Without correcting for overall quality or removing material from the context of its genre, I can safely say that, in some ways, Knights & Magic is the most fascinating fantasy isekai show I’ve seen. This is not because of any sort of deep story or well-rounded character like Rising of the Shield Hero nor clever comedy and a deconstruction of the normal expectations like KonoSuba. Rather, it’s because this show is a broad-scale biopic of a historical figure in a fantasy universe that wears the skin of a fantasy isekai while telling its story in a completely different way. Is it a good thing? That remains to be seen, but it is a thing worth remarking on, so here we are.
The show begins in the most stereotypical fantasy isekai way, with a random nobody (in this case a skilled programmer and mecha otaku salaryman) getting hit by a vehicle and killed. It diverges somewhat (though not entirely) at once, though, as rather than being immediately transported to a fantasy universe we instead follow what we can presume to be his next life, starting when the boy, in this reality called Ernesti Echevalier, first encounters a Silhouette Knight (magic mecha) and in so doing recovers some interest and skill from his past life, leaving him both utterly fascinated with robots and aware of technical details that are to an extent both beyond his years and beyond his world’s functional tech level.
Over the years that follow, Ernesti throws himself into training, advancing especially quickly in the practice of magic (which has distinct similarities to computer programming and thus is advantaged with the isekai knowledge transfer). He makes friends with a pair of twins, Adeltrud (Addy) and Archid (Kid) Walter. The three of them end up enrolling in school to become proper Knights/Mecha Pilots, and while there also befriend a young dwarf, Batson, who in typical “dwarves are all about forge work” fashion goes on to help Ernesti realize the practical side of his visions, starting in his school days with a new style of magic-casting rod modeled after earthly guns. As more years pass and everybody moves up in grades, we come to our first major incident, a field trip to the wildlands where gigantic “demon beasts” that Mechas are used to fight against tend to appear. The exact area should be safe, but trouble has a way of finding main characters.
And this is about where you should notice what the show is up to. Most of it is significantly more contained than the first episode here (it essentially has to be) but the true nature of Knights & Magic is revealed in these time skips. We are less concerned with any narrative that Ernesti might be involved in than we are with his life and his inventions. The show doesn’t go all the way and show us a full life, ending after a major incident while our leads are still young and starting out, but we do still skip forward to the next interesting vignette with what passes for antagonists and plot taking a back seat to the wonder of the next invention or upgrade to be rolled out. It very much is an engineer’s story more than a hero’s story, and the present narrator rather supports that broad perspective. So, while Knights & Magic may have some elements that resemble standard plots, it can’t be said that it’s really about them.
The trouble that comes to the field trip is a truly gigantic Demon Beast, which takes the entirety of episode 2 to introduce and defeat. The combat against the monster is actually surprisingly well done, with a high attention to detail in the animation and the action. While this fight is certainly one of the most tense and effective in the show, if not the most (with only a couple at the very end in competition), the style and focus is somewhat emblematic of how the show handles things. We’re heavily concerned, during the battle, not as much with if Ernesti’s plan can work, but whether or not his ambitions will outstrip the ability of the machine he’s riding in to execute that vision. Metal fatigue and mechanical limiters are paramount, and that sort of idea continues on in the show long after the mountain-sized turtle that doesn’t really connect to much of anything else is dead and gone. Every time Ernesti makes some new radical modification to mecha tech, there is typically a bug or two that he has to work out that becomes apparent during the build or after the prototype gets a field test. Of course Ernesti and his next-gen inventions are going to win if not every encounter they’re involved in than at least the most critical, but the lessons learned even from victory drive the next build and test pilot phase. In short, it’s kind of what Total Eclipse should have been in its first arc, except this is more or less the whole show.
This starts to be shown off more in the next episode. After the monarch takes note of the fact that he has a prodigy on his hands, he offers Ernesti a reward, for which Ernesti requests access to the trade secrets that go into the creation of mecha core reactors, just so he can build his own personal super robot from scratch. The king’s advisors insist that this can’t be granted lightly, and thus Ernesti is tasked with proving his design cred by submitting something impressive with the tools and knowledge he (and a competent team working for him) already have.
