I could have just left all the question marks in the title from episode 21 as this episode of Record of Grancrest War kind of fails to shed any kind of illumination over the confusion that is the plot.
Much as we only found out the Mage Academy was the true enemy a handful of episodes ago, now the church emerges as a serious threat to Theo’s Emperor-ship. Only, other than a mention by Priscilla in an episode a fairly lengthy time ago, I don’t recall the church actually being a significant plot point. Like, ever. And we have never actually seen the Pope or any of these Priests or followers before so have no reason to care about them three episodes from the end of the season. Not to mention, Priscilla herself has been a non-entity other than a magical get-out-of-death-free card for a couple of the characters after battles. Now suddenly the fact that she’s actually the Holy Grail apparently matters to the greater plot, only I’m lost as to why I should care.
The whole thing would of course be easier to swallow if the episode didn’t take her death so seriously. It really wants this to be a touching emotional moment full of drama and angst but really I’m just wondering where Alexis and Marrine are during most of this episode. They were kind of big deals like three seconds ago and now they’ve literally disappeared off the map as Lassic, Theo and the crew kind of go through the motions of running an army that isn’t actually fighting anyone just at the moment because now Theo’s having emotional problems with the prospect of people dying in war (I know, the irony when we go back and do a body count after each encounter so far in this story).
Well, now Theo has pretty much all the crests, the Holy Grail, the armies, the church followers, and more or less everyone except the mages on his side (and even then he has some mages on his side). I can’t help but think that this final battle is going to be absurd because I’m thinking quite literally the only way to create a threat at this point is to more or less open the gates of hell and that would just be silly (let’s wait and see if that’s their option).
Previous Reviews:
- Episode 21: ????????
- Episode 20: Grancrest, The Soap Opera
- Episode 19: Alexis the Artist
- Episode 18: That Was Almost Playing Dirty
- Episode 17: Decisive Victory
- Episode 16: Doesn’t This All Feel Too Easy?
- Episode 15: Right, So Now Theo Has To Kill Milza and Become King?
- Episode 14: If Theo Accomplished His Goal Does That Mean We’re Done?
- Episode 13: Enter and Exit New Character That I Guess We Were Supposed To Care About
- Episode 12: This May Have Found Some Direction, At Last
- Episode 11: Does This Mean Theo Will Get Some Actual Screen Time?
- Episode 10: And We’re Back To The Cliff-Notes Version of Epic Battles
- Episode 9: Has This Show Turned A Corner, Or Are They Just Hoping This Will Keep Viewers Into The Spring Season?
- Episode 8: People Show A Startling Lack of Reason Of Good Judgement
- Episode 7: Loyalty Is Quite Cheap In This Show
- Episode 6: A Dance and A Battle
- Episode 5: Did You Know There Were Vampires? I Sure Didn’t
- Episode 4: Finally
- Episode 3: Do You Suppose We’ll Ever Know Everything A Crest Can Do?
- Episode 2: Some Nice Touches This Week
- Episode 1: She’s Going To Help Him Achieve His Dream Provided She Doesn’t Kill Him First
Thanks for reading.
Karandi James
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I didn’t take too much issue with the Papal State becoming an episodic antagonist since they’d brought up a couple times after Priscilla’s introduction. I assumed they’d fight since she mentioned that the Pope has been calling himself the true guardian of the Holy Grail or whatever. I thought the death scene stuff was fine (but probably because I did like her as a character).
The one thing that really kind of eats at me right now, though, is that the Pope isn’t dead. I might be mis-remembering here, but didn’t Aishela inform us that those who work as part of Pandora are all magically branded, and will be killed if they fail their objectives? How is it that this guy is still alive right now? Aishela nearly died within minutes of her failed assassination attempt.
Was the pope branded or was he just an ally? Nothing is ever very clear in this show so it is hard to know if this makes sense or not.
Maybe it’s only the mages that can be officially branded as member or something. You’d think they’d demand the same kind of “loyalty” from their other conspirators though
They are definetly opening those gates.
Yep. That or introducing a fluffy puppy mascot.
This is Grancrest. They’ll do both and probably add a new antagonist who’ll do a face turn by the end of the episode