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is a Japanese
anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...
television series produced by Production I.G based on an original story by Tow Ubukata. The anime originally aired in Japan on WOWOW from August 19, 2006, to February 2, 2007. The story has also been adapted into a
manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...
series written by Tow Ubukata and illustrated by Kiriko Yumeji, which was first published in 2005. The title character is loosely based on the historical figure Chevalier d'Éon, who lived in the middle of 18th-century, pre-Revolutionary France under the reign of
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
. ''Le Chevalier D'Eon'' was originally licensed to the North American market by
ADV Films A.D. Vision Holdings, Inc. (known simply as ADV and also referred to as ADV Films) was an American multimedia entertainment distributor headquartered in Houston, Texas, and founded in 1992 by video game fan John Ledford and anime fans Matt Gr ...
, but it became one of over thirty titles transferred from ADV Films to
Funimation Funimation was an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming service. Launched in 2016, the service was one of the leading distributors of anime ...
in 2008.


Plot

The story begins in Paris 1742, when the body of a woman named Lia de Beaumont is found in a casket floating along the
Seine The Seine ( , ) is a river in northern France. Its drainage basin is in the Paris Basin (a geological relative lowland) covering most of northern France. It rises at Source-Seine, northwest of Dijon in northeastern France in the Langres plat ...
. The only clue regarding her death is the word "
Psalms The Book of Psalms ( , ; ; ; ; , in Islam also called Zabur, ), also known as the Psalter, is the first book of the third section of the Tanakh (Hebrew Bible) called ('Writings'), and a book of the Old Testament. The book is an anthology of B ...
", which is written in blood on the lid of the casket. D'Eon de Beaumont, Lia's younger brother and a knight in service of King
Louis XV Louis XV (15 February 1710 – 10 May 1774), known as Louis the Beloved (), was King of France from 1 September 1715 until his death in 1774. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five. Until he reached maturity (then defi ...
, takes it upon himself to investigate his sister's mysterious death, along with the strange disappearances of a number of French women. By order of the King of France, he is to recover the Royal Psalms which is linked to the mysterious death of his sister and the case of the missing women. At the beginning of his journey to find the Royal Psalms, he is accompanied by a young boy named Robin, appointed to him by the Queen, a gentleman named Durand, who is an old colleague of his sister, and his old master, Teillagory. The four musketeers traverse across France, Russia, and England trying to get closer to the truth and the Royal Psalms. However, it is soon known to them that a fifth member is in their party. Loyalties are tested as they usher further down the path of the Royal Psalms.


Themes

The series' themes center around 18th-century France, which Ubukata believes to have resulted in a new set of cultural traditions as well as several tragedies. According to him, "the problems stemmed from the fact that no one knew exactly ''which'' ideas would lead to greater happiness. In a word, they were forced to live under the burden of contradiction." This is what made the Chevalier d'Eon a "fitting figure to cast as protagonist" because he embodied all of the contradictions of that time period, which Ubukata lists as "Wealth and poverty, faith and heresy, diplomacy and conspiracy, king and commoner, even the devastation of war and the flowering of culture." Ubukata also used this theme in conceptualizing the use of psalms as "dark magic". He said that he "hoped that the irony of using the abstract idea of 'prayers to God' to describe evil would be seen as equally tragic by people of many different faiths and religions."


Production


Creation and conception

toi8 of Studio 4°C was initially asked to work on the series' character designs, but the job was passed on to his wife, Tomomi Ozaki, due to time constraints. According to Ozaki, director
Kazuhiro Furuhashi is a Japanese anime director and supervisor. He is amongst anime's most foremost directors, having directed the '' Rurouni Kenshin'' series (including the original television series, and its subsequent original video animation iterations), '' Zi ...
requested that the characters "should not look like manga characters or too real; and not too anime-like," and that he wanted the designs to be faithful to historical details. Ozaki sometimes referred to historical portraits from the series' time period as reference for her designs, as well as actors in Western films, mentioning that she referred to
Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a French former actress, singer, and model as well as an animal rights activist. Famous for portraying characters with Hedonism, hedonistic life ...
's hairstyles while designing Anna Rochefort's hairstyles, and used
Brad Pitt William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. In a Brad Pitt filmography, film career spanning more than thirty years, Pitt has received list of awards and nominations received by Brad Pitt, numerous a ...
as the reference for Durand.


