Grimms Notes Episode 4 Review
I have to wonder if the source material for this, which is apparently a game, if the player gets to decide whether they want to set the stories back on track or let them fall into chaos? Or is it all just mandated that of course these story worlds will endlessly repeat and you have to be apart of maintaining a status quo so that character lives never change beyond what is written on the pages of their books? It is a little sad to think about really and it is probably the one thing that really bothers me about this anime.
Episode one wasn’t great but it did enough to make me want to watch. Episode two was just kind of there and feels more and more filler like so I’m wondering about its placement. Three and four though give us Ex’s backstory and they did a great job of establishing his character and his personal motive for helping restore Cinderella’s story and really I wish this anime had started here. And yet, despite the character being interesting, the conflict personal and understandable, it does nothing to relieve the overall worry that this story seems to be all about making people play their role, whether they want to or not.
Sure, we’re only four episodes in and maybe it will get to fleshing out some of these points and ideas and it might even explore them a bit, but so far we’re supposed to be behind the group that come in from outside and essentially force things back onto their predetermined path. For once the crazy villain’s speech about hope and liberation didn’t seem to crazy because I could actually see exactly where he was coming from and at least the characters were offered a choice.
Then the heroes tune the world and everyone forgets what has happened. Not only is their choice undone but they are robbed even of the memory of anything outside of their books. It’s kind of hard to get behind that.
Still, in the hope that eventually these ideas will be pursued and explored I’m watching on. These last two episodes were at least a little compelling and far better handled than the opening episode and little bits and pieces about their powers and the like are being revealed each episode. Still, I’m hardly jumping up and down to recommend this one.
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GRIMMS NOTES VISUAL BOOK
- Grimms Notes Series Review
- Episode 1: This Fairy Tale Oozes a Lack of Imagination
- Episode 2: The Fine Art of Not Explaining Things
- Episode 3: In The Absence Of Direction, Make Your Fate
- Episode 4: Are Destiny and Fate Really All Just Written?
- Episode 5: The Death of the Dream, the Birth of a Despairing Villain
- Episode 6: Every Episode Makes Me Question Their Motives More
- Episodes 7 and 8: The Outlook is Grimm
- Episode 9: This Story is Getting a Little Grimm
- Episode 10: In The Absence of a Reasonable Argument, Rely on Sophistry
- Episode 11: Alice The Disciplinarian in Wonderless Land
- Episode 12: I’m Left Not Disappointed As I Expected Nothing
- Images from: Grimms Notes. Dir. S Shizutaka. Brain’s Base. 2019.
What bothers me most about the show’s concept and doesn’t give me hope is that they systematically ignore the fairytale villains. I mean imagine being one of Cinderella’s stepsisters, growing up with the knowledge that you’re going to bully your stepsister (what if you like her?), are going to a ball, where you have no hope scoring the prince, but you gotta try anyway. Eventually, you’re gowing to cut off your own toes just to fail (pigeons are going to tell on you)… but it can’t helped. It’s in the book of fate.
I mean we were supposed to root for Cinderally, since she hangs in there because she knows about her happy end, but we’re supposed to dislike her sisters who have no choice but to be mean to her, and if they hang in there, they’re punished for it. And despite that the chaos teller is… Yeah, right.
Seriously, the writing is messed up, and it also feels so cliché at every turn that I don’t think they realise this (or they don’t care). Maybe the show’ll surprise me…
No, I’m with you. This is not a well thought out concept because as soon as you ask any question it all falls apart. Why would anyone be a villain when they knew what the outcome would be? Surely they could learn the lesson and not do it but instead they just follow their book of fate. And why are they reading their books? Is that written as well? It’s all just kind of superficial and unexplored and what few messages are coming out aren’t particularly great. I’m a little worried for this series.
You know, I’ve always argued that, taking the story of the war in Heaven at face value, it would seem that Lucifer is the original Messiah figure and truest hero offered by the Bible. It’s almost as popular a view as when I offer the interpretation that Jesus is the world’s best-documented suicide-by-cop. (People don’t seem to like discussing religion with me. . .)
This story could really get into some of the meat of the idea of fate and yet it really, really isn’t and the overall message it is selling at this point and time isn’t sitting very well with me.
From a narrative point of view a lot of religions have some fairly interesting stories in their history. Though calling them stories or fiction does tend to annoy people.
Lucifer (in the Garden of Eden) and Prometheus are essentially the same characters. Knowledge givers. Entities who would free us from the need for a God. The Greeks viewed the notion a bit differently than the Jews.
If they bring up LaPlace’s demon, abandon all hope.