The way TOHO has been bringing out promotional material and music for the winter 2016 anime series Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash has been one of the best things done in a long time. While I’m not watching the show at the moment, providing multiple music videos with english subtitles included with them makes it very easy to be drawn into the show with its animation style and the mood that they’re creating with it. Now that the ninth episode is out there, TOHO has brought out the insert songs in music video form for the (K)NoW_NAME songs sun will rise and swelling of buds, both of which run about two minutes or so each. The series is currently being simulcast by Funimation and they have a Broadcast Dub for it as well.
The anime adaptation was produced by A-1 Pictures with Ryousuke Nakamura directing and Mieko Hosoi designing the characters. The cast includes Yoshimasa Hosoya as Haruhiro, Hiroyuki Yoshino as Ranta, Nobunaga Shimazaki as Manato, Fukushi Ochiai as Moguzou, Mikako Komatsu as Yume, Haruka Terui as Shihoru, Tomokazu Seki as Renji, Daisuke Namikawa as Kikkawa, Hiroki Yasumoto as Brittany and Mamiko Noto as Barbara.
The series comes from the novel series by Ao Jyumonji with illustrations by Eiri Shirai which began in 2013 and has six volumes out. A manga adaptation is currently being serialized as well from Mutsumi Okuhashi.
Plot concept: Why are we here? Why are we doing this? Before Haruhito had realized what happened, he was surrounded by darkness. Why was he here? Where was here? Even now, he still didn’t know. Those around him were the same as him, no one remembered anything other than their own names. And when they emerged from the darkness, the world that awaited them seemed like something out of a video game. In order to survive, Haruhito forms a party with the others, learns fighting skills, and as a soldier in the reserve force, takes his first steps into the world of Grimgal. What awaits him there, he doesn’t know… This the story of an adventure born from the ashes.