Ernesti hits on increasing the arcane blaster loadout and, based on the damage done to the mech he controlled to fight the beast before, strengthening the “muscle” with a woven strand type of the internal material in place of a certain percent. The new model doesn’t win its first mock battle (it runs out of gas because the power draw is too high) but it does perform well enough to be considered a success and move forward. A couple of Ernesti’s model are produced, and he has to face some politics around them before he can get back to improving their performance. This sees the existing individuals brought out to a fort controlled by a rather displeased nobleman, who changes his tune somewhat when it turns out that Ernesti really does just want to build robots, and not profiteer off of them. Before all can be well that ends well, some foreign mercenaries attack, and manage to hijack and make off with one of the prototypes, taking it to parts that will remain unknown until the last arc.
We skip ahead just a little to another design competition, this one pitting Ernesti against the top orthodox lab. The stakes are lower, since Ernesti’s skill has already been accepted (and his team dubbed the Order of the Silver Phoenix, with official recognition for their work), but he wants to show off big time, as does the elder engineer with his pride on the line. The lab is given one of Ernesti’s prototypes, and creates a unit of somewhat down-scaled versions with more manageable power draw while Ernesti moves to the next big thing, a cavalry-type mecha shaped like a centaur that takes much of what he’s learned so far and applies it in new ways.
This surprisingly ends in a draw, though one that all involved find to be a satisfactory result, with even the old curmudgeon from the main lab being brought around to care more about the beauty of invention rather than winning or losing. The next project, after another significant time skip, is producing personal ace custom models for the old king (who has passed the formal rulership to his son) and his impetuous grandson. Ernesti makes two of a kind, and we get to see them in action when the royals decide to have a friendly bout over which one gets the shiny gold one.
This, at last, has all involved (including Ernesti) satisfied that it’s time for him to learn the secrets of the reactor. After taking on another titanic beast on the way there, Ernesti gets to visit with the secret elf village where the cores of defeated beasts (or magic stones like them) can be used to fashion magic reactors. Ernesti spends a time skip studying hard, both learning the technique and crafting the high-quality cores of the two giant beasts he’s slain into the double reactor for, at long last, his personal custom mech.
Now that Ernesti has completed his main goal, though, the show needs a new reason to keep going. It finds that in a war plot that takes up the latter part of the show and serves as the capstone to Ernesti’s pursuit of robotics as depicted by the show’s run. You’d think that would mean the show would switch to more traditional storytelling, in order to get us invested in the war arc and allow us to see the cool mechas in full action. You’d be partially right… the show does let us see the mechas in action.
The primary belligerents in the war are the nation that stole one of Ernesti’s prototypes earlier (which has allowed them to mass-produce their own knockoffs) and… not Ernesti’s home country, actually. They attack a minor neighbor of theirs. However, Ernesti’s home country gets drawn into conflict as the royals of the attacked nation are relatives of the royals Ernesti is familiar with (specifically, the aunt of the princess of the attacked nation is the sister of Ernesti’s king), which sees a rescue mission drawn up and enacted. All goes well, extracting the notables from the lost capitol to the corner of their nation that remains unoccupied. This, and the confirmation that the attackers are using stolen tech, results in Ernesti’s homeland being drawn in to the conflict on the side of the defenders.
Through this, we get a grudge match with the special forces group that stole the prototype way back at the start, a budding romance between Archid and the Princess (later Queen as she goes ahead and takes up the crown once she secures the support of her remaining people), and more importantly than that the introduction of the only character to be a proper rival for Ernesti, a scientist named Oratio who works for the attackers. Oratio is responsible for the one distinct edge the attackers have that’s not stolen from Ernesti: flying ships, which are used as heavy troop transports and strategic bombers.
As the war progresses, Oratio and Ernesti repeatedly clash (though largely indirectly, as Oratio is not as gung-ho about riding into battle as Ernesti), pitting Oratio’s airships against Ernesti’s mechas. Technically there’s a whole war going on, but it comes off as a contest between a pair of geniuses more than anything else. This culminates with the reveal of Oratio’s ultimate weapon (for now), a giant flying battleship with city-destroying firepower, shaped like a dragon. To Ernesti, this battleship is the ultimate enemy, as it goes against his sense of aesthetics and threatens to end the era of the robots he loves. Ernesti and all his friends come together to down the battleship, and though it’s a bitter (and really well done) fight, manage to both destroy the vessel and keep the young queen alive despite everything gunning for her.
In the epilogue, Ernesti still only has eyes for robots, Addy still only has eyes for him, Kid is too honorable to pursue literal royalty right now (though the way everyone acts about the two of them, that will probably work out), and Oratio slinks off to kick off the Age of Airships elsewhere by selling his technology for trade and transport to the highest bidder, as the final narration lets us know.
