Record of Grancrest War!
Creative Staff
Story: Ryo Mizuno
Art: Makoto Yatsuba & Miyuu
Translation: Satsuki Yamashita
What they say
In a world where the noble elite are supposed to fend off the threat of terrifying Chaos but instead engage in pointless, petty squabbles, young mage Siluca Meletes dreams of bringing justice to the land.
Siluca and Theo’s master plan is put to its first test: a battle against the fearsome Lassic David, the lord of a nearby domain who only cares about conquest. Assisted by Balgryary, the next king of the Cait Sith, an incredibly strong Artist named Aishela, and Irvin, Siluca’s own Artist, these newly minted rulers must stand against the threat and pray that they survive the coming battle.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
While the description on the back of the book states this volume of Record of Grancrest War is about Theo and Siluca’s battle against Lassic David, the truth is the battle only contributes to half the volume’s story. The first half of this volume involves several different battles happening simultaneously. There is the battle between Aishela and Petre—a young farmer who became a soldier under David. There’s also the battle between David and his group versus Irvin—easily the most powerful character among Theo’s forces so far. The last battle is between Siluca and Moreno Dortous—David’s mage.
Perhaps because they are trying to fit three battles into a few chapters, the battles themselves aren’t incredibly detailed. The fights whiz across the panels, focusing more on delivering specific moments rather than the full fights themselves. Among the three battles, the heaviest focus was on the one between Siluca and Moreno, which is because their battle is the most important from both a strategic standpoint and a story one. The mage for each lord is incredibly important and necessary part of a lord’s domain. Should the mage fall in battle, it would mean the chances of victory for that side significantly lessen.
This battle actually served to showcase that Siluca, for all her power and intelligence, doesn’t actually have that much experience. She’s a newly graduated mage with an incredible gift. I think because of her innate talent, Siluca greatly underestimated her opponent, leading to her loss. Up to this point, we haven’t really seen her face an opponent she couldn’t easily beat, so this was an interesting change of pace that let us know that, while talented, she is still green. She would have probably died if Theo didn’t show up at the last moment. With Moreno exhausted from battling against Siluca for so long, Theo is able to defeat the mage in combat. He takes Moreno hostage and forces David to surrender.
David is a very interesting character. After surrendering, he offers to serve Theo. We learn through flashbacks that David is highly ambitious and wishes to rise through the ranks of nobility. Moreno is flabbergasted when he hears David proclaim his desire to serve Theo, but I think he’s stunned even further when David says that he wants to ascend higher with Moreno by his side, which was why he surrendered in the first place. Despite being a lord who gained much of his land through conquest, it is clear that he’s also a highly capable and caring leader.
The second half after the battle against David involves a lot of political discussions. Theo is expanding his territory by fighting against several lords, and it looks like Siluca has concocted a plan to eventually switch allegiances from the Fantasia Union to the Factory Alliance. Both are large territories. However, the Factory Alliance is currently surrounding their territory, which makes allying with them more logical than remaining with the Fantasia Union.
Among this volume, I think perhaps the most enjoyable parts for me are the ones where Theo and Siluca grow closer as partners. Up to this point, Siluca has been making all the choices without Theo’s consent, but after the battle with David Lassic, she has realized she was wrong about him. She assumed he only had ideals. Now she’s beginning to realize that his character and strength go deeper than she first suspected. After apologizing and promising to not make decisions without his opinions first, their bond as mage and lord, and maybe even as man and woman, grow stronger. Seeing two characters who actually talk things over and grow together is something I rarely see in manga and anime, so it was a nice change of pace.
In Summary
If there is one thing I did not like about Record of Grancrest War volume 2, it is probably the censorship. There’s a bath scene in this volume. During that time, Siluca and Aishela have a heart to heart conversation, but I was sadly distracted from the conversation by the fact that neither of them seemed to have nipples. Most of the time in manga, the nipples will be covered by steam. That wasn’t the case here. They just didn’t have nipples, which looked really unnatural to me. I don’t mind if the naughty bits are censored by steam. However, this odd form of erasing just that one part gave the characters a very mannequin feeling, like I wasn’t looking at people. It also makes the “explicit content” warning on the front cover seem useless. Aside from this single complaint, I really enjoyed the volume in terms of both story content and artwork. I’m really looking forward to seeing what will happen to Theo and Siluca next!
Content Grade: A
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B+
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: M
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: February 12th, 2019
MSRP: $9.99