Writing

Scriptwriter Shotaro Suga was contacted by Tetsuya Nakatake at the beginning of the project, and agreed to work with them when he was informed that Tow Ubukata and
Kazuhiro Furuhashi is a Japanese anime director and supervisor. He is amongst anime's most foremost directors, having directed the '' Rurouni Kenshin'' series (including the original television series, and its subsequent original video animation iterations), '' Zi ...
were taking part in the production. He was unable to work on the project immediately, as he was also working on '' Eureka Seven'' at the time. Suga admitted to being nervous about working with Furuhashi, whom he described as an "experienced director" because the other series he worked on (such as '' Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex'', ''
Blood+ ''Blood+'' (stylized as ''BLOOD+'' and pronounced "Blood Plus") is a Japanese anime television series produced by Production I.G and Aniplex and directed and written by Junichi Fujisaku. The series was broadcast on MBS and TBS fro ...
'', ''Eureka Seven'', and '' Casshern'') were by first-time directors. He described the script readings for ''Le Chevalier D'Eon'' as "ever more intense" than his previous projects, and that they all "kept on debating to scrutinize each and every detail." Chief writer Yasuyuki Muto noted that their script meetings lasted as long as twelve hours. Muto was in charge of the script for eleven out of the twenty-four episodes. Ubukata and Furuhashi provided the ideas for the episodes, which the writing staff then adapted into the scripts. "Director Furuhashi as well as Ubukata-san, who is a novelist, both put a lot of weight on the dialogues", Muto said. Suga commented that " mpared to other works, the script for Le Chevalier D'Eon is enormous", noting that one episode had a one hundred-page script. Muto noted that their main focus while writing was the "...'emotion' of each character". Muto was present during the productions' post-recording sessions, primarily because he believed that it would be easier for the staff to have a writer on-hand in case problems arose during recordings. According to Furuhashi, the script for the series took about roughly ten months to complete, and that thanks to their collaboration with a novelist (Ubukata), the script contained 30 to 40 percent more information than a regular television script.


Design and animation

Art director Hiroshi Ono stated that he initially could not make up his mind whether to work on this project or not, saying "The information they gave me was enough to see that this was not going to be a straightforward job. The story takes place in Versailles and stretches from France to Russia and England. This means that you can't reuse the same background elements throughout the series, and instead you have to create new ones for each episode. Traveling stories are always the most difficult projects of all." Ono was responsible for the background designs used in the series, and he used photographs and classical paintings as references. 3D CGI was used in the creation of certain backgrounds and settings for the series, such as the
Hall of Mirrors The Hall of Mirrors () is a grand Baroque architecture, Baroque style gallery and one of the most emblematic rooms in the royal Palace of Versailles near Paris, France. The grandiose ensemble of the hall and its adjoining salons was intended to ...
. toi8 of Studio 4°C took on the role of designing the weapons and props for the series. He utilized different reference materials for his designs, saying that he "relied on images in books and on the web" as well as films such as '' Fanfan la Tulipe'' and '' The Affair of the Necklace''. toi8 was initially asked to work on the series' character designs, but the job was passed on to Tomomi Ozaki due to time constraints. Ozaki noted that Furuhashi requested that the characters "should not look like manga characters or too real; and not too anime-like," and that he wanted the designs to be faithful to historical details. She said that she sometimes referred to historical portraits from the series' time period as reference for her designs, and also cited specific sources for her designs. "For Anna's hair, I imaged
Brigitte Bardot Brigitte Anne-Marie Bardot ( ; ; born 28 September 1934), often referred to by her initials B.B., is a French former actress, singer, and model as well as an animal rights activist. Famous for portraying characters with Hedonism, hedonistic life ...
's hairstyles. For Count Guercy, I chose
Jack Black Thomas Jacob "Jack" Black (born August 28, 1969) is an American actor, comedian, and musician. He is known for roles in family and comedy films, in addition to his voice work in animated films. His awards include a Children's and Family Emmy ...
in ''
School of Rock ''School of Rock'' (titled on screen as ''The School of Rock'') is a 2003 comedy film directed by Richard Linklater, produced by Scott Rudin and written by Mike White (filmmaker), Mike White. The film stars Jack Black, Joan Cusack, White and Sa ...
''. Durand comes from
Brad Pitt William Bradley Pitt (born December 18, 1963) is an American actor and film producer. In a Brad Pitt filmography, film career spanning more than thirty years, Pitt has received list of awards and nominations received by Brad Pitt, numerous a ...
, and
Anthony Hopkins Sir Philip Anthony Hopkins (born 31 December 1937) is a Welsh actor. Considered one of Britain's most recognisable and prolific actors, he is known for List of Anthony Hopkins performances, his performances on the screen and stage. Hopkins ha ...
in '' Mask of Zorro'' was my model for Teillagory", she said. The color schemes for the characters were decided upon by color designer Idumi Hirose. Due to the constant changes in time and location throughout the series, Hirose said that they sometimes had to use 20 to 30 different color schemes for each character in a single episode. Furuhashi requested that the "color trace" method, a coloring method wherein the solid black outlines are replaced by colored outlines, be used on the clothing of aristocratic female characters.


