Review of Record of Grancrest War

Record of Grancrest War was good. Really, that about sums it up for me. I usually like to leave my reviews here moreso as a collection of my thoughts on whatever it is I watched. Also, I'm way more of a casual than many others who post reviews here, so if you're looking for a lot of depth or some fancy writing, this probably isn't the review for you. Overall, I actually really enjoyed the show! It wasn't anything special, but it suited my tastes pretty accurately. Any kind of fantasy world, albeit this one lended itself to a bit more realism, with magic, swords, and anend goal will drag me in pretty easily. And Record or Grancrest War is exactly that. More medieval fantasy shows for me, please!

The series was a ton of fun. The action sequences were pretty decent for the most part, and despite being short, they were able to tell a pretty good story and keep everything flowing rather smoothly. The art and sound are nothing to write home about, but they're still both of good quality. The show, in general, is entertaining in total.

I do have a few gripes despite overall really liking the show. POTENTIAL SPOILERS FROM HERE ON OUT. Although I'll try and keep everything as vague as possible.

First off, I really enjoy Theo Cornaro's motives. That being said, they do little to really establish him as the powerful (yet humble and endearing) emperor that he dreams to be. The only fight where he seems to show an actual ability to beat a powerful opponent is against Lord Milza of whom he goes 1 on 1 with. Outside of that, I don't personally recall a single fight where he felt like the reason for victory. It almost feels like he just lucked into his ending status.

I also despised a few parts of specific episodes, a few episodes as a whole and a few of the character decisions that were made, which is why overall enjoyment score isn't any higher. The last episode was so plain. It felt more rushed and too quick than any other episode of the show.

I also despised the decisions they made, in terms of character development, after Marrine gave herself up to Milza. Marrine's character was only starting to develop, but after said incident she stagnated. I'm not entirely sure what I wanted with her character, as there are a few things I feel like I would have done, but not much could have been worse with the "I'm secretly dying inside but I'll continue ruling with an iron fist to mask my pain" kind of character she became. And then to just randomly become happy after Alexis says "I don't care that you banged him if you didn't love him", felt so weird and like a bad choice.

Which brings me to my next point. I personally would have rather seen Alexis completely do a 180 and be so angry, so upset about what happened that he'd turn into something he wasn't. I applaud them for staying true to his character, but he also felt like a relative non-factor. When he joined the war, there was only about a 5-minute period where he felt like he contributed anything. For the status of his character, and how much screen time he got, I just ended up heavily disliking him. That 180 could have changed all of that, but alas.

I think many of the characters suffered, though, because the series felt too short. Many angles felt rushed, and thus the characters never really got a lot of time to develop or shine. I liked Siluca, Aishela, Irvin, and Sir Lassic David's characters a lot, but even they could have used more time for us to find out who they really are, gotten any backstory for them, or anything really. 24 episodes just didn't feel like enough time, and it ended up bringing a pretty generic ending to the series.

Overall, though, Record of Grancrest War was a very solid show. Would recommend it to anyone who doesn't mind reasonably generic characters, but enjoys an easy, well-paced show set in a medieval fantasy world. 24 episodes may have been too short for character development for my taste, but the story had more than enough to keep me on track and entertained.