500http://i.ur.com/IANWjIx.png I do not care about spoiling this show whatsoever theres nothing even to spoil. So if you actually care about any Lance N Masques spoilers then take heed. Although I should warn you if youre actually seriously considering watching this show its absolutely awful. Before I even start lets talk about this shows opening. I usually dont even talk about the opening of a show but this is a special case. Normally an opening shows a shows characters or glimpses of scenes to give like a preview of the show itself before it actually begins. For Lances n Masques the opening is the main little girl character awakening in unfamiliar surroundings all alone screaming and crying. But then THEN an angel almost identical to the girl descends from the stars kisses her hand and then starts flying with her in tow. The little girl smiles ecstatically as the angel flies off with her deep into the darkness of the cosmos. They are flying off deep into the darkness and they are as happy as can be as the cheery music continues on. 440http://i.ur.com/4cQUkU8.png Yes. Yes that is the perfect opening Have you heard of a certain saying by a certain German philosopher? Wer mit Ungeheuern kmpft mag zusehn dass er nicht dabei zum Ungeheuer wird. Und wenn du lange in einen Abgrund blickst blickt der Abgrund auch in dich hinein In English of course it translates to: He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster. And if you gaze long into an abyss the abyss also gazes into you. Why am I quoting Nietzsche in an anime review? Because this show is the equivalent of staring into the abyss. Introduction But I digress. This anime is an adaptation of the same titled novelhttp://anilist.co/manga/86302/LanceNMasques by Hideaki Koyasuhttp://anilist.co/staff/103836/HideakiKoyasu. Its about... its about... uhhhh... an organization of knights that for some reason still exist in the modern era I guess? Or wait no its about a cute horse girl character. No hold on its about a little girl whos lonely and for some reason her father doesnt even let her go to school. No wait its about this teenager knight who doesnt want to be a knight but he cant resist his knight instincts and therefore MUST do knightly things. Also he basically has a harem. Its a combination of all of these things actually. Its an action fantasy comedy slice of life amoeba that just scoots around on the floor between all of these things and never really stopping. You dont really want to touch it because its slimy and looks disgusting but it wont stop. Characters Or the ones that matter anyways 200http://i.ur.com/OahaXdW.png Thats pretty much all of them right there. The Knight Teenager Youtarou Hanabusa. His entire character is he runs away from home because his whole life hes been raised/indoctrinated to be a knight. He must rescue all of the girls in distress and always ALWAYS kiss their hand because that is... thats what chivalry is right? Yeah theres nothing more chivalrous than a masked weirdo going around with a gigantic metal lance kissing the hands of young girls. Point is he wants to live a normal life and break out of his White Knight Syndrome as he... as he calls it. The Little Girl Makio Kidouin. A little girl Youtarou just happens to run into as shes about to fall. Youtarou puts on his mask catches her and does the thing where he kisses the girls hand. Immediately shes in love with this weird masked guy she calls Knight Lancer and isnt aware that Youtarou is him when hes unmasked despite how obvious it is. The mask doesnt even cover his entire face they have the same hair color and Youtarou is always carrying a thing wrapped up on his back that is the size of the lance that Knight Lancer uses. Whatever its not important. Point is Makio is forced to live by herself in a mansion by her father and is not even allowed to go to school. Youtarou immediately decides that this is not okay and basically ends up living with her because chivalry I GUESS? His knight friends and etc of course also end up living there too. The other girl isnt important. Shes Youtarous squire I guess. Her parts become lesser as the amount of female characters around Youtarou steadily increases. Theres more female characters that join Youtaros group but I honestly dont remember a single one of them I guess beyond the one they start treating as/who starts acting as Youtarou/Knight Lancer and Makios daughter for some reason ???. 440http://i.ur.com/Q6PFE7t.png The Sadist Maid... actually Ive already forgotten her name it was Yoriko. But shes basically the one who raised and trained Youtarou in the ways of the White Knight and is actually one of the strongest Knights despite just being appearing as a maid. Her Knight name was something like Throne of Blood or something even though theres really no blood in this show and nobody ever dies. Theres also a boy ??? he/she dresses as a maid for some reason in the later episodes character who usually has a dual set of pistols and occasionally pistol whips and kidnaps one of the girl characters. 