Review of Record of Grancrest War

Grancrest Senki was a magnificent political drama that I enjoyed watching to the end. Both story and setting were excellently crafted and character development was very well done. This anime poses deep ethical questions on the morality of decisions made for other people instead of oneself. The ending is rather abrupt but it still provides a wonderful conclusion to the 24 episode series. Story: 9 - Elaborate and Pragmatic Grancrest follows the duo of Theo and Siluca on their quest to instigate rapid political change in the interest of the commonfolk. They find themselves with many allies and many enemies who (mostly) all will play a vitalrole in the conclusion. Explaining more would spoil too many vital components of the plot for the viewer to truly enjoy the experience.

Art: 6 - Decent at Best
Being a political drama, there is quite a lot of action whether that be on the open field or inside of a stronghold. The action scenes were the least enjoyable parts of the show to me because of several reaons. The primary one being the awkward use of CGI to animate the masses of armies. The soldiers would often look quite slow and ugly compared to the fights of the characters that were not animated with CGI. Outside of action scenes, the animation meets the bar. This anime does not impress with high graphical fidelity.

Sound: 7 - Simply Good
There isn't that much to remark about in terms of sound quality or even the music used in the opening/ending. I leave my rating as "simply good" because I never felt impressed by it, nor do I recall any bad experiences with the sound. Concerning the voice acting, I only watched the dubbed version and can confidently say that the actors did an excellent job with conveying the attitude and emotion of the characters.

Character: 9 - Profound
The majority of characters in this show are portrayed to have strict moral guidelines that they will follow. And because it's quite difficult to change someone's firmly held beliefs, conflict arises. Each major character is given enough screentime for the viewer to understand the motivations and goals that they hope to achieve from the conflict. As the conflict grows and attracts more people, those already involved will be influenced by each other.

Enjoyment: 9 - Very satisfying
This anime captured my attention and never insulted my intelligence with arbitrary plot points (maybe at the end?). I can't really say too much about what I enjoyed about the anime without spoiling too much. I'll just leave this off by saying that the characters made decisions that made me feel all sorts of emotions watching it.

Overall: 8 - Quite Good
This is will definitely be one of the anime I will remember fondly and will cherish should I decide to rewatch it. It isn't outstanding in any way, but is nonetheless a great anime.