Here’s a little bonus coverage for you. Granblue Fantasy is actually scheduled to air in Spring 2017, but the first two episodes were previewed online this weekend. To be honest I normally prefer to wait until the season itself to watch the premiere of a series if it’s previewed this far out, because I prefer the story to be fresh in my mind when the series begins. But this season is so threadbare and I have nothing to blog on Sundays, so I figured I may as well cover these eps now.
Granblue Fantasy comes to us from Cygames, the same company that produced the game that was adapted into Shingeki no Bahamut. Bahamut makes an appearance here too, but seems to be a good guy this time around. I confess I know next to nothing about the games at the root of this franchise – maybe it’s like Godzilla, where he’s a friend in one movie and an enemy in another? I honestly have no idea, but I do know that I rather liked Shingeki no Bahamut. In a genre where anime has become very uniform in recent years, it was definitely not a mass-produced model. In fact, that series (from MAPPA) never really seemed like a game adaptation, but something created specifically for anime.
My early take on Granblue Fantasy (this time it’s A-1 Pictures in the saddle) is that it’s way more conventional. Fantasy RPG adaptations tend to follow a very predictable pattern, and there’s really no element of these episodes that we haven’t seen many times. The young farm-boy hero with surprising skill and valor, the best friend/brother he’ll leave behind to go on a dangerous journey, the missing dad, the magical loli being exploited by an evil empire (here it’s even called “The Empire” and the local mid-boss literally fondles his devil-beard when he cackles), the powerful female knight. Sawashiro Miyuki and Kugamiya Rie play roles in which they’re utterly typecast to boot.
Still, for all that, I thought Granblue Fantasy was pretty decent. While the animation was a bit dodgy at times (lots of CGI, too) the background art and music were quite lovely (there are obvious nods to Last Exile here). It’s an exceedingly familiar premise but the execution is solid – none of the characters are especially annoying (though I imagine Rie’s flying lizard thing might annoy some viewers), the pacing is steady and the narrative flows well. I’ll give this series a chance when it airs for real, though if it turns out to be anywhere near as interesting as Shingeki no Bahamut I admit that will prove a surprise.
Flower
January 22, 2017 at 11:32 pmAyup … pretty decent is a good description.
For me it was even a pleasantly surprised in a small way. Sorta like an “Oh ho? That tasted better than I thought it would. Hmm.” kinda experience.
Karmafan
January 24, 2017 at 7:57 pmYup I will be looking forward to Spring anime season. Smart of them to release a gem like this in a weak winter season.Will help to build interest once the series actually gets here.
Mizuki
August 22, 2018 at 6:33 pmThe animation makes me want to cry. It’s clear that no care was put into any of the linework for the anime, and the animation team’s incompetence really shows. Lines are uneven, and often change thickness with each frame. In one of the two scenes I was able to find online, one of the girls picks up a ball by touching it like it’s magnetically sticking to her fingertips, and it just doesn’t look natural. Another girl’s hair was left partially uncolored, and her dragon friend appears to have male genitalia when viewed from behind. In another scene, there’s a close up of a villain character’s head, and not a single frame is consistent. Often, the lines are just simply too thin, and look like the character was drawn large, and then unnaturally scaled down to fit in the frame. It looks like an amateur’s work, like it’s the first time they’re animating anything. There was no quality control whatsoever.
It’s honestly a real shame, because I like what little I’ve seen of the blue-haired cat guy, but I can’t stand more than a few seconds of this disaster at a time.