== *Knight's & Magic* and the power of honesty

[[*Knight's & Magic* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight%27s_%26_Magic]]
doesn't exactly have a promising premise and plot; in fact, it basically
sounds like a wince inducing piece of wish-fulfillment fanfiction. A
mecha otaku dies and is reincarnated as a kid genius in a world
with mecha where he can use his other-worldly ideas to make the best
mecha ever and be fawned over by all and sundry? Many people would
give such a show a wide berth. But despite this unpromising premise,
[[the actual series was surprisingly good Summer2017Retrospective]],
with an infectiously earnest enthusiasm and a [[a heart-on-sleeve appeal
https://mageinabarrel.com/2017/07/22/knights-magic-and-the-value-of-transparency-in-wish-fulfillment/]].

Originally I was going to write about the power of this earnestness
and embracing your genre, [[as *Thunderbolt Fantasy* did last year
ThunderboltFantasyEmbracingGenre]]. But earnestness by itself doesn't make
a show good in the way that *Knight's & Magic* is; there are plenty of
quite earnest works that are actually kind of terrible, and *Knight's &
Magic* could very easily have gone off the rails itself, falling into
complete absurdity and losing much of its appeal. Instead, I've come
to feel that the crucial ingredient that made the show work is honesty.

*Knight's & Magic* is a show that is honest with itself, and as part of
that it's honest about what it is; it's wish fulfillment and it never
pretends otherwise. *Knight's & Magic* takes things seriously (it's
not a satire or a farce), but it's not a serious, realistic work and
it doesn't try to be one. As part of this it quite deliberately dials
everything up to at least ten, not for comedy but because it's more
fun that way. While earnest fun is the heart of *Knight's & Magic*,
I don't think it would have been possible if the people behind it had
not understood and appreciated what it was, warts and all.

As part of dialing everything up to at least ten and going straight for
fun, *K&M* is completely transparent about how the plot is on Ernesti's
side. This is in a way another side of the show's honesty; the show
is always clear about its fundamental nature, including its ultimate
niceness (at least as far as the good guys are concerned, and this is a
show with very clear good guys).

Another part of this is a surprising honesty about giant robots, because
the final showdown is framed as the romanticism of giant robots versus the
practicality of other options. Ernesti explicitly admits this and declares
that he doesn't care; he's going to defeat Gojass's creation in order to
preserve the world for giant robots because that's what he loves. [[He
wins https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/912144885247090695]], [[of course
https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/912147270862241793]], and it doesn't
feel out of place because the thumb of the plot has been on his side all
along and has never made any pretense about it. *Knight's & Magic* is
as honest about loving giant robots, with their contradictions and all,
as it is about the rest of its nature.

(You can read the ending of the show as partly a nod to this conflict
being a never-ending one.)

(This is part of [[@appropriant
https://twitter.com/appropriant]]'s [[12 Days of Anime for 2017
https://perpetualmorning.wordpress.com/2017/11/14/12-days-of-anime-2017/]].)

=== Sidebar: Ignoring the long shadow of Gundam

Like many giant robot shows, *Knight's & Magic* winds up wanting to
have its cake and eat it too. On the one hand, the most interesting
giant robot fights are generally against other giant robots, and in
situations where there is real tension. On the other hand this means
war, literally; people are fighting each other in those giant robots
and dying in those pretty explosions. The contradiction between war
as a cool thing with awesome giant robots and the brutal, bloody
consequences of war is deeply embedded in the genre [[since at least
Gundam https://twitter.com/cks_anime/status/904540399255130112]].

*Knight's & Magic* basically ignores this. It's not that it pretends
that there aren't people dying in the pretty explosions (it's pretty
explicit that there are, actually). Instead, it pretends that this is no
different than when the characters were fighting giant monsters earlier
in the series. The opponents are different and more challenging and
the fights are cooler because they are giant robot versus giant robot
(or giant robot versus giant flying robo-dragon), but that's it.

(To be fair to *Knight's & Magic*, the show also ignored how there were
plenty of people dying 'heroically' against the giant monsters. It did
have one little plot section about how scary fighting is, but promptly
brushed it off.)

Within the show this pretense works, but that's by authorial fiat.
Outside of the show, well, there's at least a long history of doing
this and the audience is probably used to it. *Knight's & Magic*
is not a show you think deeply about, anyway. I twitch here because
I'm quietly scarred by [[Mobile Suit Gundam 0080: War in the Pocket
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_Suit_Gundam_0080:_War_in_the_Pocket]].