A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation Anime Series Review

A Gentle Noble's Vacation Recommendation centers around a young duke, Lizel, who is magically transported into a kingdom he does not recognize. He gets by through becoming an adventurer, hiring a bodyguard, Gil, and together they wander the kingdom as part of a vacation where serendipity holds the reins here. Which means that the narrative is allowed to ramble on in a sequence of “this happens, then this happens, and then this happens” without much in the way of rhyme or reason.

Lizel, as the wandering, adventurous duke, speaks with an elegant vernacular and a smug smile that never leaves his face. Gil is the opposite, always cloaked in black armor and a somber expression. The two characters remain simply that as the series progresses. The two are so inexpressive and without humor that it's impossible to feel any genuine camaraderie between them. Lizel's personality is only defined by his fancy pants appearance and his shit-eating grin, whereas Gil is just a random mercenary whose talents are a substitute for personality. It's revealed that the B-ranked Gil could have been an A-rank adventurer, had it not been for the fact that he'd have to lick the boots of aristocrats and blue-bloods. It's a personality trait that's brought up once but never returns. Nor does it really make sense, considering how he paired up with a duke like Lizel.

Which begs the question: is Lizel actually a duke? I ask this because, despite (to paraphrase the old Marx Brothers joke) looking like a duke, acting like a duke, Lizel can convince folk that he's not a duke. Being teleported from another kingdom means that Lizel's noble status does not transfer to this current one. Lizel uses this as an excuse, I presume, after being told by the guild secretary that nobles aren't allowed to become adventurers, and it somehow works. And yet, a few less important characters can see right through Lizel later on, though he never bothers to correct them. Why aren't more characters as inquisitive? More importantly, why doesn't the guild secretary perform more of a background check on Lizel before sending him off on adventures? It seems that the anime is not as interested in playing this game of maintaining appearances, and is just as fine with randomly flip-flopping between accepting his duke status and renouncing it.

As adventurers so often do, Gil and Lizel go from quest to quest, town to town, dungeon to dungeon, through typical fantasy beat to typical fantasy beat. It's aimless and messy throughout, with some minor characters coming through without much of a purpose. However, Gentle Noble does introduce one character who leaves a little bit more of an impression halfway through, although not the best one. His name is Eleven, a snakey beast-man who wants to join Gil and Lizel's party, but his suspicious appearance initially earns distrust. We soon find out that Eleven is the leader of a team of bandits, and tries to kill Lizel during an improv troupe performance in a town square. Later on, Eleven tries to kill Lizel again via the most laughable use of animation the show has in store. Now, when I say that Eleven lunges from his seat to attack Lizel, I really mean that an almost-still shot of Lizel gets lazily zoomed in to imply motion, all on top of a background that is blurred out for no apparent reason. I'm going to assume this was done to up the tension. It does nothing other than dissolve it into unintentional hilarity.

Still, Gil and Lizel were right to distrust this snake guy after he tried to commit murder twice. So what happens? The next episode rolls around, and after drinking Eleven's poisoned potion(!), Lizel lets Eleven on the team. Power of friendship and all that, right? Oh, and not long after that, Gil, Lizel, Eleven, and some of Eleven's bandits travel through the woods by carriage when one of the bandits almost (as he claims) “accidentally attacked” Lizel before recognizing him as “that noble.” First off, this is the show randomly deciding that Lizel is a noble again. Secondly, “accidentally?” I'm sure that anybody who was almost killed three or four times by the same person would see this as intentional. Is our main character too blind to see through this, or is this the show needlessly shrugging off Eleven's crimes for the sake of adding another character into the mix? It doesn't work no matter how you want to look at it.

The music does work wonders when it can. Chihayafuru fans might be delighted to see Kousuke Yamashita at work here, although for me, his work in Gentle Noble comes across as the usual orchestralized fantasy fare. And I'm all right with that because it's still well-done. I like the gentle whimsy in certain tracks, like the one at the beginning of episode four. The oboes and flutes have a very playful, gentle whimsy that helps epitomize the anime's carefree tone. The improv troupe performance I previously mentioned also boasts a violin solo that's wonderful on the ears as it goes up and down the B minor scale. On the opposite end of the spectrum, a narratively weak moment in episode eight, where Eleven attacks Gil and Lizel from the shadows, is redeemed by a string arrangement that succeeds in being eerie and suspenseful while still maintaining a rich timbre.

Meanwhile, the artwork isn't exactly something to write home about. It's more or less the same style you have and will see a thousand times over. Speaking of things seen a thousand times over, check out the designs. There came a moment where I forgot the characters' names and just referred to them as discount Kirito (Gil) and gender-swapped Violet Evergarden (Lizel). The animation is lackluster, as expected. Along with the aforementioned zoomed-in shot with background blur, we get still cells of geese that shake just a little bit to give the illusion of running. There's little in the way of action too, with some of the fight scenes feeling rushed. One particular fight (or really, I should say non-fight) has Gil and Lizel falling down a dungeon shaft for what seems like forever until they reach the bottom to fight a dragon. The moment Gil readies his blade is the moment the screen cuts to black and fast-forwards to after the battle has been won, and Gil and Lizel are relaxing at an inn. Not that I expected a cozy series about a noble going on vacation to have that much in tow, but I also didn't expect some fight scenes to end before they even begin. It seems that Gentle Noble sees certain fights as excess fat that needs to be cut out by any means necessary. Which is fitting considering how, in the long list of winter seasonals, this anime comes off as excess fat just the same. What you get out of Gentle Noble is another drop in the random, forgettable fantasy anime bucket.