Hai to Gensou no Grimgar Episode 12:[See You Tomorrow][Final Impressions]

Ranta managed to escape the fifth level and went back to the 4th one with all the farm land and stuff. After trying to call his demon zodiaco (who’s a total bitch btw) he manages to avoid fighting against Death spots who followed him and meet with the sucker party again. They are all quite happy to see him even if, like Yume said, they don’t particularly like him, they don’t want to him to die. Speaking of Yume, it’s now crystal clear that Ranta is totally into her. Although, even if he calls her “flat chested”, which she’s not, he’s quite interested in her boobs.

Oh and yeah, I don’t know if I’m the only one who saw it, but on one frame, Ranta is drawn with his helmet. However, he clearly left it in the mine…. And then next frame, the helmet disappears. I can’t believe they let that slide. I know there is different animators for different scenes but still. Don’t let that kind of mistakes slide A-1.

Haruhibro makes another speech about him not knowing if he’s a good leader because he has weaknesses, but it’s okay since their party is now pretty balanced it’s all that matters. He’s not Manato, even if he thought he was and that he had to be Manato, he’s not Manato and had finally realized it. So now, he can move on and start evolving on his own.
But Death posts is here again and apparently stronger than before because according to Mary, the more he gets hit the stronger he gets. But both her and Shihoru are tired and out of magic so my bruh goes for a desperate move and drags the big bad guy down. They both fall on the ground but my bruh breaks his wrist. Mary is panicked and wants to go down to help Haruhibro but Ranta stops her and they both leave the mine. Before leaving, Ranta shouts to Haruhibro to not give up on living. Which my awesome Bro is surely not ready to do. Also, I’d like to mention that Haruhibro became quite hot in this episode. It might just be me, but,  yeah, go for it Haru. 

“It’s a battle of life and death  and I’ll keep on fighting until I die”

Nice words Haruhibro, now go kick his ass!

So he follows the magic light  and kills the bad guy but collapses right after that. When he wakes up he is in his room with Mary by his side. I was waiting for a kiss during that scene but it did not happen… OH WELL, NEXT TIME!
There was a big bounty for killing death spots so now they have money. They go to the tavern to celebrate, met with Renji and the other side characters that no one really cares about. Then, finally, after going to Manato’s grave,the episode ends with Haruhibro leading the way to new adventures. 

I think the most interesting part of the episode was Haruhibro’s final emancipation from Manato, who was a role model for him. All this time he felt safe staying in Manato’s shadow and when Manato died, he tried to become Manato because it was reassuring.It was a way to regain peace. But when Haruhiro sacrifies himself like Manato did and survives, he truly awakens as the leader, as his own leader. When he wakes up he earned the trust of all his party members, including Ranta. He acknowledges Manato’s death and apologizes to Renji. Then, when he goes to Manato’s grave, the latter one tells him that he has grown a bit which could mean that he’s finally starting to evolve, to improve as himself, for himself. Also, I do think, Manato’s sudden disappearance means that now, Haruhibro doesn’t really need to ask him for advice since he’s now able to think as a leader all by himself.

Charibo’s Final Thoughts

Ah Grimgar, I don’t know where to begin with this anime that was in most cases either praised or bashed for almost the same reasons.

Art and Sound: The music was cool, made by the same band/Artist, but still enjoyable. I guess they really need to sell their album, uh. Different tracks were used so it wasn’t repetitive.  As for the art, the backgrounds were absolutely gorgeous but the overall animation was a bit eeeeeehh…. That’s A-1 pictures for you. Again, the characters were touched by the “derp syndrome”. Every time they were in the background, their faces started changing to some weird drawing. Yeah, I don’t have much things to say about the the art and sound…

Story: It’s a bit messy. Honestly I had trouble understanding where the anime wanted to go. The first episodes set the mood to a kind of adventure/action/fan service and were followed by Manato’s sudden death. Then we spent a long time watching the characters coping with death to finally end with some battle episodes and some good action.  Honestly, at the beginning I was lost. Should I take this show as an action show? As a physiological anime? It’s clearly talking about interesting topics such as death, price of life and so on. But is it intentional? Does the anime really want us to think about those topics or is it slow and weird just because it’s poorly written? Finally I decided to take it more as a thought on death and self emancipation from role model than a classic adventure/fan service anime. And I liked what I saw. If think it’s quite well done now that I look at the structure of the episodes within the insight. A cringe start but quite reassuring because Manato was there and did not suck, his sudden death that shake their whole world with slow episodes as for a slow recovery and the quick fast paced last episodes where the characters, especially Haruhibro finally recover from their trauma and start living their own life.

Characters: I don’t know if characters are the strongest point of the anime. I guess it again depends on your preferences. If you can’t stand characters who suck and are a bit useless you probably won’t like the whole grimgar cast. Those guys aren’t the best warriors of all. But honestly, I quite identified with Haruhibro, that’s why I called him my bruh. I think I’ll be like him if I was in his shoes. Though, I won’t look at the girl’s asses or boobs, since I don’t care about those things, but abs, abs… Abs is the way to go.
So Grimgar can shine with its character development. Especially around the middle of the series the attention is focused on our sucker crew recovering from Manato’s death and how they are dealing with it. If every character has a bit of spotlight the only one left behind is Moguzo. I’m sorry but poor him, in the end, even Shihoru is more developed than him.
In my opinion another quality of the characters might be how human they are compared to other animes. I don’t know about you but I would certainly hesitate to kill gobelins at first ( but that might be due to the fact that I’m a pussy afraid of bugs). During the first episodes, they were hesitating, feeling bad about killing another living being and at the end, they were killing Kobolds like it’s nothing, because it became a part of their routine. But it takes time to adapt to a new environment and way of living so I can’t blame them for being huge losers at the beginning.

Final Score: 7/10. Grimgar was fine. The animation was obviously lacking during the fights, the rhythm of the episodes was a bit unequal but I ‘m a big fan of the topics that were brought up in the show. Grimgar is not a masterpiece, but it doesn’t deserve he wave of hate that occurred. Sure it’s slow. But it’s about a bunch of losers being losers. Don’t expect them to be awesome from the beginning. In the end, I guess it all comes down to tastes and preferences. If you’re not a big fan of slow pacing and useless characters slowly improving, this anime might not be the right one for you.