The Fruit of Grisaia - Reviews

I came to The Fruit of Grisaia with no prior knowledge of it. Having not played the visual novel it is based upon. This review is written after having watched the first five episodes. Unless I find myself with a remarkable presence of free time in the future I will not be returning to The Fruit of Grisaia.

The animation is the standard fare these days. Music, opening and closing tracks are unexceptional.

The Fruit of Grisaia's biggest problem is the same one that plagues most visual novel adaptations. Visual novels are mostly non-linear, their narrative follows a branching progression to create multiple possible outcomes in accordance with player's choices in the world. Anime like most artistic fiction is a linear story. The series creators thus must select one ending of visual novel and then lobotomize the other story routes to fit into the middle like unnecessary filler. No matter how well done, the result is always unsatisfactory. The stories flow is at best uneven and at worst fragmented and choppy. Story routes are covered that add nothing to the main narrative and can even lead the viewer to assuming that there is no main plot. It all just seems to idle along pointlessly. The Clannad series while very good was also let down by this. Clannad however had characters that elicit emotion from the viewer. The Fruit of Grisaia does not.

This series ticks most of the generic anime tropes. The plot revolves about a bunch of special teenagers at a special school with no parents in sight. Why the school and students are special is not explained. Their abnormality is just assumed. If there is a main plot device then I can say that it has not been revealed by episode five. This far into the series next to nothing has happened. The exclusive focus seems to be on the interpersonal relations of the six main characters. By that I mean the five girls courting the protagonist Yuuji Kazami.

Yuuji Kazami is stoic, very knowledgeable and athletic. It is just unfortunate that all he has is a cool personality. We learn very little else about him and never see any of his less desirable traits. He is the one good point of this series and reason why it gets two stars. The other characters are all instantly forgettable.

Unless you have plenty of time to kill or just really want to watch the anime adaptation because you played the visual novel give this a pass.

This is a review based on 7 of ?? episodes.

This anime started off very promising - Characters had their own twists without being too hackneyed. The animation was above average, and the story seemed to be well paced.

Then episode 6 came along.

You can immediately tell when the producers just stopped caring. The animation quality was still good, but suddenly the story was rushed and heaped with mountains of exposition. There was no build-up or well thought out resolutions. Episode 7 was slightly better but both of these single episodes should easily have been a story arc at least 2 or 3 episodes in themselves. I'm highly disappointed, and if episode 8 does nothing to curb these trends, I will be dropping this.

It started off so well too.

UPDATED:
Finished this season and started on S2

This season is more and more obviously becoming a throw away prequel in my eyes. The pacing issues continued through the end of the series with an unprecedented and unnecessary 4 part finale for girl E which is almost more than girls A B C and D got combined. It also was the slowest and action lacking arc of the season and is the only damn arc that should've been cut down to two episodes.

All in all the production team really dropped the ball on this one. Thankfully season 2 seems to be turning out alright but basically this one is a wash. I'd say to skip this one, but you need SOME setup for S2. How annoying. You can at least skip eps 11 and 12, you're not missing anything at all there.

Imagine if you were to be in this series. Imagine if you were Yuuji Kazami himself. I know, touching isn't it? The Fruit Of Grisaia (Grisaia no Kajitsu) does exactly that. I wouldn't resemble this series to trigger any kind of feels at all, but it did. Instead, you would portray it as something to be sympathetic about, especially in The Eden of Grisaia (Grisaia no Rakuen), but i'll get to that later.

This series has a unique way of combining multiple Genre's, or tags, and compile them into 1 tremendous plot. Goes like this: Yuuji Kazami (Main Protagonist) has transfered, or Enrolled, into Mihama Academy, in which only 4 Individuals (Excluding our Protagonist) are enrolled into this Academy. However, He is the first male student to be in this Academy. The thing is though, out of the combined 5 students, none of them have lived average or normal lives. Every single one of them has experienced a tragic event in their lives, one differing from the other. From Death of Parents, to loosing the one single most important person to you in your life, they are all unique in their own ways.

If it Help's, you actually get to see what happened to them which resorted to their current state. I can't pick a favorite, due to the fact that they are all touching and sympathetic stories.    Not to Mention, this series has a Harem in it as well. Everyone of them has passionate feelings towards Yuuji.

