Visual Novel / Walkure Romanze

Takahiro is a recent immigrant from Japan to a country that's vaguely European with a former promising career in jousting, a popular international sport. However, following an injury and abandonment by his former teacher, he gave up the sport, but could not give up his love for it. Instead, he enrolled at an academy with a strong knight class. Though he did not become a knight, he wished to support one and became a begleiter, a sort of assistant to a knight in charge of tactics, support and maintenance equipment.

In the present, he has no exceptional results and hides his background. However, when his oldest friend Mio accidentally ends up in a confrontation with the noble Bertille he steps up to teach her how to joust. During this time, he also receives three requests to become a begleiter: First, from a cheeky second year of no special reputation named Noel, the student council president and best jouster in the school Celia and a special request by Celia's friend to take care of the genius first year Lisa, who stubbornly refuses to get a begleiter, despite her obvious need for one.

Walkure Romanze received an anime in the fall 2013 season with significant changes in the details and resolution. For tropes pertaining to that adaptation, please visit that page. It also has the fandisk More&More which provides routes for three supporting characters and the fandisk Re;tell which provides some bonus content for the four most popular of the heroines.

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Tropes:

• Absurdly Powerful Student Council: Averted. Celia and Reina are easily overruled by the principal when it comes to school policy. Mostly they just handle paperwork. However, the student body does assume that she has more power and that she's responsible for or supportive of the changes to the school jousting tournament. She can't do anything about that, but with encouragement from Takahiro chooses to instead start a second, unofficial tournament with rules similar to the old one.
• Absurdly Youthful Mother: Akane's mother looks like she's in her mid twenties to possibly around thirty. Unfortunately for Takahiro, Satsuki notices him thinking that her mom is cute and has to flee to avoid even more teasing.
• Almost Kiss: Akane's family supports her relationship with Takahiro but they also have a tendency to walk in whenever they are about to get a little more intimate.
• Always Second Best: Alice can never match up to Bertille. However, saying that she's second best would be a bit inaccurate given that she's the only one that thinks Bertille is that amazing in the first place.
• Always Someone Better: Akane is probably the best student jouster after Celia, but her sister has always been even better than her at everything.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Bertille's parents have personalities as strong as hers. When they hear she has a boyfriend, they want to throw an elaborate party to celebrate.
• Ambiguous Syntax: Mireille tells Takahiro's fortune in Noel's route and says that he'll start dating someone that he's friends with. Noel and especially Mio instantly perk up, but even setting those two aside that could apply to Akane, Lisa, Bertille or Mireille herself. Oh, the vagueness of fortune telling.
• Arranged Marriage: Noel is expecting one to come up soon. Her little sister admits that such arrangements should be a thing of the past for nobility, but their father is both stubborn and traditional.
• Ascended Extra: Anne and Emma, Bertille's assistants, get some more development in her route that they were really lacking before. They still fundamentally act as one character, though.
• Bad Liar: Most of the cast are pretty transparent liars, including flat out muttering about possible excuses in front of the person they're trying to deceive. Akane in particular is noted to be very bad at lying since she has such a naturally honest and direct personality. This doesn't mean she can't hide things just by staying quiet, just that once people ask her the truth becomes obvious.
• Balanced Harem: There's a bit more focus on Mio early on, but for the most part none of the girls are really emphasized as being the 'main' girl.
• Beach Episode: Celia's short story has her invite the cast to spend time on her private beach, so swimsuits for everyone.
• The Beautiful Elite: Many students of Winford are nobility and without exception they tend to be very beautiful, wealthy and talented people. Not only that, but the nobility are actually quite active and important, leading them to be mostly responsible and prominent. Celia's family, for example, is very meritocratic and has a tradition of military service while Bertille's family are ridiculous but still very kind.
• Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Kyle likes to be ridiculous so that people can make fun of him. On at least one occasion, people take his posturing at face value and he seems rather lost.
• Breast Plate: The armor does generally cover everything unless the armor is explicitly noted to intentionally leave some skin bare, but the breast plates are often form fitting for the chest of the rider, such as Bertille's ridiculous armor.
