HE SAYS THE REASON WHY HE WANTS TO BUILD A KNIGHT FROM SCRATCH IS BECAUSE IT’S HIS HOBBY. BWAHAHAHAHA AND NOBODY CAN WRAP THEIR HEAD AROUND IT! (Even his father was mortified!)
It’s absolutely hilarious how nobody can keep up with him! After having an audience with the King, Ernesti has been given a challenge to craft a new and efficient Silhouette Knight body. Should he impress the King, he will obtain the nation’s secrets on how or where they create/obtain the Ether Reactor. Ernesti eagerly accepts the mission and gets to work. Unable to do this on his own, Ernesti makes a suggestion to the Principle to makes this Prototype project for a smaller scale unit called Silhouette Gear, for the students at the academy to be involved with. I found that pretty interesting since it literally puts the students to work of participating an on-going innovation project, however it’s Ernesti who is the one who keeps on sprouting the ideas off the top of his head. In fact because Ernesti is so absorbed and passionate about the project, he is more or less oblivious to the fact most of the students of 100% done with this. Takes a lot work, and for most of them it’s just downright exhausting – especially when they can barely keep up with his ideas.
Aside from Ernesti being the World’s #1 Robot fan (and being a pragmatic character, as he suspected the King would test him), one of the main reasons I find myself enjoying this show week is the engineering thoughts behind the process. It is a substance we don’t always see in mecha shows. The process and technical details of building these giant robots. With the show virtually narrating everything that is going on, hearing about the parts that makes the Silhouette Knight function like the Crystal Tissue. It is facinating to see Ernesti provide new engineering techniques to making already existing materials more efficient, suggesting they weave the Crystal Tissue instead of lining them up side by side. Or the mana consumption, the use of extra arms to hold the magic rods, etc… Being able to witness a character literally building a machine from scratch is always fun, because we get to see the author’s imagination go into overdrive.
But I’d be lying if I said the story currently being told is making me question just how long my motivation will last in terms of blogging this series. It all really comes down to whether or not I feel there’s enough material and motivation to write about it. 
Thankfully for us though, besides the characters having to deal with the monsters… a political strife is simmering. After hearing how the King is wary of Ernesti last week, I’m taking his promise to him with a grain a salt. Then we have the King’s men/advisors who clearly despise Ernesti and see him nothing but trouble, so much so that the twins’ father (one of the King’s men) has asked of them to report to him the process of Ernesti’s development. That being said I do wonder if the kids are aware their dad wants them to serve as his spies. It doesn’t help that he doesn’t look like the type who’d care about them as their mother was not one from nobility. Then we have a new threat that was introduced by the end of this episode: Shady Folks. I don’t know if these guys are looking to steal Ernesti’s blue prints and attempt to overthrow the King or whatever, but it’s clear that they are trouble and they have a spy within the academy.
Random note of the Week: AHAHAHA ERNESTI, HE GEEKING OUT ABOUT THE WRECKAGE OF THE ROBOTS! BLESS THIS BOY.
If you don’t want to blog weekly, you could always blog in batches of 3-4 eps per blog entry. I’ll admit the novels aren’t the deepest series, especially in terms of character development. It compensates with mecha R&D, robot battles and Ernesti’s zeal.
Regarding the spies, if the anime goes far enough you’ll get to see who they work for. Hint: They’re not locals, and Fremevilla has plenty of neighbouring countries West of its borders.
It’s not that it discourages me from wanting to cover it weekly – in fact it’s easier and more practical for me to do it that way, especially given my health condition with tendonitis. The real problem is whether or not it will keep me motivated enough to want to cover the whole series, period. (Especially when the narrator is constantlyyyyy telling us what is happening or what is going to happen.)
I suspected the spies were not locals. The only people who would want to gain an advantage of stealing the blue prints would be neighboring kingdoms. It would certainly give them the upper-hand if they have been planning to go to war for a while now. I do hope the anime goes that far though – should the original plot head off into that direction. While I adore Ernesti’s passion for robots, I definitely need some plot and more action to hold my attention – especially if it as you said, the character development is going to be lacking (and honestly i am already noticing this problem due to the way the series is being executed).
I think politically things will be interesting, at least in my opinion. In the manga Ernesti’s thoughts were “That’s not one you show towards a child. He’s waiting for the slighest chance of gaining an upper hand in negotiations on the inside. I remember that from my memories from my “previous life”…. “A businessman’s expression”. This is a negotiation. The haggling has begun.” Obviously the king didn’t meet Ernesti and listen to his wish out of the goodness of his heart, but that really suggests that he wants something from Ernesti.
I do agree the narrator can be kind of annoying with telling us what’s going to happen.= though.