Chevalier: Le Chevalier D'Eon (シュヴァリエ, Shuvarie?) is a 24-episode anime TV series produced by Production I.G based on an original story by Tow Ubukata. The anime originally aired in Japan on WOWOW from August 19, 2006 to February 2, 2007.[1] The story has also been adapted into a manga series written by Tow Ubukata and illustrated by Kiriko Yumeji, which was first published in 2005.[2] The titular character is loosely based on the historical figure Chevalier d'Eon, who lived in the middle of 18th century, pre-revolution France under the reign of Louis XV.[1]
Le Chevalier D'Eon was originally licensed to the North American market by ADV Films,[3] but it became one of over thirty titles transferred from ADV to Funimation Entertainment in 2008
The story begins in Paris 1753, when the body of a woman named Lia de Beaumont is found in a casket floating along the Seine.[5] The only clue regarding her death is the word "Psalms", which is written in blood on the lid of the casket. D'Eon de Beaumont, Lia's younger brother and a knight in service of King Louis XV, takes it upon himself to investigate his sister's mysterious death, along with the strange disappearances of a number of French women. In his journey he comes across three companions to help him.
Lia's body, however, was found to be infused with mercury, making it unable to be decomposed. The Church, declaring that, because she could not return to the "dust she had come from," refused to let her be buried, saying that her soul would forever wander, never able to go to heaven. D'Eon, angered by this, also uses it as a drive in his investigation. Lia, however, still feels the need to avenge her death, and so, when D'Eon is in battle, she can sometimes possess his body and fight.
