So, Fantasy Mecha is a thing. It’s certainly less popular than SF or Cyberpunk Mecha, but it is at least an established mash-up. Battle School also has its own established place, one that I’ve talked about a good deal. And, of course, into any other genre a little harem may fall. Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle is the shameless mash-up of all of this, a melting pot of mediocrity onto which light must, at this juncture, be shone.
Like so many Harem/Action affairs, the show is largely arranged into arcs, each of which focuses on the relationship between the main character and one of the girls in his life. Often, this means a new girl introduced for the arc, but sometimes an older character will step up to play Heroine. All the old ones stick around, albeit in reduced roles, pushing the show ever more into a chaos of romantic antics even as it attempts to have a plot.
This time, our set up is the fantasy kingdom of Arcadia, where we meet our main character, Lux, prince of a disgraced royal house who (along with his other surviving relations) now needs to serve the nation and its notables in order to pay reparations for what his evil family did before they were overthrown in a coup that involved a mysterious figure strongly implied to be either Lux or his absent elder brother. The New Kingdom isn’t totally stable, having enemies both within and without, but it seems like just about everyone with a moral compass, including the punished Lux, regards it as a much better arrangement than what came before.
Lux is busy doing a rooftop run when he manages to crash through and land in a bath with the (disrobed) princess of the New Kingdom and first girl of the Harem, Lisha. She’s particularly horrified that he manages to see a strange mark on her lower abdomen, and ends up challenging him to a duel. Yeah, we’ve all seen this one before. Hundred? Unbreakable Machine Doll? Infinite Stratos? Why does every day 1 at Battle School have to have a flipping duel between the main character and the blonde girl of the starting harem?
Well, it does what it’s supposed to do and gets us our initial action. We see that Lux is pretty good using his mecha (called a Drag-ride, with a dragon shape to it), and of course the duel is interrupted by something else, as an unknown figure uses a horn flute to call up one of the setting’s pointless monsters, called an Abyss, that the two need to work together to fight.
One interesting note here is that Lux has two mechas (inert form: swords, so he can just carry that around), the one he uses and an ominous black one he refuses to pull out, probably because it’s the one that was seen doing big empire-stomping things with an unknown pilot back in the rebellion’s final day. The show is not exactly subtle about this, despite not literally telling us at first.
Another note you could call interesting if you were feeling generous is that Lux has a status as “the weakest undefeated” – that is, he’s regarded as an extremely weak pilot, and yet has never lost. While there are some reasons given as to why he might want the public perception of his ability to be not in line with the truth (mostly to do with his awkward status as deposed royalty being less awkward if he seems too weak to be a threat), there is no real good reason why this was established or why it sticks, or even why he can’t job a little if he really wants to hide his ability. In Chivalry of a Failed Knight, there was a reason the character was “weak” or even “the weakest” and yet was able to pull out wins against much more highly rated opponents – his assessment was on metrics specifically designed by his jerk family to exclude and discriminate against him despite his skill and hard work. It’s critical to the plot that he’s in that bad position, and it means something for him to reach above it. In Unbreakable Machine Doll, the main character starts off second-to-last in skills assessments, mostly because he is a relatively unskilled person, having only managed a crash course in basic control before tearing off for his revenge, meaning he has a lot of room to still grow and especially grow into using Yaya, who is an overpowered cheat item for actual combat and who also compensates somewhat for his lack of skill. So you believe both that he would test poorly and that he would meet success despite it.
In Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle, there’s either no reason for Lux to be regarded as particularly pathetic, no reason for him to be undefeated when clearly there can be matches without big things on the line, or both. To this, I have to go back to the “Lazy Harem” formula I tried to noodle out while reviewing Yuuna and the Haunted Hot Springs. This is the entry where the main character must somehow be a loser (so that not-super viewers can insert themselves as him) yet must also be secretly amazing (So that you can feel awesome, like he’s someone you’d want to be.) It’s fairly transparent and a little grating here because it’s so artificial.
So, with that much said, I suppose it’s time to talk about some of these girls.
We have Lisha of course. She’s the Petite One, Tsundere, and First Girl of the series, with all rights and tropes that those status markers entail. If you’ve watched a lot of anime, you can probably put together a fairly comprehensive picture of her from that, she’s standard enough. If not, she’s somewhat shrill, can be easily provoked to jealousy despite not admitting she has a crush on the lead, tends to envy the more ample chests of other girls, and is overall one of the most driven by romance because she has the most time on screen to build it.
