Grimoire of Zero - Reviews

I am very fond of it. Greatness isn't about being the best, I enjoyed its spirit so much that I watched it twice in a row.

He's like a fluffier version of Berserk (the opening pose is similar to the 90s version), she's small but tough like Toradora, but he's the tiger. They have a sweet tsundere journey between frienemies.

It's a beautiful world, I care about the characters. It'd deep about issues like discrimination, condemning a whole group for the wrongdoings of a few, good people can do bad things, bad people can do good things, and best of all: hatred and the desire to kill can literally turn against us... like a double edge sword.

I don't mind watching a slice of life. I would have been fine if they just got closer slowly on an endless quest... but the plot twist impressed me.

Even the sex jokes made me laugh. I'm usually disgusted because anime often degrade women and trivializes sexual assault (grabbing someone's boobs and giggling them without consent isn't just disrespectful, it's a crime). But this anime showed in a funny way how wrong and gross it is to obsess over someone sexually. The best way to be close to someone is to see them as your equal, not as an object to abuse or worship, not to force them by making them lose their free will to have power over them... To truly welcome and connect with who they are in spite of your fears and differences...

It's a very wonderful anime.

I read other reviews and people can be too critical. Analyzing the technicalities of the art coldly can make you forget to feel its spirit with your heart.

The voice actors did a great job. I can't remember the music but that's because it fits well with the atmosphere as a whole.

I gave it a 4 but then a 4.5 because, maybe others animes can be better in every way, but this one made me feel warm and fuzzy inside. And that deserves extra points.

Enjoy~

So much potential, all down the drain in the first episode.

In the first episode, the viewer is led to belieave that the show will be about the relationship and adventure of Mercenary - a beastfallen and Zero - a genius witch, Zero even summons an cute demon, but guess how many times demons are summoned after this? 0, but time after time I kept thinking what does this story want/try to be?

This is why light novels and their adaptations are not taken seriously, the story is too convenient = things and events happen or are fererenced right before they are needed, full of plot holes that are sloppily fixed later...

Imagine playing an rpg and getting into a room full of traps and suddenly an old man emerges from the shadows and says that the room on the left has an item that reveals all the traps, and later it's revealed that the old man was actually a ghost who died to the traps and was there to prevent the same fate from falling on others.

There is an actual fricking "Arrow to the knee" line... sigh

Were you hoping for a satisfying conclusion and after math of removing magic? Too bad for you, that would be good writing.

Thoughts

Story is average, so much potential and interesting ideas... none of them properly explored.

Great animation, althought mostly just people talking to each other.

Sound is great and fitting.

Characters are average, the show is more interested in the story than in developing the characters.

About the Magic

The magic is very inconsistent, there are two magic systems, a ritual and magic circle based one and another one that needs neither.

The ritual magic exists and that's basically how much we see and learn about it, the new magic system is created, not developed, CREATED by Zero and she can deny said magic when others use it, but only sometimes, oh and how was she able to create magic? Demons... she made a deal with a demon who patrons the magic...

Sometimes the new magic needs incantations, the chapter and page number said out loud and sometimes it doesn't

About the writing

Way too predictable narrative, when the party is nearing Latette they put up all the death flags available, HIM is exactly who you think he is, Brats reaction to the grand daughter of Sorena is way too obvious.

Characters are not consistent, 13 stops his plan in a snap , Zero says 13 crossed the line and it's unforgivable and then proceeds to go eat lunch with him...

Hordem keeps and abuses slaves and later it's revealed that he is actually a good guy tasked with protecting the grand daughter.

HIM is constantly said to have the grimoire, but at the same time they wonder who has the grimoire and at times they say a Sorcerer of Zero member must have taken it.

A random witch says that only the creator of the new magic system can seal it, how does she know this? Oh and later Zero says that she needs 13 to help her seal the magic but only when they are already ready to seal it, oh and then they say that they need a third witch and the Brat comes, oh and then Zero says that now they need a offering of greatest quality...

Oh and obviously Zero wrote the spells with intentional mistakes to always have an advantage against other witches, even though she created the magic not for combat but to help everyday life, oh and this is not apparent or referenced before the fight between Zero and 13...

Oh and the plague was started by novice witches, but if you thought that you would find out why or who the witches were, you clearly haven't seen LN shows before.

This is a show that could've been much more but instead just barely passed by.

I found the story a bit unoriginal and predictable, but it was certainly enough to be engaging. I usually like witches too so maybe there's a bias.

The animation and sound were average, maybe a bit above since it was in a decently attractive style.

The characters are the most likeable part, as the heroine is really cute and the villian is somewhat of an enigma through the whole show, start to finish. Probably because he's difficult to read.

