The Grancrest War comes to a close.
What They Say:
Episode #23: “Castle Walls”
The Imperial Army finally reach the gates of Eramu. However, with the Mage Academy determined to stop them, they send out a dangerous enemy to meet them at the gate.
The Review
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers)
Theo and his army stand outside Eramu ready to siege and take the castle. There’s only one problem, the mages have decided to release the Kraken cyclops. Really, it’s a giant cyclops that’s practically immune from all damage. The set-up plays out exactly as you’d expect, where the lead mage dude says “release it” and his lackey says “but you can’t!”
They release it anyway with no plan on how to stop it from turning around and rampaging their own fortress. Luckily for them, the thing wanders away from the city and starts wandering off into the forest. The funny thing is it doesn’t even appear that the creature is heading for the Imperial army or anything, it’s just stomping around roaring.
Lassic sees this thing and decides he has to fight it, much to the chagrin of his mage Moreno. Moreno ends up tasked with creating a light spell powerful enough to blind the damn thing, which he has to accomplish without a wand. (He uses some sort of ring as a focus, no problem.) Siluca asks Theo why he isn’t stopping Lassic from this crazy plan and Theo basically admits that he couldn’t stop him if he wanted to. So just four men head into battle against the cyclops, Lassic, Moreno, and the two other allies we haven’t really seen in awhile, the rock dude and ranger guy.
I have a feeling that if this series had been a less condensed 52 episodes then we would have had plenty of other battles like the one taking place in this episode. It would have made the show far more exciting and given each of these side characters a shining moment in combat. Instead, we get this one impressive fantasy battle which is a lot of fun to watch play out. The animation is all over the place though, switching animation teams between shots. It gets very loosey-goosey in the final crazy rush to take the monster down. It’s very Saturday morning cartoon, but I was down for it. Victorious against presumably the worst the mages could have thrown at the army, the real attack can begin.
The other side characters get to use their wits and ample experience in warfare to take out the defenses at the castle gates. From surprise hit and runs to magical arbalests, to Eudokia remembering some pillow talk about how over firing cannons will cause them to explode. Each of their strengths come in handy for breaching the wall and the army advances.
However, as soon as Theo makes a move to step forward the enemy the enemy strikes in an unexpected way. The Vampire King isolates Theo, Siluca, and their close retinue. The enemy knows that the only way to stop the army is to take out Theo.
Episode Grade: B +
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