Granbelm Episode 8 – Kuon Gets Around – Gallery

It’s a little late as I write this. I hope I will still have some good insights on the screencaps. I do think I manage to get my thoughts out on the story pretty well. You can judge for yourselves by going over to 100 Word Anime!

Like I said in my episode review, I thought the Granbelm visuals had been somewhat strained in the last few episodes, but this week was very pretty. Sure there wasn’t that much movement as it was entirely set in the “real” world and the girls were a bit tired. That may in fact be why it looked better, in my opinion.

So we got a saucy open. And already you can see how nice Mangetsu’s slightly dishevelled hair looks on the pillow. It’s not as static as it has been.

Even in the scene with all tree girls, some detail remains in Mangetsu and Kuon. In fact, Kuon is the one that suffered the most from artistic consistency, looking less than great at times, it’s the fact that she seemed back to normal that really made me notice how pretty the show was again.

I love the sunset scenes in Granbelm. They are always an explosion of colour. The shadows are pretty nice two. A little softer than this light would warrant, I think. But hey, it looks good.

You can see Kuon much better in this set of screencaps. And as you can see, she looks great.

This entire sequence was pretty amazing. First you have camera angles galore! Suishou is a destabilizing character so it would make sense that the camera keeps changing angle when she’s around. We’re supposed to feel like we’re standing on quicksand.

Second that blinding white light that completely blots out the background and isolates Suishou and Mangetsu as the only two people in the world is yet another nice way to ramp up the tension without resorting to traditional sinister music or something.

Finally, that before last cap of the two silhouetted in the arches. We see several variants of the shot. It’s great framing and reminded my or the marionette interludes in Utena. As far as visuals go, this was a particularly successful sequence.

The follow-up scene between Kuon and Suishou, which was in many ways a reprise, was much less stimulating on the direction side. A bunch of dutch angles to show us just how troubled Kuon is by it all but otherwise the visuals remain pretty tame.

Mind you, this is probably a good thing. Overusing fancy direction quickly gets old and looses it’s effectiveness, bringing down previous scenes with it.

So many eye close ups this episode. The mirrored tear track shots were a nice, if obvious touch.

I really enjoyed Suishou’s pose, leaning against that pillar as the girls came into school. It was so “mean girls”.

Mangetsu’s sister is pretty cute!