Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash [2016-01-18]
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FilthyCasual
Posts: 2189 |
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On whether or not Manato's death was obvious, the scene from last episode's preview with his mace lying alone on the ground was a huge indicator for it.
Haruhiro's constant unfinished dialogue with Manato alongside Manato not getting to how Haruhiro contributed to the party is another, and everything slowing down as Haruhiro saw the sun shine on the goblin's cross bow was a cue so large I was shocked that Haruhiro shoved Manato aside in time. His character was another large cue, given that he was the even-keeled, fairly perfect, good-looking member of the team (the ikemen always dies). As for the episode itself, I felt it was well-done, and hearing Jouji Nakata was a pleasure. I was surprised that the episode (or the next) didn't show the group hunting enough goblins for Manato's cremation cash, but that's probably for the best. Haruhiro's insistence that they pay for him themselves was impractical, but understandable and sympathetic. I wonder what that new priest from the preview will be like. |
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sunflower
 Posts: 1080 |
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All the things you described were from the current episode, including the preview scene (I don't watch previews because spoilers). No one is denying foreshadowing in this episode. Several people are saying they saw this coming two episodes ago. What was there in episodes 1-3 that indicated he would die and wasn't just being sneaky? |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2862 |
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can't think of anything besides the mentor trope, assuming it even applies to him, as he was as ignorant as the rest.
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Keichitsu0305
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It's just incredibly common for shows to kill off the most reliable/nicest guy or girl to prove that the hero needs to step up as the leader in a very false and manipulative way to evoke dark emotion from the audience. I can't even feel sorry of Manato's death because one look at the guy and I go "Whelp, it was nice knowing you pal". He was the leader of the group, went out of his way to get information, felt subconscious about himself despite acting as the tactician, and unlike Haruhiro, if he dies the group would lose their neutral center and grow distraught. Logically, the writer "has" to kill him to earn cheap sympathy but, within the context of the story, it makes no sense due to Manato's careful nature. I'm dropping Grimgar for now until it finishes because I'm not sure this slow burn is going to produce anything worthwhile. Four episodes of the characters having no goal beyond survival was fine but, I want to just marathon the whole thing later. |
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鏡
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I mean, it's established from the very first fight and explicated in episode 4 that Manato's fighting style was extremely unusual for a healer; being a vanguard is not exactly a good way to minimize risk. Combined with his already established penchant for self-sacrifice for the sake of the party (in his surreptitious bar trip, general leadership role, and again the fact that he's a strange healer/vanguard hybrid), his death made a good deal of sense to me. His self-sacrificial nature leading to his death is in fact emphasized by the course of events that leads to it, and actually plays on a previously established character dynamic: Manato leads confidently, almost gets shot, is saved by a desperate Haruhiro, Manato returns the favour, coordinates the retreat, and gets shot in the back. You could say that Manato died for his preternatural confidence, and unwillingness to openly rely on his party the way they did on him. |
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One-Eye
 Posts: 2261 |
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I just never saw Manato as the main lead, which by itself was a death flag to me. At first I was expecting him to go away through a betrayal then atoning through his death. However, once he started to show interest in Mage girl (Shihoru?) it felt like there would be some mishap that would get him killed maybe even by protecting her. There was also in spite of his attempts to project confidence and support his team an air of melancholy to him for me which said he's not going to be sticking around long. I wasn't expecting his death this episode, since they have been dragging stuff out, but then things started to line up real fast this episode.
And yes, aside from what some have termed "faithfulness" to source material and the supposed detail of said material, scenes feel drawn out to me and the whole watercolor stills felt like not only cost cutting but yea drawing things out to kill time. I still like these characters and I'm curious how Manato's death will impact them going forward. I also wouldn't mind seeing them have to deal without having a healer for awhile, since it doesn't leave much room for error. So, I'll stick around and watch some more.
