⬛Review info
- Reviewing Info: How I rate/review stuff is explained HERE
- Review layout: WP non-H
- Review type: Anime
⬛Review (short ver):
⚡In a nutshell: Grandiose fantasy war filled world with lot of “logistics…”…. and plenty of drama
🟢PROS
✅Fairly enjoyable condensed tragic grand fantasy political warfare storytelling
✅large scale fights with some great smaller scale or duel tier power/magical fights
✅Really cool grandiose designs
✅Very cool vast ideas compacted in entertaining manner
🚫CONS
❌Some EXTREMELY infuriating dumb plot points
❌Not really fond of that extremely war patriotism filled brainwashed world moral compass people have there
❌Some unpleasant “freedom” characters
❔The “condensed” form of logistics/politics/background lore might be off-putting for people who highly focus on story element. (as certain things feel skipped over or fast forwarded, which I personally loved as didn’t really give a shit about those elements, important parts were presented, at least felt so)
⬛Review (comments/longer ver):
✦Story
Man, I have such mixed feelings when it comes to story itself and storytelling. So, I’ll start what I considered good.
The good part would be probably the whole grandiose element. It had drama, romance, tragedy, warfare, strategy, politics, fantasy and fairly odd twists. The whole story felt like really odd theatrics… from the whole first character encounter journey to the whole brainwashed patriotic war filled world to the weddings and plot twists. It’s type of story that could probably be dragged for hundreds of episodes, but here what I loved about it. I feel like as it was really “condensed” a lot of important bits were presented whereas lot of activities and events that most likely would have happened at the same time in the story were skipped over, fast forwarded and so on, but somehow in a really fitting manner. Whenever there was a moment where I felt as something got “transitioned over” It simply felt as if “okay, in a nutshell, they succeeded/failed in that. That’s good enough for me. I don’t need the details, nor cared about then.” Which is cool, as I mostly cared about main characters and key character events.
Of course, such grandiose stories I cannot ever fully 100% follow as there are way too many names. (characters, countries, factions etc…) but what manners that what was presented was mostly quite enjoyable.
The whole story had fairly weird relation between magic, nobles and common folk. And the whole world and story linking between them already itself would be whole paragraph itself. Let alone specific factions, creatures and plot twists which would arise its topics which I simply can’t be bothered with.
Now…. My main complains. There was a specific plot point which I absolutely got infuriated with. It was so unnecessary. Political marriages already piss me off, let alone that… seriously. I would rather sacrifice a universe…. Than what was done. Such a dumb and pointless self-imposed responsibility.
Also, since the whole world lives in constant warfare…. Their whole moral compass is rather twisted in both patriotic and nobles/commoners manners. Which I also find rather idiotic and never been fond of. Which makes the world in this anime rather twisted. Thus, a lot of story decisions made seem “normal” there made me feel simply “like what?”
Other than that, … I did enjoy the gradual plot twists and the whole constant tactical approach of Anime itself. Although story does drop few nukes on you and the finale itself is quite a thing…
✦Character
Main character himself is the oddest main character I’ve seen in a long time. He is a generic good doer which itself I don’t see a problem in. But his combat approach and occasional strong decisions and his charismatic roles are such an odd balance. I don’t consider him bad nor good character…. But rather than being “dull & generic” he felt more of “odd”.
But his partner, our female lead. Had quite a charming personality. In a sense she was the brains of the whole story. And I did enjoy their relationship progression overall as well a lot. Although, my only question is why she never changed her outfit still questions me. Considering once she changed her master, she didn’t need to wear it anymore and she don’t she didn’t like it at first.
As for rest of the characters…. There a lot of them. Some are simply and enjoyable, some are questionable in various manners. (whenever their alignment, decisions, pointless self-imposed rules and dumb “aristocrats” culture things…). Some characters are pretty unlikeable…. Some do weird stuff that I don’t really agree with nor like much… but aren’t really a bad as characters nor people. And a lot of characters exist in “game of thrones” manner, meaning that they simply exist to be hated and where you hope they get killed off due to what they cause.
But in the end… there are plenty of base stereotypes with some of them having more background and depth to them and some less… well it’s grandiose political drama so that is to be expected that characters that you can simply “like” are rare. Cast is large yet fairly good I would say, plenty to love and hate. Plenty of growth and development of various characters and plenty of cannon fodder.
Simply some of the for sake of drama, tragedy. Character decisions were extremely infuriating and unnecessary. Looking at you Marianne… that was one of rare Anime where I got so angry at a character that I literally punched wall and stopped watching this Anime for few weeks and finished 5 different other Anime before finishing Grancrest….
✦Art & Sound
First things first. I must say. The magic design, the crests concept and designs are absolutely something I adore in fantasy settings. Whenever it’s Japanese rune type magic in games or Anime or Western crest/symbol style stuff magic related stuff are my jam. And this world, did amazing at it.
Art quality itself isn’t anything too special. But designs were superb and there were some amazingly well Animated moments.
There were quite few soundtracks that had their charm. There were few peaceful tracks I noticed and liked a lot and some odd tension tracks I enjoyed a lot. But most of the OST was rather average I would say.
✦Enjoyment & Overall
AS WHOLE….. I consider it good Anime. Probably compacted a lot from light novel, but I personally felt that most of the story I could keep track on and important bits were well delivered. Most importantly the fun parts of action and drama had well delivered and impactful meaning. Although even though around the end everything went somewhat every “grand scale bizarre” when it came to bigger powers and plot reveals.
If you want more detailed lore you will have to read light novel. I honestly, didn’t care that much about side factions lore or mumbo jumbo. I simply wanted to watch grandiose fantasy and wanted the story related to main events.