Granbelm starts as Fate~ish battle royale with taints of Madoka Magika, employing mechas that are called Armanox, where Mangetsu (our MC) suddenly gets warped into another dimension (If you ask, this isn't an isekai, it's just an alternate reality that takes place each full moon, where our girls will fight) And gets targeted by other witches until Shingetsu (a mysterious black girl) comes to her aid.
Granbelm's best selling point are their characters. And while some of them might be a little annoying due to how edgy they might seem, most of them have their reasons to participate in Granbelm in order to become the Princeps, which will concede them a wish. However, Mangetsu is the only girl among the others who doesn't have a clear goal, taking part on Granbelm as a way to find that something she's missing on her life. Eventually, the rest of the characters will get their background story that carries their motivation, be it family issues, frustration, or even a curse, each story is carefully developed at the right pace and complements the world building, specially about Granbelm and the wizard's lineage.
Granbelm's first episodes focus mostly on developing and introducing the main cast while Mangetsu experience Granbelm. However, after reaching a certain part of the story, more and more questions regarding Mangetsu will start to raise: Who is she?, why most of her memories are blank?, why does she have so much magical power while missing her witch inheritance? All these questions have an answer, and while I can say that I guessed correctly what Mangetsu was, the execution of her twist was done greatly, with a dark and psychological tone, driving us towards one of the best parts of Granbelm: How much Mangetsu matured during all this time as she deals with her identity crisis, realizing how there are many things in life that are worth and how beautiful is to live without being tied to the things you think you need, after all, if we had the capability of getting everything we could wish for, would we really be complete? Would we be depriving ourselves of the ability to grow?
***Slight spoilers ahead***
After Mangetsu's twist, her connection with Granbelm and the Magiaconatus, we will realize, that the real main character here is Shingetsu, the girl who was gifted with powerful magic in order to attend to the trials of the Magiaconatus as she fights on Granbelm. However, having so much power made her unhappy, the only thing she wanted was to have a real friend, to be with someone you could have fun with, to be with someone which you could count on and have the ability to grow. Many times, even after her childhood friend Anna were eradicated from this world, the anime doesn't forget her and shows us many memories of Shingetsu's past as she was hanging out with Anna when they were kids, noticing how Anna was unable to realize how much things she had in life, as she was slowly blinding herself into an spiral of rage and frustration all thanks to the magic, which became the reason why Shingetsu wanted to be the Princeps after winning against all her rivals, in an attempt to free the world from the magic that retains the real happiness
***End of spoilers***
Another great selling point of this anime, its the animation and the sound department. Granbelm is faithful to the traditional 2D animation as the recent industry is starting to lean towards CG animation, specially seen in the design of the Armanox as all of them are 2D models, which helps a lot in battles as it makes them more fluid. Background scenery is also marvelous filled with many details and beautiful landscapes, all of them with an adequate color palette depending on the tone of the scene. The only thing that might not be that attractive is the fact that the character designs looks for the most part, generic, that, and the odd looking mechas that looks like compacted Gundamns due to how small they are. However, is just a matter of getting used to it. The soundtrack of this anime is really good, with epic music for each battle, sad themes for sad moments or serious themes for serious moments, and what not, the anime also knows very well when to be silent. I've gotta give kudos to the overall voice acting as it was done greatly to portray each character and their personality, specially Mangetsu. The SFX are full hype and add a lot of impact in battle scenes, it reminds me a lot of the powerful SFX Planet With had. I've got one complaint tho, Magetsu's Armanox sounds like Togepi from pokémon xD.
And that's all, Granbelm end up being one of the biggest surprises this season and I must say, that despite not looking that appealing, it was worth my time, specially the time invested in the characters, story and the Stunning spectacle it was, being one of the best anime this season. Give Granbelm the chance it deserves.
Overall: 7.5/10
