There are no phrases that make me readjust my expectations of a new anime downward faster than “light novel adaptation” or “based on a visual novel” (well, perhaps, “inspired by a mobile game”). In the former case because nine out of ten of them seem to be utterly mediocre “only boy in magic school” series, in the latter because nine out of ten of them are equally mediocre harem series. Both types of adaptation can lead to true classics (Monogatari series, Steins;Gate) but usually that’s not the way to bet. So in the case of Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm (visual novel/dating sim) and Alderamin on the Sky (light novel) I went in with few if any expectations. And found that for once, they were exceeded.

Ao no Kanata no Four Rhythm first. This was originally a visual novel loosely based around a future sport called Flying Circus, in which you use anti-gravity shoes to fly and race around a circuit, in which you played Masaya Hinat, your average sad sack protagonist with a dark past who encounters various girls, helps them overcome their problems to ultimately bang them (or even lewder, hold hands with). The anime improves on this with one simple change: completely losing the dating aspects to focus fully on the Flying Circus antics, downgrading the protagonist to a supporting character in the process and focusing instead on the main heroine, Asuka Kurashina, who’s new to the sport and whose story makes for a decent sports anime arc.

Which is basically what AoKana turned into: a sports anime that follows Asuka’s rise from rank amateur to the top of the sport, overcoming various obstacles and crisises of faith along the way. Instead of Masaya overcoming his past trauma while helping various girls overcome theirs, they do it themselves while realising or re-discovering their love for Flying Circus. It follows the standard training – tournament – more training arc of a sports anime, with as climax Asuka winning the big Fall Tournament. To be honest, most of the actual battles are somewhat boring, but on the whole this was a series that was incredibly enjoyable week by week, because the characters were so much fun, especially Asuka, who’s bright, cheerful and full of enthusiasm. It’s available for legal streaming at Crunchyroll.

Alderamin starts off looking very much like your run of the mill light novel adaptation. There’s the world itself, a mismatch of steampunk and medievaloid fantasy elements. There’s the black haired, talented, rather be lazy than tired, lecherous hero, Ikta Solork, who has reluctantly agreed to join the military to help his childhood friend, the talented, redhaired swordswoman Yatorishino Igsem. She has the required tsundere traits: punishing him when he gets too frisky with another girl and such. When the ship they’re traveling to the military academy on sinks, they’re shipwrecked together with four classmates — inlcuding Chamille Kitra Katvarnmaninik, the third princess of the Imperial Family, who is saved from drowning by Ikta. The six become heroes, with all of them knighted (except the princess of course), after they escape from behind enemy lines, thanks to Ikta’s plan. Off they’re packed to the military academy, to learn how to become proper officers.

So far, so generic, but that’s only the first four episodes, setting up the characters before the real story starts: episodes six to thirteen form one continuing story — and it’s based on the Indian Mutiny of 1857! Ikta and company are shipped off to the northern mountain range, where the empire rules over the mountain peoples much in the same way the British ruled the North-West Frontier in India. As in the real life mutiny, religious tension ultimately leads to rebellion, which turns out to have been provoked by foreign agents in order to justify an invasion. It’s Ikta who, from his low position as just another rookie officer, has to guide the empire’s defence as much as he can. Despite the inevitable outcome (and the introduction and killing off of a new character just to provide Ikta with some personal motivation and angst) this was still one of the better depictions of war in anime, using proper tactics and actual strategy rather than just punching harder. All of the cast gets to show off their talents, especially Yatori, as shown above.

Yatori is the other reason Alderamin stands head and shoulders above other light novel adaptations. In other series she would be the obvious love interest, but here she and Ikta are something else entirely. They trust each other completely, they clearly love each other, but they’re not in love. Yet for each, the other is the most important person in their lives. Yatori is extremely duty and honour bound, having grown up as the only daughter of a prooud military family, but when contemplating whether her honour could even go so far as to kill Ikta if the empire asked for it, her answer was that she could, but only if she killed herself first, removed every trace of Yatori from herself and leaving only a killing machine. the crux of their relationship is shown in episode five, a flashback to when they first met as children and how together, with Ikta’s tactics and Yatori’s sword skills, they managed to fight off a gang of wild wolves.

A compelling war story as well as a strong and almost unique friendship between the male and female leads are two ways in which Alderamin is better than most light novel adaptations, but it also manages to avoid one particular weakness of such series. Because they’re usually based on still ongoing series of novels, such anime are often unable to present a complete story. Alderamin could’ve suffered the same fate, if not for one small change it made, by moving a crucial scene back. In the last episode, after Ikta has suffered through the war and seen how fragile the empire is, the princess asks him for a favour: to rise to the top of the military and then lose a war, to shake the country up and make space for renewal. Had this scene happened when it did in the manga version, just before they went off to the military academy, the rest of the series would’ve felt incomplete, because that goal could never be reached in thirteen episodes. But coming as it does at the end, it’s now a conclusion, not a setup.

Alderamin is available from Crunchyroll. This was day eight of the Twelve Days of Anime. Next: Planetarian and She and Her Cat.