It hasn’t always been the smoothest ride but as the finish line becomes visible, I can’t say I’m not glad I stuck it out on the Granbelm journey. To know what I’m talking about, you can read my episode review over on 100 Word Anime.
But part of the fun is also that Granbelm has been a well-crafted show. Generally consistent and good looking. My galleries for the show are much prettier than I expected at the beginning of the series. Just take a look at this one!
I really like the deep blue Granbelm uses to show dark nights. The same colour shows up a few times in the series and I think it’s quite beautiful.
I like that the moon is just short of full. I don’t think I would have noticed it if I hadn’t taken a screen cap but the is still a small slice if the moon in shadows, meaning the actual full moon will be here soon..Mangetsu.
The scenes of the beautiful night are interrupted by a few short flashbacks which feature a lot more colours but are also less saturated in classic flashback fashion. These beats add moments of calm in a sequence that’s frantic which highlights Shingetsu’s desperation well. Everything the screen darkens as we go back to the nighttime events, the audience gets a little pang. Night is always scarier, the tension goes up a bit. This all serves to non verbally drive home Shingetsu’s worried state quite well.
I’ve noticed that in the past few episodes, we’ve started seeing a lot of people in silhouette. Very dramatic!
Even though it turns out that Mangetsu appears fine, she’s accepted her faith and found her own happiness in it, the atmosphere is still a little tense. The night has gotten visibly lighter compared to previous scenes and some tension has been lifted, but there is still a general unease.
I was worried about Mangetsu in these scenes. She’s constantly in shadow, physically moving away from any light sources on several occasions.
The short but striking happy camping sequence is the only part of the episode that uses Granbelm’s usual expanded palette. The story usually takes place in urban settings so we rarely get such beautiful green scenery, maybe that’s why I found it so appealing.
Nene has similar eyes to Mangetsu and her sister. This is only important because in Granbelm, everyone has pretty distinct eye shapes. There is zero significance to it. However, if I was bored I could go into some long lost twin theory or assume that subconsciously Shingetsu really wants to be friends with Nene, as do we all!
I love Granbelm sunsets. This one is the softest we’ve seen. Usually the turn the entire screen intense orange. This mix of orange pink and purple makes it much less stifling. It seems to be a trend. I’m seeing this precise colour combo in a lot of anime lately. It was all over the third season of Bungo Stray Dogs.
I also really liked how progressively darker the scenes became as the sun was slowly setting.
We saw the entire range of light in this episode. It started in the deep of night and slowly made it to just before dawn, then morning at Nene’s, afternoon at the campground, evening by the river and we are back with the last rays of sun as night settles in again.
We got to see just how much the light changes throughout the day and that’s not something that happens too often.
And we finally see a full moon:
Another great gallery post Irina-san! These posts really make me want to pick up Granbelm. If only I had more time.
It was a real surprise for me. Proof you can’t judge on first impressions (at least I can’t) I’m so glad some people like these posts!
If you hadn’t shared your surprise in a blog post, I wouldn’t even be watching the show.
And those image threads are great (though hard to comment on for me).
It is a little though to comment on impressions like that, I get it. But I do have a lot of fun writing them and I enjoy seeing these types of posts from others whenever I can find them.
I thought this was one of the prettiest episodes yet, so it was especially interesting to read the visual analysis this week.
Only thing that struck me: In the flashback when Shingetsu and Anna were making dolls, they made dolls with a hair colour close to their own, but when Shingetsu later made Mangetsu the haircolour is closer to Anna’s (though distinct). Makes intuitive sense.
They were making little avatars…Then Shingetsu made a friend.