Hai to Gensou no Grimgar – 12 (Fin)

I’d gone on record stating that Grimgar could have ended at eight episodes and I would have been perfectly content, and whatever Grimgar did in its final four weeks, it wasn’t going to mar from that first eight. I likened it to having four “bonus” episodes.

How gratifying, then, that the Cyrene Mine arc, while necessarily more rushed than the Goblin arc, turned out to be pretty damn good anyway, both by expanding on what the first eight had established and showing us a few new sides of our six party members.

When we left off last week, Haru made the sensible decision not to squander Ranta’s staying behind by attempting to rescue them in their current state. Ranta, for his part, doesn’t expect anyone to come, and ends up making some surprising allies in the livestock he mocked before.

He also summons a demon, Zodiark, who isn’t so much an ally as something annoying enough to ground him in the task at hand; the demon is constantly telling him to die-die-die, and Ranta isn’t about to accommodate it.

Meanwhile, there’s well, not dissension in the ranks, as Haru wants to go back to save Ranta, merely an argument for why to go back, from the person he least expected: Yume. Mind you, we’ve known for some time Yume and Ranta have been a bit of an item—more “charm-irritate” than “love-hate”, but to see Yume break down when she thinks about how scared she’d be in Ranta’s position, it’s more than enough to convince everyone to make a U-turn.

This isn’t bad leadership by Haru, who is determined to keep everyone alive; it’s merely good fellowship by everyone. They don’t think it’s suicide to try to save him.

Of course, while Ranta does pretty well for himself all alone, it is good his comrades return to him, because he can’t stay a step ahead of the kobolds forever. I like how not two minutes after lamenting how he never groped Yume’s boobs (guys still a piece of work!) that girl, who’d surely come to miss being called a flat-chest by him, is the one who puts an arrow in Death Spots’ eye for Ranta’s sake.

It’s also nice to be shown yet again how strong a unit everyone has become, with Mary doing some offensive work, Moguzo being his usual steamroller, and Shihoru laying epic waste with her magic, even twirling her staff and flashing a dark look. Haru’s also as quick and precise as ever, killing two kobolds with a minimum of wasted movement.

Once Ranta is safe and the party is away, they take a breather for Mary to heal Ranta, who in his elation at being saved and reunited, lets slip that he wanted to see everyone again.

He partially mentions feeling something in his chest, which Yume picks up and runs with, leaving Ranta no choice but to unleash a few more “flat-chest” remarks, spurring a bickering fest between the two until Mary (to whom Ranta’s always been submissive) lays down the law.

Both Mary and Shihoru are low on magic (I’m glad MP isn’t unlimited in this show), but Death Spots doesn’t care what condition they’re in, he’s going to keep coming.

Haru knows this, and even if they run, he could catch them, so he makes an executive decision to take the big guy on himself, giving the others time to escape, putting Ranta in charge.

When he successfully spiders the kobold king off a cliff, a panicked Mary starts to climb down in a rush to help him, but Ranta stops her (though Mary reallydoesn’t want to be stopped), then warning Haru he’d better not die.

What follows is an encapsulation of the show and the overall struggle of Haru and the others. Grimgar, like his duel with Spots, is a battle of life and death.

As long as he’s still alive, victory is in sight, so he won’t give up on trying to stay alive until he’s dead. I know, that all seems kind of obvious, but whatever!

Time slows to a crawl for Haru, who follows a stream of light with his dagger until it finds Spots’ weak spot: his other eye.

After beating Spots, Haru blacks out and collapses, but he does not die with him. Instead, he wakes up to an upbeat Mary humming to herself, then leaning in close when welcoming him back.

Everyone else is in good spirits, with Moguzo making lunch, Ranta counting the cash they made for beating the giant kobold, and planning to take his sword to a blacksmith to forge it into something more useful than a trophy.

Later, Mary puts Haru’s repaired dog tags back on him, and the weight of them make him feel like at home, which is where he now knows he is. “About time,” says Mary.

While celebrating at the tavern, Renji approaches Haru once more—to apologize. Instead, Haru, who is grateful for Renji giving him the nudge he needed, thanks him. He and Renji exchange looks of mutual respect before Ranta orders a round for the house.