Philuffy (aka “Phi”) is the other member of the Harem Starting Pack. She’s The Sleepy/Flat Affect Girl, The Childhood Friend, and The Busty One, in approximately that order. Again, if you have enough experience with media, you can probably construct most of her scenes from this. She has a very low-energy way of talking and doing most things and something approaching a pre-existing claim on Lux by virtue of their shared history. Now, I love Childhood Friend characters done well, but in some ways that makes me even less charitable towards ones that are done poorly, and Phi… is about average competence. There are points, especially later on when she gets an arc of her own, that they actually work in something resembling a bond between her and Lux that indicates they have a different relationship than his typical harem protagonist doormat behavior towards all the girls
After the duel, Lisha is cool (and besotted) with Lux. She tells him about the brand on her on the condition he keep it secret, the symbol apparently being the crest of Lux’s old family, which was seared onto Lisha when she was a captive during the rebellion and her family refused to surrender for her sake (probably the correct choice). Lux’s relatives were not good people. He’s also made an official student of the “Mecha-using badasses” academy, the headmaster of which is Phi’s older sister. However, there’s also still the issue of the fact that the Abyss that broke up the duel was summoned.
Lisha ends up chasing down another Abyss later which brings her into contact with the summoner, a loyalist of the Old Kingdom who gives her some psychological trauma. Lux shows up and pulls out the black sword, which of course reveals to Lisha that he was the “hero” who broke the imperial armies back during the rebellion, just like he mops up the Loyalist leader and all his buddies and summoned Abyss. This means that the secret-keeping between him and Lisha is now mutual, and that they’ve acquired a plot trinket in the form of the horn used to call and command Abyss.
If you’re looking forward to seeing how the relationship between Lisha and Lux develops now that they have this complex web of secrets and politics both binding them and possibly keeping them “in their place”… might I recommend watching Chivalry of a Failed Knight? Because this isn’t the kind of show that follows up. Lisha’s arc is done here, so she’s relegated to secondary character status if not for the entire rest of the show than at least for most of it.
The next arc introduces a new girl, Krulcifer. Krulcifer is the Cool Beauty, the Teasing One, and the Genius. She’s somewhat less easy to construct from just that and general genre knowledge than the other girls, so I’m fairly inclined to let her slide, especially since her scheming interest plays pretty well off Lux’s typical doormat behavior. She wins a silly contest to acquire Lux’s services for a week in a sequence very similar to the crown challenge from Season 2 Infinite Stratos by tricking Lux.
During that time, while Krulcifer plays much of her cards close to her chest so to speak, she does give Lux the main task of pretending to be her boyfriend. Why? Because she has an arranged fiancee and would rather not, so she’d like him to believe that she’s found someone else when he comes calling. This works pretty well, though he (of course) challenges Lux to a duel.
Before the duel’s scheduled time and place, though, all involved (and Lux’s other friends) are called to investigate a mysterious ruin of the ancients tied to the Abyss summoning horn, ultra-powerful Abyss called Ragnarok, and Krulcifer’s mysterious past. The fiancee is generally a jerk through here, and Lux ends up semi-trapped alone with Krulcifer on an exploration of the depths of the ruins.
Here, we learn Krulcifer’s big secret: she’s adopted. Specifically, she’s not even, strictly speaking, a natural human, but rather some sort of homunculus child produced by the Ruins, and possibly the last of her kind at that, given the state that the Ruins depths are in. Lux accepts her as a person despite this, leading to some very legitimate bonding (forgive me if this seems like a bigger deal than Lisha’s embarrassing brand) before they’re pulled out. Lux covers for her, saying that the horn worked to unlock the depths when really it was Krulcifer’s presence.
In the following days, now respecting Lux and not wanting to trouble him, Krulcifer decides to fight her own battles, and takes the duel with her fiancee herself. It doesn’t go so well, mostly because his mecha has the power of stealing other mecha powers, which means Krulcifer’s normal abilities are turned against her. Lux arrives late in full black hero mode to save her and trash her fiancee’s mech, learning in the process that he’s a next level scumbag in league with real villains, which means that he’s both not engaged to Krulcifer any more and also is summarily arrested. He’ll later be murdered by other members of the conspiracy in a rather gruesome fashion, but that’s a plot hook for next time.
In the wake of this, Krulcifer, in on Lux’s status and out a fiancee, brings up that she’s put in all the work with her (adoptive) parents and such so that now Lux is her fiancee.
This is actually an interesting moment, despite being arguably a brief comedy bit, because there are a few ways you could read it and the interactions around it.
