Sol Press acquired the license to the series and released the first three volumes in English on November 16, 2019. The series was adapted into a manga illustrated by Megumu Soramichi, printed in the monthly manga magazineMonthly Shonen Gangan from 2014 to 2017. It was collected in eleven tankōbon volumes. An anthology manga volume illustrated by various artists was published on December 13, 2014.
The light novels have been well received. According to Japanese light novel news website LN News, the series had 1.5 million copies in print by February 2017. Oricon ranked Chivalry of a Failed Knight as the 29th and 17th top-selling light novel series in November 2015 and May 2016, respectively. In addition, its anime adaptation also appeared on top-selling charts. Anime News Network had six editors review the first episode of the anime adaptation: Lynzee Loveridge compared the series to The Asterisk War and while she considered the Chivalry characters to be more likeable, she was critical of the blended in CG artwork and considered Stella's becoming Ikki's servant to be "cringe-worthy"; Nick Creamer expressed criticism towards the episode and called it a "concentrated capsule of hoary clichés"; Hope Chapman called the episode's plot "soul-suckingly lame" and considered Asterisk as a much nicer series; Rebecca Silverman wrote that the first episode's plot was already done by Asterisk and Lance N' Masques and while she praises Stella for some initial character development, she says this gets lost with her "tsundere ranting"; and Zac Bertschy said that the anime is "a total waste of time, but it serves a purpose, however unintentional.". The sixth reviewer, Theron Martin, agreed that "formulaic and generic" wouldn't be wrong ways to describe the story and he also praised Stella's underlying motivations. Martin concluded that while the series has potential, it needs to find "fresher angles" to stand out from other similar storylines. Silverman reviewed the anime's future episodes; she called the final episode "a triumphant one in terms of Ikki's battle against his own insecurities, his place at school, and his relationship with Stella", and would later go on to say that she was "pretty happy with this ending and wouldn't be sad if another season materialized somewhere along the way."
Works cited
"LN" is shortened form for light novel and refers to a volume number of the Chivalry of a Failed Knight light novels.
"Ep." is shortened form for episode and refers to an episode of the Chivalry of a Failed Knight anime.
"Ch." and "Vol." is shortened form for chapter and refers to a chapter number of the Chivalry of a Failed Knight manga.
