Reviews

Suppose you were born with a blessing countless girls before and around you all struggled and suffered trying to attain. Suppose you witnessed as one by one those you loved lost everything and made the ultimate sacrifice in pursuit of this blessing, all failing and disappearing in the end, surviving only as a lingering shadow burdened with regret within your own heart. Would you be willing to sacrifice your blessing if it meant sparing others from the same cruel fate? Would you be willing to pay that price if it also meant condemning those precious ghosts within your soul to fade as well? Would you, if what was asked of you was to surrender your only friend's existence? Would you end her to end all suffering, even if she begged you to?

The hidden gem of this season came to us in the form of Granbelm, a seemingly insignificant Mahou Shoujo / Mecha Battle Royale that instead of trying to awkwardly subvert expectations and tropes like most animes with such tags in recent years, decided to embrace and refine the core strengths of its small niche as closely to perfection as it could muster. War is hell, and being Meguca is suffering, but the human heart is capable of so much more than what we realize. Selflessness, purity, hope, love. The typical concepts you'd expect from a lesser show exposed in a painfully human manner as principles worth dying for and not only that, but the only meaningful reason to go on living.

The introduction of the show was confusing, but it turned out to be diegetic in a way that I could only appreciate upon a second watching of the show. The designs of the mecha were simple, and even infantile at first, but that changed over time and had a beautiful reason to be that way in the first place. The characters were every bit as lovely and tragic, and each choice they made and word they uttered held weight and meaning behind it. And most important of all, every turn in the story was unexpected, captivating and kept me wishing for more. This is one show where you should absolutely stick around for after-credit scenes.

In the end, the seemingly clashing elements of the story complemented each other and informed a unique identity, which bravely decided to go for a decisive and definitive end, tying up loose threads and providing us with tranquility rarely found nowadays in the world of storytelling, so often focused on remaining forever relevant and present.

Granbelm is not a show I will forget anytime soon, as it encapsulates so much of what I love about the stories that preceded it, while blazing a trail forward into the unknown for the stories yet to be told. After all in a world without magic, we humans only have each other to give us strength, and I do hope this tale will inspire many more over the decades to come.

Also, Suishou did nothing wrong and she is the best girl. Fight me!