Granblue Fantasy The Animation Episode 1 Review – A Good Introduction

<p>Granblue Fantasy is Japanese only mobile title that&&num;8217&semi;s currently slated for a PS4 release in 2018&period; It has an anime adaptation from A-1 Pictures&comma; the studio behind <em>Sword Art Online<&sol;em>&comma; <em>The Seven Deadly Sins<&sol;em>&comma; <em>Magi<&sol;em>&comma; <em>Fairy Tail<&sol;em>&comma; and many other popular shows&period; Its first episode lives up to the pedigree of the studio with fantastic animation and solid voice acting&comma; but the story is unfortunately cliche&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p><amp-youtube layout&equals;"responsive" width&equals;"500" height&equals;"281" data-videoid&equals;"yGZoqzMWRuU" title&equals;"GRANBLUE FANTASY The Animation Trailer"><a placeholder href&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;www&period;youtube&period;com&sol;watch&quest;v&equals;yGZoqzMWRuU"><img src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;i&period;ytimg&period;com&sol;vi&sol;yGZoqzMWRuU&sol;hqdefault&period;jpg" layout&equals;"fill" object-fit&equals;"cover" alt&equals;"GRANBLUE FANTASY The Animation Trailer"><&sol;a><&sol;amp-youtube><&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The world instantly reminded me of a <em>Tales of<&sol;em> game&period; The art is filled with color with the first episode being set in a quiet town in the middle of a field&period; The forest&comma; village&comma; and the surroundings looked wonderful&period; Some hand-drawn art even had a 3D effect in some parts of the episode which should pull audiences in that much more&period; The fight scenes were flashy just like <em>Sword Art Online<&sol;em>&period; The characters ran with thunderous speed towards their enemies with attacks that just sparked against enemy blows&period; It looked really cool and was one of the best parts of the episode&period; The visuals gave off a sense of that fantasy flair and it really added to the animation&period; The character designs were also really cool&comma; especially with Gran&comma; who was wearing a hoodie-like design with armor on top of it&period; However&comma; sword slashes against the enemy were a bit confusing in this anime&period; You see the enemies being hit&comma; but they are still able to get up&period; Were they struck unconscious or had they been killed&quest; Another nitpick is that the creature sidekick&comma; Vyrn&comma; looks out of place during walking and battle scenes as he was animated with different quality to his surroundings&period; Hopefully that will be fixed in future episodes as it was definitely a distraction&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>The story felt like much more of the same&period; Gran&comma; the main character of this Granblue Fantasy adaptation&comma; is a teenager who lives an ordinary life in an outskirt village&comma; but it&&num;8217&semi;s disrupted when a warship from the Empire appears and an explosion occurs&period; He goes to find out what falls out of it as he sees a strong blue light in the sky&period; This blue light comes from Lyria&comma; a girl who has been trapped and tested on&period; And then it goes on just like you&&num;8217&semi;d expect&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>A boy meets girl&comma; the boy wants to save her and without thinking risks his life for someone he just met&period; Why is he risking such lengths and his village to help her&quest; Is he a plain hero who doesn&&num;8217&semi;t think of the consequences&quest; Hopefully in future episodes&comma; his character is expanded upon&period; Lyria also feels like a cliche character&semi; she seemed like a character who needs to be protected and can&&num;8217&semi;t fight back&period; We&&num;8217&semi;ve seen this time and time again&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Despite this&comma; the story between a hero and a girl he wants to save doesn&&num;8217&semi;t really feel old&semi; it&&num;8217&semi;s like watching your average superhero movie&&num;8230&semi;we know he or she is going to come out on top&comma; but we usually love the journey that these characters take us on anyway&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<figure id&equals;"attachment&lowbar;117874" aria-describedby&equals;"caption-attachment-117874" style&equals;"width&colon; 960px" class&equals;"wp-caption alignnone"><img class&equals;"wp-image-117874" src&equals;"https&colon;&sol;&sol;cdn&period;bagogames&period;com&sol;wp-content&sol;uploads&sol;2017&sol;02&sol;05003823&sol;granblue-fantasy-1&period;jpg" alt&equals;"&lpar;Granblue Fantasy&colon; The Animation&comma; A-1 Pictures&comma; Aniplex&comma; Cygames&rpar;" width&equals;"960" height&equals;"540" &sol;><figcaption id&equals;"caption-attachment-117874" class&equals;"wp-caption-text">&lpar;Granblue Fantasy&colon; The Animation&comma; A-1 Pictures&comma; Aniplex&comma; and Cygames&rpar;<&sol;figcaption><&sol;figure>&NewLine;<p>Even though there are cliche characters&comma; the storyline was intriguing with a focus on dragons and a mysterious girl with exceptional powers&period; She&&num;8217&semi;s probably a princess&comma; but we&&num;8217&semi;ll have to see what they do with it&period; The main characters are well voiced by Yuuki Ono and Nao Toyama&period; They sounded spot on with the characters they portrayed and don&&num;8217&semi;t sound annoying at all&period; While they&&num;8217&semi;re discussing that Gran is getting too involved in the situation&comma; the voice actress for Lieutenant Katalina&comma; Miyuki Sawashiro&comma; does a great job at conveying the severity of what&&num;8217&semi;s going on while also being pushed for time&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;<p>Overall&comma; the first episode was great&period; Even though it had a cliche storyline&comma; parts of it were definitely intriguing&period; The gorgeous art and the great voice acting was compelling enough alone to recommend this episode for a full watch&period;<&sol;p>&NewLine;