Le Chevalier D'Eon
Psalm of Vengance
by Pedro Rodriguez
One morning in the year 1742, a coffin was found floating along the river Seine. The people of Paris pulled it into the docks, and as the sun began to rise in the East, they found the body of a woman inside. Her name was Lia de Beaumont. Enter D'Eon her brother. As a member of the secret police, and under the orders of the king, he has been assigned to find the ones responsible for her death. The investigation begins with the disappearance of several women off the street of Paris, but what starts as simple human trading, ends up with a conspiracy between a Russian smuggler, a religious cult, and a member of the royal family, the Duc d'Orléans. The case does not end there, when D'Eon finds all but one of his fellow officers killed off. When he returns to his quarters he also finds his maid killed off, and a message to hand over documents connected to the case. When he arrives at the meeting place, he finds the last of the secret police with gray skin and yellow iris. He attacks D'Eon under some kind of trance. Losing consciousness, strange writing begins to appear on his sword in red, and his sister's voice can be heard. The young knight slowly rises with an angry scowl. This time he is in the form of his sister.
Helping your "It's cultural" alibi, "Le Chevalier D'Eon" is an action drama that involves historical figures during the reign of King Louis XV. As it turns out, D'Eon de Beaumont was an actual spy for King Louis XV who cross dressed half of his life. Kudos is also in order for the striking resemblance between the royal figureheads in the series, and their real life portraits. There are two recurring themes that drive the story forward; they are duty and vengeance. Even though D'Eon wants to find the ones responsible for his sisters murder, he also shares a great passion behind the ideals that are France. Lia also shared that sense of duty while she was alive, but as a spirit possessing her brother, she is bent on getting even with the ones that killed her.
The first thing that you may notice is the quality of the animation. Keeping in the tradition of a "Signature Series", the animation stands head and shoulders above your average TV series. There is just something about the running waters of Seine, or D'Eon's race towards Paris that just pulls you in. The music also plays a big role in setting the mood. This is one of the few titles where both the English and Japanese Audio Tracks are of 5.1 Dolby Digital quality.
In the first episode, much of the foundation for the story is based on the investigation; this required having the secret police go through a lot of paper work. While these scenes do play a major role in explaining what is going on, this can be considered a drawback for those that were hoping for more action. The good news is that after the first episode, the action does pick up to what you'd expect from this kind of series. The show also lost a few points when they presented the practically the entire second episode during the first episode credits, this is even before the previews for the second episode. The good news the credits for every episode afterwards features beautifully done portraits of the main cast.
ADV did not hold back in any shape or form when it came to releasing this title. The DVD jewel case is enclosed in a second box, that is embedded in a beautiful gold floral design. There is also a small booklet in the jewel case that shows extensive detail on some of the characters, and how they all relate to each other. In the back of the booklet is a brief story board included in the last pages and how it relates to the English script. I was rather surprised that they didn't give everyone a French accent, but I was even more surprised by the cursing in the first audio commentary (emphasis on surprised). Nevertheless I was not disapointed in their performance, as they present such great ambiance.
If you were looking for a hack and slash or a joke a minute comedy you might want to move on, but if you're looking for something that is more sophisticated than your average anime, then you might want to give this one a go. While the plot can seem a bit dry at times, the title does hold promise.
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