Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash has the incredibly basic premise of a group of teens waking up in a fantasy world with no recollection of how they got there. One thing that Grimgar does differently that is a little unique is that none of the characters can recall what their past life was like. They use terms like “video game” or “field trip” that seem to suggest they come from a contemporary modern day setting but this is never confirmed and the characters seem a bit confused whenever one of these terms are used. The series focuses on a party of six that aren’t fighting to take down some sort of big boss or overthrow a tyrant but rather are just trying to survive. The bulk of the series sees our heroes taking down low level goblins in the forest in order to earn enough money just to live through another day. None of them are OP badasses and it takes the combined effort of all of them just to take down a single goblin at the start of the series. This really intrigued me from the outset in that it was in stark contrast to other similar series such as the aforementioned SAO. Another large plus in the series favour was the art design, in particular the backgrounds which had a feel not unlike a painting. There are some stills in this series that are downright gorgeous and the quality of the art is consistent from beginning to end. Unfortunately any goodwill I initially had towards the series quickly faded as I began to watch it.
Throughout the 12 episode run, nothing of real consequence actually happens. Sure, there are a few roadblocks on our heroes’ quest to survive and something that could be seen as pretty important happens early on that slightly changes the dynamic of the show, but on the whole the plot is very dull. As I mentioned earlier, there is no real driving force for our protagonists’ actions other than staying alive. This would be fine in a character-focused show (which seems like what they were going for) but the characters would need to be interesting in order for this to work. The characters in Grimgar either embody your standard anime tropes (ie, the stubborn asshole, the shy wilting flower, the strong guy with the heart of gold) or are just plain bland. There is an attempt to deepen one character by giving her a tragic backstory, but its very generic and familiar (especially given the setting) and does little to make the character more interesting. Essentially what we have here is a series that fails at a compelling character study and doesn’t even make an attempt at an overarching plot. There is little here to keep an audience invested except for the promise of something more interesting that never comes to fruition. I kept waiting for the actual plot to kick in only to be thoroughly disappointed. The last straw for me personally came when I made it to Episode 9 entitled “How to Rest”. I just remember thinking to myself, “Really? The series needs to take a break to have a more laidback episode? What are we taking a break from?! The plot hasn’t even started yet and there are only 3 episodes left!” It was at this point that I realized that the first 8 episodes which I had trudged through in the hopes that something interesting might happen was supposed to be the interesting part. It was not a happy realization. Granted the series does pick up a little bit in the final two episodes where there are some real stakes for once, but it was way too little and way too late.
I feel like your entire enjoyment of Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash is going to come from how invested you are in the characters’ personal struggles. Unfortunately I really wasn’t so the show came off as an incredibly bland and uninteresting fantasy series with a few neat ideas and some absolutely killer art. The ending actually gave me hope that the show could turn itself around and become good if it was ever given a second season, that maybe these first 12 episodes were an unnecessarily long prologue to a much greater story, but more than likely if Grimgar did receive a second season it would only set me up for the same kind of disappointment all over again. In the end I can really only recommend this series to two kinds of people, the first would be anyone who absolutely loves this type of show and has already watched the much better versions of the same premise or someone who has just finished watching a truly excellent series and needs an inoffensive palette cleanser before the next one. Everyone else need not apply.
