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

10/10, 100/100, 1000/1000.
Its just episode 2.5, it doesn't contribute to the main story, its not something that teaches a lesson, its not about the struggle of overcoming your flaws or becoming closer to the people you care for.

This is about heart. not love, not friendship or kindness, but of the heart of a true man. It is a story of the yearning of the soul, for what can never be attained, a story of the struggle of men, and doing what must be done. It isn't about winning or losing, nothing so juvenile. It is about doing what is right, and staying true to ... yourself. Those who cant understand the beauty of these eleven minutes, simply can not comprehend the heart of a true man.

Other reviewers are saying this episode has nothing to do with the actual anime, or that it was a mindless shallow waste of 11mn of your life. BUT THEY ARE SO FKN WRONG!

Only 11 minutes long and from first glance it looks like any another typical bath peeking perverted scene that shows the shallow story that questions the creators effort in even making this. BUT its far from typical and if anything it the deepest 11mn of your life. PLease let me explain.

You will have to have watched the original anime to understand what im saying. In my review for the original anime I ... have stated that this anime is by far my favourite and most original RPG style trapped in a fantasy world game anime yet.

This anime portrays the reality of life. With all its rewards and consequences, victories and failures, beauty and ugliness that life gives us, the anime beautifully orchestrated and somehow intertwined all this and its genre into a masterful tapestry.

So this 11 minute special is definitely an additional piece of art that shows the reality of life within the anime but rather is reflects the characters current spiritual state.

The boys and the girls are surviving in the fantasy world. They have gone through a series of confusion and losses. Real life and death consequences. Thus their hunger for survival increases. To survive no longer became a need, but more, a reason for their existence.

The proof of existence that they are alive, alive not to just survive the world, but alive in the sense that they can dream is shown by the ability to hope. That they can be excited for the future, that they can live for something, that they have ambitions, that they have a sense of desire which ultimately gives them purpose for their existence.

The biggest thing that the team struggled was purpose. They had no idea what their purpose was in the fantasy world (also since their memories was wiped before arriving there). So the only thing they can do by default was to simply survive. But this special episode breaks that paradigm. It gives these boys a sense of excitement, desire, purpose, eventually "life" that they havent felt in a long time since arriving in the world.

"this is where our dream lies...lets drink to that. To this moment. To being alive. Now let the curtains to our dream rise" this is the quote that builds the pivotal foundation for this episode. Haruhiro says this as he looks at the wall that stands in the way between them and the girls who are taking their baths. He says this after Ranta redefines and counters Haruhiros statement that they have lost their humanity. Ranta says "no we have won by losing. Our instincts our hearts won". With this Haruhiro says "I see...so we have won without even realising...victory?" This ultimately means that Haruhiro and the gang at first felt like they have lost humanity by being such a low life pervert but really it means they have won because they are operating out of their natural ability to dream and desire as a man. Something that they havent felt in a very long time since coming into the world.

The world made them feel like they were trapped and were doing things that felt inhumane in order to survive. They were functioning out of an indifferent robotic like setting. Eating, sleeping, working mindlessly without no real dream thus ultimately losing their humanity. However in this episode they break out of that for the first time, they have found a desire, a dream that could be costly, but valuable enough for them to risk it all and go for it. It contradicted the purposeless life they were living and for the first time felt they were living for something. Therefore Haruhiros revelation brings breakthrough, the fact that their "hearts won" by being able to hope again is what mattered.

Ranta keeps insisting that they go for it and asks the question "wont you regret it?" if they didnt. Here Manato brings the drop. He says “I might regret it. I cant say for sure I won’t regret it. But what do you think is going to happen if we go further? We are already excited right now. it would be bad if we were to get even more. We would go past the point of no return, but then we would have to head back. to our room. the four of us together. I dont think I would be able to endure that.” Here Manato is ultimately talking about the fear of being disappointed by hope, the fear of failing, the fear of understanding the limits of their capacity, the fear of knowing that their best is not good enough. He ultimately brings the reality check of hoping, desiring, dreaming is dangerous because in reality it might not be met. And he says that the consequence of not even trying and regretting it later is much more bearable than ultimately hoping for it but being disappointed by failing.

Then Moguzo brings such a powerful statement that reveals an important perspective. He didnt passively wait around, he innitiates by being the sacrifice for the team (which is symbolic of his role as the tank) and says "we cant back off now." Haruhiro ultimately understands that "we're alive...thats right. We are alive. Right now we can be sure of that". He finally understood that for them to go even this far into peeking meant they have already achieved alot. That they were already operating out of their hopes and dreams which wasnt even possible from where they have come.

In conclusion. This 11 minutes special episode is sooo deep that you can almost miss the beauty of the message thats inside it. ITs camouflaged by fan service and typical ecchi anime humour but if anything it portrayed the depth of life that challenges the audience if we too are alive or simply just living in our world.

Not even worth a watch, doesn't brings anything new to the story or even character development, well besides making the male cast look more immature and juvenile. Weird and awkward dialogues doesn't make it easier to watch and they're painful to go through.

Animation is average and nothing special, but what can you expect from something that it's only 11 minutes long?

As for the music, well it's annoying and unbearable to listen to and the whole idea for it it's just pathetic and stupid. A very poor attempt to show series in a new light and make it funny.

A prime example of an animated garbage and ... waste of time, avoid by any cost, there are far better special's out there for far better series that offers more enjoyment.

This was a nice little extra to enjoy, didn't take anything from the anime itself, built slightly onto the end of an episode, and made a nice, though forgettable comedic extra.

The Beatboxing at the start of the episode set the light for it, the fact it wasn't supposed to be taken seriously, and it was just a lighthearted gesture to cheer people up due to things that happen later in the anime, allowing us a soft respite of laughter from a otherwise rather serious and dark anime.

