A Record of Grancrest War Ep 20 – Hold the Line

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

So who else has played Mass Effect? Did you think of that speech instantly? You know, Captain Kirrahe’s stirring address to the Salarian troops just before their attack on Saren’s lab. It was such an unlikely character for this type of scene but it worked so well that I remember it in detail to this day. I’m not sure I’ll remember this episode of Grancrest for quite as long…

This week brought back the familiar feeling of me wondering whether I had skipped an episode as the immediately jumped into a grand scale armed confrontation between Marrine’s troops and Theo’s. I am more than willing to accept that I have forgotten part of last week’s episode but how did we get from potential alliance talk to full blown war quite so quickly?

And who’s Erik? Was he the Nord king we killed? I dunno, his son was set to avenge him or make him proud. Anyways I think he’s dead now. Yeah…this is the Grancrest I’ve come to know.

The first half of the episode was dedicated to the various components of the huge battle as the Treaty desperately tried to simply hold off the enemy long enough for the Union forces to arrive. For the most part, this was in fact a rather satisfying sequence, with various strategies that played out logically and were interesting to see unfold. I had a few minor gripes. Well the two usual ones. Fine, I’ll stop judging Theo for making his child maids fight unarmed on the front lines (yes I know wolfies but the didn’t transform this time so maybe someone could have handed them a knife). But could he at least give them one scrap of armor? I dunno, a helmet or a belt? I can accept that the little girl in peasant clothing with supernatural strength and speed is effective as an assassin, but a soldier in open warfare is a completely different thing.

Also, when and why did Irvin become their mentor? He’s a horrible butler, Siluca is the one serving coffee most of the time. And he’s obviously not teaching them the knife wielding techniques. But he did teach them that silly run with your arms stiffly flailing behind you move. Did it always look that silly?

This said, aside from being out of place, there was really nothing wrong with the fanservice charas and as I said the battle as a whole was one of the better ones. Unfortunately, it fell short of being truly enjoyable as the animation was simply not good enough to properly convey the action. Movement look stiff, overview shots might as well have been stills and occasional jagged transitions made it look like they had saved on ressources by skipping frames. Grancrest has done worse in past episodes but considering how important an event this was supposed to be, I thought they should have polished these scenes a bit more.

As narratively satisfying as the first half was, the second was…very Grancresty… and not in the best way. The Union army appeared just in the nick of time – as it should. Siluca and Theo were quietly chatting about how exhausted they were as Siluca conveniently almost fainted seconds prior. Yeah it was a bit corny but I liked it. I assumed no one important died during the battle. Casualties seemed rather heavy on both sides but they didn’t tell us anything about it…At this point a second round of tentative peace talks took place and what followed was not quite as likeable.

Let me just say to all you doubters that kept trying to douse my admiration for Marrine, I told you guys she was all noble and stuff. She was willing to sacrifice herself for the good of the world and in order to keep the man she loved safe. How adorable is that. Very adorable. It didn’t translate too well in the talks though.

I don’t remember whether the Mages college had already been revealed as the menacing force pulling the strings behind the curtain in so many words or whether it had just been heavily inferred but either way, the spelled it out for us. Theo’s proposal was to unify their three crests in order to immediately form the Grancrest and for the mages into open confrontation. He didn’t say anything but Siluca’s dad had a hilarious derp face in the corner of the screen. I guess he thought the mages were being all smooth and stuff. I’m not sure why but none of the mages present (and there were 2 in the actual room) were captured or even regarded with suspicion in any way.

I also didn’t think that Alexis, Marrine and Theo had essential already gathered all the crests between the three of them. What about the holy grail quest and all that jazz?Maybe we’ll find out next time. Let’s face it, I’m just not good at figuring this show out.

After Marrine threw a little fit, Alexis showed her that he ordered his soldiers into a rose formation, she was super moved and didn’t think it was inappropriate to ask this of your army. At which point Alexis asked her to marry him, she told no deal cause she wasn’t a virgin no more and he was like I dun care and they hugged and are in love again!

You know I was really rooting for these two to get back together. This was literally what I wanted…but not this way….not this way….

All I could really think of was : Gosh…that’s a lot of people that died for nothing. A WHOLE lot. Entire nations were leveled cause these two are wishy washy. Well I guess at least the beautiful rich blonde folks get to be happy. That’s important. It seems I’m the only one who was unimpressed by this, the men on all sides, you know the ones that were trying to kill each other a few hours ago and had done a pretty good job of it two. Those guys instantly forgot about the countless comrades they lost that day and cheered on their leader getting back with their ex.

Didn’t they behead french monarchs for less than this? I’ve seen Rose of Versailles, Marie Antoinette was cute. The Theo out of the blue just blurted out that Siluca and him are married now apparently. Theo is worse at romance than I am. I’m starting to feel pretty bad for Siluca. Her dad did another face.

All things considered, the Hero of the episode really should be Mr. Siluca. Not only was he on the front lines he is either on the mages side and must not be liking this predicament, or has found out about the mages maneuvering just now, has had to put up with the lover’s charade and was just told his daughter was married to some dude and all he did was make some funny expressions. Kudos on the restraint dude.

After that, both couples, in other words All The Most Important Leaders present, just sort of wandered away for a leisurely walk together and everyone spontaneously agreed that Theo should be emperor because reasons!

Judging from past experience, the next episode will be charming and fun…

Grancres looks best in still shots I find.