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EP. REVIEW: The Holy Grail of Eris

If there's a “true” tragedy in this story, it's that Scarlett died for nothing.

People may accuse me of beating a dead horse, since it's well established by now that the anime is rushing through the plot, but sorry, this episode just annoyed me.

Duke Castiel's flashback was originally longer and gave a lot more detail on his relationship with his wife (including showing the night where she seduced him into conceiving Scarlett, which made his "I couldn't help it" line as funny as it was heartwarming), which is what have weight to his crying scene at the end.

More importantly to me though, is the graveyard scene. I find it downright nonsensical that they kept it after cutting pretty much all the scenes that explained Randolph's past and his complicated family situation. Without them, an anime-only viewer has no context to understand why he would think Connie is scared of him and why her acceptance was so important to him.

The simple fact is, a work like this that has a huge cast, lots of intersecting backstories, and a mystery with a lot of moving parts, is not the kind of work that still works well when you are rushing through the main plot points like a speeding train. There is no time for the audience to absorb the information they are given and ponder on its meaning before they are thrown into an different problem.

Wdym nothing? Her tragic death spoiler[literally stall the Empire plan for a decade at least.]

Is the king of this country not very powerful? Could he not just pardon Dylan?

...

Shion44 wrote:

Wdym nothing? Her tragic death spoiler[literally stall the Empire plan for a decade at least.]

I do agree with you in that Scarlett's (and Lily's) death did serve to delay the plot of Daeg Gallus, but I also agree with the reviewer in that it didn't deal with the root causes of the plot. Scarlett was sacrificed to prevent the enemy from winning immediately, but someone else now needs to do something about the enemy's current plan.

Poor Deborah. Not.

Even someone as deeply involved in Daeg Gallus as Salvador still retains some sense of morals, however twisted it may be. He's made it clear multiple times now that he doesn't want to kill children, even though the conspiracies he's participating in would harm many people, probably including children. Meanwhile Deborah has a personal vendetta against Abigail which might not be related to Daeg Gallus. At least, she's ready to kill Lucia even though it doesn't serve their plans, just to spite Abigail. How ironic that she was disposed by Daeg Gallus, forced to become an addict to the drug she helped to smuggle.

I knew there was a rat in the Security Force. I don't know why they're letting him do something as important as making an arrest and leading an interrogation, given that he proved himself "incompetent" in the past. He's not even being subtle about it either, blatantly telling the suspect to stop giving information that would be useful to the Security Force.

I don't understand why Enrique had to marry Cecila to carry out his plan. A lot of the politics of this world seem to have been cut from the story.

This episode felt too crammed for me. Sounds like the books are more "dense" and that to make this anime, instead of focusing on a few plot threads....they decided put them all into this one episode...especially as they are running out of season...one second the detective story, then a shoot out, then the will-they-won't they ... all that would've made one good episode...then they throw in another kidnapping, poisoning, crazy women, threats, treason, framing, imprisonment, sentencing, breakup....sigh. Other series would have stretched this one episode into an entire season (for the worse), reversely, i felt like this one was reading the plot summary of the book...at least they showed it happening I guess

If The Holy Grail of Eris has had one persistent fault, it's that it's trying to cram too much into too few episodes. As we approach the end of the story, that results in far too many secrets being unveiled too quickly, like Cecilia's actual backstory and the plan about the Farisian princess.

If it turns out that the swordswoman is the real third princess, I will not be shocked. If not her, then her sidekick.