Afterwards Haru visits Manato’s grave (another hauntingly beautiful, quiet scene, to ask him if being a leader was hard. Manato throws the question back at Haru, then tells him he’s grown.

He’s not the Haruhiro from the beginning of the show…but then again no one is who they were at the beginning. For one thing, they’re to a person, far more badass now. They’re also a family now.

Notably absent is any kind of explanation for how any of the party members arrived in Grimgar, nor any exploration of the lives they led or the shadows of memories from that other world they still carry. And let me be clear: I was totally okay with this. 

I felt there was a possibility those things would be addressed in the finale, even if it wasn’t very likely, but I’m glad they weren’t (seeing the world almost “pause” when Haru faced Spots was a close call though).  Frankly, I like the mystery; not all questions need to be answered. Not for us, and not for Haru and his comrades, either.

As the days go on and he keeps living and surviving and creating new memories with his friends, his family, he feels more and more comfortable in the world and life he’s in, and less and less concerned with the one he’s originally from.

Whatever he forgot, from that life isn’t as important as the fact he’s in this life now, with these people, in this world, and he doesn’t want to forget any of it.

A lovely ending to a visually and emotionally beautiful show with a deft touch. It marched to its own beat and demonstrated that there were still many promising veins to explore in the “Lost in a Fantasy RPG” mine.

Dimension W – 12 (Fin)

I’ll be honest: I came into the DW finale with a “Let’s just get this over with” attitude. While initially promising, the Easter Island arc to close the show ended up repeating and amplifying the issues I had with the Haunted Mansion arc. In hindsight, I should have dropped the show then.

Over-stuffed with characters, plot points, explanations and contrivances, all surrounding an item—Genesis—that has no limits or boundaries to what it can do, Dimension W was just the latest demonstration that more is usually not more. More is meh. Cavalierly throw too much crap and I stop caring—and I stopped caring long ago.

But I got this far, so yeah, let’s get this over with. The big crucial memory Kyouma needed Mira to go into his head and “trace his memories” (what does that even mean?) is that when he had a chance to save Miyabi with Genesis, he didn’t. Instead, he destroyed it, and she died, perhaps to save the world from a cataclyism that would have resulted from its use. It’s the classic “too powerful for anyone’s hands” concept.

Haruka Seameyer, the most horrendously irritating villain I’ve come across in a good long while, wants that Genesis coil bad, but along the way offers Loser a chance to come over to his side (what side that is, why, or why in God’s name Loser would agree to that are all beside the point). When Loser refuses, Seameyer attacks him with his weird and pointless “Sophia Corpse-Bot”, which can morph into Sophia’s original human form.

Seameyer then turns his attention on Mira, who after the tracing is trying to get as far away from Kyouma since her coil is going critical. He considers using her to make improvements to his body, but Kyouma shows up to rescue her and ruin Seameyer’s day (which I’m all for) by telling him Genesis is gone.

With the help of Loo, the siblings, etc., they unearth a “particle accelerator” coil to tie up Seameyer’s monster, because all these characters need something to do.

Seameyer fumes and screams a lot, but Kyouma tells him to chill; nothing that happened is pointless; after all, because Miyabi died he has Mira as a friend and partner.

He tells Seameyer to go willingly into the “sea of possibility”, because even his future may not be as bad as he imagines. Of course, it sure looks like Seameyer is being swallowed up into oblivion, so I’m not sure what Kyouma’s on about…but I get his point about Mira…and I’m glad he gets it.

With the expulsion of Seameyer and closing of the gate, the island returns to a state of stability, and flowers start to bloom. Everyone returns to their lives, which for Kyouma is continuing his collector work with Mira as his official full-time partner.

As per usual, the nice Kyouma/Mira stuff saved the episode. If nothing else, I enjoyed the evolution of their relationship and where it ended up. But this arc was hampered by some serious restraint and focus problems.

Mobile Suit Gundam: Iron-Blooded Orphans – 25 (Fin*)

This episode marks the end of my Winter 2016, and it was a good one. In fact, it was a great one. The order of the final battles were all set, with no more surprises in store; all that was left was for everyone to have at it and see who comes out of the fray getting what they want.

