Forum - View topicEP. REVIEW: Granbelm
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1idd0kun
Posts: 62 |
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The protagonist is the character who incarnates the main conflict of the story, whether internal or external (or both). You could also say the plot of a story is the accumulation of actions the protagonist takes that leads him (or her) to the resolution of the conflict. In any case, the protagonist of this story is Shingetsu. Mangetsu is the plot device through which the story deals with Shingetsu. And I will go further and predicts that Mangetsu is gonna die next episode, leaving Shingetsu to fight Suishou alone in episode 13. That will make it clear who is the protagonist and who is the partner. |
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Yuvelir
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Just a reminder that this anime's subtitle is 'The Two Princeps'.
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Nom De Plume De Fanboy
 SubscriberExempt from Grammar Rules Posts: 612 Location: inland US west, pretty rural |
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^
I completely missed that. Another example of Japanese episode and show titles that are distinctly spoiler[ spoiler-ish]. |
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TanyaTheEvil
 Posts: 331 |
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The review this week was outstanding and really moved me. I feel so sad but I am not sure how episode 12 will turn out. I am a big fan of happy endings in anime but I am hoping for one here
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1572 |
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BTW, an interview from a couple weeks back
https://manga.tokyo/interview/interview-with-granbelm-producer-takayuki-nagatani/ Some interesting (if obvious) tibdits is that this anime is a love letter to 2D mecha anime and that the show was finished before airing, which isn't a common occurence. |
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Probablytomorrow
Posts: 164 |
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I was tense throughout all of episode 11. It's been a looong time since I've been legitimately scared of the POV character dying.
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Takizawa-Shinzou
Posts: 102 |
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Kougeru
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Episode 13 is airing a full 24 hours earlier than usual. So we'll get it Thursday instead of Friday.
So first in response to some posts from last week: I don't agree with the posts here that say the MCs are doing the wrong thing by wanting to get rid of magic. I don't think it's "throw the baby with the bathwater". It's just avoiding hypocrisy. If Shingetsu used magic for her own selfish goals such as reviving people she personally knew and cared about, she's a hypocrite for wanting to also get rid of magic. She wants to go all in with destroying magic, and to do that she can't use it for her own sake. That's also what makes her worthy. Mangetsu's lines in episode 12 showed Mangetsu is not like that, of course. But Shingetsu wants to do it for the betterment of the everyone. She's seen the harm magic has caused so many people. She doesn't want ANYONE to be hurt anymore. Not just the people she knows, but anyone in the world. As for episode 12, I'll just copy and paste what I wrote on MAL and reddit: The battles in this anime are so amazing. The music fits perfectly, even when there is none like in much of this episode, it was absent because that was best for the scene. The audio all around was pretty amazing. The voice acting is just SSS+. Aoi Yuuki especially just...wow. Everything about this anime is top-tier. It's so weird how underrated it is. Another amazing episode for an amazing show. If the finale is just as good, this will be my AOTS, maybe the year. |
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1572 |
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Please don't hurt me more.
Mangetsu's speech indeed proves that what they intend to do isn't seen as a simplistic solution for a complex matter - or as a solution in the first place. But it is scary how gleefully she gives her life for something that, for her, only holds symbolic meaning. On Shingetsu's side, I hope preventing harm isn't still her only ideal though. Because that can (and must) be done in other ways. There's the next episode preview, however, with the effigies of all those girls inside Magiaconatus. If that semi-sentient magic amalgam is holding their very existences hostage inside itself, the way to release them just so happens to line up with the 'getsus plan perfectly. That is, assuming that magic as a force of the universe can even be removed at all. Since it's suspicious that Magiaconatus exists in the first place if ridding the world of magic was the intent behind it. |
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claymade
Posts: 7 |
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Well, the interesting thing is that it seems like in this story (as the finale has now reminded us) magic is actually not a fundamental force, but rather something created by humans, out of a time when magic didn't exist. Which (if you look at it in a certain sense) makes the "magic" really just super, suuuuuper highly advanced science--with the obvious Clarke quote about sufficiently advanced science springing immediately to mind. The really interesting implication that this actually-basically-science-underneath point brings into focus is that it's not actually "magic" per se that the show is arguing against. Indeed, in the finale it's even made very explicit: they try to shake Shingetsu's resolve by pointing out that even if she destroys magic, humanity will just create "some other power" other than magic, which Shingetsu acknowledges, agreeing that such people are "fools" who "knowingly follow the wrong paths". So it's not that there was some particular, unique detail about Granbelm-verse magic specifically that made it bad, such that it had to be destroyed. Even confronted with a vague hypothetical about some other sort of non-magic power that humanity might reach for in the future, even not knowing any specific details about the power's nature whatsoever, Shingetsu just knows (based on her philosophy at least) that the mere act of chasing after any such kind of power to exert our wishes onto reality would be to "knowingly follow the wrong paths". So the pursuit of the power to change what we don't like about our reality is not something (in her view) that can even possibly be done "the right way". Such attempts are "the wrong paths" inherently, by fundamental virtue of what they're trying to accomplish. It reminds me of a C.S. Lewis quote, actually:
