Anime Review: Granblue Fantasy: The Animation

Anime: Granblue Fantasy: The Animation

Genre: Adventure, fantasy, action, shounen

Rating 2.5 out of 5 stars

General Set-up: Lyria is a test-subject of the Empire and Katalina is helping her escape. Just as the Empire is catching up to them, the two run into Gran, a boy who is talented with the sword. Gran decides to help, but is fatally injured. In order to save him, Lyria shares her life-force with him. Gran decides to leave the island and travel with Katalina and Lyria to the edge of the earth and the island of the Astrals, where his father awaits him.

Characters: Gran’s dream is to become a skyfarer like his father. He is friendly and compassionate towards those in need. Before escaping with Lyria, Katalina was a lieutenant in the Empire’s army. She is a strong sword fighter. Lyria has the power to talk to and understand Primal Beasts, a power the Empire wants to use for themselves. She doesn’t know where she came from. Vyrn is a flying lizard who accompanies Gran and reminds me a bit too much of another high-pitched flying companion. The focus for character growth is mainly on Gran and Lyria, which makes sense, but it would be nice to see the other main characters have their chance to shine as well.

Plot: Sad to say, but the plot for Granblue Fantasy is pretty standard (which I guess shouldn’t be surprising, considering it’s based off of a video game). It follows the basic outline for quest narratives: The main characters meet and set out on their quest. They arrive in a new location. Something happens. They meet someone. Stuff keeps happening until they solve whatever problem the people in the area are facing and the person they met decides to join their adventure. The depart for a new location and the same thing happens again.

Ending: Considering the last episode is a filler, I’ll be referring to the second-to-last episode for the ending. Things seem to be happening too fast. The plot is accelerating at an unaccustomed pace with little to no explanation. Also, in the last showdown, multiple random new characters pop up to join in on the action. This seems a last-minute attempt to get characters from the original material screen time. What is more, they seem fairly overpowered, which just adds to the confusion. I did appreciate the development of Lyria’s character, but the ending seemed to open up more issues than it resolved.

Things to Watch For: There is fanservice in this show. Thankfully, it’s somewhat toned down and not blatantly obvious, but as you get closer to the end more of it pops up - especially with the explosion of characters in the “last” episode. Most of them were girls and almost all of them had less clothing than would be deemed reasonable in a combat situation. The filler ‘swimsuit episode’ certainly didn’t help.

Sights and Sounds: The soundtrack for Granblue Fantasy goes from slow and whimsical to march-like and adventurous. I really enjoyed the opening theme. The color palette for the show is vibrant, with an emphasis on blues and greens. I also enjoyed the design for the world and characters in the show! It is a fantasy world, with a bit of a modern and steampunk twist. For example, the main characters travel on an airship and Gran wears a hoodie!

Other Media: Granblue Fantasy: The Animation is based off of an RPG game. There is also a series of light novels that have been adapted.

Fillers: There is one filler, at the end of this show.

Length:This anime is 13 episodes long.

Where to Watch: You can watch it on Crunchyroll.

Final Thoughts: Granblue Fantasy has a lot of potential and there are a lot of things it does really well. It just tries to be too many things. It could be a war-strategy battle of empires show. Or it could be a show about a group of friends going on a quest. Or about an escaped test-subject hiding from the law. Or it could be about a boy’s search for his absent father. It could be all these things. The problem is, Granblue Fantasy tries to be all of these things at once and ends up having to sacrifice too much. It burns brightly, but soon fizzles out. It’s not that Granblue Fantasy: The Animation is bad, it’s just not as good as it could be.