Hai to Gensou no Grimgar (Grimgar: Ashes and Illusions)

Fear, survival, instinct. Thrown into a foreign land with nothing but hazy memories and the knowledge of their name, they can feel only these three emotions resonating deep within their souls. A group of strangers is given no other choice than to accept the only paying job in this game-like world—the role of a soldier in the Reserve Army—and eliminate anything that threatens the peace in their new world, Grimgar.

When all of the stronger candidates join together, those left behind must create a party together to survive: Manato, a charismatic leader and priest; Haruhiro, a nervous thief; Yume, a cheerful hunter; Shihoru, a shy mage; Moguzo, a kind warrior; and Ranta, a rowdy dark knight. Despite its resemblance to one, this is no game—there are no redos or respawns; it is kill or be killed.

It is now up to this ragtag group of unlikely fighters to survive together in a world where life and death are separated only by a fine line.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Adaptation:	Hai to Gensou no Grimgar
Side story:	Hai to Gensou no Grimgar: Furoagari no Kabe ni Kaketa Seishun - One More Centimeter

More characters

Characters & Voice Actors

Yume

Main

Komatsu, Mikako
Japanese

Merry

Main

Anzai, Chika
Japanese

Haruhiro

Main

Hosoya, Yoshimasa
Japanese

Manato

Main

Shimazaki, Nobunaga
Japanese

Ranta

Main

Yoshino, Hiroyuki
Japanese

Shihoru

Main

Terui, Haruka
Japanese

Moguzo

Main

Ochiai, Fukushi
Japanese

Barbara

Supporting

Noto, Mamiko
Japanese

Renji

Supporting

Seki, Tomokazu
Japanese

Chibi

Supporting

More staff

Staff

Cook, Justin

Producer

Saitou, Masaya

Producer

Harada, Naoki

Producer

Nakamura, Ryousuke

Director, Sound Director, Episode Director, Script, Storyboard, Series Composition

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Opening Theme

"Knew day" by (K)NoW_NAME (eps 1-4, 6-11)

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Ending Theme

	1: "Knew day" by (K)NoW_NAME (eps 1)
	2: "Harvest" by (K)NoW_NAME (eps 2-7, 9-11)
	3: "Harvest" by Shihoru (Haruka Terui) (eps 8)
	4: "Cultivate" by (K)NoW_NAME (eps 12)

Reviews

Apr 1, 2024

lllemon

Recommended

"Hai to Gensou no Grimgar "is one of the best isekai out there. The plot involves a group of people that got reincarnated into an average fantasy world having lost their previous memories.

The foundation from which the anime develops allows it to take a different path than what's expected for these kind of stories. Besides the lack of memories, all the characters have a base strength with no gifted powers. Weakness is the main aspect that justifies the events of the series. Contrary to what's commonly seen in isekai, training and effort take the spotlight throughout the episodes. The lack of natural talent creates ... a hopeless and dangerous ambience, forcing the characters to coexist with the possibility of dying in every mission. Because of this, striving for survival and risk have a great presence in the series.

Typically, the consequence of any conflict would be the main group coming unscathed. However, in Grimgar, characters not only suffer both physically and mentally, but have to face the loss of comrades as well. Particularly, it's the death of a certain someone that shifts the ambience of the series from hopeless to melancholic, which by the way is enhanced by an amazing soundtrack. This helps the series reflect on how weakness affects them, not only by directly comparing strength, but also in the way people treat them. However, the main reason why it's a great isekai is due to the fact that it doesn't get rid of the base of the genre. The classic RPG fantasy world is still present, but instead of making it purely recreational, it takes a much more serious tone.

Now, when it comes to characters, they're pretty solid. Them losing their memories allows them to be inserted into the new world and build them from scratch. Whilst it's true that most of them have generic personalities that match their assigned role in the series, they have a significant growth which is realistic if the events of the series are taken into account. At the same time, it would have been nice if there were more details regarding who they were and why they came. After all, the only proof that this is an isekai is the fact that certain modern words get thrown in here and there, nothing besides that. Moreover, as the series progresses, characters seem to acquire some kind of plot armor, because most of them end up surviving by pure luck. I'm not too sure if either Ranta or Haruhiro should've been able to come out alive of the mines.

In conclusion, I would strongly recommend this anime if you enjoy watching isekai and are tired of them being copies of each other. I wouldn't suggest watching it if you're purely searching for animes with a clear "main character = strong" dynamic, as I doubt you'd find the main characters getting tossed around by goblins entertaining. Very good overall.

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Aug 13, 2022

my_bubble

Mixed Feelings

Grimgar is not for everyone.

While the setup is your familiar Isekai story, similar to Sword Art Online (SAO), the plot is anything but SAO. The story follows a group of friends, working together to adapt and live in this new world. And boy, do we really follow the characters' journey, step by step. Hence, patience is first required to get used to the slower than expected pace which we are familiar from Isekai Action Fantasy animes. With that said, why do I still rate Grimgar as Good? It's because the payoff comes after you manage to sit through the slower pace of the story.

