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This review was written on November 3rd, 2019.
(Note: I literally could not find a good quality picture of the promo art for the first season. The picture above is actually the cover pic for the second season's opening theme single, only with the part listing the artist and the song cut out. I thought it looked better than any of the first season pics I could find)
I give the first season of this archetypal fantasy anime...a 74/100.
Huh. I originally wasn't going to review this, as the second season is airing right now, and I wanted that to be done before I reviewed the series, but I found I had too much to say about the first season to keep my mouth shut about it. So why not? Might as well talk about it. Granblue Fantasy started out as a smartphone JRPG that became really popular, and is still going to this day. It received an anime adaptation, and the second season is currently airing. This anime never even crossed my radar, but I was bored and wanted something new to watch, and when I found out this had an English dub, I decided to watch it. I finally finished the first season now that it's up on Netflix, and I definitely like it, though it's not without its problems.
In a world where the skies are endless and traveling between floating islands is the norm, a young country boy, Gran, dreams of finding his father and traveling the world. But while out on an excursion with his dragon friend Vyrn, he runs into a young woman, Lyria, and her knight companion, Katalina, who are being hunted by the evil Erste empire. They want to use Lyria's powers for nefarious purposes, and Katalina betrayed the empire by escaping with Lyria. When he is mortally wounded in a battle, Lyria gives him some of her life force to save him, and summons a powerful beast, Bahamut, to drive the forces away. Thus, Gran's life force is bonded with Lyria's, so wherever she goes, he has to follow, or else they both die. Gran doesn't mind, as he wants to journey to the mythical island of Estalucia, called the Island of the Astrals, as that's where his father is. The three of them decide to do just that, and on their journey, they make new friends, encounter new enemies, and discover the secrets of their world and what the Empire plans to do with it, and by extension, Lyria.
Basically, this anime is very old school despite being relatively new. It pretty much adheres to all the standard JRPG tropes from the 90s to now: An optimistic man from a backwater village who goes on an adventure, a mysterious damsel in distress with strange powers, a cute perky animal companion, an evil empire seeking to destroy the world and find out its secrets, a ragtag crew with a variety of eclectic personalities, and so on. If you're familiar with the original cellphone game, this isn't much of a surprise, as many of the staff that worked on it also worked on various Final Fantasy games back in the day. The anime pretty much feels like an RPG, with a colorful world filled with people from all walks of life, even half-animal people, and the animation is no slouch in that it creates these beautiful, vivid settings that are a feast for the eyes, from Gran's pastoral village to the steampunk town of Valtz. It helps that the action and fight scenes are all very well choreographed, with fighting moves actually being animated.
Honestly, my only complaints with the animation are twofold, and they are pretty big flaws. One is that the CGI monsters really don't blend well with the 2D animation and could have been integrated into the scenery better. The second one is with the outlines around the characters. To see what I mean, I want you to look at these screenshots and note the parts I circled in red.
Notice how the parts that I circled don't look all that smooth or seem to have missing spaces? I don't know if this was a deliberate art style choice, or the animators didn't have time to polish the character designs before the episodes were set to air, but seriously, all of the linework around the characters looks really sloppy, unrefined, and unfinished. Unlike the smooth linework in say, shows like AnoHana or anything by KyoAni, the linework in Granblue Fantasy makes it seem like the animators never got around to adding extra layers of ink and smoothing out the outlines around the characters, and half the time it looks like several pieces are missing. I don't know of any better way to describe it. Thankfully, from what little I've seen of season two, this has been rectified, namely because a different studio, MAPPA, is working on season 2 instead of A-1 Pictures. It's not too noticeable to the untrained eye, but once you see it, you can't unsee it. I don't have much to say about the soundtrack, as it's just awesome. I might be biased here, since it was done by famous video game composer Nobuo Uematsu and by relative newcomer Yasunori Nishiki, who you may know as the guy who made Octopath Traveler's OST, and is just as awesome. I don't think I can say much about the OST that others haven't said already.
While I personally liked the characters in Granblue, it can't be denied that they all fulfill various JRPG tropes and aren't the most three-dimensional. Gran is the typical happy-go-lucky protag who wants to help others and explore the world, Vyrn is the cute comic relief animal mascot, Rackam is the wise adult, Io is the cute little tsundere girl, so on and so forth. They're not bad, but to anyone who's tired of these particular archetypes, they can seem bland and uninspired. In all honesty, Lyria's kinda useless. I mean, she's not bad or terribly written, and her position in the story makes sense, but most of the time she hangs around Gran or Katalina or gets kidnapped. Not all the time, but since she doesn't really fight or do anything to defend herself, she's not exactly breaking out of the damsel in distress mold anytime soon. But I have seen characters who are worse and much more annoying about it, so I'm gonna cut Lyria some slack on this one. Plus, I thought Io's shtick of poking fun at Rackam's age was stupid, and any humor that was supposed to come out of it just seemed forced. Furthermore, many of the oneshot villains were bland and one-note, not doing much except doing bad things and being evil for the sake of it. But for all I know, the second season might give them more screentime and development.
