- Genre : Fantasy, Adventure, action, political
- Studio: A-1 Pictures
It’s Friday night, I’ve had a very long, very exhausting and very productive week so clearly it’s time for some Winter Games! I’m about to just start making up my own story line for this show – it’s not like the writers have any clue where this is going anyways…
Actually, I’m being really unfair here, they know exactly where this is going and they are going to get us there as quickly as possible. Watching Grancrest is like watching an epic told strictly in bullet points. I’m wondering if the manga fills in everything that’s missing from the anime but I’m calling this FantasyLite.
You all remember where we left off last week? Great! It doesn’t matter. Horrific bloodbath that could have dramatic political implications and ruin any diplomatic effort for generations to come? Like it never happened! Instead, we catch up to Theo that was sent to convince some lord to join Villar’s cause (as far as I can tell said cause is: not Marinne). Great idea, send a brand new military recruit on a diplomatic mission. I’m not being sarcastic, it was a great idea.
So Theo goes up to this lord guy apparently all alone (Theo’s alone, not the lord guy) and the lord guy (let’s call him Harvey) is waiting in front of his castle with all the villagers.
- Harvey: Sorry dude, I’m sticking with the chick
- Theo: cool, cool. I’m fine with it but my guys are probably gonna attack so you may want to take these fine folks and skedaddle before that.
- Harvey: kk – then kill me and let the peeps keep their houses.
- Theo: wow you’re super nice – I dun wanna kill you.
- Harvey: You’re nice too. I’m switching my allegiance to you!
And they never saw Harvey again….. I assume. Honestly, why is this particular lord important. I’m asking because I don’t know. Meantime my man Lassic eviscerated some Knight dude and he won too. Yay!
Strap in folks – that was basically the opening tag. This show guys, what are they running from? Anyways, another ball and another half dozen new characters later, we get a weird scene with a temper tantrum from what I assume is Villar’s ex who’s still mad about the flower arrangements (prove me wrong people, there’s absolutely no proof that that’s not exactly what happened) and we get the luminous return of that delicate gentleman who almost got married in the first episode. Ahh the first episode, so full of promise.
After some meaningless time filler, delicate lord dude, who is apparently a big deal and called Alexis has a super secret meeting with Theo to tell him…he still likes Marinne. I guess he wants Theo to pass her a note? Anyways, attempted assassination ensues, monseigneur whiskers appears for some reason (and speaks!), and the episode end on Alexis leaving on a carriage that seems to have materialized out of thin air (his first carriage having been lost when the horses ran away spooked by a dozen assassin ninjas). There was probably a more subtle way to carry out an assassination. The whole “from the shadows” aspect of the job seems to have escaped some of these fine murderers.
What can I say. At this point I’m not even mad I’m just confused and tired and mad… By far my biggest takeaway from the episode (aside from some glaring hoyay I may be imagining in desperation), is that Theo is on BFH. That’s Big Fat Hero to you! He’s personality seems to be limited to “noble”. With little to balance that out and another narrative that left me desperately trying to build something out of crumbs, I’m really straining myself to care what happens to any of these people.
We didn’t see much of him at all this episode so I’m still holding out some hope for Villar and it’s always nice to Mittens-sama (I have no clue what the cat is called) but this story just deserves better than this treatment. I don’t even understand how people can call it generic, at this point we really don’t have enough information to make that call…
Predictions
Plot: I dunno…. something something war were declared? How about this, someone will try to impute Theo’s claim to lordship? I know that’s super precise and really unlikely but at this point.
Character: An important character will get hurt.
Astral is currently traveling so he may not be able to keep up with the games this week (although he may also surprise us all) but Leap and TPAB are diligently continuing the battle. I actually love the fact that we have drastically different tastes (well I have drastically bad different tastes). I read their reviews Sunday evening to see how they contrast and it’s made these shows so much more fascinating for it. Don’t you agree?
Hahahahaha!!! I’m not even going to try to watch this anime, but I do enjoy reading your reviews, like, I dun care about this kind of anime, but I’m glad it exists because I get to read your review. That dialogue killed me hahahaha! :’D
I should do the subtitles for this show!!! You’re not missing much and thank you, my pain in watching this is now justified!
If I’m going to be serious for a while, I don’t think my problem with this show is that it’s scattered or that it doesn’t make sense. I actually like scattered story telling, and there’s enough information in the anime that I could piece together what’s going on and make predictions if I cared. The problem, though, is that I don’t care. Why?
It feels as if the anime decided that the best way to draw people in is via the relationship between Siluca and Theo, and thus they focus on that where they can. They’re not interesting enough, though, to carry the story, and this method de-emphasises almost everything that’s actually important. You can do such a story in two ways: panorama view or multi-point-of-view. Following Siluca and Theo around like that, they end up with underdeveloped characters that command no attention, while also not having enough time to actually develop the setting – which would have to be far more prominent.
If it’s supposed to have been Theo’s story, the story would have had a different set-up (and considering Lodoss, I actually expected such a scatter-shot approach). So yeah, I think the anime’s problem is that they try too focus too much, when the story doesn’t focus in that way. (I don’t know the source material; I’m not talking about adaption. The source material could have the same problem.)
I think think th audience would care more about Theo and Siluca either together or individually if they bothered to flesh them out and build them up as characters a bit more. I’ve enjoyed many shows with admittedly bland leads but in this case, I forget they exist when they’re offscreen.
Yeah, well, I forget the show exists when it’s off-screen. I’m not bored while watching, mind you. But if it stopped airing, I wonder how long it would take me to notice?
I’m a little bored… I wish I wasn’t. If anything this show has made me realize that I miss a grand fantasy epic…
Fantasy anime I liked: Moribito ~ Guardian of the Spirit, Kemono no Souja Erin, 12 Kingdoms, Wolf’s Rain…
…and now I’m struggling to come up with anything. I’m not sure they qualify as grand epics – all have epic elements, though.
Then there’s Scrapped Princess (which turns SF halfway through, but becomes pretty epic) and Shin Sekai Yori (which is SF-horror from the start and escaletes to epic proportions)…
I’m not sure anime is the best medium if you’re looking for grand epics, though. (I’m probably forgetting some shounen fighters, since I tend to mentally slot them into a different category).
Sadly, Gancrest is a pile of wasted potential.
Nope, Grancrest isn’t even generic. A bit of a narrative failure at this point that would actually be made better if it would stick to generic because at least then it would make sense, but not generic. I’d love to still have hope for this one but mostly I’ve given up and I’m just watching the train wreck.
I’m really wondering if it’s adaptation failure. The manga can’t be this scattered…
That almost sounds like a challenge to hunt down the manga, but I’m going to resist because I’m too busy with other things at the moment. Though, MAL lists the source as a Light Novel and that seems even less like it could function if this is how the story is told.
Wow..this really sounds like a complete mess of a show. Honestly pretty glad that I have decided not to start with this one (because there was a certain point way in the start of the seasonal anime where I was almost tempted to do so.
A mess of a show is a pretty good summary