The ... key thing that was unique about this story is how it makes our main characters to be very ordinary. They are sort of like the "leftover" ones in the game world. Like any RPG rule, the group of six have clear roles within the group and skills that'll help them progresses to Boss level fight. While the plot of "underdogs turning the strongest" is favored by some, the characters really take a long time to even clear level 1. And we audience, are shown this part of the effort and journey. It's more than 3 episodes before the group of six learn how to work together as a team. Heck, we are even shown their mundane day-to-day living of cooking, shopping, hanging out, getting to know (and tolerate) each other etc. when they aren't busy fighting monster. So if one is expecting a lot of cool fight scenes and adventuring of the game world, Grimgar is not that show.

Another thing that's different is the concept of death - both killing and overcoming them. Grimgar takes its own sweet time to show something that is not very sweet. It fleshes out how difficult it is for the characters to hurt the monster. Even if our characters have the resolve to kill, the monsters would fight back ferociously. Giving up is not the solution here because their survival depends on it per RPG rule. I also like how Grimgar shows the contrast of characters coping with it - some put up a strong front, some don't question it, some are outright anxious and make elementary mistakes that allow the monster to have upper hand. That's a very real world take on a topic we generally avoid facing.

What's truly gold about this show is the characters. As you follow the characters' step by step of figuring out the world and their mundane life, you start to care about them at some point precisely because of the time you have to know them. While there are some key traits highlighted to us about the group of six at the beginning, you get to see their growth along the way - some more than others. Our main character, Manato had the most growth and maturity when he is thrust a responsibility he couldn't escape - and you'd definitely root for him for his self doubts, confusion and then facing it head on are very relatable.

In short, Grimgar is a story that feature real life in RPG. It only uses RPG as a backdrop. But everything about the plot, the story, the characters, the dynamic and interactions, feels more like a slice of life story.

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Oct 3, 2023

Areoxdeadeye

Not Recommended

Funny

Painfully drawn out, uninteresting characters, uneventful plot all makes a boring show. Don't get me wrong a show can be slow paced and be brilliant but this just doesn't. The hook for this show is this is an Isekai where the characters are struggling to fight the weakest monsters. This could have been really interesting if it wasn't butchered by the execution.
The fighting is the best part of the show, the challenge of defeating a single small goblin by 6 people. They are uncoordinated, incompetent, the left overs.

Most of the show is an uneventful waste of time. Every scene is excruciatingly slow which would work ... if the characters were insightful and interesting but nope, all of them have the same goal, to be stronger so they can defeat monsters to get paid and survive. It is so dull, there are 7 main characters all bland with no unique character traits.
The "protagonist" is so generic that I honestly can't give you any information on his character other than physical traits. He's supposed to be the main "main" character and doesn't even have the basics: fear, desire, belief. I guess this is one of those insert characters for the audience to self insert themselves to. But these characters are just terrible for the story obviously as all other anime with self insert characters are awful.

The other characters: there is the aggressive guy who shouts gets angry with an inflated ego. He also sexually harasses the two girls who are just there for fan service. One is the shy one who has relations with the caring guy who coincidentally is a healer. The other girl just like the protagonist, has no character trait other than the fan service and that she uses a bow and arrow. Finally the big friendly "giant" who can cook with a ridiculously massive sword because he is strong.
Yeah those are all the 6 main characters with the stereotypical adventure character archetypes. Some people might enjoy the RPG elements the show is based on with the twist of being a difficult challenging world. Although it seems the characters are so bad at fighting for the sake of being a huge hurdle, it feels forced rather than being natural & believable.
There are some good points in the show where it starts off with them already in the world with an interesting premise where the characters forget their past lives and world but still have hints of it remain.

The world is the generic medieval fantasy setting with magic. There are monsters that attack humans, the humans fight back, they get rewards for defeating them. This is just an RPG with no unique thing to set it apart from all the other generic fantasy shows. In the anime there are just the humans and goblins, no other races. I'm pretty sure in the show it implies other monsters and maybe races but the part we see only has this. Which is not an end all be all if it wasn't so poorly executed.

So this was one of the earliest anime I watched and then having not experienced many anime I scored it 6. Recently rewatching the show I can't imagine how I managed to complete this dull, uneventful torture. I dropped during episode 4 as I wondered who was that person back then that could enjoy this. I gave it a 4, now a 3. The reason it's not lower is because of the concept, it had so much potential.

If you care about story, characters, clear goal, structure & plot than avoid this show. Maybe if you don't mind the slow pace with generic characters with no clear goal or urgency. This anime tries to have a serious dark theme but spends what feels like the majority of the time, at least in the first few episodes, on pointless shenanigan that went against the theme turning it into a mess.
So if value your time don't waste it on this there are millions of things that are more worth it and if you have a lot of free time well it's only 12ep. I think watching the first and maybe second episode is basically what the rest of the show is like.

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Poll: Hai to Gensou no Grimgar Episode 12 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Mar 27, 2016	466 replies	by T-h-u-n-d-e-r »» Yesterday, 10:17 AM
Poll: Hai to Gensou no Grimgar Episode 3 Discussion ( 1 2 3 4 5 ... Last Page ) Stark700 - Jan 24, 2016	281 replies	by almightybismarck »» Apr 14, 9:11 PM
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