Chivalry of a Failed Knight is a masterpiece in terms of what I want to see out of an anime both visually and formally. I'll start by putting and pointing out the first thing people notice and see when they start watching; the art, designs, direction, and animation. Then onto the story, characters, and plot which leads into lastly the fights and sound direction before giving my final thoughts.
The character designs seem basic at first but through the seamless lighting makes all the characters pop from the backgrounds, including the background extra characters are hand drawn in most scenes. You notice a lot of glow effects on characters during most scenes and although simple in design the lighting gives everything a magical appearance as everything is happier, and the glow effect is seamlessly lost in serious moments to contrast the light-hearted glow with the drab darker tones.
the cinematography in fight scenes is astounding to watch. There are a lot of interesting camera shots, angles, and wide shots while limiting establishing shots trying to put us in the eyes of our protagonist and it all works extremely well, it's rare to find camera angles without an important character in the frame and personally, I really enjoy that aspect as the anime is character focused and not world focused. The animation plays with the camera in mind and focuses on making a scene look as stylish or fluid as possible and there's never a dull moment in a fight scene. Even in the last few episodes (which are arguably the most hated episodes because of the drastic changes in color and art design) while true that it looks iffy at times, it is important for the story and our lead Ikki Kurogane and showing his depression via the drastic colors. While looking bad overall, I respect it whole-heartedly and I liked the change for that reason. Throughout the entire anime, the animation is really nice and the way everything animates around the camera is pleasing to the eyes.
The story is a basic start from the bottom get to the top through human potential kind of story, but it isn't a shounen and it isn't fully based on action. It is more than anything else, a telling of two lovers from episode 1 and 12. Ikki and Stella's dynamic and their character arc is out of respect and understanding, and has the story of the climb from worst to best play second fiddle to the love story between these two, and the transition of slice of life to action in the blink of an eye works really well and isn't jarring. Smaller plot threads are interesting or at least entertaining, such as Shizuku's background story and her love for her brother and wanting both him and her to succeed and the rivalry between her and Stella is a fun one to see. Every character has a role and their own reasons for everything they do including minor characters such as Alice which shows how tightly written aspects of the plot are.
The fight direction is entertaining, and the characters in most fights have to find ways to outplay their opponents, one thing in particular that I like about this animes fights is that characters do not announce what actions happen, are going to happen, or have happened. While there are commentators to fights within the anime it leaves a lot of shock and awe to the viewer and when big surprises happen within the fight they legit become unpredictable making every fight enjoyable and satisfying.
Unfortunately, the soundtrack is lacking and most fight music is incredibly basic or not catchy. There's also a repeated tune that loses it's charm a little early that you can recognize. However, the OP playing in the final fight while cliche is by far my favorite use of this motif found in anime. Not much can be said about this soundtrack other than it is lacking, unfortunately. The sound design throughout the show is as well basic and can be very 50/50 in terms of it being a hit or miss. The voice acting in this anime is very average and I have no problems with any character's voice work, however, I will praise Shizuka Ishigami the voice actress of Stella as she went above and beyond with her voice acting for her character.
All that being said, I loved Chivalry of a Failed Knight. I can work with and get past the flaws with the show to see the beautiful unappreciated gem behind them. While being cliche and basic on the surface if you dig just a tad deeper you get a wonderful narrative in a well designed, pretty world through the eyes of a flawed and wonderful cast of characters in a mystifying world with beautiful action scenes. I love Chivalry of a Failed Knight and I'll happily say it.