• Bridal Carry: When sparring with Takahiro, Akane trips and injures her ankle. Overruling her embarrassment, he picks her up and carries her home.
• Cain and Abel: Celia respects her older brother, but she doesn't seem to actually like him much and is embarrassed at how rude he is to Takahiro. While she jousts because she enjoys it and feels it is her duty to engage in military service as a way to show her willingness to uphold family precepts and protect the people, all Julianus seems to care about is winning and pure strength. Celia, on the other hand, is more concerned with people having a more balanced attitude.
• Compliment Backfire: Whenever Bertille's minions honestly praise her, Takahiro can't help thinking it comes off as pretty insulting. Small wonder given that they praise her for being strong against weak opponents or shameless enough to wear stripperiffic armor for a small advantage. Occasionally, she catches on that they're either making fun of her or have very unique standards.
• Cooking Duel: Takahiro can't decide to work with between Bertille, Noel and Celia, so Mio eventually ends up having to decide some kind of way to decide, which everyone agrees on. She proposes a cooking challenge.
• Cool Big Sis: Akane adores her older sister Satsuki, who alternately dotes on her and teases her. According to Akane, Satsuki is basically The Ace at everything and better than Akane at almost everything she does.
• Cool Helmet: Each of the girls helmets are unique in design.
• Cruel to Be Kind: After Lisa is badly shaken following Reina's injury and Fiona's betrayal she begins losing over and over against nobodies. Akane and Takahiro simply sit and watch since she brought this on herself and needs to learn from what's going on now. Afterwards, Takahiro goes and finally reconciles with her.
• Curb-Stomp Battle
  • Despite being relatively even in ability, in Celia's route she flattens Lisa in the finals because the latter is somewhat slow to react and it's very easy to guess what she's going to try in the next round. It's implied that the match between the two in Lisa's route wasn't much closer either even with Lisa's improved ability and tactics.
  • After a buildup to the match between Bertille and Noel, they skip the duel entirely right to Noel's victory. Well, it wasn't exactly built up to be a difficult fight anyway.
• Cuteness Proximity: Everyone thinks Mireille is adorable, but Takahiro in particular turns into a puddle around her when she begins referring to him as her older brother.
• Cutting the Knot: Unable to immediately figure out how to delete an embarrassing photo from her sister's smartphone, Akane immediately decides to destroy it instead. Unfortunately for her, her sister is faster and stronger than her and takes it back immediately.
• Dark Horse Victory: Noel goes into the tournament hoping to be underestimated a little, so she's a little disappointed when people are impressed and start paying more attention to her. She manages to take a round against Celia and in the third round she's invigorated by her sister and father arriving. But she still gets knocked off her horse by Celia when she gets truly serious.
• The Day the Music Lied: As the triumphant music plays in the tournament finals, Celia knocks Noel cleanly from her horse, ending the match just after her family arrives.
• Defeat Means Friendship: Bertille starts hanging out with or near Mio after losing to her in the match. While she gets along with the rest of the group as well, she has a special respect for Mio and will listen to her when she ignores everyone else.
• Deliberate Injury Gambit: In Noel's match with Akane during the tournament she charges right into a body blow from Akane, brakes and takes the opportunity to take out Akane's feather.
• Demoted to Extra: Because they didn't have very good routes, Mio and Lisa don't get their own routes in either of the two spinoff extras. Bertille doesn't either, but she was never part of the main cast to begin with.
• Distracted by the Sexy: Takahiro feels a little nervous before Noel's duel with Bertille not because he thinks she has a real chance of beating Noel, but because her armor has her wearing no pants and form fitting armor. Where exactly is he supposed to look?
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The way Noel talks about her approval for Takahiro as a begleiter and a caretaker for horses sounds much more like talking about how she actually loves him. This isn't too surprising given that she does like him, though.
• Dogged Nice Girl: Ely confesses to Takahiro, gets turned down because he's busy preparing to return to jousting and then simply smiles and says to think about it again when he has more time. After, she continues to talk to him and make it clear that how she still feels without trying to pressure him.
