Granblue Fantasy The Animation Key Point Review

Important Note:

This review is based on the anime as a stand-alone work.  It does not take into account the game it is based on. 

The bottom line:

This anime has a rich and immersive world with cliché characters and plot.  All I can recommend is to watch episode 1 and then put it down.  Unless you really have an attachment to anime with cliché rpg plots, then it’s probably best to pass on this one.  If Cygames’ plan was to drum up interest in their game by releasing this anime, it probably would’ve been better for them to just save their money.  I had a lot of hope for the story, but it gets more painful to watch as it drags on.

This anime is 12 episodes. (Episode 13 is a bonus episode that is not important to the plot at all).  

Setting:

• A rich fantasy world full of imagination, magic, and monsters; and 

• lots of water, islands, and airships used to fly between areas.

Story:

• The anime, sadly, has a number of plot points that hinge on you having already played the game;

• attractive female main character with special powers meets hard-headed inexperienced warrior boy who instantly gives up his previous life to protect her from people chasing her;

• female main character and male main character instantly bond;

• the story also hints at the roles of characters who have not been introduced, but makes little to no effort to weave them in;

• interesting monster designs;

• interesting world and location designs;

• fantasy adventure feeling;

• story gives hints of deep plot points, but nothing deep happens in the anime;

• magic and magic stones;

• some action, but much of the story is devoted to fantasy travel; and

• unresolved finding family subplot.

Characters:

• Well-designed with interesting clothing and armor;

• characters are mostly one-dimensional and cliché; and

• main characters, who are mostly strangers to each other, build relationships almost instantly with no effort.

Dialogue and voice acting:

• Dialogue is weak;

• many of the main characters have decent voice acting;

• some of the enemies have terrible dubs;

• some secondary and tertiary characters have surprisingly good voice acting.

Animation:

• Animation quality is below average, but they try to make up for it with an occasional flashy battle effect.

Music, openings, and endings:

• The opening animation is not very good, same with the opening song.

• The ending animation is not good and the ending song is also weak. 

Author username: Marro Danatalle

Photo credit: A-1 Pictures