Music

Composer Michiru Oshima stated that this is "the first time in years" that she was given the chance to compose pieces that were "very classical". She stated that while she was composing the music for the series, she was "consciously trying to add depth that's typical of European classical music", and that she believed that orchestral pieces suited the series well because the characters "are all serious and weighty." The song "BORN", composed and performed by Miwako Okuda, is used as the series' opening theme for all twenty-four episodes. The series' ending theme ("OVER NIGHT" by Aya), which is also used for all twenty-four episodes, was specially composed for the project. Aya stated that she drew inspiration from the first illustration she was shown, which was of "D'Eon, splattered with the blood of his victim, alkingin the burning city of Paris holding Lia's hands."


Media

''Le Chevalier D'Eon'' was initially developed as a cross-media project that would be simultaneously released in novel, manga, and anime format. The three different mediums each presented a different interpretation of the Ubukata's story and protagonist, but he said that "each version complements the others."


Releases

''Le Chevalier D'Eon'' aired in Japan on WOWOW from August 19, 2006, to February 2, 2007.
Animax , stylized as ANIMAX in all caps, is a Japanese animation satellite television network, dedicated to broadcasting anime programming. Launched on July 1, 1998, Animax is the first 24-hour network in the world dedicated to anime.The Anime Biz' - ...
also aired the series in Japan as well as its respective networks worldwide, including its English language networks in
Southeast Asia Southeast Asia is the geographical United Nations geoscheme for Asia#South-eastern Asia, southeastern region of Asia, consisting of the regions that are situated south of China, east of the Indian subcontinent, and northwest of the Mainland Au ...
and India. The first episode of the series was also screened at the
Ottawa International Animation Festival The Ottawa International Animation Festival is an annual animated film and media festival that takes place in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. The OIAF was founded in 1975, with the first festival held from August 10 to 15 in 1976. Initially organized b ...
in September 2006. As of October 2007,
Media Factory , formerly known as , was a Japanese publisher and brand company of Kadokawa Future Publishing. History The company was founded on December 1, 1986, and was a subsidiary of Recruit (Japanese company), Recruit Co., Ltd., based in Shibuya, Tokyo. ...
released the series in DVD format in Japan with twelve volumes that contained two episodes each. The series was originally licensed in North America by ADV Films, but the rights to the series were transferred to Funimation in 2008, along with the rights to several other anime series. ADV Films released the series in six DVD volumes with four episodes as of December 2007. In December 2008, Funimation released a complete box set of the series DVDs, which contains all the episodes in four discs. The first two discs contain commentaries along with some of the series' episodes, and an additional disc with extra content such as promotional videos and interviews with the original Japanese cast is also included. On December 1, 2009, Funimation released a DVD set containing all 24 episodes in the North America.


Manga

The manga, illustrated by Kiriko Yumeji and written by Tow Ubukata, features a story that is almost entirely different from the anime series. It is described by Ubukata as "a humorous attempt at combining D'Eon de Beaumont, eighteenth-century France, and a superhero story". The story focuses on D'Eon de Beaumont, a police officer who is also a member of King Louis XV's Secret Police (''Le Secret du Roi''), and his dealings with a cult that sacrifices virgins for their rituals. The manga was serialized in
Kodansha is a Japanese privately held publishing company headquartered in Bunkyō, Tokyo. Kodansha publishes manga magazines which include ''Nakayoshi'', ''Morning (magazine), Morning'', ''Afternoon (magazine), Afternoon'', ''Evening (magazine), Eveni ...
's ''Magazine Z'' and has been released in eight
tankōbon A is a standard publishing format for books in Japan, alongside other formats such as ''shinsho'' (17x11 cm paperback books) and ''bunkobon''. Used as a loanword in English, the term specifically refers to a printed collection of a manga that w ...
volumes, with the first volume having been published in October 2005 and the latest volume in September 2008. Del Rey published the first volume of the manga in the United States on June 26, 2007, and has released all eight volumes as of July 27, 2010.
Kodansha USA Kodansha USA Publishing, LLC is a publishing company based in New York, US, and a subsidiary of Japan's largest publishing company Kodansha. Established in July 1st 2008, Kodansha USA publishes books relating to Japan, Japanese culture, and man ...
have licensed the manga and are releasing it digitally.