• Drop-In Character: Shinonome tends to appear anywhere that needs any kind of announcer or reporter, even if that place happens to be a tropical private beach owned by Celia despite her lack of invitation.
• Easily Forgiven
  • Even after all her crap, Lisa still forgives Fiona without a second thought despite Fiona not once displaying any redeeming character traits.
  • In both Ayako and Celia's routes Takahiro eventually decides to take up being a knight again, though in Celia's route he's more interested in being her begleiter for the moment. In both routes, he reconciles with Julianus and begins to study under him again. He isn't even holding any kind of grudge against him, apparently believing that Julianus was basically right to toss him aside.
• Eek, a Mouse!!: After putting on Takahiro's old jousting helment, Mio gets scared by a mouse and makes a mess. She ends up running into Bertille while panicking and ends up challenged to a duel thanks to a misunderstanding.
• Entendre Failure: Noel tries to tease Mio by telling her about a conversation about Takahiro's piercing rod (actually a spear, of course) but all the innuendo flies over Mio's head.
• Et Tu, Brute?: Right when Lisa is at an emotionally fragile point thanks to accidentally injuring Reina, Fiona betrays her.
• Everybody Knew Already: Played with. Takahiro suspects that Satsuki knows he isn't really dating Akane so to try to allay her suspicions he and Akane start to act more like they're going out rather than just saying it. Nobody ever actually told Akane's dad that she was supposedly going out with him in the first place. The rest of them thought they didn't act like lovers, but weren't sure and it'd be rude to actually say it. But they all definitely knew when they started going out for real except, once again, for her rather dense dad.
• Everyone Can See It
  • Mio's crush is obvious to everyone, none of whom want to hear Takahiro's disinterest in pursuing the idea.
  • Most of the people around Takahiro also think he has good chemistry with Noel and wonder why he isn't asking her out yet, much to his confusion. Maybe he knows it's too early in the route for that?
• Face Doodling: When Takahiro passes out in the nurse's office, Ayako briefly considers drawing on his face.
• Fan of Underdog
  • The announcer finds Mio much more interesting during her match with Bertille because she thinks an amateur being an experienced jouster would be pretty cool. This comes up again in Akane's route when she says that as an announcer she has to be impartial, but as an individual she wants to see Akane succeed.
  • Kyle doesn't want to work with a knight who is already exceptional. He wants to choose a knight by himself and hone their talents. Lisa and later Mio both catch his interest as they have a lot of talent to refine, but neither is interested. He usually ends up picking a first year girl like Miata to work with and swiftly raises her up to competitive levels in the tournament, showing that he really is quite good.
• Fanservice: Setting aside the explicit sex stuff, there's also quite a bit of more low key stuff like cute outfits, especially in the fandisk.
• Fanservice with a Smile: Mio gets to wear a meido waitress outfit at Tart Time. Noel also helps out once and Akane wears the outfit during her route as well.
• Forgotten First Meeting: Ely and Takahiro have met before, which probably shouldn't be a surprise. He just doesn't remember lending her an umbrella when she was trapped by rain since it was a rather trivial thing.
• Fragile Speedster: Female knights have a different value than their male counterparts. While they generally lack the strength and weight of their counterparts, they're smaller and lighter, allowing them to move more quickly and are significantly more difficult to hit.
• Freudian Slip: During an early conversation with Alice, she refuses to believe that Takahiro isn't dating Bertille since she and Alice always like the same things. She doesn't complete the sentence and Takahiro doesn't catch on, but still.
• Genki Girl: Shinonome always seems to be running about or babbling at maximum speed.
• Giftedly Bad: James thinks he's good at chess. He isn't. He repeatedly loses to a little girl.
• Graceful Loser: Ely tries her best to win Takahiro over before Ayako can, but when she's too late she simply gives up and congratulates him.
• Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: The blond characters are all particularly noble and friendly.
• Happy Ending: All the endings are pretty unambiguously happy. In Noel's route she loses the tournament finals but Mireille manages to walk again, in Lisa's ending she becomes proper friends with Fiona which is apparently a good thing and matures as a jouster while in Celia's Takahiro manages to reconcile with Julianus and take up jousting again.
