Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Record of Grancrest War
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Chaos Wings
 Posts: 277 Location: Your guess is as good as mine?! |
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Darth Milza: "Theo I am your father....... oh wait that's not our story". Yeah the glowing swords had me cracking a smile, I thought it was a neat visual touch to depict our good vs evil(?) showdown (if a little on the nose).
Yeah this had me smirking as well, although in fairness Milza did posses his own antagonist plot armour. Just look at what he had to fight through to even get a 1v1 duel with Theo, even managed to survive a sneak attack from Irvin our resident master assassin! He was depicted as a one man army but realistically he would never have survived a lot of the situations he got himself into. Basically he's kept alive until the plot demands otherwise because unfortunately for him MC plot armour trumps everything. And yeah Theo's "it will work out" left me like "Whaaaat, seriously dude you crazy!?!?!?". He's going up against an (almost) unstoppable killing machine and the best plan he's got is believing? Can't speak for anyone else but if plot armour power-ups were disallowed I know who I'd put my money on. Still it's enjoyable fun if you switch off your brain. |
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dharlow
Posts: 22 |
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The end of ep. 17 totally PO'd me off. Evidently Marrine completely forgets that Milza raped the crap out of her just days earlier. Sir Milza, Rest in Peace??? I had NO sympathy for her before this, but it is less than none now. I hope her head is separated from her body before this series ends just to rid us of her stupidity.
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#844391
Posts: 517 |
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He didn't rape her, that was his price for joining her side. She didn't enjoy it but she agreed to do it cause she's basically willing to do anything so long as she wins. She probably gave him one last bit of respect because he died fighting for her side, rather than running away or changing sides like most other lords have done.
I don't like her either though, mainly because her entire rationale for fighting this war doesn't make sense. She could have easily have taken power simply be going through with the marriage and ordering her wimpy husband around, rather than rejecting it and then trying to take over the lords by force that would have been under her command anyway. |
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zrnzle500
 Posts: 3767 |
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I think it is at the very least unwise and misguided, but her rationale seems nonetheless understandable. In the first episode, her father (and her would be husband's father) was killed at her wedding, which would seem to indicate that there were forces trying to prevent the unification of the two major powers they would lead, which made her believe that their marriage was not to be and that another method would be needed to bring unity and peace to their continent. This is not mere speculation on my part, as she cites this on a number of occasions in the show. Her chosen path will likely not end well for her, but I can see where she is coming from. |
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#844391
Posts: 517 |
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Yea but if there was some enemy trying to prevent both countries from joining forces (probably because they would pose a threat to that enemy) then wouldn't going ahead with the marriage so strengthen them make sense. Going to war just ends up weakening both sides, even if they do end up unified in the end. In fact, I think it would be hilarious if, when they finally unify the country some giant demon army shows up and says "lol, thanks for killing each other while we gathered our forces, you dead now" and then wipes out whoever is left.
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zrnzle500
Posts: 3767 |
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^I agree that it is not the best way and likely plays into the hands of those behind the tragedy, but I don’t think her concerns are entirely baseless. They summoned a high level demon to stop the wedding the first time, so I reckon they would be willing to prevent it from going through this time too, probably targeting her and or the husband this time. And given the mages’ association’s suspicious handling of the burning of the witch, the enemy seems to be at least partly internal, so simply unifying won’t solve the problem, though it will be a necessary part of the solution. Even with that I’d say her decision has been foolish, but it is understandable.
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Gina Szanboti
Posts: 11354 |
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I rather liked the shift in art style for the duel (and the previous episode they did it in). Can't imagine why anyone would think it wasn't planned.