The mood/atmosphere really had this spice and wolf feeling because of the ending theme and some of the interactions between the hero and heroine, but it never really fully captured it, besides the cuteness of the first couple episodes interactions. I kind of wish the whole show held that quaintness to it, but it quickly got involved in the more serious story.

It's still worth a watch if you're bored and want something decently engaging that is story driven, big plus if you like cute silver haired jailbait in oversized clothes.

In fact, watch it just for that.

At this point, White Fox as a studio is a (fairly) safe bet when it comes to watchable anime series. Naturally, there is a variance in quality from 'alright' (the Devil is a Part-Timer) to 'legitimately excellent' (Steins;Gate), and I'm sure they've put out some stinkers too, but one goes into Grimoire of Zero expecting a certain degree of quality. Fortunately, expectations are met. Sadly, 'watchable' is the best that can be said.

Grimoire of Zero follows Mercenary, a mercenary (it isn't his real name) who has been afflicted with bestial qualities. This is a world in which 'sorcery' and 'magic' are intertwined but distinct concepts, and in which witches are feared by the general populace and burned at the stake. Mercenary hates witches himself, but finds himself partnering with Zero, a young and pretty magic user, after another witch tries to kill him and take his head for use in rituals. Zero wants to find a magic book which has been stolen; Mercenary is promised a human (as opposed to beastleaven) life. It checks out.

Part of GoZ's early charm is in its simplicity. I've seen this series compared with 'Shrek' and, though they're not completely analogous, there is some correlation. Mercenary and Zero have a reasonably enticing, and thankfully mostly platonic, relationship which often centres around good-natured teasing and the kind of slow, warm growth of closeness that we've come to expect from these kinds of things. It gets a little bit repetitive at times, however, so conversations about fur and sleeping thereon are sometimes broken up by Albus, the aforementioned 'other witch' who is basically the 'adrogynous blonde angsty young teen character' that somehow amounts to an anime trope (Yukine from Noragami is another example). Albus isn't particularly interesting and sometimes proves mildly irritating, but is a worthwhile addition if only to keep Merc and Zero's dialogue from getting staler than it already threatens to be.

The rest of the cast balances on a similar wire between mild interest and tedium. Save for another beastleaven character (who seems to be pushed as likeable in later episodes despite being introduced as a literal slave owner) we have a respected but deceased witch whose legacy, her unwarranted execution, weighs heavily over proceedings, and Thirteen, the villain of the piece. Thirteen is actually one of the more interesting villains this side of Re:Zero's release; his motivations and dastardly plans are intricate while arguably following a certain twisted logic, and raise him above the set of morons and play-doh people which 2017 has foisted on us as antagonists so far. The plot doesn't especially call for a platoon of deep and difficult characters, so we don't get that many, which I don't especially have a problem with. On the other hand, it is also a plot which begins to trundle a little into the territory of the commonplace as we near the finale, which is a weird thing to say about a series concerned with magic books and tiger people. 

One of the major themes in GoZ is that of the accessibility of magic and its pros and cons. The show is surprisingly nuanced in how it addresses the problem (as opposed to The Irregular at Magic High School, aka. 'equality is bad and you should feel bad'), often playing with the idea that magic for the masses is a beneficial concept but that foolish and unstaggered access could be damaging. Things like this can sometimes buoy up a series which, though not horrible to listen to or look at, doesn't have the most dynamic action or the most engaging conversations in all of animedom. There's also a lot of typically White Fox-esque humour, purposeful anti-climax and accusations of perversion, which might put some people off. GoZ gets a lot of mileage out of gags about sex slaves and sniffing used clothing, which is a sentence I never want to have to write again and which isn't particularly endearing. Other themes are similarly awkward in their execution; the revelation that beastleaven sometimes eat humans in feral rampages isn't especially necessary, given all of the other reasons we're given as to why humans mistrust them, and the series can sometimes feel a little too 'neat' in how it wraps up threads. The ending, for example, seems a little too 'nice' considering the circumstances, although its still hardly the worst closure that anime has tried to feed us; I for one still remember No6, and Cowboy Bebop, and True Tears, and Darker than Black, and Darker than Black Season 2, and so on so forth.

TL;DR... All this in mind, GoZ is, as I say, perfectly watchable. On the other hand, it pains me a little that this is the second-best anime series of 2017 that I have watched thus far (after Scum's Wish). It's a bit like saying that the second-best superhero movie that you've seen is Thor 2; not exactly the end of the world, but... 

It was pleasant and intriguing all at once. The story wasn't bad but it needs more character development so we can know them better however it was still good. I recommend it to those looking for a simple fantasy and magic anime.