First Impression: Grancrest Senki

Synopsis

In a world where a continent is ruled by “chaos” and “Lords” have the power of a holy seal that can calm the chaos and protect the people. One day two warring factions were about to enter into peace with the union of two youths from both factions. But when tragedy strikes, the flames of war is fanned once more as Lords cast aside their creed of purifying the chaos, and instead start to fight each other for each other’s holy seals to gain dominion over one another.

This is the story of an isolated mage named Shiruuka, resenting the Lords for abandoning their creed, she finds a chance of change when she meets Theo, a wandering knight who is on a journey to train to one day liberate his hometown. Deciding to help him she invokes and everlasting oath to work with him in the reformation of the continent dominate by wars and chaos.

The Good

It’s been a while since a full on fantasy work has come out with an original setting to it, and it kicks off the episode rather well. Then there is the fact that the episode has pretty much dived into the plot and introduced different factors of the setting makes for an interesting format of world building. Just the overall concept of the magic and workings of the anime’s world was pretty solid from what is shown.

Then there is the main girl for the series. From what has been portrayed of her in the episode so far, she has a lot of potential to be a rather strong and interesting character for the series. She’s not the usual female fantasy character type nor is she the excess of one, so there a plus for her on that part, and the fact that she is so strong but is shown not to be an OP character gives room for more development on her.

Even the side character has some potential to him and he only had a few lines spoken. So overall, there are some good characters and a whole lot of potential for the world that has been presented.

The Bad

The pacing, to say the least, is pretty weird. While there’s nothing wrong with some stories just diving into the plot and setting, the way things escalated in this episode was way too fast and left way too many questions for the beginning half. For one thing, the whole concept of the two factions was pretty understandable, but the aftermath of the whole demon king appearance (who outside of the wing and barrier design was not all that creative) made no sense.

It would have made sense if one of the two factions had control over the “chaos” which had summoned the demon, but no, both of them had attempted to defend themselves and both were killed by the demon, so where is the sense in the Alliance and the Federation enter into war again? Perhaps this writer missed something, but basically, the sense of the plot seemed to have drifted off somewhere along the beginning.

Then there is the male lead… typical, that’s pretty much all that can be said about him to be honest. The hero act, the righteous dream and just his general portrayal has been done before. Even him defeating the monster and ranking up in one fight was expected, but that didn’t change the fact that the fight scene was rather anticlimactic overall. Really, lost sense and typical are pretty good to describe the episode overall.

Conclusion

The first episode for this series has pretty much left an on the fence impression for this writer. While the whole concept of the setting is interesting and there are some pretty good characters with potential, it doesn’t change the fact that it pretty much flopped in pacing and holds an off point in structure and character work. Personally, the only way that the male lead would make himself as a remotely interesting character is if there was a darker side to him or a comedic side laid on him. Still, the series didn’t leave a terrible first impression at least.

Rating: 6/10