That's basically the same conflict Granbelm tackles. Shingetsu's aim is to forcibly stop the people who are trying to "conform reality to the wishes of man" from being able to do so, instead forcing them back to a more "natural" state of being, which is portrayed as her doing something good for them, even if they didn't want it. And there's a particular irony that Granbelm sets up its premise in this way. I mean, think about the premise: A story set in a world where--long, long ago--humanity had such incredible power to control their environment that it boggled the mind, power utterly inconceivable to anyone living when the show is primarily set. But that power was lost, and even those who currently style themselves magic users are in reality are just the palest shadows imaginable of what humanity once possessed. However, a group of people are trying to recover the power that humanity once had. They are opposed, though, by people who believe that the ancient power should be erased completely, and the anime is about the struggle between those trying to return humanity to what it had, and those trying to keep humanity in a more natural state. Now am I talking about Granbelm with that description... or am I talking about Dr. Stone? It's funny that in this season we ended up with not just one, but two anime tackling the same basic sort of theoretical question. And not only that, but they arrived at answers that were in absolute, diametric opposition to each other at the basic level of their underlying philosophy. And if there's one consolation I kept reminding myself of while watching the Granbelm finale to make the experience somewhat less depressing, it was reminding myself what both shows do agree on. On one hand, there's what even Shingetsu had to admit, about how even if she wiped out every last trace of magic, humanity would still keep trying to move forward and trying to find "some other power" that can take us further toward fulfilling our wishes, to making the world a less painful place to live by finding new techniques to "conform reality to the wishes of man"... even if her destruction of magic meant we had to start the process of advancement all over again from a much earlier state. And on the other hand, how Senku similarly realized that even if Tsukasa did kill him, and (like Shingetsu) Tsukasa succeeded in wiping out all traces of their humanity's ancient lost power, that the existence of "sorcerers" like Chrome meant that Tsukasa wouldn't win in the long run either, and that their humanity would rebuild what it had lost there as well. Even if, like Granbelm's humanity, they also had to start over again from a much earlier state. |
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1572 |
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I might have overestimated this show's capacity to surprise me - spoiler[and surprised me by going on the sealed path it set on episode 11.
And that epilogue... it's all sorts of wrong. So it's as if magic never existed. That means that Nene was rid of her unexplained magical curse. Cool. And the three sisters are in Japan because... reasons? Cool? And then Rosa is holding Clara's hand because Anna and Kuon (and assumedly dozens of girls before them) are worse than dead because they died in a magical tournament that never happened? What? And Shingetsu somehow remains in a ghostly state despite magic not existing? And they tease at Mangetsu actually being alive despite it all? fudge off with that. I'm fine with a Link's Awakening-esque ending. I don't like it but I'm fine. But this epilogue made no sense, it's a continuation of episode 11 that follows Magiaconatus' words but ignores any and all logic.] Maybe it is Shingetsu who is dreaming. |
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Probablytomorrow
Posts: 164 |
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Regarding the ending, I for one spoiler[did not expect Shingetsu to be able to undo anyone's deaths by erasing all magic. I think that was the reason Magiaconatus caused those deaths, directly and indirectly, in the first place. It wanted to make Shingetsu's wish for a world free from magical threats into a painful one. It wanted to tempt her into letting magic free. The one major consolation Shingetsu earns in the end for sticking to her wish is that Mangetsu actually does defy Magiaconatus and become an independent being. That is why Magiaconatus is unable to erase her.] |
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LastPage 3
Posts: 193 |
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I didn't really expect her to revive anyone either, but I was expecting her to restore them from non-existence, even if they were still dead. At least give their families the chance to mourn them. |
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Yuvelir
Posts: 1572 |
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It still makes no sense spoiler[upholding that threat. And holding them hostage would make Magiaconatus more malicious than the scene tried to convey. As if it were a revenge rather a magiphysical law... which barely makes any sense when juxtaposed to "the reason they died never existed". It is specially unfair in Mangetsu was allowed to magically pop into existence (which I don't think she did. This is just the cheapest kind of last minute open-endedness), as if Ana and Kuon weren't actual people. Although the last few episodes almost frame the latter as interchangeable with her sister. Actually Magiaconatus isn't supposed to be DOING anything other than creating and discarding Suishou. This is all supposed to be the "natural consequences" of Shingetsu's action] Also, the message about Shingetsu's ideals is undermined spoiler[by the cruelty of sacrificing dozens of lives for its sake, specially when that ideal is purely personal and metaphoric, with no pragmatic value whatsoever. Anna and Kuon never existed just so Shingetsu can make a statement about how unnecessary a power like magic is. Great.] P.S. and if the only way anyone could ever win Granbelm was spoiler[for someone to wish to remove magic, why not just do so from the very beginning instead of creating Magiaconatus and Granbelm?] |
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Probablytomorrow
Posts: 164 |
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It's not clear to me that Suishou was the one manipulating history. I took that business being the actions of Magiaconatus covering its own tracks, leading people to believe Granbelm was a safe tournament where nobody died, so that more people would be tempted to strive for a wish. I would consider that to be the action of a deceitful and selfish consciousness.
It was stated in episode 6 that Magiaconatus and Granbelm were discovered, not created. In other words, the mages who sealed all magic away died thinking they had removed all magic. |
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