Grimoire of Zero

Episode 8

It's really nice to see a show finally come together and deliver the kind of entertainment you always knew it could. This week's episode of Grimoire of Zero isn't perfect by any means, but it ratchets up the quality of storytelling significantly from last week's more aimless entry. Though it has taken a couple months to come together, we're actually starting to see a real plot develop, with characters we can finally invest in beyond just Zero and Mercenary. Despite some shortcomings in the animation and execution of the script, I'd still wager that this is GoZ's strongest episode yet.

Much of this has to do with the reappearance of Holdem, aka Mister Wolf, into the story. Initially, I'd assumed he was going to be a one-off antagonist, but it turns out there's a lot more to him than the churlish dandy he initially appeared to be. I've been asking for another more developed beastfallen character to arrive for some time now, and here we have someone that not only likes being a beastfallen, but actually chose to be one. His reasoning was fairly selfish (to escape the wrath of his mistresses' angered husbands), but it nevertheless lands him in the service of the late Sorena, who he genuinely seems to have respected and cared for. Not only that, but his pursuit of her granddaughter is also rooted in some inherent decency that pretty much every other beastfallen character has lacked up to this point, which really helps round out Holdem as a character overall.

Not only that, but his choice to join forces with Mercenary actually gives the plot some momentum, which it has desperately been lacking. Ever since abandoning Zero, it's been unclear as to what exactly Mercenary plans to do. Here, we learn that he's trying to get the Grimoire to earn back Zero's trust, and he also plans to help Holdem with the search for his lost ward. It's amazing how much a clear, defined goal can help give a story some life and urgency. Last week, I really struggled to care about what was happening, because it felt like GoZ had shrugged off the stakes it only just recently began developing. With Mercenary and Holdem on a clear mission, the story is just more interesting

It also helps that Holdem's story ties directly into another character to make them suddenly more engaging: Albus. Yes, to absolutely nobody's surprise, Albus is actually the missing granddaughter Holdem has been looking for. Albus's connection to Sorena has been teased since the first episodes of the season, but the nature of that connection was never made clear until now, so the character has had little else to do but sit on the sidelines while Zero and Mercenary took care of the story's heavy lifting. Not only does Albus now have a much clearer role in the show's overall plot, her relationship with the world itself has been bolstered too. In the span of just a couple of episodes, she has gone from a tagalong comic relief character to a martyr prepared to be burned alive at the stake so that she can expose the world's fraudulent and hypocritical fear of witches. For the first time in eight weeks, I was actively invested in Albus' wellbeing, which means the one weak link in the core cast of characters has finally been mended.

Even the action was better this week, which has historically been Grimoire of Zero's Achilles heel. While the quality of the show's production hasn't improved much, and the sloppy modeling and stiff animation often proved distracting this week, Mercenary and Holdem's rescue of Albus still stands out as the most entertaining sequence of the series to date. It captures a sense of swashbuckling fun on a paper-thin budget, combining our renewed interest in Albus with Merc and Holdem's charming rapport to give the whole back half of the episode a vibe that reminded me of Rage of Bahamut's early episodes. Often times, GoZ is hindered by its rough aesthetic and sloppy direction, but in this particular case, it managed to succeed in spite of those shortcomings.

So yeah, I love the direction this episode took, and if the rest of the season can keep it up, I think I'll end up being able to call Grimoire of Zero a success. It'll be a heavily flawed series, but it has always had its charms, and strong outings like this only make the show look brighter in retrospect. GoZ may never be the show I expected or wanted it to be at the season's start, but with any luck, it will end up being something worth remembering regardless.

Rating: B+

Grimoire of Zero is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.

James is an English teacher who has loved anime his entire life, and he spends way too much time on Twitter and his blog.