Granbelm

I know what it means, I just found it suspicious how often they said that word in just 20 minutes.

9. Kuon, you should've known better. Suishou isn't going down until her backstory is explained to at least some extent. At least she's allowed to get some good hits in. Whatever Suishou is, I hope she sticks to being pure evil without a redeeming backstory. Sometimes it's more fun that way. Meanwhile, Mangetsu isn't even human? Some sort of magic doll apparently. But how does Suishou know? Episode preview almost makes me think Mangetsu, Kuon, and Suishou will all take each other out, leaving Shingetsu as the winner. Probably not though.

Seems to me like Suishou and Mangetsu are both dolls created by Magiaconatus to support the people who are destined to win Granbelm, Shisui and Shingetsu but Suishou decided to rebel from her purpose and tried to win instead.

Edited by Chaosjunction on Aug 30th 2019 at 8:23:53 AM

That would certainly explain why Shingetsu/Mangetsu and Shisui/Suishou have such similar names… Doesn't explain why Mangetsu has a little sister though.

Edited by Lyendith on Aug 31st 2019 at 11:43:27 AM

Mangetsu doesn't have a sister, Magiaconatus inserted her into the Kohinata family the same way it inserted Rosa into the Fugo family and deleted Anna. That's why her diary was blank. Magiaconatus probably did this because Shingetsu wanted some semblance of a normal loving family life after she ran away, so Mangetsu was put into a normal loving family with a little sister, as a semblance of the Fugo family.

Episode 9:

Damn it! I still think what Suishou did to the white haired girl is fucked up. And yeah, fortunately the white haired girl survived at the end of the day because she knew that her sister had good intentions for her. And unsurprisingly, Suishou didn't get defeated...Okay

I think I'm enjoying this anime more because I know its 2 cour going in.

Gives me a similar feeling to Mai-Hime now that I think about it.

Edited by 32ndfreeze on Sep 6th 2019 at 4:39:59 AM

Wait...Evidence on the anime being 2 cour please?

Yeah, it really seems like a one-cour series to me…

Huh, I could have sworn I saw something saying it was 2 cour early on.

But I guess I was wrong.

My anime tracker is showing as 9/?, so I think that's why I never followed up on it.

Oh well, that's a shame.

10. Whelp, rip Kuon. Shouldn't have powered up the mysterious bad guy who still has plenty of unexplored backstory. At least she might have taken out Medusa, so that's a win. Suishou's sudden no u was amazing and exactly what I want from this crazy villain. Oh, and Mangetsu is disappearing from the world because now that she knows she's an artificial being meant to help the chosen one (Shingetsu) win she's becoming unstable. Sucks to not exist. Not sure if Shingetsu can save Mangetsu then blow up magic after winning. So if only humans are supposed to win Granbelm, and Mangetsu and (almost certainly) Suishou not being human, Shingetsu should win by default. But if that's not the case Suishou is at least right about being able to prove them wrong. Well, she's certainly proved she knows how to twist.

I was so shocked by Kuon's death that I had completely forgotten her sister was still alive. When she appeared I thought she was a ghost or something. Aaand yeah, Shisui's plan apparently didn't account for the fact that Suishou isn't human.

If Suishou does win Granbelm though, this will most likely completely break whatever system operates it.

Some really sweet direction in this ep.

Episode 10:

Wow, this truly marks the darkest hour of the anime. And yeah, so many revelations that Mangetsu is just a doll, Kuon died and Suishou is revealed to be not a human. This is pretty complicated stuff right there especially the true nature of Magiaconauts that were biased with Shingetsu but yeah...

Episode 11! An episode that can be summed up as "being alive is awesome." A chill and touching episode before the grand finale.

The strange consequence of the latest reveals is that Shingetsu has become the de facto protagonist. That's not a development you usually see this late.

Also, Tamura Yukari talking about miracles brings back some old trauma.

11. In which Mangetsu accepts that she's nothing more than a puppet meant to fulfill Shingetsu's desires, so she's fine with dying as long as she gets to enjoy the sights along the way and Shingetsu gets her dreams fulfilled. Not sure whether to call that chill or painfully dreary. Shingetsu still needs to figure some stuff out, but next up it's finally time for true Suishou to be unleashed. Still rooting for her.

Episode 11:

So...Kuon's sister comforts Mangetsu and Mangetsu herself accepts herself as a doll and motivates Shingetsu for the game? Okay

12. Kind of lost the plot on everything that's going on. Suishou has been denied victory or any sort of closure for a long time, so now she's pissed and wants the power for herself for it all to have been worth something. At least that's what I think is going on with her. Tragic while still making her crazy and evil. I'll take it. As for Mangetsu, well she certainly proved her loyalty towards Shingetsu. Also some talk about how magic is definitely not needed, which I'm not particularly convinced by, but there hasn't been much exploration on that front, so whatever. Suishou seemingly killing the main character is a win in my book, even though she's going to lose to the most boring character next episode. Ah well. Still with her to the end.

I believe that the point is that Suishou has been the final boss for a thousand years and Magicoconuts still won't recognize her, because it's implied that she's also some sort of doll just like Mangetsu only made to serve that one purpose. Shishou taunts Mangetsu with the idea that she has and is nothing because she is projecting her emptiness upon her.

Something I like about this show is that we actually get the feeling of why magic is a bad thing.

Because a lot of the time, a plot that ends in destroying magic rubs me the wrong way.

Hmm,so… Mangetsu's plan was to distract Suishou while Shingetsu went to destroy Magiaconatus? And is Mangetsu dead for good or has she just been ejected from Granbelm like Nene was?

Little analysis of the show's second half (up to episode 11). Pointing out some of the subtle echoes and foreshadowings in previous episodes.

Episode 12:

Sooooooooo...It was revealed that Suishou was pissed off as hell because the Magiaconauts didn't recognize her as the true mage despite her efforts on eliminating and breaking the contestants. Fair enough but I don't know how should I react on this

I mean, if you specifically purpose-build a murderchild to torture people to death for centuries in order to prove they don't meet your standards, you might as well be nice to her when she does a good job for you. Treat your murder-kids right, people.

Incidentally, I assume y'all noticed that Mangetsu's last words were a variant on a famous literary method of confessing romantic love?

Kind of wondering if Suishou was simply a child lashing out of the world that hurt her or pretty much Pure Evil by heart because I kind of lean to former territory tbh

Plus, we don't really know whether she was created by Magiaconatus or was originally a human, do we?