• Helmets Are Hardly Heroic: Averted in the anime, all the girls wear their helmets with the visor down. Very practical cause the head section does get hit and a lot of splintering happens when the girls jousts get destroyed. Which is odd that they kept them open in the game.
• Heroic RRoD: He doesn't die, but Noel's father collapses from a heart attack mid argument due to a combination of a weak heart, working too many long hours recently and agitation over his daughter's jousting.
• Hey, You!: Lisa always calls Takahiro senpai instead of his actual name. There's nothing wrong with this, though it's a bit distant, but it's a major hint to Kyle about their Relationship Upgrade when she calls him Takahiro-senpai instead.
• Hopeless Suitor
  • Ely just isn't even a blip on the radar. Takahiro knows how she feels and values her friendship, but no more. Plus, even though he turned her down because he was busy with jousting, that didn't stop Ayako.
  • Alice pretty openly flirts with Takahiro, but since he barely knows her he's generally unresponsive.
• Ignored Expert: During the tournament in Lisa's route, Fiona's begleiter tries to tell her that she's pushing her horse too hard and that it's getting tired. Fiona just blows up at her.
• Improbably Female Cast: There are male knights at Winford, but we never see any. You'd expect to run into a few during the tournament, but none ever appear or are apparently even mentioned. In Ayako's route we finally see a male transfer student as well as Takahiro transferring into the knight class.
• Innocent Innuendo
  • Bertille has a tendency to loudly start talking about her 'compatibility' with Takahiro in public or about how he's brought her to heights she's never experienced before. Faceless background characters mutter about it, but she never notices. Her statements after losing to Mio also make her sound like a masochist.
  • In a bit of Hypocritical Humor, Takahiro himself pulls this on Bertille once or twice. To be fair, she should be perfectly aware that when he says compatibility or asks for information about her he's talking as her begleiter, not as the guy she's crushing on.
• Instant-Win Condition: Knocking the wing off an opponent's helm is an instant win condition. Early on, Takahiro mentally criticizes a few riders for being too overly conscious of this.
• Inter-Class Romance
  • Takahiro is worried about this one when he begins dating Celia, but she assures him it's not a problem. She's not the family successor, so a relationship with a commoner isn't a problem on that front. Further, her family wouldn't even care in the first place because they emphasize partners with ability over status.
  • However, it is a problem in Noel's route. Noel is of even higher status than Celia and her family is more direct nobility rather than having the military meritocratic tinge of the Aintree's, but Takahiro is a foreign commoner.
• Interplay of Sex and Violence: To calm down after a fight or in general, Celia often wants to sleep with Takahiro.
• It Amused Me
  • The announcer girl is primarily motivated by how amusing everything is. Big scoops like Mio possibly beating Bertille or Takahiro dating Celia really get her going.
  • Satsuki is pretty sure Amane and Takahiro aren't actually dating but she says nothing because it's much funnier to watch than to let them know.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Mizuno accepts that Julianus has a point when he says that only the best jousters should be allowed into the tournament. However, there are several issues with only focusing on the elite. First, it gives rookies no chance to show off their ability. Second, it excludes third year students from one last chance at participation, which they have a right to expect given the emphasis on tradition. Third, it denies that anyone might simply want to joust because they enjoy it, turning it from a sport into a more bitter contest.
• Jerkass Realization: Clyde is genuinely remorseful to have pressured Takahiro into a duel not only because Julianus forbade him from doing so but because Takahiro had been working so hard at his construction job and jousting practice that immediately afterward he passed out from heat stroke. The next day, he gives an indirect apology for mocking Takahiro up to this point.
• Just Friends: Setting aside Akane as a fandisk exclusive romanceable character, both Noel and Mio are more considered to be Takahiro's friends than anything. Noel seems to assume he's already dating Mio unless he goes out with Lisa or Celia and corrects her mistake like that while in her route she's quite pleased when her misunderstanding is cleared up earlier than that.
