Review of The Fruit of Grisaia

Grisaia no Kajitsu is based on the adult visual novel that follows 5 female students at Mihama Academy. However, this is no ordinary school; only those 5 students are enrolled here, each with "special reasons" for being in an academy that seems more like a prison. Kazami Yuuji, a mysterious "exchange student from Canada", becomes the first male student enrolled in Mihama Academy. Although he claims to desire a normal school life, events of the students' past start to unfold, piece by piece. Just who really are these students? The girls must revisit their past and take hold of their lives for another time. Iwas honestly very interested by Grisaia no Kajitsu, knowing that many of my friends recommended me to read the visual novel. Seeing that an anime of the series was to be released this season, I decided to go and see if the anime will entice me enough to spend time reading the VN. As I watched this series, such friends were able to let me know the differences between the anime and VN, so I can represent two parties in this review. However, does Grisaia please the VN readers as well as newcomers to the series? Sadly, this is NOT the case. Rather than showing off why this series is strong and emotional, it turned out to be incredibly disappointing, and the adaptation in short is a trainwreck.

If there are a few positives about the series, the sound and art are consistent and actually pretty well-done. The seiyuus from the PSP version of the series come back to do their individual roles. Most of the roles are well-done and solidly depict their character. Maon Kurosaki's "Rakuen no Tsubasa" is a pretty nice opening theme, and it's a song I'd definitely listen to on a regular basis. There are a whole bunch of ending songs to this series, all of which are decent, especially "Rainy Veil" by Yanagi Nagi. Best part of the series? Probably, and that's somewhat unfortunate.

The art is nothing extraordinary, but gets the job done nonetheless. Nothing particularly enticing or awe-inspiring, but the art is at least consistent and there are hardly any moments where the quality noticeably drops. Give 8-bit credit that this is really the only part where they have put noticeable effort into the series, which particularly includes putting much of their animation budget into unnecessary flashy panty shots and a couple of long H-scene-like kiss scenes.

The characters are actually very interesting from the start, each having incredibly unique personalities. From the blond twintail tsundere (Michiru), the quiet and cold lady (Yumiko), the obedient pink-haired maid (Sachi), the loli with the dirty mouth (Makina), the red haired perverted "onee-san" figure (Amane), and the enigmatic male lead (Yuuji), it's very likely that you'll like one of these characters, and that's understandable. So what is the problem about the series? The problem starts not on the characters themselves, but how Grisaia decided to develop their individual characters. This is where most of the positives end.

Grisaia attempts to mimic the visual novel by showing all the possible routes of the series, totalling to a whopping 80 hours of gameplay, and throwing it into a 13-episode anime adaptation. Now you don't have to be a mathematician to know that 5 girls = 5 possible routes, and by logic, cramming 80 hours into a 4 hour series simply cannot be done without sacrifices. However, the sacrifices Grisaia made were far too severe, and turned into a huge mess. After 3 episodes of introducing the female mains with fanservice and panty shots (at least that was pretty good, actually), classic school genre humour, and brief hints on each student's past, the series has 10 episodes to do 5 routes. Although the first 3 episodes were well-done, this is where pacing becomes a concerning issue that plagues the rest of the series.

Each route in the visual novel follows one of the female students and the male lead and her have various interactions. By these interactions, a traumatizing past rears its head back to a particular female lead after an event in the present. The anime attempts to show all the routes of the female leads in the order presented above. However, two episodes is just simply not enough time to fully develop a character without feeling incredibly rushed. Some of the main female characters even only get a single episode to represent their route, which is even more unreasonable. Grisaia made an attempt to make the viewer feel emotional about the female student in question during their particular route. But in the end, it almost felt like a race to see who can "develop" a character in the shortest time possible. Simply put, events that supposedly trigger emotions are thrown at the viewer in quick succession, and before you can swallow what just happened, the anime is already miles ahead of you, and completely different events start happening. Suddenly, the route ends off, almost like one of your coworkers that get off of work RIGHT on the dot at 5PM, and no later. The character in question finds her resolve, but you really can't feel anything for the character just because the character development was so rushed. Grisaia would be a horrible relay partner, because they would just go ways ahead of you doing its own thing, while you bite the dust and never even get a chance to catch your breath.

