We are now just one episode away from the grand finale (to my surprise). You can read all about my initial reaction to finding out that Granbelm was not a 12 episode series over on 100 Word Anime.
I think penultimate episode are often tricky. You want to keep your best images for the last to make the biggest impact but you don’t want to lose the audience at the end either.
The preamble tag was a sepia toned, rain soaked flashback. I mean it’s not what you would call subtle but it was pretty. That’s why I made it my gif!
Also I find that atmospheric effects with an otherwise still image make for the best gifs!
I mean visually this episode was fairly monotone. It was basically just one long Granbelm battle (half of one depending on how you see it) so the images were either the robots (Armanox ) or close ups of the three girls in magical girl gear making faces.
I do like the bright pink colour of Granbelm. It’s very loud though. So far, Granbelm has always taken the colour of the eliminated mages on their final battle so you know…pink…
I’m digging Suishou’s hair like this a lot. Her face shape works way better without the side braid.
As you can see, the images remain similar except for Mangetsu. More specifically after Shingetsu disappears, Magetsu is suddenly in bright white light with a grey background. She’s much more neutral than everything around her and she contrasts by looking more normal.
I absolutely adore the expression of Magetsu’s face on that last image. That’s basically my spirit animal.
The last moments of the episode finally injected some different colours and tones.
Suishou and Mangetsu have the same eye colour. I’m just going to go ahead and call that supporting evidence for my theory that Suishou is a doll like Mangetsu that has survived her creator and gone a little…peculiar.
And let’s get some more silhouettes in here.
Thank you
My pleasre
When Suishou lets loose that includes her hair. (Your puppet theory is getting more likely. What if she was made by the magioconatus itself, and she’s all that remains of it?)
I thought so as well. She seems to communicate with it but she may just be that far gone.
Wouldn’t it be just delightfully horrible if Shingetsu does all those sacrifices, loses all those loved ones to get to the Magiconautus and the only thing she finds there is a broken Suishou. Nothing else. Granbelm had been a self-fulfilling prophecy all along.