Soundtrack

The series' soundtrack was released by BMG Japan (now known as
Sony BMG Sony BMG Music Entertainment was an American record company owned as a 50–50 joint venture between Sony Corporation of America and Bertelsmann. The venture's successor, the revived Sony Music, is wholly owned by Sony, following their buyout o ...
) on November 22, 2006. The soundtrack features twenty-eight tracks of background music used in the series as well as the short versions of the opening and ending themes.


Critical reception

Critics praised ''Le Chevalier D'Eon'' for its art design and animation. Tasha Robinson of '' Sci Fi Weekly'' praised the details in the designs, but stated that "the characters all have a flat-faced samey look; their costumes get far more attention than their faces, and the results are pretty but bland." Theron Martin of
Anime News Network Anime News Network (ANN) is a news website that reports on the status of anime, manga, video games, Japanese popular music and other related cultures within North America, Australia, Southeast Asia and Japan. The website offers reviews and ot ...
said, "Background art varies a little more, from slightly rough to stunningly gorgeous, with some CG-crafted shots of Versailles rivaling even the exquisite detail of Gonzo's best work. Though the series does use some still scenes, neither they nor any other short cuts can be found in the well-choreographed sword fights, where the attention to detail (especially in rare anime shots of critical footwork) and shifting perspectives more than makes up for slight failings elsewhere." Chris Beveridge of Mania.com said that the "detail and apparent accuracy in many scenes is just great to look at". Similarly, Brett D. Rogers of ''
Frames Per Second A frame is often a structural system that supports other components of a physical construction and/or steel frame that limits the construction's extent. Frame and FRAME may also refer to: Physical objects In building construction *Framing (co ...
'' magazine praised the design and animation, saying that they are "beautifully rendered in rococo and gothic style to create the look and feel of 18th-century France", though also stating that the "CGI is used to good result in reproducing the vast, opulent spaces of Versailles, but the transitions between these effects and the main body of animation are a bit coarse." The series' storyline earned mixed reactions from critics. Robinson says that the series' storyline "falls flat," and is "delivered too rapidly and with little affect." She also compares ''Le Chevalier D'Eon'' to
GONZO Gonzo may refer to: People * Gonzo (nickname), a list of people with the nickname * Radislav Jovanov Gonzo (born 1964), Croatian music video director Radislav Jovanov, also known as Gonzo * Matthias Röhr (born 1962), German musician whose stage ...
's '' Gankutsuou'', because both series are "heavily talky yet fast-moving enough to be confusing." Martin, however, praised the series' pacing, saying that it is "one of the true keys to the quality of this series."


See also

* Chevalier d'Éon


References


Further reading

*


External links


Production I.G official site

Official website for the Le Chevalier d'Eon manga
(
Internet Archive The Internet Archive is an American 501(c)(3) organization, non-profit organization founded in 1996 by Brewster Kahle that runs a digital library website, archive.org. It provides free access to collections of digitized media including web ...
version)
Official Le Chevalier D'Eon Website
at
Funimation Funimation was an American Video on demand#Subscription models, subscription video on-demand Over-the-top media service, over-the-top Streaming media, streaming service. Launched in 2016, the service was one of the leading distributors of anime ...
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Chevalier D'Eon, Le Le Chevalier D'Eon 2007 Japanese television series endings 2005 manga Anime and manga set in France Fiction set in 1742 Television series set in the 18th century Action anime and manga ADV Films Cultural depictions of Alessandro Cagliostro Cultural depictions of Catherine the Great Cultural depictions of George III Cultural depictions of Louis XVI Cultural depictions of Louis XV Cultural depictions of Maximilien Robespierre Dark fantasy anime and manga Del Rey Manga Funimation Historical fantasy anime and manga Kodansha manga Production I.G Anime and manga about revenge Seinen manga Thriller anime and manga Wowow original programming Cultural depictions of Peter III of Russia