Look, i won't say anymore. Just, see for yourself, You won't regret it. Amazing Series it is in my opinion.

I am rarely write a review for any anime that i watched.Only for anime that I hate most or I like most probably...

If you are okay with psychological scene,well it is okay for you to watch this... I am not okay with psychological so I am quite uncomfortable with the part where Amane had to survive in that 'hell'... well,that episode is keep haunting me almost for a week!!!! My advice is, you better keep your heart strong if you want to watch this...

this anime was a lot more like the story of an agent that want to help the problem of other people... or something like that... This anime is worth for you to give it a try....

For a video review, check out my Youtube channel. Link on my profile page.

This review will cover everything from Project Grisaia, so Grisaia no Kajitsu, Meikyuu and Rakuen.

Now the setup of this review will be slightly different than usual. Usually I group my positive and negative points together but with Grisaia it’s easier to go chronological.

So let’s start off with the first season Grisaia no Kajitsu or the Fruits of Grisaia in English.

*And I’m going to start of with a negative point which are the first 9 episodes, they were so boring and weird. Seeing Yuuji unravel the pasts off the girls was ok but it could have been done a lot better. Two of the five stories get resolved in 1 episode. That’s pretty much the same as not using that story at all. 

The storyline were I had the most problems with was the one off Sakaki. When Grisaia started it was heavily hinted that she would be the main heroine of the story, so I thought that here storyline would be resolved as last and that it would be the one with the most dept. But her storyline gets resolved as second and it is shoved aside in 1 episode.

*So after the first 9 episodes I was pretty much done with Grisaia but then the anime took an 180 degree turn in the last 4 episodes. I was already surprised that it wasn’t Sakaki who was the main heroine but that it eventually was Amane who took up that role.

Those 4 episodes resolving around Amane were of a completely different level than the rest of Kajitsu. The story about Amane and Yuuji’s sister was much more interesting than all the rest of the anime and I really enjoyed it. I was getting back into this anime and so my hopes rised again for the next season.

*But I first had to plow through something else that was released in the weeks after Kajitsu and those were the Specials. If you saw my No Game no Life review than you know that is one thing that I absolutely fucking hate in anime and that’s this kind of bullshit fanservice. 

Yes Grisaia's origins lay in an erogue game and that’s already made clear by some suggestive scenes in Kajitsu. But that clearly wasn’t enough for the writhers. 

No let’s take all the female characters, give them each an episode in which they are completely naked, do suggestive things to eventually reach an orgasm. When I saw these, I was like WTF writhers, are you really that desperate to gain views that you include this kind of shit?

*Moving on with the next positive point which is going to be the 40 minute special, Grisaia no Meikyu and the first 4 episodes of the second season Grisaia no Rakuen or the Eden of Grisaia.

In these episodes we get a fully fleshed out and detailed backstory for our main hero Yuuji and it was so well done. It was so detailed and sometimes even touching to see. Also Yuuji’s relationship with Asako was really interesting to see.

At the time of these episodes, Rakuen was one of my favorites of the spring season and I though Waw if this anime is going to continue like this than this is going to be gold.

*Unfortunately, after we finished Yuuji’s backstory and went back to the main storyline it declined a bit. I really hoped that they would continue where we left off at the end of Kajitsu and that the rest of Rakuen would cover the search for Yuuji’s sister.

But they went kind off on a weird way, yes we do get resolution on Yuuji’s sister but the way the resolved it wasn’t my taste. The story in a whole wasn’t my taste. Now don’t get me wrong it’s still a thousand times better than the first season but if they stayed a bit more “normal” then I think it would’ve been even better.

But overall I must say that I did like watching those episodes, it was something different than I’m used too and we actually get to see some more interaction between the girls which is also a point that’s missed in Kajitsu.

Conclusion

So as a conclusion, Grisaia started off really bad then went extremely good and after that declined a bit., so this wasn’t an easy call to make. They were things that I absolutely hated about Grisaia and others that pleased me a lot more. 

So considering everything I’m going to rate project Grisaia at 3,5 stars. That is without the specials which get the lowest possible score of 0,5 star. DoI recommend watching Grisaia? Yes I do especially for Meikyu and the second season.