Even the main story itself doesn't really seem all that special. It's just a ragtag crew exploring the world, collecting spirits, and trying to fight the evil empire. Those kinds of stories are pretty much a dime a dozen, but considering how many bad isekai anime that have been coming out in the past few years, particularly ones involving generic video game worlds with shoehorned in game mechanics and no effort into actually trying to have some substance, a pure, straight fantasy anime is pretty refreshing after so many kid-gets-whisked-to-another-world stories. It's not trying to be some epic masterpiece or have some kind of deep, philosophical message. It just wants to be an earnest, pure, fun fantasy adventure, and while certain elements could have been done better, and the dialogue less overly explainy, it's still a fun ride.
If you do decide to watch the first season, here's a little caveat: The anime is said to have 13 episodes, but only twelve of them cover the main story, with the thirteenth episode, titled Another Sky, basically being an alternate universe centering around a female main character, Djeeta, who is the female player character in the game and completely replaces Gran. It has no bearing on the main story whatsoever, and it recaps the story with quite a few changes, but it is recommended you watch the main show to get a jist of who the side characters are. There's also an OVA in that same universe that tells a Halloween-themed side story, but I haven't found it yet so I have nothing I can say on that. Furthermore, I've only seen this in English so far, not Japanese, but the English dub is very solid, with great casting and even bringing in some voice actors who haven't done much work lately back into the spotlight (such as Tara Jayne as the evil Furias). I only have one complaint about the dub: During Lyria's sad moments, Kira Buckland makes her voice come off as way too shrill and whiny. She's normally pretty good with this, but since she's using a higher pitched voice than usual, she unfortunately missed the mark on that one. But that's really about it.
Bottom line, if you want a straight fantasy story that's just plain fun, Granblue Fantasy is certainly a high flying adventure. I'll review the second season separately.
(Note: I literally could not find a good quality picture of the promo art for the first season. The picture above is actually the cover pic for the second season's opening theme single, only with the part listing the artist and the song cut out. I thought it looked better than any of the first season pics I could find)
I give the first season of this archetypal fantasy anime...a 74/100.
Huh. I originally wasn't going to review this, as the second season is airing right now, and I wanted that to be done before I reviewed the series, but I found I had too much to say about the first season to keep my mouth shut about it. So why not? Might as well talk about it. Granblue Fantasy started out as a smartphone JRPG that became really popular, and is still going to this day. It received an anime adaptation, and the second season is currently airing. This anime never even crossed my radar, but I was bored and wanted something new to watch, and when I found out this had an English dub, I decided to watch it. I finally finished the first season now that it's up on Netflix, and I definitely like it, though it's not without its problems.
In a world where the skies are endless and traveling between floating islands is the norm, a young country boy, Gran, dreams of finding his father and traveling the world. But while out on an excursion with his dragon friend Vyrn, he runs into a young woman, Lyria, and her knight companion, Katalina, who are being hunted by the evil Erste empire. They want to use Lyria's powers for nefarious purposes, and Katalina betrayed the empire by escaping with Lyria. When he is mortally wounded in a battle, Lyria gives him some of her life force to save him, and summons a powerful beast, Bahamut, to drive the forces away. Thus, Gran's life force is bonded with Lyria's, so wherever she goes, he has to follow, or else they both die. Gran doesn't mind, as he wants to journey to the mythical island of Estalucia, called the Island of the Astrals, as that's where his father is. The three of them decide to do just that, and on their journey, they make new friends, encounter new enemies, and discover the secrets of their world and what the Empire plans to do with it, and by extension, Lyria.
Basically, this anime is very old school despite being relatively new. It pretty much adheres to all the standard JRPG tropes from the 90s to now: An optimistic man from a backwater village who goes on an adventure, a mysterious damsel in distress with strange powers, a cute perky animal companion, an evil empire seeking to destroy the world and find out its secrets, a ragtag crew with a variety of eclectic personalities, and so on. If you're familiar with the original cellphone game, this isn't much of a surprise, as many of the staff that worked on it also worked on various Final Fantasy games back in the day. The anime pretty much feels like an RPG, with a colorful world filled with people from all walks of life, even half-animal people, and the animation is no slouch in that it creates these beautiful, vivid settings that are a feast for the eyes, from Gran's pastoral village to the steampunk town of Valtz. It helps that the action and fight scenes are all very well choreographed, with fighting moves actually being animated.
