- Genre : Fantasy, Adventure, action, political
- Studio: A-1 Pictures
I realized something for the first time this week. I watch Grancrest on Friday evenings after work, then I write the post the same day because my weekends are pretty busy. Also it’s Friday evening so I’ll usually have a glass of wine or scotch or rubbing alcohol….Not enough to get wasted just a little celebration for surviving one more week. However, I’ve been nursing a cold so I decided to forgo booze for the past week. So this is the first time I’ve watched this show entirely sober. For those of you that thought my posts were so scattered because I was buzzed, prepared to be a little worried?
Grancrest, Grancrest, Grancrest…what are you doing to me. You know how this show will completely lose my trust with a series of barely sensical, annoying episodes just to come up with something great and get my hopes right back up, ready to be crushed again. Well this time it did the entire roller coaster in a single episode.
Here I was, all ready to see some finely toned peeps fight in their underwear, preferably named Irvin or Aishela, but instead I got the return of MiLza and his wave of destruction. However, something was just a little different than usual.
First we had some actual, logical and and well thought out battleground strategies. Taking into account terrain and army size and everything. WoW!
Second we got a return of random battle ground lords that talk as if we’re suppose to know them, but they didn’t all instantly die. I must say, that blonde guy who was taking stock of the battle field either counts really really fast or has an AMAZING battleground awareness to keep track of all the casualties while fighting.
Finally, there was something off about MiLza’s entire approach. He seemed just the tiniest bit confused the entire time. We of course knew him to be hot blooded, that’s been one of his major characteristics, but up until now, he had proven himself to be an adequate general, with some idea of how to lead an army. Apparently, his white hot rage blinded him to all around, because not only did he not realize just how much their numbers had dwindled but he somehow thought it was a good idea to invoke a Manly one on one fight in the middle of a decisive grand scale battle.
At this point I would like to note a few random things. Yay Irvin and Aishela. Boo clothes. Stop throwing untrained children into the battlefield, I don’t care if they’re werewolves. There’s something a little disappointing about the magical incantation for an explosion to be “explode” but at least you’re not going to forget it. I probably would. I’d be like Blow Up, Boom, Kabblouie, then headless… Also, having your two field marshals, or whatever their army leader ranks are, just stop ordering their troops and have a duel right there, is both very cinematic and very stupid.
The climatic and long awaited confrontation between MiLza and Theo marked the return of the unusual animation style we had seen with the black witch a few episodes earlier. This time we got to enjoy for much longer and I’m grateful. Overall, the visuals this week were rocky, with a few distance scenes being downright laughable and some more cringey CG, but to me it was more than made up for with this stunning sequence. I just love this chasten yet exaggerated animation style. (Are those two words mutually exclusive?) And the fact that it’s only used occasionally, only heightens the impact. It has to be one of the best production choices made by this show.
It should be said that Siluca begged Theo not to take part in this duel. They were making it seem like it was because she lurves him and doesn’t want him to get hurt but I’m pretty sure it’s because she’s the battle strategist and knew this was a very stupid thing to do. He did seem to ackowledge as much but explained he had to do this because….I dunno, honor, hand size, wizard made him…But to prove he’s not a complete idiot, he did stop to provide ever helpful mid fight monologues (that’s right two of them) to give MiLza…a chance to kill him…because wizards? I know it was to explain why the fight was so easy to the audience, I’m no Theo! But you have to admit that within the context of the show, that was just silly.
Theo being Theo, he did not succumb to blood lust or thirst for vengeance and was going to spare MiLza but the defeated warlord being to proud to accept being taken alive asked for death. The Theo was like okie dokie, stabbed him through the throat with a sword and twisted the blade. Because Theo is absolutely terrifying the second you take your eyes off him. Dude got something insidious in him. The death scene was pretty cool… I mean it looked cool. Yup still sober here.
And then MiLza’s mage, who was actually Marinne’s mage and just temporarily assigned to help MiLza, went and killed himself. I actually wrote down, how does loyalty work in this world. I sort of understand why the lady mages and some of the lords liked Villar so much, but I thought Theo may have just used his death to unify the lords cause their relationship was strained at best. As I mentioned before, I have NO clue why most people are so devoted to Theo. But that mage openly disliked MiLza. He had only met him a little while ago. They disagreed on just about everything. He found MiLza to be way too aggressive and irrational and Milza spent half his time threatening to kill him. When did they become besties?
When all is said and done, even Theo admitted that he has no one left to fight. Obviously we still have to deal with the Marrine issue but without MiLza, it seems a little anticlimactic. Oh you know what they should do : more naked fighting preferably involving people named Irvin and Aishela.
I honestly got a lot of great pics from his episode – I guess it looked better than I thought. I love the Siluca casting one!
I’m amazed you are still looking for logic in terms of loyalty or character motivation. When the mage said he was going to kill himself, I just kind of shrugged and thought that was more or less the norm for this show. Maybe we’ll find out in three eps he isn’t dead after all or maybe Milza’s ghost will come back with the black witch lady and they’ll haunt Theo to death.
I want to see YOUR Grancrest!
In less than an hour, though mostly I’ve resorted to mocking it because otherwise I’d be crying that I didn’t drop the show about a dozen episodes ago.
“since”, is likely in the light-nove/manga.
“When did they become besties?” Remember early in the episode, when Mirza/Milza said that he’d learned something from the barely named mage? That was a Manly Bonding Moment ™. Barely named mage felt elevated because the great and powerful Mirza recognized his worth. That’s how I read it, anyway.
No, I don’t think it quite covers the motivation for killing himself (do all mages carry an Emergency Poison Ration?). But until that moment, they were mostly at loggerheads.
“he did not succumb to blood lust or thirst for vengeance and was going to spare MiLza…” I’m not convinced he was going to spare Mirza/Milza! I got more a “we both know you’re going to end up in a gave at the end of this but just for the sake of formalities…” vibe.
“a little disappointing about the magical incantation for an explosion to be “explode” but at least you’re not going to forget it…” I was half expecting it to the “Explosion!” But that’s from a completely different show…
Where do you think the plot’s going next? Marrine’s an obvious next target, but do you think there’re enough episodes to go after the Mage Academy?
I’m thinking maybe a drawn out (2 episode) tragically romantic arc of Alexis and Marrine? Don’t we need to see the vampires again at some point? They went out of their way to mention them in the recap episode and not a peep since then…
Oh, Theo would have spared Milza had he submitted. The way I read the scene, though, is that he knew Milza wouldn’t and he was making an appeal to etiquette in order not to insult him. There’s a bitter inevitablility about that scene. The duel was stupid, though, and I wish the anime had forgone it.
I’m fairly sure the mages want to create the Grancrest, and peace would stop crest-owners from fighting each other. So they won’t stop scheming until there’s only one crest left, I suspect.
That makes sense
If the Grancrest is formed does exactly what everyone thinks it will, magic will fade away.
The Mage and Artist(Evil-Seal Users) of which the vampires and werewolves are a type of, have a vested interest in the Grancrest never being formed.