On one hand, Lux doesn’t seem entirely thrilled with the arrangement. On the other hand, he never does actually say no, or indicate in anyway that he doesn’t want it, going more with a totally noncommittal surprise for his reaction. You could say that this is a cop out to keep him available while letting Krulcifer do her bit, but there’s also an in-character read as well. Lux is, in character and in other scenarios as well, made out to be something of an extreme doormat. That’s not just lazy generic harem writing, it is legit part of his character. So when Krulcifer takes the lead and makes the arrangements? You could say she’s taking advantage, but on the other hand maybe that’s what he needs.
Krulcifer also manages to get two good on-screen kisses out of the scene, and even if she’s the one doing the kissing and Lux the one passively being kissed both times, only Lisha, tsundere that she is, seems to actually protest.
It’s also worth noting that while Krulcifer’s arrangement here isn’t given the weight you’d expect from a noble betrothal in fantasyland, it’s also not played off as excessive or inappropriate like Arin in Trinity Seven calling herself Arata’s wife as soon as they meet, but rather is just treated as… a thing. I guess an arrangement made so quickly and sloppily would be fairly easy to break off if Lux hit on another decision, but in social situations he’s about as determined and decisive as a chihuahua with anxiety, so I don’t really see all that much getting in Krulcifer’s way from here, even if she does vanish into the relative background like Lisha now that her arc is done.
Next up is Celes. She plays the “uppity rich girl” pretty well, but at least gets some other development. However, her arc is really hampered by the fact that it starts out with the most contrived bull liar scenario that it could run with. You’ve probably already guessed it – Lux ends up disguised as a girl (the first time because he’s trying to act as bait to catch a prowler) and interacts with Celes as a girl rather than himself, building up a fake identity. This is exacerbated by the fact that Celes has a reputation for hating men, and certainly seems to hate the guts of Lux (Male) when she encounters him, trying to have him kicked out of the academy.
The attempt to do the kicking is put on hold both for more training to counter the awakening Ragnarok entities and for more, to put it generously, wacky hijinx with Lux disguised as a girl making real good friends with Celes. At least this manages to get the information that she has nothing against men (having received that reputation via misunderstanding), and so her hostility to Lux must be based in something else, the truth turning out to be that she was a student of Lux’s grandfather (on his less-royal side), feels responsible for his death, and wants to put Lux out of harm’s way as a partial atonement for that.
The inevitable Celes/Lux duel is, like pretty much every other duel in this show, interrupted by the arrival of an Abyss, this time one of the Ragnarok. Celes actually manages to take it down, but the bad guys once again use one of those horn flutes, this time to resurrect and further empower the beast. One of Celes’s friends also turns traitor, meaning that the day, of course, must be saved by Lux. He reveals the whole crossdressing thing to Celes in the process (less awkward than it could be, and she quite naturally forgives him) and reduces the thing to its core, which is spirited away by the traitor. The lead villain makes some cryptic remarks before buggering off, and Celes forgives Lux, probably falls in love with him in the same breath, and accepts his continued presence in the school, ending her arc and most of her relevance.
The next arc is for Phi, who I’ve already introduced. Since they’ve already done some work building her character, we also spend more time doing things that actually resemble a main plot. Namely, outside some odd and possibly ominous flashbacks to Lux and Phi’s childhood, the team investigates another set of ruins. They find a little robot girl there, who acknowledges Krulcifer and spills as much of the beans as she has about the ruin being mostly broken and on alert, spawning Abyss.
Phi seems particularly bothered by this and ends up bolting from the Ruins with Lux in tow. They arrive at the weird old building on top of the island that’s been vaguely hinted to be important for an arc and a half now, and while there Lux manages to remember that when they were young, Phi was tortured and used as an experiment subject at this site. Disturbing. By the time he catches up with her, she’s not doing well, to the tune of glowing red eyes and trying to choke him to death.
This all seems to be due to complicated circumstances of Phi’s existence, the lot of which ultimately boil down to her having some sort of Abyss seed inside her that both renders her vulnerable to mind control and might kill her. One of the villains attempts to more or less hold her hostage to force Lux to delve deeper into the ruins. At first this seems to work out, but then Team Hero gets word that the real way to save Phi would be to destroy the local Ragnarok and the horn flute that was used to control her.
They sort of do both, going along with the evil plan but turning on the villain right as she turns on them, shattering her horn, and putting down the revived Ragnarok for good in the process, which leaves Phi… at least stable, if not all the way better.
