Gurankuresuto Senki

Almost the game of thrones of anime with a slew of interesting characters mixed with decent animation and touches of love and war.

Enjoyed this story. Story has some sidesteps to the main storyline that tie everything together.

Pros: Nice graphics and some interesting ideas.

Meh: A lot of cgi.

Con: fighting scenes are ridiculous, story is childish and hard to follow.

The concept of crests in the story is interesting and had me intrigued by the first episode or two, but the story itself is simple and ludicrous, following no obvious order. The graphics are not bad except armies are CGI making an ugly mixture when they show up, and whether someone wins or loses a fight seems to have no basis in "reality".

The real story seems to be the negotiations being made, which indeed has a little interest, but they keep throwing in more details as conveniences to keep the story going. The alliances that are made seem superficial and people are too trusting, it feel as if the story was made for five-year-olds.

I dropped the series at the beginning of the fifth episode because it was becoming a bore. Although it's an interesting concept, the story itself is lacking.

"Simple" isn't intended to be derogatory, the anime is enjoyable, fairly well put together and there is enough character development to make it worth the watch, but the overarching story is not complex.

Unless this is the first anime you've ever watched there won't be any serious surprises, and as others have stated it watches like a JRPG which I think is one of its charms. There is good, evil, a hero and all of the challenges that could make for a boring trope filled series, but instead of being a cliched snoozefest "Grancrest" balances the flow of the series almost perfectly.

It's a great show to binge and what I find most satisfying is having closure, to many anime series are left unfinished.

Pro's:

• Good score / soundtrack.
• Simple but enjoyable story.
• Enough character development for engagement.
• Very little "filler".
• Closure.
• Solid English dubbing.

Con's:

• Predictable (I enjoyed it, but it could be a turn off).
• Lower quality / inconsistent animation at times.
• Dubbing / Subtitles don't always line up (Court ranks for example).

I've loved Ryo Mizuno's previous works, Record of Lodoss War and Rune Soldier. So I expected that I was going to love this series and that it would be pretty much Lodoss War without elves and dwarfs. And it kind of is that in a way, but I don't know if I would say I loved it. I watched the whole thing, though. Ryo Mizuno's works seem to have several typical tropes, the protagonist who wants to protect everyone including the enemy and whose father paid the ultimate price for that goal, a desert-based tribe who are very skillful but also very violent and ruthless and a secret subplot in the background involving an ancient witch and a magical major player that will be revealed only nearing the end of the story.

That said, I didn't really enjoy the pace of the series nor did I much care for the way that the show treats its characters as pieces of convenience. Not only do characters who seem like they're critical die, but a lot of the times, they die with only a mundane line of dialogue to even let you know that they're dead. Characters get introduced as if we're deep into their story, and their stories end completely abruptly.

The final plot line of the show, which is introduced IMMEDIATELY before it is 'resolved' is so overused and in anime and video games, and once it happens you'll no longer need to wonder why it is that everything seems a bit off in this world.