• Last-Name Basis: Celia, Akane and Bertille refer to Takahiro by his last name. For Bertille and Celia this is normal enough given that they're not that close, but for Akane it's a sign of her formality and emotional reservation. The moment she refers to Takahiro by his first name in front of Kyle, he picks up on it.
  • In a odd subversion of the common spoiled princess who can't be bothered to names of others, Bertille uses Takahiro's full name even in normal conversation for a time after they meet. Takahiro finds it rather odd and even asks her why, never getting an answer, though it doesn't seem to be a jab of any sort.
• Like Brother and Sister: Takahiro mostly views Mio as a sister figure, which she's basically okay with even if she'd probably prefer a different type of relationship.
• The Load: Anne and Emma just aren't very good as begleiters or actual support, meaning that the reasonably talented Bertille has issues with an efficient training regimen. After Ann injures her leg she and Emma ask if Takahiro can help Bertille in their place. He basically scraps their normal plan and starts from there. The new plan he comes up with gets good results, but it's significantly tougher than the plan she had before so she's generally out of breath afterwards.
• Love Confession: Ely walks into Takahiro a few times, indicates she knows him and during their third meeting abruptly confesses in front of Ayako, Mio, Lisa and Fiona. He only just learned her name. He turns her down flat.
• Love Triangle
  • Averted so far as the main heroines go. Despite Mio's obvious crush, she's entirely supportive of any of Takahiro's other love interests. She doesn't even make enough of a fuss over it to count as I Want My Beloved to Be Happy.
  • In the end of Lisa's route Fiona has developed a crush on Takahiro and jokingly... probably... proposes a threesome.
  • Ely pursues Takahiro, who considers her a good friend but no more. Takahiro himself is going for Ayako, sort of, while she reciprocates, sort of. Making things a bit weirder is that after Takahiro earns Clyde's respect he begins squabbling with Ely for Takahiro's attention.
  • There is in theory a triangle between Alice, Takahiro and Bertille, but Alice is so slow getting started that they're already dating while she can't even think of a way to talk to him.
• Mum Looks Like a Sister: Takahiro is surprised by how young Akane's mom looks. She could easily pass for her older sister.
• Mundane Made Awesome: Most people wouldn't consider mixing flour or breaking eggs to be a harsh challenge worthy of great respect, but Akane and Celia are new to this kind of thing and are utterly serious about it.
• Nearly Normal Animal: Lisa's cat Sasami can't speak, but it's able to play jokes and tricks, sort of converse, defends her honor and is apparently in a monogamous long term relationship, of which it informs her about directly.
• Nice Girl: Ely is very bright and friendly. She even remains completely supportive of Takahiro despite turning her confession down without a second though.
• Past Experience Nightmare: Takahiro has nightmares about his loss and Julianus' disappointment sometimes, especially if he's been thinking about jousting. The day after a practice match with Celia, he instead dreams about how excited he was as a child to see a jousting match.
• Playable Epilogue: The four main heroines all get brief after stories in More&More. It basically amounts to happy flirting.
• Poor Communication Kills
  • Mio ends up challenged to a duel by Bertille even though the latter is fairly amiable because she fails to clarify that she isn't a knight and that she was only wearing Takahiro's helm. Her odd reactions to the praise for the helm makes her sound like a sneaky, disrespectful braggart when she's only trying to explain that she isn't a knight but is happy to hear people indirectly praising Takahiro.
  • Akane has difficulty asking others for helping or admitting she's bad at something. A fortune teller during the school festival teases her a little about her stubborn side and says it might interfere with her knight/begleiter relationship with Takahiro, but immediately afterward she continues to not speak up about her problems.
• The Power of Acting: Played with. When Kyle doubts Noel's acting ability, she instantly starts crying about how her friends can't believe in her, causing him to feel like a jerk. Akane and Mio play along and everything. A moment later, she of course reveals she was faking. Kyle was the only one who actually believed her tears, though.
• The Power of Trust: Akane lacks it at the start of her route because of how reserved she is, being generally unwilling to tell Takahiro things that she thinks will simply burden him. As her route advances she starts to open up more and after he helps her train for the festival dance, the thought of him helps calm her down on stage because she knows she isn't alone.
