Caution: This review contains spoilers the specific spoiler discussions will be clearly marked for you to see so if you cant predict a cliched animes cliches skip the spoiler sections Ive marked. Also do not read this review if you are a Grancrest diehard because itll probably trigger you unless if youre objective. If youre 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 its footing right. There are different places where I found the show good or bad which is why I dont consider this show absolutely trash surprise surprise not FranXX anyway. So its 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 Im not complaining nothing wrong with fanservice I say :P coming out of nowhere. Sounds like a rant so Ill tone down for the next bit. 520https://i.pin.com/originals/ce/7d/fd/ce7dfd323afb0d3f0aa7aa1d67e0d591.jpg The show tried introducing its 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. Its always good to see that not all the cast is revealed in its first episode but unfortunately that didnt help much because we had to make room for our Ohsogreat green haired MC Theo. Many praised his badassery and his forwardthinking 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 its that its too convenient. Oh Theo is gonna die but something convenient happens and hes saved. Oh this is gonna happen but then to benefit Theos side it doesnt and the opposite direction is taken. I mean the show makes Theo out to be like hes 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 theres nothing wrong with having a righteous MC. Its just that in its current premise I doubt thats whats 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 WenLi and wins the war without any well thought out tactics? No thank you. This isnt 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 dont think so I mean a guy like Yang WenLi has lost at least once and Theo never did? Dont joke with me A1. If youre making your MC win as well MAKE IT BELIEVABLE. Speaking of believable weve got the laughable battle tactics. Once again its 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 its just Charge and win which I doubt is something that works even 10 of the time especially when youre constantly outnumbered. A simple Well attack from here and there to trap them isnt 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 its due and Theos backstory is one that deserves a clap. Just a clap. Why? Its because it was seldom explored after that one episode and they just threw in a preshow romantic interest and lets just say tried to be edgy by giving her one heck of a bombed sendoff. And bombs is not the word here. The battle tactics used there as well were close to zilch Im 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 wasnt 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 isnt about hair colour here. She was underused and overblown at the same time. She had around 23 important lines to say in each episode that were of value no scratch that 23 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 dont like Theo? Zannendeshoka you wont be satisfied at all. 720https://moesucks.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/grancrestsenki0219.jpg You might say Siluca herself might be able to stand on her own as a character but unfortunately thats not the case with most of the people in the cast. Why? Its because all the characters are cast as stepping stones for Theosama to step on and take this place as the best character and biggest badass in this anime. Result? Lets tone down before I turn this into a rant wait it isnt? I hear you say :P disappointing. Convenience and stepping stones was the word here unfortunately. Now that Ive spewed enough poison over poison lets calm our nerves down with the plus points of the anime apart from the sadly less explored Theo backstory the soundtrack. Id be lying if I didnt 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 thats NOTHING to say of the BGM thats BackGround Music to those who dont know it was Grancrests signature achievement. It sent chills down your spine and made you smile in anticipation of whats to come spoilers: disappointment and it pumped you up. The visuals thankfully werent 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 Im 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 dont want to know about this predictable fight. Spoiler begin: The thing is that Milza had given mercy to Theo when Theo didnt 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 dont even know anymore needless to say it was in all literal and figurative sense a bloody mess. Spoiler end 720http://ultsubs.esy.es/wpcontent/uploads/2018/04/GrancrestSenkiEpisode131.png Moving back to the stepping stones the characters. We go with another spoiler section will not start immediately so hold on Alexis and Marrines Romeo and Juliet romance. Pardon me while I vomit. Okay lets continue in terms of anime if youve seen my dropped list Ive had the Romeo x Juliet anime at a 2/10 so if you like the story of it in anime form I dont think youll hate it so much unless if you treat Grancrest like its equivalent. Romeo and Juliet the Shakespeare play didnt focus on war as much as the romance because surprise surprise its a romance first and foremost and another important part is that theres tragedy involved. Does Grancrest follow any of these? No. Why is Marrine and Alexis romance related to Romeo and Juliet? Blame the fans but thats not the issue here. Its that this type of romance wont work in a war show. Ive said this many times in different situations above Grancrest does a lot of nonwar 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 dont 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? Couldnt 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 Its 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 Theos side was weak then why didnt you have important deaths? Yes the deaths in the first half did exist and they definitely served their purpose so thats a plus point but we didnt see anything after that Now a rebuttal to what people might point fingers at my review at Ill definitely hear the likes of Almost all your points against the show are targeting the war aspect of it. You dont know how war shows go. This show isnt about war its about blablabla. Except for that last one which will definitely be used by those who dont even know what the anime is about please do not misunderstand most of you arent a part of this trope so do not worry This show is all about war its called Grancrest Senki. So its about war. 720https://moesucks.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/grancrestsenki0601.jpg 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 its 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 dont tell me its a deconstruction Ill kill you. Finally we move on to the last issue of the show which Ill cover the shows artstyle. Made by A1 I expected the show to do okay but it couldnt 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 couldnt find it good at all even at 1080p yes I upscaled to 1080p episodes midseason and still suffered with the artstyle. To go into a little more detail the character models werent 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 Im not complaining about fanservice since I love it when used properly but that its used in the wrong place and at the wrong time. Perhaps the only fanservice that was used at the right time was Silucas outfit which was attractive :P Apart from that the fanservice used in the show wasnt done well and A1 after that episode stopped deploying it and went back to CGI war sequences. Once again to make it clear. I dont have any problem with fanservice I enjoy Ecchi its just that they should be done at the right time many would say that theres no such specific time for fanservice but Id say otherwise. If its not an Ecchi show dont do random fanservice please thank you. Moving back to the main artstyle it in simple words wasnt done well for the reasons explained above. 720http://livedoor.blog.jp/webdataanimetwitter/s/3/a/3a312800.jpg 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 viewers 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 its ending Grancrests ending does bring closure. Although on the cliched Shoujo side. It had its purpose to play. The first half of the episode was as disappointing as youd 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 Id call amazing but eh it served its 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 isnt at all what Id like to call a good show this year. Its 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 wasnt what I expected the battle tactics werent 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 Theos backstory was somewhat decent although that fell apart soon after. This is all I can say to end on a positive note on this semirant and semireview 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 dont 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 720https://.fireden.net/a/image/1515/16/1515165485425.jpg Story: 2.5 Animation: 2 Sound: 7 Character: 1.5 Enjoyment: 2.5 Overall: 3.1