Caution: This review contains spoilers (the specific spoiler discussions will be clearly marked for you to see) so if you can't predict a cliched anime’s cliches, skip the spoiler sections I've marked. Also, do not read this review if you are a Grancrest diehard because it'll probably trigger you, unless if you're objective. If you're neither of these parties, read on with a free mind! Review Published June 22, 2018 on AniList
Grancrest was the first seasonal I picked up in 2018 (not saying much since it released in Jan 6 anyway) and unfortunately my 2018 mean fell right off the bat. Grancrest stumbled out of the gate and fell flat on its face for the first few episodes and took a long time to get it's footing right. There are different places where I found the show good or bad, which is why I don't consider this show absolutely trash (surprise surprise, not FranXX anyway). So it's first episode started off very conveniently in such that Theo appears out of nowhere, beats the Lord after coming out of nowhere, and picks a somewhat scantily clad girl after as mentioned (not unlike most other isekai or fantasy anime, but I'm not complaining, nothing wrong with fanservice I say :P), coming out of nowhere. Sounds like a rant so I'll tone down for the next bit.
The show tried introducing it's characters little by little, introducing us to examples like Lassic, Milza among others for the early episodes and introduced others later down the line too. It's always good to see that not all the cast is revealed in its first episode, but unfortunately that didn't help much because we had to make room for our Oh-so-great green haired MC, Theo. Many praised his “badassery” and his “forward-thinking” and him “not being dense and weak” and I was terribly confused since none felt true except for his dense part which was randomly and conveniently revealed in a later episode. That is the problem with the show, it's that it's too convenient. “Oh Theo is gonna die” but something convenient happens and he's saved. “Oh this is gonna happen” but then to benefit Theo’s side it doesn't and the opposite direction is taken. I mean, the show makes Theo out to be like he's the coming of the Messiah or something. He comes, conquers VERY easily, is kind to people (more on that in a bit) and has people serve him in droves. I know it sounds like a rant but to be objective there's nothing wrong with having a righteous MC. It's just that in its current premise I doubt that's what's needed or what makes the most sense. What do I mean? The show is trying to prove that war is dark and to win a war there are sacrifices to be made but Theo goes Yang Wen-Li and wins the war without any well thought out tactics? No thank you. This isn't how you do a war show and definitely not how you make a badass MC. I mean, speaking of Yang, that show excellently shows why war is dark.
Where there is war there is loss on both sides and this MC is the complete opposite of that. Is there anything wrong with never losing? I don't think so, I mean, a guy like Yang Wen-Li has lost at least once and Theo never did? Don't joke with me A-1. If you're making your MC win as well, MAKE IT BELIEVABLE. Speaking of believable we've got the laughable “battle tactics”. Once again, it's a show about war so it should have a proper description of what battle tactics are right? WRONG. There is absolutely no mention or any sense in the “battle tactics” involved and it's just “Charge and win” which I doubt is something that works even 10% of the time, especially when you're constantly outnumbered. A simple “We'll attack from here and there to trap them” isn't how a battle tactic works. Sense? No, definitely not. Oh and speaking of no sense, we go back to our MC, Theo. To be fair, he did have a decent backstory, I definitely have to give credit where it's due and Theo’s backstory is one that deserves a clap. Just a clap. Why? It's because it was seldom explored after that one episode and they just threw in a pre-show romantic interest and let's just say “tried to be edgy” by giving her one heck of a bombed send-off. And bombs is not the word here. The battle tactics used there as well were close to zilch I'm sad to say. How can inexperienced commoners beat an advanced army? I sincerely apologise because I do not know. Neither did the show.
Then we move to the so called “romance subplot”. It was pretty obvious that Theo would be paired up with Blondie and unfortunately as I expected it wasn't done well. Why does Japan have a hard on for ruining blonde love interests in subplots? (Once again, there are exceptions, we have seen some good blonde love interests in other anime romance subplots before but not as often as one might expect). And this isn't about hair colour here. She was underused and overblown at the same time. She had around 2-3 important lines to say in each episode that were of value, no scratch that, 2-3 important lines every 2 episodes (severely averaged for ease of comprehensive analysis). Her only use was to satisfy the fanboys who already love Theo the “Hero" and want a romance subplot with all the kisses and vows. What if you like me don't like Theo? Zannen-deshoka, you won't be satisfied at all.
