A Record of Grancrest War Ep 13 What’s With The Hair?

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

No joking, no exaggeration, as the first seconds of the episode came onscreen, I honestly said out loud: What? Where? How???

You know all those characters that sort of dropped out of the narrative to make room for new or more important players. Like the pink hair cleric lady that was seemingly being set up as a romantic rival for Siluca but flickered out of existence within an episode? Great news, they’re all back. Of course that does mean that we need to abandon all the characters we actually managed to get some development on, but it’s all good…we’ve left on a different continent, somehow.

Last episodes saw the somewhat devastated remnants of Artuk’s supporters come together to form a new treaty just as the Union was bearing down on them to wipe them out. Although they managed to gain some momentum through a surprise first strike, Marrine’s troupes are still superior and she has proven to be an opponent not to be taken lightly. Of course this is the perfect time for a rising military leader, and negotiator, to take a random group of servants and hightail it to some island on a dingy. I’m not joking, it seems they rowed there? Why didn’t they take a real boat, or troops? It’s a secret.

Now, this would be a pretty questionable move in the middle of a politically inclined fantasy adventure series but thankfully, it’s a crime drama now? From the Italian names to having the power of the region controlled by ‘families’ rather than lords, to invoking Omerta and protection rackets. Even the settings and music were shifted to resemble an old school mafia movie. Imagine of someone had decided to take Record of Lodoss War (or whatever vaguely LoTR type anime you want) and decided to drop 91 days in the middle of it.

You know, I just reread that, and on paper it sounds kind of cool. In fact I’m sure there’s a way to make a great show out of that premise but this isn’t the show. I mean Grancrest, pick a thing, really just any ONE thing and stick with it….

Even though we saw the return of characters that had been shelved and almost forgotten, (why bring twin teenage maids… I know they’re werewolves and good in battle but they ARE maids not soldiers and children…if you wanted them in combat why not do so earlier?) fret not, they still threw in a healthy dose of new ones to make absolutely sure no characters had time to gain any depth.

Yup, we get another affirmation that Irvin is some type of super strong ‘shadow’, nope we don’t learn anything new. We did get a sliver of backstory for Theo but it only amounted to – tragic past (who would have thunk it?).

Is it just me, or do any of you guys remember Theo mentioning something about his homeland being destroyed by chaos in the early episodes? No, there is no way I’m  going back to check. In any case, I know for a fact that the chaos thing was a big deal for a while there – turns out it’s not much of a concern on Theo’s island after all.

As another frantic battlefield scene took center stage, I found it difficult to muster any enthusiasm for wither side. Obviously the Rossinis are EVIL. Just plain old twirling mustaches and tying ladies to railroad tracks villains and the villagers (yes villagers) are good, but having seen all these people for the first time roughly one minute before the start of the battle, I can’t say I was particularly vested in either side winning.

Also how did Theo and Siluca figure out they were being betrayed? OK, Theo may have picked up on something since he at least knew these people but how did he communicate it to Siluca. Can they really use telepathy now? Cause with this show, it’s not an unrealistic option.

Aside from that, they seemed to tease yet another potential love triangle between Siluca, Theo and Rebecca, a childhood friend(?) ex lover(?) sister(?) of Theo’s, but luckily we avoided all that mess by slaughtering her before the end of the episode. Good Job show!

It would seem that MiLza ‘n friends have been tossed aside to make way for the Big Bad Rossinis but with this show, there’s just as much chance that some new chaos side effect will reanimate Villar and we’ll have to deal with braineating Artuk zombies in a walking dead type episode next week.

At this rate, I’m going to need another recap by episode 15. The way this narrative is going, every answer just raises 5 more questions. But really, if anything, please just answer this:

Here’s a fun game, take these pics and make a story out of them!