It's a huge shame because I really did like the characters in the series at first. Their base character before their route is very nice, and their character after their develop is good too, even if you have not a clue how they got there. However, the problem is when the character is being developed themselves. It's possible to feel incredibly sickened and shocked by the context and background information Grisaia gives you for a particular event (Episode 12), but it's strange that one can feel almost no pity for the spotlight character themselves. Worst of all, some of the main characters don't get much spotlight throughout the whole series, and feel more like a harem piece, if anything, just because they don't have substance to back up their character. Goes to show the lack of direction the character development has in the series. And it's not just the main characters that experience this problem. Motifs of the side characters are incredibly unclear and underdeveloped, and you question their position and why they are relevant in the first place. They don't exactly help build the story as they should do, which is another letdown of the series. The anime also skips a huge portion of each route just to cram it in the little time they give it, leaving viewers confused on how things jump from place to place. And a huge blow for VN readers, Grisaia decides to butcher up parts of the story in attempt to solve the time limit and end it "how they wanted it to end", a disappointment for those expecting the story to stay true to the original series.

The dialogue is also very patchy and confusing in many instances; questions are answered in awkward fashion, and it's very noticeable that it's due to the time constraint 8-bit put themselves in. Yuuji, for one, can somehow can lead thought A to thought E, while skipping potential thoughts that normally people would think of making it even more difficult to follow. Yuuji himself is a character that has little development, which is incredibly unfortunate. I know that compared to the rest of the main cast, he should not the main focus, but viewers just really know he's not your "average student" that does "dirty work in the undergrounds". Unfortunately, aside from some appearances from his boss and coworkers, not much was given about Yuuji's past at all. He really doesn't have much else other than being a classic OP character that can solve everyone's problems. Why he does this to ruin his "normal school life" is not something that's explained at all, and nothing in the series would change the fact that Yuuji is a relatively bland character right from the start. I guess Spring 2015's "Le Eden de la Grisaia" will focus on this, huh?

Unfortunately, what took the last bit of hope from this series for me was how some scenes were meant to be incredibly dark and serious to build an unimaginable tragic past and see a character's internal struggles and emotions. However, it almost as if 8-bit wants to make a fool of themselves, and make Grisaia more of a laughing stock, if anything. Just as they unveil dark imagery and psychological themes, they throw in a panty shot, or an intense and passionate kissing scene. This is supposed to be a psychological series, and based on the core that was established, there are definitely some potential to make this series interesting, dark and meaningful. Instead, it almost feels like it's a parody of the series rather than being a serious adaptation, while being incredibly unfortunate that such money is completely wasted in enhancing these unnecessary scenes instead of properly planning out the story and actually develop the lead characters. If the adaptation company themselves can't take the whole development and tragic past seriously, why should the viewer?

I really wanted to enjoy this series, I really tried to. And I'll admit, there were at least some few parts that I did enjoy, mostly from the first few episodes, and maybe the final episode too. But it doesn't save the gongshow that happened for the rest of the adaptation. It was an okay effort by 8-bit to condense 5 routes in less than 4 hours. Perhaps you'll feel something for a character, but it sure didn't last long for me. Maybe my expectations were too high going into the series, but in the end of the day, I was pretty disappointed by how this series was handled. It had the huge potential to be much better, but alas, it tried to do too much all at once, and failed to properly execute anything at all.

In the end, Grisaia is a half-baked summary of the VN series that fails to please the majority of the target audience. VN readers and fans will be incredibly disappointed by how little substance the adaptation kept from the original series, while newcomer fans like myself will feel confused while experiencing little emotions for most of the characters. The pacing and character development is absolutely atrocious, to be blunt, and doesn't allow time for the viewer to absorb any events that occur. Is it the worst anime ever? Of course not. But there's just too much missed potential that makes this series go to waste. Grisaia the adaptation can be summed in one word: disappointment. If you have read the visual novel, please save yourself and not watch this dreadful series. And if you are a newcomer to the series, you would do yourself a favour by not spoiling a more worthwhile experience of reading the superior visual novel. Will season 2 be a much more worthwhile sequel, or just another letdown? We shall see...