You might say Siluca herself might be able to stand on her own as a character but unfortunately that's not the case with most of the people in the cast. Why? It's because all the characters are cast as stepping stones for Theo-sama to step on and take this place as the best character and biggest badass in this anime. Result? Let's tone down before I turn this into a rant (“wait, it isn't?” I hear you say :P), disappointing. Convenience and stepping stones was the word here unfortunately. Now that I've spewed enough poison over poison, let's calm our nerves down with the plus points of the anime apart from the sadly less explored Theo backstory, the soundtrack. I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I jammed to the second OP each time it played, oh it was so epic. The music selection was needless to say, fantastic, and that's NOTHING to say of the BGM (that's BackGround Music to those who don't know), it was Grancrest's signature achievement. It sent chills down your spine and made you smile in anticipation of what's to come (spoilers: disappointment) and it pumped you up. The visuals thankfully weren't so bad in the OPs and EDs and on a personal note I loved both the EDs. You obviously may not see eye to eye with me but I loved both of them equally and served as an antidepressant for the earlier events of the episode.
Now back to the negatives because I'm out of positives to give, that one scene with Milza and Theo. Since this is a major spoiler so skip approximately 3 lines if you don't want to know about this predictable fight.
Spoiler begin: The thing is that Milza had given mercy to Theo when Theo didn't ask for it and was about to be killed in the first duel, but in the second and apparently more important one, Theo kills Milza. Nani? Why? What? How? Exactly. I thought they wanted to make Theo look like the next Messiah, what happened here? Well, one could say they wanted to make Theo look badass? I don't even know anymore, needless to say, it was in all literal and figurative sense, a bloody mess. Spoiler end
Moving back to the stepping stones, the characters. We go with another spoiler section (will not start immediately so hold on), Alexis and Marrine’s “Romeo and Juliet romance”. Pardon me while I vomit. Okay, let's continue, in terms of anime if you've seen my dropped list I've had the Romeo x Juliet anime at a 2/10 so if you like the story of it in anime form, I don't think you'll hate it so much, unless, if you treat Grancrest like it's equivalent. Romeo and Juliet, the Shakespeare play didn't focus on war as much as the romance, because surprise surprise, it's a romance first and foremost, and another important part is that there's tragedy involved. Does Grancrest follow any of these? No. Why is Marrine and Alexis’ romance related to Romeo and Juliet? Blame the fans, but that's not the issue here. It's that this type of romance won't work in a war show.
I've said this many times in different situations above, Grancrest does a lot of non-war things in a war show and it ruins many of the existing things relative to war shows as well. Going back to the Romeo and Juliet part, some say the Great Hall Tragedy shown in the first scene of the anime counts as tragedy but to that I say “read the original play”. In a later episode, in the final arc, the “final battle” which was hyped since the first few episodes that too, went with a POOF. And by POOF I don't mean a bomb. I mean “The anatomical juxtaposition of two orbicularis oris muscles in a state of contraction." As described by Henry Gibbons. In other words, a kiss. Nani? What? Why? When? What happened to the deaths and sacrifices of all those who fought leading up to this event? Why did they hype this battle if this was how it would end? What sort of timing is this??? Marriage? Kiss? Love? Unity? Nothing wrong with all these, but the question remains. If you HAD to follow it this way, then what was the meaning of those previous 20 episodes? Were they to waste? Did they serve as bait? Couldn't this series start off at like episode 16 or 18 and be an OVA? So many questions, and little to no answers.
And so, jumping back to the “It's a war” excuse, in a war you have major character deaths right? Where did the major characters die? Apart from a few minor characters who were obviously forgotten after the next 2 episodes when did we see the death of a main character? Once again, to be fair and objective, there is absolutely nothing wrong with not having major deaths in an anime, I agree, but if you are indeed trying to show that Theo’s side was weak, then why didn't you have important deaths? Yes, the deaths in the first half did exist and they definitely served their purpose, so that's a plus point, but we didn't see anything after that… Now, a rebuttal to what people might point fingers at my review at, I'll definitely hear the likes of “Almost all your points against the show are targeting the war aspect of it. You don't know how war shows go. This show isn't about war, it's about blablabla”. Except for that last one which will definitely be used by those who don't even know what the anime is about (please, do not misunderstand, most of you aren't a part of this trope so do not worry), This show is all about war, it's called Grancrest Senki. So it's about war.