Yeah, it’s kind of a weird note to go out on. Oratio is the closest thing the show has to a villain, in that he’s directly opposed to our main character on fundamental levels, and isn’t just easily won over by Ernesti’s love of robots. Sure, there are the military leaders of the rival nation, and plenty of also-rans along the way, but none of those conflicts are ones in which Ernesti got invested for their own sake, and you can probably tell from how little the other characters merited mention in a quick plot summary how focused the show is, overall, on Ernesti’s experience rather than the fantasy dramas going on around him. So, in a sense, the “adventure continues” note is that the villain wins? Well, not exactly. For all that Oratio is the closest thing the show has to a villain, he really is more of a rival. Ernesti believes in the beauty of humanoid robots, Oratio believes in the awe-inspiring might of flying battleships, so they both want to have their invention win and prove its worth. In the end, Ernesti defends the honor of robots, but you know airships are still pretty cool too and even if the city-razing dragon battleship is considered a flop they have a bunch of other applications.
And, in a sense, it fits with the Faux-historical “Docu-drama” theme and feel that the show as a whole has to suggest how history continues from here, rather than leaving us with an impression of stasis in Ernesti’s ideal. He gets a moral and philosophical win, and the flow of time carries on.
This show is, as a whole, a very odd one to attempt to comment on. How are the characters? Well, they’re pretty thinly sketched. Even Ernesti isn’t incredibly well studied, because we’re more interested in his deeds than in his inner world. How he thinks and feels does come up, as it fuels his offense at Oratio and underscores his drive to invent, but I can’t say he has the deep focus that would really mark a great character. How’s the story? It’s kind of nothing. There’s a fantasy war epic going on along the side, but we’re interested and invested in the exploits of inventors and test pilots more than anything, not in the politics of the world except for how they touch on Ernesti’s life. The story is perfectly serviceable, but it is very thin.
The action, though, is quite good. The focus is often nonstandard, because many of the action scenes are mock battles rather than life-and-death struggles, but there’s an intricacy in both the ideas and the visuals that really does help carry the show. Because we’re focused on the performance, specifications, quirks, and attributes of the machines involved, all these things need to come up and be used when it actually comes time to fight. We get to see, for heroes and their opponents alike, what the failings, weaknesses, and blind spots are in any design, and how technical or tactical countermeasures can attempt to account for or exploit such faults in the other side. Even Ernesti’s ultimate personal ace custom isn’t immune: it flies with jet engines and Oratio, after seeing this in action, thinks to use clouds of chaff to choke the air intakes, forcing the next encounter between his inventions and Ernesti to end in a draw. It’s a trick that only works once before Ernesti himself adapts and overcomes, but it’s a good one.
But at the same time, it would be a bit weird and disingenuous to call Knights & Magic an action show. It certainly has that in its genre DNA, but I would argue that despite being a strong element it’s not really a dominant one. Which really brings us back to the “historical” aspect.
I’ve never seen another show quite like this, that goes for quite the same feel and focus. Even reaching outside of the fantasy isekai group or even the anime sphere, it’s hard to find something else that quite moves like this. I’ve repeatedly said that the interest in the show is not in this, that, or the other thing. It’s not in the characters, it’s not in the war, it’s not in the threat of Demon Beasts, it’s not even in the legitimately good action. But despite that, the show is interesting, holding attention, focus, and investment. It’s half intricate details and half broad strokes of worldbuilding. The closest thing I can think of is Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet, and how that show liked to concern itself with the details of daily life and the intricate existence of the Gargantia fleet… but even that show had a better defined central arc and genre core; it was an optimistic scifi social drama with strong elements of the “fish out of water” story. Knights & Magic defies such easy classification. I enjoyed it, but even with that, telling what it is succinctly relies on categorization, and it doesn’t like being confined to familiar categories. I guess I could also say that this is essentially close to what I wanted Children of the Whales to be, but that’s a whole different story.
What it doesn’t defy is grading. Knights & Magic gets a C+. It’s warm, inviting, and sometimes fascinating, but it probably won’t really move you. It’s very lighthearted, often to the point of coming off as pure wish-fulfillment fantasy, saved in general by its general intelligence. If it had the time to really delve into the lives of the characters (or historical figures, if you prefer) that it follows, it might have been something grander, but that would have taken a much longer run time that might have seen the meandering nature of the story sour. As it is, it doesn’t overstay its welcome at least. If you’re up for something that’s quite different despite technically inhabiting a saturated and formulaic genre, I’d absolutely recommend giving Knights & Magic a watch. Just don’t expect it to be something its not.