Kudelia wants peace and equality for Mars; Orga wants to find, through the crucible of war, the place where Mika and Tekkadan belong. Henri and Iznario want to maintain their grip on power; McGillis wants to purge Gjallarhorn of the corruption and hypocrisy that brought about the crazed FrankenstEin monster.

The actual battle between Mika and Ein is brutal and smashy, as has come to be the typical mobile suit battle style (even Ein doesn’t have any beam weapons or missiles, which is for the best). As for the personalities, Ein remains, well, crazy, while Mika keeps a casual calm, muttering fuel levels and tactics and generally ignoring Ein’s ranting.

Slightly more civilized in execution is the duel between McGillis and Gaelio, with the former landing swift and deadly strikes on the latter once Gaelio states he won’t let even a lifelong friend in McGillis get away with exploiting Ein the way he did.

While these final two mobile suit duels are going on, Makanai finally arrives at parliament. Was there any doubt once he got there that he wasn’t going to have any difficulty getting his way?

When Orga receives the good news, he starts to be able to see the end he’ll make…but they’re not there quite yet, so he orders everyone to not die, warning them he’ll kill them again if they do.

As Henri and Iznario sweat, McGillis really gets into Ice Cold Mode, telling Gaelio such “soft-hearted emotions” as friendship, love, and trust Carta (who it’s confirmed has died) and Gaelio gave him won’t reach him, as he has “lived in anger.”

It’s an anger his two childhood friends were too busy trusting, loving, and even partially pitying him for not having been born to power as they were. McGillis took full advantage of their blind spots in using them to expose Gjallarhorn.

When he marries Almiria, he’ll become head of the Bauduin family, the Seven Stars, and the new, unblemished order. He admits to Gaelio that he was the only true friend he ever had, but sacrificing him was necessary for the good of the world.

Ein’s constant ranting about making Mika repent for his sins really starts to grate, and it doesn’t help that Ein isn’t going down while Mika is running out of gas and ammo.

Back in Parliament, Makanai cedes his speaking time to Kudelia, knowing she’s more likely to deliver a speech that will rouse more members to their cause. She states her purpose for coming and the constant disruptions by Gjallarhorn, and asks the body to choose a future filled with hope.

Mika, finally on his last nerve, hears Orga’s voice of support and finds his second (third?) wind, finally understanding how to use Barbatos, and proceeding to cut away at Ein’s mobile suit.

Ein calls him a monster, to which Mika dryly responds “Look who’s talking,” finally simply telling Ein to shut up by running his suit through the core. Mika’s never needed many words to get his point across, and achieves yet another badass victory by sticking to that M.O.

Makanai wins re-election, cease-fire flares are fired, and the battle ends with Tekkadan the victor. Half-metal negotiations are opened, while Mika asks Orga at sunset if they’ve arrived at that place he’s always talking about. Orga affirms that they have, at least one of them, and Mika simply says “It’s pretty.”

McGillis proceeds to send his father away to exile, then comforts his betrothed; he got everything he wanted out of this, but he still has much to do, and while he’s sitting pretty near the top of the food chain, he’s still not invulnerable.

To Merribit’s relief, after the battle the seeming death-and-revenge-obsessed kids…turn back into more-or-less regular kids/brats. They’re not doomed after all, but a lot tougher than she thought.

Laffter, Azee, and Shino are all fine. Orga meets with Naze and laments the men he lost, but Naze tells him that’s part of being a leader, and he can’t let it get to him. For his men to believe in him and his cause, he must believe in it too, no matter the cost.

Kudelia will be staying behind in Arbrau, but Atra still has the two of them console Mika, who’s lost the use of a hand and a partially ruined eye. And finally, after Orga congratulates Tekkadan for completing their first mission—escorting Kudelia to Earth—he turns around and asks Mika what they should do now, a nice mirror of the usual dynamic. Mika’s response: Let’s go home.

*If it seems like this “final” episode left a lot of things on the table—no return to Mars, McGillis’ plan just getting off the ground; more observing and maneuvering by the parent companies—well, that’s because a new season has been announced, airing Fall 2016. We haven’t seen the last of the Iron-Blooded Orphans, and I’m not complaining.