• Promoted to Love Interest: Akane, Bertille and Ayako are all romanceable in the fandisk.
• Proper Tights with a Skirt: The school uniform has a short skirt, but unlike normal examples also accompanies it with tights to emphasize the legs rather than what is directly above them.
• Put on a Bus: Akane and Takahiro head to Japan in her route, leaving the rest of the cast behind until the last few scenes while showing the first real family in the story.
• Rank Inflation: Most of the students hover around B to C rank with the elites like Akane at A. Celia is the only S rank currently at the academy.
• Relationship Sabotage: Fiona does her best to sabotage Lisa's relationships with anyone else, from friends to possible begleiters or lovers.
• Relationship Upgrade: Takahiro agrees to be Celia's begleiter after supporting her plans for a side tournament. At the same time, she confesses to him and he returns her feelings.
• Remember the New Guy?: Remember Fiona and Lisa's energetic and talkative blond friend Elimiya? No? How forgetful of you to remember such an important friend. However, given that More&More is marketed as a spinoff rather than a fandisk it's possible that even retroactively she didn't exist in the original and may be why Fiona is so much less horrible of a person. With a third and significantly more social friend to complete their group she's less bitter and conniving.
• Rescue Romance: Alice gains a crush on Takahiro after he helps her escape from a pack of dogs and then gets mad and tells her to take better care of herself, though she was likely already attracted to him. Unfortunately for her, there's no possibility of reciprocation given that she's just a side character for a side character.
• Romantic Runner-Up
  • There's nothing wrong with Ely. She's nice, energetic, cute and supports Takahiro's decisions. However, she's a supporting character for the Ayako route, so she doesn't really have a chance.
  • Once again in Bertille's route there's another hopeless contender with Alice. Assuming you don't have issues with Bertille, Alice is again a nice enough person. She's not even as boisterous as her rival.
• Sarcastic Devotee: Anne and Emma spend most of their screen time making fun of her rather than providing any real assistance. However, they obviously do care and are usually the ones to get upset when people are unpleasant to Bertille, who normally shrugs off insults without stooping to her opponent's level.
• Satellite Character: Anne and Emma exist to be Bertille's fangirls. They don't appear separately or have anything to do apart from revolve around her even in the fandisk that gives them a little more personality.
• Saying Sound Effects Out Loud: Alice follows Takahiro around saying jiiiii while she stares at him from behind.
• Second Place Is for Losers: A fixation with winning is frowned on in the story. People want to win, but anyone who obsesses over first place has a lesson to learn about the proper way of jousting and whatnot.
  • Mio and Takahiro don't start training for her duel with Bertille presuming she has any real chance of success. They just want her to do well enough that she doesn't embarrass or injure herself, which is accomplishment enough on its own. That she actually wins is quite the upset and makes Takahiro suddenly incredibly desirable as a begleiter.
  • In Lisa and Noel's routes they both lose to Celia despite Takahiro's assistance. Lisa's loss happened offscreen and was implied to be rather one sided while Noel actually had a good chance at winning, but was still dismounted when Celia got truly serious. In both cases, making it that far at all was quite the impressive feat: One is a first year and the other is officially only B ranked.
• Serious Business
  • In a modern setting, even having a club devoted to horses would be somewhat rare, but there's an entire knight class that learns and practices jousting, though it's unclear as to whether the world at large really pays any attention to it. Takahiro at least is surprised that Lisa has heard of him.
  • Inability to make loud slurping noises while eating soba leaves Celia incredibly depressed.
• Shipper on Deck
  • Anne and Emma think Bertille and Takahiro go well together, starting with pressuring Takahiro into asking her to a date. Bertille isn't aggressive enough to make any kind of real move on him herself, after all, since she correctly guesses that Takahiro doesn't actually like her much at the start of her route.
  • The group is more subtle about it than usual, but they still make sure to arrange lots of time for Takahiro to spend alone with Akane. This may be based on their misunderstanding: They seem to assume that Takahiro likes Akane because he volunteered to be her begleiter. While it is Akane's route and he is attracted to her, he doesn't feel that way about her yet. When the story moves to Japan, her family takes over shipping the two of them. Well, they were told that he's her boyfriend, after all.
