A Record of Grancrest War Ep4 Just Take a Breath (Winter Games 2018)

• Genre : Fantasy, Adventure, action, political
• Studio: A-1 Pictures

The Winter Games are still very much anyone’s to win but just like in any confrontation you have to ask yourself, is there really any winners here? There is – it’s me!

We are not doing great with the Grancrest predictions folks. We stretched it quite a bit just to get a few points in because it was looking pretty sad. You could say that’s a point in favour of the series. That it’s novel and unpredictable. However, I think it’s more a question of lack of exposition and development that makes events seems rather random. The larger universe is simple not established enough for us to find a proper inner logic to base any educated guesses on. Or maybe we’re just really bad at this. You can make a pretty good case for either.

This week, we saw the alliance teased at the end of the last episode get summarily dismissed before it even started, a series of escalating skirmishes lead to our man Theo essentially being declared King in episode 4 only to immediately relinquish the title and pledge himself as a knight in Villar’s service in order to continue his partnership with Siluca. As has been the case so far, the large scale battles were the most enjoyable part of the episode and combat remains a fun if mindless watch in this series.

I’m pretty sure someone on the production team agrees with me. Every time one of those larger scale battles comes on I diligently write down in my notebook (yup I take notes guys – I know, I never would have guessed from reading my stuff either) “animation has improved” then 5 minutes later I scratch it out. Basically, the fight scenes were clearly given priority and the lion share of the animation time, budget and attention to detail was spent on them. As a result, episodes mix detailed, fluid high action scenes with some decidedly less impressive visuals.

I’ve been trying hard to figure out what’s missing from A Record of Grancrest War. In theory I should be enjoying it more than I am. To be clear I don’t hate it at all, it’s simply not gripping me as these types of tales usually do. I’m a little ungripped. What I came up with, for lack of a clearer explanation is that the narrative structure is immature.

I mentioned last week that it was a bit like listening to the story being told by someone who saw the show rather than reading it for yourself. It’s a bit scattered and the changes are too abrupt. This week, I saw the story itself like a young child. A little coarse, not too overly worried about details or backstory. Impatient, unwilling to give world building and character evolution the time it needs. Afraid of silence and of commitment. Dangling a tragic event for mere seconds before completely overturning it before we even have time to feel the emotional impact.

If it doesn’t slow down and take some time to breath, build some proper foundation and establish complete characters, it’s going to get real hard for the audience to care, no matter how fun those fights may be to watch.

Predictions

Plot: Theo will get sidetracked on the way to his new home.

Character: Irvin will want to discuss the situation with Siluca

I have been trying to make my predictions a bit more specific and interesting but, of course, that makes them much less likely to happen. Let’s see if the boys have the guts to follow suit! (Actually TPAB has been doing it all along, I’m a little ashamed at my lame general safe bets…) Go check them out: Astral, Leap and TPAB.