I wouldn't even call it experimental, since series as diverse as Naruto and Samurai 7 have done it, not to mention the radical shifts in style throughout the entirety of Hakkenden: Legend of the Dog Warriors, to the point where I sometimes had trouble telling if people were the same characters unless someone called them by name. |
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#844391
Posts: 517 |
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Ep 18,
Long rant incoming I'm really confused about Theo's plan, I watched the part where he explained it twice and it still doesn't make sense. As far as I can understand it's this: He wants peace between the Union and Alliance, so if they break away from the Union then that makes the alliance only being at war with them and not the Union. However, they are not strong enough to beat the Alliance alone so they need the Union to intervene and that will somehow lead to peace. That makes NO sense at all. 1. The Alliance made it perfectly clear they plan on conquering everyone be force, why in the world would they stop if their only opponent splits in two, and one half of that is unwilling to fight. Theo says himself that if the Union doesn't intervene they will get destroyed. 2. Alexis is a limp noodle who is willing to roll over and surrender if it means marrying his long lost love. Hell, he basically offered Theo the Union, he's THAT weak willed. Furthermore the nobles who wanted to fight have basically already joined the treaty, why would the remaining ones change their minds when the treaty isn't even part of the Union anymore? 3. The alliance was willing to fight the Union when it was unified (containing all the lords that make up the Union and Treaty now). Why in the world would they back off when it is now split into two different groups, one of which won't be fighting them directly? What really infuriated me was at the end of the ep when Alexis is finally realizing how useless he's been, saying that if he had joined the war he could have saved Villar (not to mention the thousands of people who died fighting a losing battle). Theo then says that he's lost something even more precious (Marrine). WHAT THE FAK! Theo is so desperate to have a happy ending to the love story of the star crossed lovers he says it's more important than leaving an ally and all his people to die at the hands of the enemy, he even refuses to take the lead of the Union, which could have lead to a quick, decisive end to the war, because that wouldn't lead to happy ending to the Alexis/Marrine love story. And you know what, somehow it's all going to work out. Theo is like the guy in a casino who wins a 100 to 1 bet, then bets all his winnings on the same bet again, wins that, bets all his winnings again, wins that and keeps on winning. It shouldn't work and he didn't do anything to make it work, it just happened because the plot demands it does. And going back to my rank from last week, even Alexis points out that if they had gotten married Marrine would have been able to unify the crests. Yes people tried to stop them, they tried to stop them because they were threatened by the crests unifying. THAT'S WHY THEY SHOULD HAVE GONE THROUGH WITH THE DAMN MARRIAGE, TO UNIFY THE CRESTS. I feel like all the major conflicts in this story have been created by the characters themselves. Marrine could have had the crests in episode 1 if they had unified, but instead she starts a war. Alexis doesn't want to fight Marrine so he let an important ally get slaughtered (again, with many people who served him) which draws out the war. Theo wants Alexis and Marrine to live happily ever after so he refuses to let Alexis directly fight the Alliance, which draws out the war even further. This series has grown more and more frustrating for me. |
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JustinTaco
 Posts: 118 |
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Was the reviewer even paying attention? I'm trying to avoid mean words here but I don't know how you can miss the point quite that much.
They clearly understood that the ironclad was foreshadowing but just... didn't get it? The payoff of mentioning that the ironclad was too slow for naval combat was that Alexis anchored it like a floating fortress instead. I mean Erik straight up says it. He calls the naval battle "a siege". So instead of skirmishing and being worn down by the enemy, Alexis uses its armor to stay put and use long range bombardment while supporting his wall with more maneuverable little skiffs with archers. And clearly it paid off. Even though Erik was able to get right up to Alexis before dying, that was only because of his unique crest. The numerically superior Nord fleet was completely decimated. Everything was on screen. This isn't some deep character drama where you need to read in between the lines. Did it really need some really blunt exposition? Cause I imagine if everything was spelled out the reviewer would then bemoan how flat the writing is. As far as the animation, I thought the cavalry in the first part of the episode actually looked quite good for CG. Otherwise I tend to give 2 cour shows more leniency since they really have to stretch the budget. But that's just my opinion. As far as some of the action being comical, it worked for me. The whole point of the episode was to showcase Alexis, a very flamboyant character, as a commander. I thought it was appropriate that everything that transpired was very overdramatic. Again, all this just seemed obvious to me. Claiming the show has reached it's nadir because you weren't paying attention is just silly to me. |
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Chaos Wings
Posts: 277 Location: Your guess is as good as mine?! |
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Ugh Marrine, worst written character ever or character written just to be that dumb? Either way she doesn't deserve a happy ending. Tens of thousands of solders dead for the most senseless and utterly pointless reason ever (stubbornness). She really is a monster because one guy isn't worth that many lives (not to mention all the innocent civilian casualties). The real joke of all this is everyone was celebrating her union with Alexis (are they thick or something), where as logically they should be calling for her head!
