For some reason, I remember Granbelm as being older than it actually is. I mean, 2019 was six years ago now, so it’s not recent either. I think 2019 was just a year when I watched a lot of anime, and a lot of good, interesting anime at that. In just that year, I watched: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Tsurune, Kyousougiga, Mawaru Penguindrum, Stars Align, given, Free! -Eternal Summer-, and a ton of others. Considering that it was such a formative year for my tastes, it feels as if I must have been younger. But I guess my last year of college into my first year of work makes sense too.
Granbelm was one of the ones I watched while it aired that year, week-to-week. This was back when there were less than 40 shows airing in a season. This current summer season, there’s nearly 60 (more depending on what you count). Even then, I felt like I was wading through trash to find those sparkling gems.
This show is a bit of a contrast from the previous two entries I’ve done in this Replay Review series. I would not list Granbelm as one of my favorite shows, although I liked it quite a bit. However, considering that, it’s had an outsized staying power in my head. I find myself thinking about it at regular intervals. So, it felt like a good exercise to revisit it and try to figure out why that might be.
Madoka Clones
If you’re into anime at all, one step beyond the “yeah I’ve heard of Demon Slayer,” you can probably recognize Madoka Magica. Its second movie is finally coming out this winter after like more than a decade! I’m very excited for that. But when it first aired in 2011, it promptly busted every American anime watcher’s brain for like the next decade. This happens from time to time.
Madoka is a really great show, I’m not going to play revisionist here, I like the series quite a lot. But afterwards, every time we got anything approaching “dark magical girl,” it was immediately decried with accusations of being a “Madoka clone.” This statement was usually a bit of a stretch (although I certainly believe some “dark” magical girl shows got greenlit due to Madoka’s success, sure) and also totally ignores the long history of magical girls that Madoka itself was pulling from, not least of which was Sailor Moon. Not exactly obscure.
Anyway, Granbelm in 2019 came out in the tail end of when these kinds of accusations were fading out, but it certainly does not do much to swat aside comparisons. I mean, we can just look at our two main characters. The pink/black pair goes back further than Madoka, but that definitely is what solidified it as a trope in the West. We’ve got fights, we’ve got wishes, we’ve got death – notably no animal mascot at least. For all the surface level comparisons, I can say that Granbelm does distinguish itself strongly from Madoka on a storytelling level, even if you can hear some echoes if you’re listening for them.
What differentiates it most immediately is that Granbelm is a mecha magical girl show. However, that’s also part of what worked against it, due to its unique approach to the mechanical designs.
Chibi Mecha
I remember the mecha-heads on what once was Twitter were pretty disparaging of the mech designs in Granbelm. They are very small and stout, almost like a “chibi” or “super deformed” version of a regular mech. These people are entitled to their opinions, of course, but it didn’t bother me. Perhaps that was because I didn’t have much to compare it to (I didn’t watch Evangelion until 2020, and I just watched the original Gundam this year), but it doesn’t bother me much now either. And, I mean, they were 2D. That’s an endangered skill set these days, even if the fights were more magic-based than mech-based.
And what fights they are! One of those sticky points that has lingered in my head this long is the sound design, which is haunting and punchy. Beams shoot out almost like wails. The bullets ring out with little chirps. I feel like I should just link a scene as an example here, so I will. They feel as if they walk that perfectly fine line between magical and mechanical, punching through the music and the screams – the voice actresses put their all into those screams too, the Eva cast would be proud.
Speaking of which: for all we had a section dedicated to the Madoka clone, Granbelm also pulls a lot from Evangelion. That’s another show that really poisoned American fans’ brains but is also really good. Every time I watched the OP and saw the section that just directly references Cruel Angel’s Thesis, I had a little chuckle. Watch them both if you haven’t and see if you can spot it yourself. It’s blatant.
So, is that it? The unique mech designs, the strong sound design, the screams – is that combination the main reason why Granbelm has stayed with me more than other 8/10s? Well, yeah, partly. There’s nothing I strongly dislike about Granbelm, and it has several elements that I like a lot. But there’s another factor at play here too.
Original Anime
I can’t say I looked this up so take it with a grain of salt, but TV and animation in the US does not seem as adaptation-dominated as in Japan. Additionally, those adaptations are often not very faithful to the particulars of the source (this is a good thing imo). And after becoming a person who reads manga, I’ve sort of lost interest in the many adaptations coming out of anime.
Look, a manga or a light novel or a “heavy” novel can get really well-made anime. There are plenty of adaptations that I like quite a bit. But no matter how passionately they’re made, they often ultimately result in pretty ads. They rarely make meaningful changes to the source material, because the slightest omission may bring fandom fire down upon your head. Single-season, 12-episode adaptations samplers dominate the market with the intention to hook you. It’s about the franchise. And it works! It’s worked on me several times.
This isn’t to say original anime are pure or anything – frequently they will trick you and have some sort of gacha game tie-in – but it’s always so exciting going into a fresh new concept designed from the ground up for animation. That feeling is only enhanced by how rare they have become.
Even though Granbelm is only “pretty good,” in many ways, it’s more special and memorable to me than some of the best adaptations I’ve watched. Because it’s a unique object. Because it stood on its own stubby mecha feet.
I haven’t talked about the story much in this review. That’s just because I’d be very happy if more people watched Granbelm, and I’d like them to go in fresh. And then, from there, they can dip your feet in to the many lovely, uneven, and memorable original anime that have come out before and after.
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Granbelm didn’t rise in my esteem with this rewatch, but I’m glad I got to revisit it. I still found it to be a solid show with strong characters and concepts, and a singular audiovisual identity. Next up, I’ll be starting a big one in this project: Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days. Maybe we’ll have another movie before I get the chance to finish. We’ll see.