I didn't get any vibe of her bragging and laughing at viewers from her review. Not only does she review anime, but also manga and teaches. So I expect with so much experience with literature of all types she probably has good instincts for these things. |
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11348 |
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I was kind of hoping we'd learn more about their backstories before people started dropping, like why Manato felt he was born to be yelled at, but I guess even if we find out where they came from and why they're here (wherever here is), we"ll never find out now, unless someone knew him before and remembers that. C'est la anime.
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Valhern
 Posts: 916 |
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This episode should have been slightly better if there was enough time to fit in other stuff. Two minutes, at least. Like someone said here (albeit they read the LN beforehand so they know something I don't), it lacked a little context and other things.
To me Manato's death was telegraphed as well, so I could only expect for "the moment" to surprise me, I was excited when Haruhiro went to stop the arrow, the camera did a good job there, but the whole after that felt a little too fast, and a little too shabby (like when Manato gets shot, it'd have been better to play a little bit and make the kill less obvious). Other than that, it was a very well-done episode and the slower parts were the best. I'm specially interested in Yume's taking of a god/goddess, she seems hugely invested on it, I'm curious as of what this means. Also, it was nice when Manato complimented Ranta and he felt out of place, of course he does! He thought he was the bad boy, not used to praise. As for the lack of attention to Ranta's happy goblin killing, I doubt that they are already perfectly adapted to it, Ranta is clearly the over-adapting kind, meaning that he tries to take a role he isn't completely ready for. I think that they are now more concentrated in planning, fighting, and what they'll do next, and that they've gotten very confident in killing goblins, that they are doing a good job, and now the goblins got back at them, telling them that they're just amateurs. By the way, I hope at some point they make new sequences for the opening (it mostly has already animated scenes) for the Bluray or the last episodes. |
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meiam
Posts: 3442 |
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Oh no Manato, that'll teach you to never trigger so many death flag so fast, a bit more and you would have been retiring tomorrow. Buy yeah, it was super telegraph with giant blimp and flashing light that he would die, my only surprise is that it happened before we learn anything of his back story. I personally really don't like it cause it's like the show is spoiling itself and it really take out from the impact of a character death.
The gamer in me see this episode very differently. My first though is "shit they'll have to get a new healer, finding a good healer is really hard" but then my immediate second though is "Manato wasn't a good healer, so it's good opportunity!". First things you need to learn as a healer is triage, here how it goes healer>tank>damage, he really should have stopped the group and just heal up asap. On top of that he goes in first in front of tank and he's constantly getting into physical fight with the enemy and the second skill he learn is a physical attack one. In fact, lots of there skill make no sense, the archer grabbed a ranged dagger skill, which does exactly the same as shooting her bow (she can't aim a bow but can aim magic dagger attack?) and now she need to gear up her bow and dagger, if she really can't use bow she probably need to think about respecing. Then the tank two skill are damage dealing one, one which only work when he blade lock (also know as "the best damn time for a thief to use backstab so don't break out of it for any reason, or tbdtfatubsdbooifar"). Didn't really see much of the dark knight ability, but it seems like a regular blow (with very little accuracy), probably should have grabbed some utility instead. I think the true moral of this episode is "noob will be noob". |
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Merida
 Posts: 1945 |
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This. It would have been nice to have one series of this type were the MC isn't actually the leader, so i was secretly hoping this wouldn't happen, but alas... 
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AksaraKishou
Posts: 1410 Location: End of the World |
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Four episodes into Grimgar and they're finally halfway through volume 1.
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SilverTalon01
Posts: 2402 |
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My gamer vision was on as well. My first thought was who would respec healer (though the preview seems to indicate they're getting another person). As for Manato, rather than him being a bad healer because he was up front, I think he is more the guy in the party/raid that knows it is on him to carry. You can't always carry someone else and do your job though which is what gets him. Also, they said he was oom and needed to med which was why he couldn't heal when he tried. He would have just bled out during that as well, and he would have put everyone else at risk by having them stop.