Honestly, my only complaints with the animation are twofold, and they are pretty big flaws. One is that the CGI monsters really don't blend well with the 2D animation and could have been integrated into the scenery better. The second one is with the outlines around the characters. To see what I mean, I want you to look at these screenshots and note the parts I circled in red.
Notice how the parts that I circled don't look all that smooth or seem to have missing spaces? I don't know if this was a deliberate art style choice, or the animators didn't have time to polish the character designs before the episodes were set to air, but seriously, all of the linework around the characters looks really sloppy, unrefined, and unfinished. Unlike the smooth linework in say, shows like AnoHana or anything by KyoAni, the linework in Granblue Fantasy makes it seem like the animators never got around to adding extra layers of ink and smoothing out the outlines around the characters, and half the time it looks like several pieces are missing. I don't know of any better way to describe it. Thankfully, from what little I've seen of season two, this has been rectified, namely because a different studio, MAPPA, is working on season 2 instead of A-1 Pictures. It's not too noticeable to the untrained eye, but once you see it, you can't unsee it. I don't have much to say about the soundtrack, as it's just awesome. I might be biased here, since it was done by famous video game composer Nobuo Uematsu and by relative newcomer Yasunori Nishiki, who you may know as the guy who made Octopath Traveler's OST, and is just as awesome. I don't think I can say much about the OST that others haven't said already.
While I personally liked the characters in Granblue, it can't be denied that they all fulfill various JRPG tropes and aren't the most three-dimensional. Gran is the typical happy-go-lucky protag who wants to help others and explore the world, Vyrn is the cute comic relief animal mascot, Rackam is the wise adult, Io is the cute little tsundere girl, so on and so forth. They're not bad, but to anyone who's tired of these particular archetypes, they can seem bland and uninspired. In all honesty, Lyria's kinda useless. I mean, she's not bad or terribly written, and her position in the story makes sense, but most of the time she hangs around Gran or Katalina or gets kidnapped. Not all the time, but since she doesn't really fight or do anything to defend herself, she's not exactly breaking out of the damsel in distress mold anytime soon. But I have seen characters who are worse and much more annoying about it, so I'm gonna cut Lyria some slack on this one. Plus, I thought Io's shtick of poking fun at Rackam's age was stupid, and any humor that was supposed to come out of it just seemed forced. Furthermore, many of the oneshot villains were bland and one-note, not doing much except doing bad things and being evil for the sake of it. But for all I know, the second season might give them more screentime and development.
Even the main story itself doesn't really seem all that special. It's just a ragtag crew exploring the world, collecting spirits, and trying to fight the evil empire. Those kinds of stories are pretty much a dime a dozen, but considering how many bad isekai anime that have been coming out in the past few years, particularly ones involving generic video game worlds with shoehorned in game mechanics and no effort into actually trying to have some substance, a pure, straight fantasy anime is pretty refreshing after so many kid-gets-whisked-to-another-world stories. It's not trying to be some epic masterpiece or have some kind of deep, philosophical message. It just wants to be an earnest, pure, fun fantasy adventure, and while certain elements could have been done better, and the dialogue less overly explainy, it's still a fun ride.
If you do decide to watch the first season, here's a little caveat: The anime is said to have 13 episodes, but only twelve of them cover the main story, with the thirteenth episode, titled Another Sky, basically being an alternate universe centering around a female main character, Djeeta, who is the female player character in the game and completely replaces Gran. It has no bearing on the main story whatsoever, and it recaps the story with quite a few changes, but it is recommended you watch the main show to get a jist of who the side characters are. There's also an OVA in that same universe that tells a Halloween-themed side story, but I haven't found it yet so I have nothing I can say on that. Furthermore, I've only seen this in English so far, not Japanese, but the English dub is very solid, with great casting and even bringing in some voice actors who haven't done much work lately back into the spotlight (such as Tara Jayne as the evil Furias). I only have one complaint about the dub: During Lyria's sad moments, Kira Buckland makes her voice come off as way too shrill and whiny. She's normally pretty good with this, but since she's using a higher pitched voice than usual, she unfortunately missed the mark on that one. But that's really about it.
Bottom line, if you want a straight fantasy story that's just plain fun, Granblue Fantasy is certainly a high flying adventure. I'll review the second season separately.
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