The next arc is the final one, and is more plot-and-action heavy still. It also doesn’t exactly have a proper heroine, acting half as an arc for a new girl and half as a second arc for Lisha, bringing her back around here at the end.
The arc begins with a big event (a festival for the New Kingdom) in the works, which has Lisha busy because she’s actually, you know, a person of note. Alongside this, a powerful mecha-using assassin from the old empire has escaped prison and it’s believed that Lux would be her primary target, since he kind of tore down the old empire personally (even though technically only a few people know that, the number includes the villains).
As you may have guessed when I mentioned the assassin as “her”, she’s actually the new girl for the arc. She shows up, and declares that Lux is her new master, for whom she’d do absolutely anything. She seems allergic to sticking around or explaining herself, though, in part because her sympathies still seem to lie with the Imperial side of things (she sees Lux as the powerful heir to empire, who could restore it with his own hands if he wanted to), and partly because, well, she’s a wanted criminal and the other girls have this reasonable habit of attacking her on sight. She’s not too fond of them either; she may be quite familiar with Lux, but the others, particularly Lisha, are enemies to her.
At the same time as this is going on, the New Kingdom noble council decides to antagonize Lux for the reason that I guess they’re supposed to be jerks now, insisting he partake in dangerous missions to bait out large numbers of Abyss and also win the mecha tournament to be forgiven for what trumped up charges they have. It’s clear that the shadowy powers that be know who he really is and what he did, but they still seem determined to do their damnedest to get him killed like we’re in 86. Of course, this show isn’t a fraction as bleak as that one, but Lux does spend most of this last arc worn pretty ragged, which I suppose is a good thing from a narrative perspective since we’ve proved by now he can trash anything else in the setting when he’s at his full potential.
In the show’s determination to throw extra plot our way, we also hear from Lisha that she wants Lux to be her personal sworn knight, a choice she’s set to announce at her big speech… only for the assassin to interfer with one of Lisha’s tournament bouts and force her mech to attack the audience. Since the legal system in the New Kingdom seems to be “Screw you, main characters”, Lisha being literal royalty and not having actually hurt anyone when her guns pointed at the crowd affords her no protection, and she’s put under a fairly nasty arrest.
Of course, this is when the villains launch their coup attempt on the outside with armies, swarms of Abyss, and even a city-sized titan monster. It makes for a good set piece battle. As the crisis hits, Lisha is is faced with being stripped and probably assaulted in prison, but Lux springs her in time and manages to get her morale in fighting shape again. With that, everybody gets to play at contributing against the massive uprising, the most interesting part of which is Lux versus the assassin, who has taken it very badly that he has no intent of putting the empire back in place. He basically talks her into submission, explaining his motive for destroying the old empire being that she wanted to rid it of its corruption, while getting her backstory as a foreign princess who bent the knee to the old empire only to be betrayed by her own people. The exchange, along with Lux’s victory in conventional fighting, convinces her to properly align with him, and she helps take down the giant monstrosity.
In the aftermath, all is apparently forgiven for Lux and Lisha… and the assassin for that matter, as things seem to be going forward like there was never any trouble. Lisha gives her big festival speech including introducing Lux as her personal knight, and we go out with the girls demanding that Lux let them know who he likes and Lux, perhaps rightly, fleeing the scene rather than answering five jealous and powerful young ladies. If he even would have an answer.
In the grand scheme of things, Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle isn’t the worst thing. Some of the characters are notably fun, and it has more actual plot than, say, Infinite Stratos. In fact, I think I would have preferred IS if it had more of Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle’s balance.
That said, I can’t really say it’s a good show either. Krulcifer is at least a little fun, and Phi has a couple good serious moments, but Lisha is a generic light Tsundere and Celes is something of an annoying latecomer. The arcs are pretty scattered as well. Most had some alright moments, but few of them were solid the whole way through.
In that light, it’s actually a quite weak show. Either the girls or the story could have carried it, but they’re both somewhat lacking. If you’re looking for a fantasy adventure sort of show, it doesn’t have the weight or pathos it needs, at most reaching for that with Phi’s story. If you’re looking for a battle harem, this one skews bland. And if you’re looking for a Mecha show that actually uses the Mecha concept as more than window dressing, keep looking.
Undefeated Bahamut Chronicle is harmless, but it’s also dry, formulaic, and not really worth the time or energy. Its final grade is a C, but I will have it known that this is absolutely the kind of C where you’re missing nothing if you just skip it.