• Sickeningly Sweet Hearts
  • Most of the time Lisa and Takahiro are together after hooking up they spend their time just flirting.
  • Bertille is super deredere and open about her relationship with Takahiro. He'd prefer to be more reserved, but she steamrolls right over him.
• Sick Episode: Akane catches a cold during the tournament preliminaries, but hides it. After making it through she takes a day off and Takahiro visits to nurse her. He has to go alone since everyone else assures him they are totally busy, honest.
• Sorting Algorithm of Evil: 'Evil' might be pushing it, but the heroines do generally go up against stronger and stronger opponents in the tournament, never facing off against the top jousters early on. Nor have any of the top jousters already been dealt with. However, an exception does come up in Akane's route when she faces off against Celia in the very first round of the main tournament. She does quite poorly, falling into a slump afterwards out of disappointment with herself.
• Stalker with a Crush: Alice follows Takahiro around a lot, watching and eavesdropping on him.
• Student/Teacher Romance: It's not emphasized much, but Asako is one of Takahiro's teachers. When they hook up she admits it's kind of weird given that she's several years older, a reasonably close relative and his teacher. Also, there's apparently no sort of legal barrier in the way of the relationship, which is a plus.
• Sunny Sunflower Disposition: Ely's friends find it odd if she isn't smiling all the time.
• Super-Deformed: Oftentimes when the game wants to show the characters and not just their sprites, it shows them chibified.
• The Tease: Alongside her normal trolling, Satsuki offers to 'help' Takahiro sleep with Akane.
• Those Two Guys: Bertille's minions, Anne and Emma, always appear together or with Bertille, never alone.
• Took the Wife's Name: Takahiro manages to form a relationship with Noel or Celia regardless of the difference in class. At the end of the routes, he marries into the Ascot or Aintree families respectively.
• Translation Convention: It's probably safe to assume that with Takahiro and Akane being immigrants with Japanese names that the native language of wherever they are is not actually Japanese, though whatever language they are speaking is never really specified. Given that most of the 'foreign' names are English, that's probably what they're speaking. Then again, the title is Walkure Romanze, not Valkyrie Romance.
• Unequal Pairing: Ayako is older than Takahiro, his teacher, his caretaker and his landlady.
• Unknown Rival
  • Bertille has a habit of proclaiming others to be her rivals. She tries it on Mio, but Mio isn't interested in continuing to joust. Plus, she considers Bertille better than her anyway.
  • Bertille gets her own wannabe rival in the form of Alice, who is quite hurt when she realizes that Bertille already has her own self proclaimed rival. Bertille not taking her seriously makes more sense when you learn that she has never beaten Bertille once, even before Bertille had a competent begleiter. By the end, Bertille admits that Alice really is her rival, which she has been for all their lives.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Alice and Bertille really hate each other. Honest. Not just a pair of bickering tsundere children, no sir.
• Where the Hell Is Springfield?: The story never really mentions where it takes place, only that it's somewhere vaguely European. Most of the names are English, such as Lisa, Kyle and Celia, but a few like Bertille are French and there's even Julianus, which is a Roman name.
• Wing Ding Eyes
  • Akane gets stars in her eyes when she fangirls Celia while Celia herself gets them when she talks about stuffed animals.
  • The Ascot sisters are prone to having their eyes go > < when they get too excited. Noel is one thing, but seeing the calm and gracious Mireille do it is another.
• Worthy Opponent
  • Neither Akane nor Lisa have had a good match in quite some time, so they're both fairly pleased when they come out as essentially even.
  • Celia has so much fun dueling Noel that she graciously ignores that Noel cheated in the second round, simply laughing it off entirely.
  • After Takahiro and Clyde's first match is cut short, Clyde realizes he's been misjudging Takahiro's dedication and ability and the next day gives a more cordial greeting and a hope for another proper duel in the future.
• You Didn't Ask: When Lisa confronts Takahiro about not telling her he's a former knight, his reaction is mostly confusion. Why would there be any reason to tell her that?

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