Another example of a “war show” would be Gakusen Toshi Asterisk, which according to MAL in English is “The Asterisk War”. My point? Even though their names include the word war (or at least their English counterparts) none of them actually do follow the principles of a war show, less so in Grancrest, since it's whole premise was based on it and that immediately puts it just above Asterisk. So even though Grancrest is about war it rarely sticks to the proper formula of it and no, don't tell me it's a deconstruction, I'll kill you.
Finally, we move on to the last issue of the show which I'll cover, the show’s artstyle. Made by A-1, I expected the show to do okay but it couldn't do that either. Character models looked weak, CGI was used in many scenes (not all), the choreography of the fight scenes themselves were so bad I cringed under my bones and to top it all off, I couldn't find it good at all even at 1080p (yes, I upscaled to 1080p episodes mid-season and still suffered with the artstyle). To go into a little more detail, the character models weren't that eye catchy and to cover for this factor they tried deploying fanservice into the war show to try and make things look attractive (oh fun fact: ever heard of showing your nude body to your army to bolster their morale? Me neither) and I'm not complaining about fanservice (since I love it when used properly) but that it's used in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Perhaps the only “fanservice” that was used at the right time was Siluca’s outfit, which was… attractive :P
Apart from that the fanservice used in the show wasn't done well and A-1 after that episode stopped deploying it and went back to CGI war sequences. Once again to make it clear. I don't have any problem with fanservice, I enjoy Ecchi, it's just that they should be done at the right time, many would say that there's no such specific time for fanservice but I’d say otherwise. If it's not an Ecchi show, don't do random fanservice please thank you. Moving back to the main artstyle, it in simple words wasn't done well for the reasons explained above.
Spoiler begin: One of the most pathetic and biggest cop outs in the anime was how quickly they changed the villain from Marrine to the Mage Academy. It felt like a ridiculous cop out since the previous episode already ended the whole conflict of the past 20 episodes with a single “I still love you” (oh if only life and war was this easy) and as such this obviously leaves a hugely negative taste in the viewer’s mouth. But wait! There were still 4 more episodes! How ever could they fill them? By adding another villain and acting like “they were the villain all along” sort of crap. So, the whole 20 episodes of what you watched was for nothing bc Marrine suddenly became good and the last 4 episodes are important because the Mage Academy were the villains all along? They never showed up in the show before though? No mention of them was made and nothing was talked about. Yet they suddenly and extremely conveniently make their appearance to quickly put an end to the cries of “What was the point of the past 20 eps???” and from what I can see, that failed spectacularly. They continued with this bullish nature till the end… Spoiler end
For anyone wondering about it's ending, Grancrest’s ending does bring closure. Although on the cliched Shoujo side. It had it's purpose to play. The first half of the episode was as disappointing as you'd expect from the show. But the second half tried to mend those to little avail. Yeah it was cute I could say but such an ending is the same as what happened with the Marrine vs Alexis war… Not something I'd call amazing but eh, it served it's purpose I guess… I guess they wanted to follow the fairytale? Either way, Grancrest left me unimpressed.
And so with a heavy heart I must conclude that Grancrest isn't at all what I'd like to call a “good” show this year. It's plot was excrutiatingly convenient, the characters were made such that they were stepping stones for Theo, Marrine and Alexis’ romance was horribly handled and had a ridiculously lame “resolution” later on, the Artstyle wasn't what I expected, the battle tactics weren't at all present, the “final battle” was a laughable cop out, etc. the show had one or two positive points to it namely the soundtrack that was brilliantly done and Theo’s backstory was somewhat decent (although that fell apart soon after). This is all I can say to end on a positive note on this semi-rant and semi-review hybrid, not unlike my Dakara boku wa H ga dekinai review which was done in my old format back when the year started. If you made it till here, thank you for taking the time to read this review and if you do decide to watch Grancrest, please don't expect too much of it because the end result is far lower than that. Most of what you expect from Grancrest can be found elsewhere in shows that are actually good anyway right?
FANSERVICE
Story: 2.5
Animation: 2
Sound: 7
Character: 1.5
Enjoyment: 2.5
Overall: 3.1