Story - 7/10
Grimgar is the story about six characters who mysteriously wake up in a Fantasy RPG world, with no recollection of their past life. Now the six characters form a party to get by in the world, but the whole group starts off rather incompetent at first, due to the fact that they’re not really adventurers to begin with. So the overall main story is about the group of characters growing as a party together, learning to become stronger with each other. Later in the series the story focuses more on the characters helping one of their teammates, which leads to great character growth.
There is one huge trait that is really noticeable in Grimgar. Which is the overall plot pacing of this anime and the pacing in general. It is very purposely slow pace, so there is a lot of slow dialogues and exposition. The slow pacing also hinders the start of the story when you really don’t know where it’s going until later on. Pair that with the fact, the story is quite boring to begin with until, Mary shows up, the story has a focus around her. However, it does feel like most of the mystery of the world is left out, and you wouldn’t really know what is actually going on by watching the anime.
Characters - 7/10
The show originally starts off with six main characters before adding more character to the mix. But before I get to the protagonist, I would rather get the rest of the party off the list first. First off we have Ranta, who is a hot headed jerk at first who gets a bit of development in his character as he learns to work with them more efficiently, but because of his rude attitude at the start, you really tend to hate him, because of him, the story doesn’t progress as much when he refuses to work with others. Yume is the upbeat friendly party member of the group, due to her personality, she usually clashes with Ranta, she kind of plays the big sister role to everyone. Mogzo is the strong, yet quiet tank of the party, how he is more on the soft side when it comes to his personality. Shihoru is the mage of party, however her character is quite boring. She rarely says a word is quite forgettable in the anime, as she probably does the least compared to everyone else. And lastly we have the party leader, Manato who is the most skilled competent member of the party, he is usually calm and compassionate when it comes to his teammates and a knack for bringing them together.
Now we gotten past those characters, it’s time to talk about the more interesting characters of the show. Haruhiro is the main protagonist of the series and the one who gives out all the narrations. I like Haruhiro as a protagonist as he is starts off just like any other member of the party but grows to learn more about himself and his comrades. He probably is the closest to Manato, and therefore his relationship with Manato helps him grow with him as a leader in his own right. But if there is a complaint I have with Haruhiro, is that he talks really slow and drags out his sentences.
Another character that gets quite a bit of development while also being the most interesting character of the series, is Mary. Mary is introduced later in the series as a girl show joins the party and is initially shown as a cool and cold character at first. She has the most experience when compared to the rest of the party, and only does things which she deems necessary. Her character is fleshed out very well, given a full backstory and development to go with it. Mary is the most interesting character in the series, and the show really picked up when she was introduced.
Animation and Sound - 8/10, 9/10
The animation and art style is one of the aspects this anime shines. The anime has a pretty unique look, I especially love the designs of the watercolour backgrounds. It looks gorgeous and it’s something different from most anime, while also making great use for wallpaper material. But because the backgrounds look very beautiful, the character art style is rather standard for A-1 Pictures, I’m not saying it’s a bad thing, but compared to the background, it just feels very different in general. The animation during the action scenes are quite good, they really know how to drag out fast pace action scenes though.
The soundtrack is actually really good. It becomes really noticeable during the montage scenes and really adds to the overall atmosphere of the action and scenes. There is a quite the variety of tracks in the ost, so they have quite a the library to fill out the whole show. The opening is pretty good, I really enjoyed it and thought the animation for it was pretty good, until they changed it a bit later on. They changed it from animations to stills of the characters which I found kind of odd later on. The ED is a really nice piece to listen to, the vocals is very beautiful and pair that up with the watercolour image that it goes with, it fits very well. However both ED and the OP later on, are just really stills, and you’re only watching it to listen to the music.
Enjoyment - 7/10
It’s really hard trying to enjoy this anime. Although I do enjoy the overall story and seeing the growth of the party. It is extremely slow. The anime’s pacing can put any casual fans off. There are many times when characters will either just stare at each other for a few seconds, talk very slowly and a lot of dragged out monologues. Not to mention there a montages in there as well, that can take up so much screen time. Despite that, the anime is still enjoyable because of the mystery of world the characters are in and the things they have to face in order to progress. This become more relevant in the second when Mary is introduce and when the attention was on her, it got interesting. The dungeon raid scenes are quite enjoyable to watch. They feel like a fast pace action scene half the time, but before you know it, they drag out the action scenes as well, and I didn’t even realised this until I looked at the time remaining in the episode. If you can get pass the slow pace scenes it can be an enjoyable anime.
Verdict - 7.5/10
As we draw closer to the end of the review, I give the story a 7. The story really starts off quite boring the and slow pacing doesn’t really help it either. However after a couple of episodes, the show gets more focused and finds a direction on where the story actually wants to a go.
For the animation and sound I give it a 8 and 9. The watercolour backgrounds looks gorgeous and it’s stunningly beautiful as well. The action scenes are well animated and look very good. I wish the character designs were a bit more special to compliment the backgrounds. The soundtrack is amazing, it’s really diverse and adds to the scenes very well. The OP and ED are really good with beautiful vocals.
For the characters I give it a 7. Although it’s a really character driven story, the majority of the characters aren’t really all that interesting. It was only really the development of Haruhiro and the introduction of Mary later on that made the show much more interesting. I do like how the story is about the party learning to grow with each other.
For my own personal enjoyment, I give it a 7. It was really hard getting pass the slow pacing of this anime, which can throw many people off. It starts of slow and ends really slowly. There is a quite a few scenes that drag on. But seeing the party grow together in this mystery world is actually quite interesting to watch.
So for the overall score of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash, I give it a 7.5/10. If you can look pass the slow pacing of this anime, it is a rather interesting anime, especially when it’s a really character driven story. And it helps with the introduction of Mary. I recommend this show to fans of the rpg and fantasy genre, as it’s quite different to most of the similar genre.