I agree about the last part, but she should have dagger skills to cover her dead zone and that already means she needs to gear up bow and dagger.
I think Moguzo is more OT'ing the extra mobs so I think a parry counter and a damage move is fine. As for the dark knight skills, one is called "hatred" which makes me think there would be an aggro component. |
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LightningZangetsu27
 Posts: 90 |
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sure people who've read the light novels may not be surprised but its nonetheless gut-wrenching, manato was the anchor of the group, girls have developed feelings towards him boys relied on him as the older brother type.
This is only 12 episodes series and im like what the hell about that. Took SAO quite a few episodes before it got interesting and it spawned 2x24 episode series. Grimgar has its own unique feel that cant be easily compared with others and it might end up being a cult hit. Its the song and imagery that gets viewers sucked in and get personal with characters. |
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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Well, the poor guy plastered himself with so many death flags, the flags alone should've done him in even before the gobbies did. Still, a sad scene. And I feel pretty bad for mage-girl. I expect that these guys are going to go Hard Core Mode for a while, which may or may not work out well for them: sometimes, anger helps you, but, as Star Wars has shown, anger can also betray you by leading you to take on too much.
As for gamer-mode analysis: the main healer SHOULD NOT be the "vanguard" for a group. The main healer shouldn't be picking up aggro, ever. Their job is to sit where it is safest and keep the rest of the group up. Intead, Manato kept trying to do more than he should, and this caused him to ignore his *own* place in the group. He had two roles already: healer and tactician. He didn't need to add a third. In that first battle, he kept to what he was supposed to be doing, but by the time this episode took place, the whole group had gotten a bit too cocky. I figured Yume took the dagger skill because 1) she wasn't confident with her bow abilities; and 2) she wasn't confident her group could keep the enemy at range. Also, we don't know what all skills they have to choose from, so it's hard to say whether they were smart in taking this over that if we don't know what "this" or "that" actually is. I'm still wondering just what the deal is here. Not just with the goblins, which don't seem to be NPCs, but also with the whole summoning of people from "our world" to this one. I doubt we'll learn the answer to that for a long time. But for now, I think that gobbies are going to be in for some serious payback. |
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stilldemented
 Posts: 232 |
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As a person who has been on board with this show..episode 4 didn't do much for me. It feels like everything that the first three episodes were building toward lead to an underwhelming event.
And it's not that I have any problems with the actual material. spoiler[Losing your leader is probably the worst thing that could happen to this group of characters. ] But I find the execution of said material questionable. Let's start with the positives. That final shot with everyone gathered around as the ashes are sent into the sky? It's a fantastic shot. The characters are still their lovable selves. Yume and Ranta are beginning to stand out more as characters and their interactions always amuse me. Manato telling everyone their strengths serves as a great way of showing how close the group has become. I loved all that. Now I'll get into what bothered me about the execution of this episode. This show has been experimenting with this sort of 'show, don't tell' approach in the first few episodes, however it abandons that method to tell us that spoiler[Manato is fixing to die] through Haruhiro's narration. It killed all tension for the ambush scene. I'm told how it ends before it begins. Because of that, spoiler[I almost feel like I've been robbed of my intent to care about what happens to Manato]. What it tells me about this show moving forward is the pacing is more interested in the day-to-day grind within this fantasy world than in actual critical turning points within the narrative. That's being harsh though. Some little things that I've brushed off as harmless became faults for me in episode 4. For me, the music videos have started overstaying their welcome by this point. It neither enhanced nor detracted from the scene. spoiler[Shihoru falling down for a quick thigh-shot during the wake scene killed the tone being set.] I say that as someone who isn't normally bothered by fanservice. But there's a time and a place for such things. This wasn't it. Those were my overall thoughts. I'm sure people will disagree. But that's what stood out for me. I'm still enthusiastic to see where things go. I just wasn't a big fan of how this episode packaged its content. Last edited by stilldemented on Mon Feb 01, 2016 3:32 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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