All in all, if you want a laugh, give it a watch, it's only 11 minutes long so what ... do you have to lose?

It is the very philosophical question to life, this episode here. The carnal desires of man, what makes us truly human. Y'see, I would be doing not only myself, but also the MyAnimeList community a complete, total, utter disservice if I were to give this episode right here anything less than a 10/10, and so that is what I shall give.

Sure sure, this episode may not offer any progression to the story, and may just be some fanservice or a filler extension of the episodes, and has no true depth to the story whatsoever, that being said we get to relate to the four ... main male protagonists on a personal- no, on a heart to heart level in all 11 minutes here.

Is this mini-episode crucial to the story? No, I would not say so. Is it enjoyable regardless? Oh, yes.

The episode should be renamed as fanservice episode lol. This has got nothing to do with the original plot. The whole episode just shows the two girls bathing while 4 boys eavesdrop before getting caught. Since the memories of the characters have been wiped ever since they entered this GRIMGAR, they seem to retain all of their pervy nature. The hero is trying his best to be some kind of saint but in the end joins up with the rest of the boys to eavesdrop on the erotic conversation of the girls taking bath. 90% of the episode goes on the topic of boobs and ... the pervy boys trying their best to avoid doing something that they won't regret doing. Pointless dialogues are there in this episode. I guess the creators tried their best for inserting fanservice stuff but failed poorly when it came to dialogues. The whole episode was like erotic thoughts that come to a man's mind (to the point where he can no longer resist himself). Well that's all. Its just a bit average type of special. Nothing to do here if you have no interest in ecchi stuff since this is somewhat "Almost high level" ecchi. Fair episode. Animation hasn't changed at all though.

In this review, I assume that you watched "Hai to Gensou no Grimgar" so it may contain spoiler

Pros
- Comedic story with deep moral message if you comprehend it
- It implicates the relationship between characters
- The "Point of no return" which will make you questioning about your life's choice. After you watch this, you will think twice about the consequence of doing something
- The beauty of friendship and what it can achieve
- You can see the other side of your favorite character

Cons
... - Watch it or not, it makes no difference to the storyline
- If you just watch it without comprehending the meaning, it's going to look stupid and unnecessary

I had to write this review because of how terrible I thought this episode was. This special is very short, probably about 8 minutes long without the opening and ending. Nothing that happens in this special has anything to do with the rest of the series and does not improve the series at all. Everything that every character does is completely out of character for them and it has no redeeming plot points. The art is fine I guess, no different from the rest of the show. Also, there's some weird beatboxing or something going on for the first few minutes.

All in all, this special ... was a complete waste of time. It almost makes me think less of the rest of the series.

Not only does this OVA manage to feel like a complete waste of time, it actually manages to detract from the show as a whole by making the characters seem worse. Unless you were that confused why Yume and Shihoru were mad at all of the guys instead of just Ranta at the start of Episode 3, don't bother watching this.

Basically, the entire OVA is a bunch of clumsy overdramatic dialogue from the guys (or equally clumsy dialogue overheard from the girls) in an attempt to be funny. The background music feels awkward at best, the concept of the story is completely unappealing, and the ... only character 'development' we get is that everyone's actually a perv instead of just Ranta.

The obligatory fanservice is quickly tacked on at the end, so if you're really that desperate to see the girls bathing, just do yourself a favour and skip ahead about 8 minutes. There's even a bonus scene thrown in for all you Mary fans! (Alternatively, well let's just say that rule 34 exists for a reason...)

In conclusion, this adds nothing positive to the show, it doesn't build on or execute anything that was compelling about the characters, and it doesn't even really feel nostalgic towards the earlier part of the show since Manato's only purpose here is being just as much of a perv as everyone else. Do yourself a favour and skip it.

So I watched the original series a few years ago and dropped it midway. I recently decided to rewatch it and was pleasantly surprised that it wasn't as bad as I remembered it (it's just that the middle got a little lost). On the same day that I finished it, I decided to watch this special and as you can tell from my score, I was not impressed.


[Why?]

As a girl, it's hard for me to fully understand this trope in anime for guys to be obsessed with girls breasts and creeping around to see them naked. I won't lie, moments of this special were amusing, ... yet I felt like this was the one part of the series that I was happy we moved passed and am mildly irritated that they decided to put emphasis onto it in a special. I was looking forward to a little more character development, but I guess I'll have to go read the manga for that.


[Overall? or TLDR]
Disappointing, probably hilarious to you if you are a Japanese guy.

Uhhm... Just wy?

I mean, of course we can have some fanservice with a story, there is not a problem about that. But this made me feel weird. They are just peeping and then on the anime they seem like they don't trust each other. But how would you trust the ones who are peeping while you are in the shower?

Also I found that some of them like Manato or Haruhiro who shouldn't be there. They are men, sure, but they don't give other hints about that. It seemed a bit foced to me.

Still I am giving an 8 on art because well, the art ... was good I guess

I watched this thinking I was getting more story.

This is an extra episode for the 12-episode series, and it isn't anything you should watch at all. It's an 11-minute scene of people being stupid. The pervert character takes center stage (being the absolute worst one of the cast) to lead a side plot that only makes the series all the more terrible. The series itself has incredible elements that have to be saved up for something in the future, but this is terrible. The characters are juvenile as hell, when the series itself aims for a mature, grounded approach. No situation like this feels ... grounded, or interesting, not even funny. It's just a stupid episode that the series needed to shake off from the rest (and already flawed) plot.

Not recommended at all, skip it, absolutely. A waste of time for everybody involved.