My only conclusion is Siluca's father is in league with the Mages Academy. Because if he's meant to be an intelligent man and brilliant strategist there is no way he wouldn't have steered her away from starting this absurdly pointless campaign in the first place. |
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NeverConvex
 Subscriber Posts: 2301 |
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I've enjoyed this show because it's reasonably well-animated and the generic fantasy-ish fights are fun enough to follow, but whenever I stop to actually think about what's going on in it your quote is about where I end up. Marrine's reasoning always seems utterly ridiculous to me, and the show's endless obsession with the overwhelming importance of a few nobles finding love instead've the millions of people they rule over not dying just seems kind've gross. |
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DRosencraft
Posts: 665 |
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It is honestly hard to tell if the show just has terrible writing, or is just hugely cynical. Like, part of me wants to say that there's no way they sat down and plotted this story out without realizing how terrible it is that they would bum-rush a story for 20 episodes (impressive determination to keep up that speed by the way) all for it to lead absolutely nowhere fast. I almost feel like they meant for the world to be portrayed as a select bunch of nobles who can't solve their romance problems without having massive armies slaughter each other, and that the armies that follow them are too stupid to do anything but cheer in the end. I can almost hear one of those soldiers at the end telling his buddy that he just doesn't give a crap, he's just glad he doesn't have to rush off and die for this utterly pointless crusade anymore.
For the life of me, I can't even understand why Alexis didn't just surrender to Marrine to begin with. She wanted him to surrender, he could've just said, "sure, but you have to marry me as a part of the deal." That's basically all they did at this point anyway. Why the hell is Theo in the middle of all this anyway? People keep throwing him titles and accolades left and right for no good reason other than he's the supposed main character here. Seeing as how Alexis is apparently a military savant, and just as peace-minded as Theo, why inject Theo as a character in this story to begin with? It would arguably have made a much more interesting story if it was about Alexis getting the courage to do all this nonsense rather than Theo playing wartime matchmaker. I feel like they made a huge world for this story, and then said to hell with it, it's too big, so let's chop off everything that is the least bit complex and make it so simple a five-year-old would think its too stupidly simple. They introduced a ton of characters who appeared at first to be important, only to be shoved to background scenes every so often. There's hardly even any interaction with the cast. Sorry to rant, but this seems to be a massively missed chance at a great series. I stuck with it this long in the hopes that something good would develop out of all this. Like I said at the beginning, a part of me wonders if the futility and stupidity of the events here might have been some sage point the writers were trying to make about war in general. But somehow I think that is too optimistic a view. |
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Rosiero
Posts: 116 |
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I still suspect the source material is considerably more elaborate. Even the manga adaptation, which sadly is coming out very slowly and probably will never cover the whole story, takes so, so much more time to flesh out its characters.
And honestly, it was the same with Record of Lodoss War, at least the revered OVA. That story didn't make a lick of sense, but last year Seven Seas finally brought over the first novel and suddenly Karla the Grey Witch is a sympathetic, layered character instead of an insane troll who gives up on plans just because the heroes actually showed up despite not standing a chance against her in a fight. Go figure. |
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#844391
Posts: 517 |
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I read that this anime is covering 11 volumes of light novels, meaning they need to cover roughly 1 volume every 2 episodes, and that's why the pacing is so ridiculous. For comparison, Overlord had around 4 episodes per volume and even it had to skip some scenes and shorten others.
But even with that, the writing still doesn't make a tone of sense in many cases. |
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Rosiero
Posts: 116 |
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Did you miss the part where Theo said he didn't want to cause a massive ruckus in the middle of the night, and then they tied Aishela up to interrogate her? I think the way Theo handled it is honestly very measured and mature, not underselling the seriousness of the issue. If they started making noise, what exactly would that accomplish? At best you'd have a peanut gallery. At worst you might alert any accomplices Aishela might have, since she just admitted to having been a spy from the beginning. |
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