440http://i.ur.com/47OBqPk.jpg Finally theres Shirohime. As you may have guessed by process of elimination and the fact that shes on there twice she is the most important character of the entire anime. For she is the horse girl character and everyone knows anthropomorphic horse girls are cu 440http://i.ur.com/X6IAceT.png Theres a main plot somewhere Okay the entire show is basically just Blank gets kidnapped and gets saved by blank after they fight blank. but there are arcs and one lasts long enough to where Im capable of calling it probably the closest thing to a main plot this has. Ill list them off real quickly. I could tear into all of them but Im only doing one outside of some key points. Makio Arc episodes 13: Youtaro takes it upon himself to move into Makios house with his squire horse and maid because hes worried about Makio being lonely. Makios father then decides to have her moved overseas and as a result Youtaro decides to successfully kidnap her to prevent her actual father from moving her. Yufeng Arc Episodes 45: Another girl gets kidnapped a girl tries to kill the pistols kid who was the one who kidnapped Makio before Yufeng that was her name starts living with the others and Makio decides that Yufeng is her and Youtaro/Knight Lancers daughter. Hot Springs Arc Episode 6: In response to the folly of having a hot springs episode when the cast is primarily female they make the one male character THE PROTAGONIST crossdress as a maid. Isnt he a knight? I cant recall any legendary knights of yore being made to crossdress. 440http://i.ur.com/9ZKur9d.png Youtaro Gets Kidnapped Arc Episode 710: I would argue that this is the closest to an actual... arc this show gets. Its also probably the worst part of this show. And thus its the one Ill be tearing into momentarily. African Kights/Youtaros Father Arc Episode 1112: The show should have just ended with episode ten. Instead no lets introduce a new rival faction of knights and oh wait we only have two episodes left WE STILL HAVE TO GET YOUTAROS FATHER IN THERE TOO. Lets have him wipe out the entirety of the African Knights within seconds so he can have the whole last episode to himself. 440http://i.ur.com/um6m6Mw.png 440http://i.ur.com/AhwqaCi.png Even when people do die in this universe their corpses just become colorful balls of light. No graves needed. The Worst and Longest Arc Here comes the one and only major spoiler of note watch out Following the hot springs episode a bunch of other knights show up and beat up and subsequently kidnap Youtarou. Oh no the knight has been kidnapped Now its up to the female characters to rescue the knight Also I thought they kidnapped him because he actually broke free and escaped the knight island and there was like some sort of law in their knight organization like: Once a white knight always a white knight. Those that break free of the indoctrination put into place since childhood shall be rounded up and executed. Things took a darker turn however when it was revealed the entire purpose of kidnapping him was that the Knight Chief wanted Youtarou... ...Sexually. Excuse me? WHAT? YOUTAROU ALMOST GETS RAPED BY AN ELDERLY MUSCULAR BUFF WOMAN KNIGHT IN THE BATH SCENE GONE SEXUAL 2015 ANIME PRANKS. 440http://i.ur.com/z7pboS0.png 440http://i.ur.com/U0tr4PQ.png 440http://i.ur.com/8AClsUZ.png 440http://i.ur.com/aKIw53E.png I should clarify if it wasnt clear. NO. NOTHING ABOUT THIS IS OKAY. I WAS ALREADY THINKING THAT THIS KNIGHT ORGANIZATION WAS MESSED UP FROM THE GET GO. SHE IS THE LEADER OF THESE KNIGHTS SHE WAS THE ONE WHO MADE YOUTAROUS STUPID MASK THING BACK WHEN HE WAS A KID. THE REST OF THIS ARC IS JUST THE FEMALE CHARACTERS PUTTING ON THEIR OWN KNIGHT MASK THINGS AND DOING GENERIC BATTLES WITH THE OTHER KNIGHTS AND I WOULDNT EVEN HAVE A SECTION DEDICATED TO THIS ARC IF NOT FOR THIS. THERE IS NO OTHER REASON SPECIFIED OR EXPLAINED WHY THEY KIDNAP YOUTAROU OTHER THAN THE KNIGHT CHIEF WANTS HIM. THE KNIGHTS SERVING HER ARE GETTING INTO FIGHTS TO THE DEATH again nobody dies in this show AND THIS IS HER REASON FOR STARTING ALL OF THIS CHAOS. NOT I WANT YOUTAROU TO COME BACK TO THE ISLAND AND GO BACK TO BEING A KNIGHT AGAIN BECAUSE HE ESCAPED BEFORE BUT BECAUSE OF THIS. ISNT THAT JUST A GENERIC ANIME ABOUT KNIGHTS? NOPE APPARENTLY NOT. HOLY SHIT. Also later at the end of this arc: Im promoting you to Arch Knight because I did almost rape you. I was honestly convinced that this show couldnt get any worse and then they threw that at me. Conclusion This was... one of the most grating and excruciating things Ive watched in a long while. I underestimated this show. I thought it was going to be bad I figured it was going to be bad but holy hell. I have stared into the abyss and I have somehow narrowly escaped as the creatures in the darkness tried to drag me down with them. What score do I give it? I dont know. A 5 out of a 100 sounds good. I will say this. I hate this show but an interestingly/horribly bad anime is better in my opinion than a bad anime that is also boring. I dont know where I was going with that but Im sure theres a point there somewhere. 500http://i.ur.com/5Tee2tA.png