Love the music, love the story, love the animation. If you haven’t yet checked out the cult hit of the year, pick up Le Chevalier D’Eon now. Part historical drama, part dark fantasy, it delves into deadly politics and mystic horror with seductive ease.

In Russia with his Secret du Roi compatriots, D’Eon is eager to learn about his sister’s involvement at the Russian royal court. But spies, double-agents and supernatural assassins conspire to bring down an empire and bury the secret of Lia’s murder along with any who stand in their way. With each step closer to his sister’s murderer, D’Eon steps deeper and deeper into a labyrinth of deadly politics and a conspiracy that spans the continent.

In this third volume, the Russian part of the story art comes to a violent and bloody end. But not before the death of a monarch, a traitor revealed, and the murderer of Lia is at last uncovered. Through a web of greed, ambition and sins too evil for innocent souls to bear, D’Eon faces the ruthless tragedy that threatens to break him when he feels he has failed in his duty, even though he may at last learn who killed his sister.

The show has been captivating since the beginning and these latest events are riveting. There’s an incredibly well animated sword duel between D’Eon/Lia and a Russian traitor. And in the French court, one faction sends orders for him and his colleagues to pursue the traitor to England, while the other faction orders their assassination. The country D’Eon loves and has served so loyally and at such a terrible price may have just turned on him. What is to become of the haunted knight?

The production quality of this animated TV series is so high it’s worth a more in depth mention. The Japanese production crew did a fantastic job of creating 18th century France. The animation quality is closer to theatrical standards than that of a ‘mere’ TV series. As someone who grew up bilingual in both English and French, I’ve been very impressed with the French writing and how accurate most of it has been within the animation. The same kudos also go out to the English translator(s) who wrote out titles in French with such attention to accuracy. When it comes to the English production cast and crew, it’s been stupendous to hear such strong voice talent. Although there is the odd slightly off pronunciation of French names or words, the effort put into it is tremendous and so very much appreciated. The interesting mix of seasoned and new voice talent has worked to create magic for the ears as these people truly become their characters. And then there’s going off type with such veteran actors such as Hilary Haag who usually does the cute characters, yet here in Chevalier does an incredible job of portraying one of the eeriest characters in anime. What helps their performances no doubt is the excellent sound engineering helmed by Adam Jones who worked on Gilgamesh. There’s also the extensive translation work done by Amy Forsyth who also is the co-pilot on the ADR scriptwriting with the maniacally creative Steven Foster.  It comes across in the quality of the production all around that everyone from every corner of the cast and crew has put their all into this anime. The anime shines. It shines like a dark, multi-faceted jewel.

EXTRAS:
Le Chevalier continues to have a rich excess of extras. The third volume has an attractive green marbled slip cover with gold foil filigree. In fact look closely at the episodes in this volume and you’ll notice that this particular slip cover looks very much like a certain book held by a certain traitor. The insert is a booklet that contains credits of the cast and crew, character sketches with character background notes, accessory design sketches, key words used in the anime, text interview with Yuki Tai (Japanese voice actor for D’Eon de Beaumont), several pages of Yasuyuki Muto’s script translated into English, and Ending Animation Image Gallery I.

On the actual DVD, bonus features include previews, clean opening and closing animation, wonderfully extensive Historical Notes, a preview of volume 4, and more commentaries. This volume holds the most commentaries of any DVD yet. There are four, that’s right, four commentaries by the English cast and crew. This time it focuses on the cast playing the Russians in the show.  First is commentary with Steven Foster (ADR Director) and Bruce Hutchison (Bestuzhev). The second commentary is with Lesley Tesh (Lorenza) and Amit Patel (Robespierre). Third has Alice Fulks (Elizaveta) joined by Steven Foster (ADR Directory) for an enlightening and thought provoking commentary. Last but not least, the fourth commentary is with the jovial Jessica Boone (Ekaterina) and Jose Diaz (Pyotr)

IN SUMMARY:
Le Chevalier is an astonishingly brilliant and immersing anime. The Russian arc comes to a close in this latest installment with gruesome murders, heinous traitors, and conspiracies within conspiracies.

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