We’re arriving at the season’s endgame now, as all of our summer contenders marshal their forces for their assorted finales. As misunderstandings are cleared up and final stakes are clarified, shows often reveal their most fundamental natures here – the conflict, relationship, or central idea they hold most closely, and are willing to stake their last and most consequential episodes on resolving. Given has turned out to be most fundamentally a romance, surprising no one, while Carole & Tuesday continues to use its efficiently sketched human characters to reflect on modern society in general. And Granbelm, well…
I guess we should start with that one.
I think this week’s Granbelm likely did the best job it could given the choices the show has made so far, which unfortunately still really wasn’t enough to keep my attention. Last week I accused the show of simply papering over a lot of its dramatic fundamentals with “a wizard did it,” which wasn’t actually correct – as several readers pointed out, there had been various clues as to how magic and Mangetsu work seeded all along. It turns out my issue was a different all; all the scenes that were actually most crucial to divining Granbelm’s ultimate trajectory were also all the scenes I completely tuned out, because my eyes always glazed over the moment this show began discussing magical worldbuilding lore.
It’s clear that Granbelm has drawn heavily on both Madoka Magica and the Fate franchise, but ultimately, it’s also clear that Granbelm favors Fate’s worldbuilding-driven approach to drama over Madoka’s theme and character-driven approach. That’s not to say this episode failed to be true to its characters, or abandoned Granbelm’s theoretical themes – on the contrary, this was one of the show’s most satisfying episodes when it came to just showing the characters interacting, and I actually liked how Shisui’s speech helped Mangetsu find the joy and beauty in merely living in the world.
But ultimately, it felt to me like both Mangetsu and Shingetsu were being punished simply because the mechanics of this world and this narrative say so. Shingetsu’s only crime was wanting a friend, while Mangetsu’s tragedy feels even more senseless – she’s being punished because that’s the sort of thing that happens in stories like this. Characters are arriving at their finish lines not because of their fundamental character, but because The Magic Works This Way, and that kind of storytelling just doesn’t interest me. So while I could enjoy individual character moments throughout this episode, the overarching trajectory felt like tragedy that was being conjured simply for the sake of tragedy, a quirk of worldbuilding rules that carry no emotional weight. I enjoy a lot of elements of Granbelm, but it seems that on the whole, it’s just not really my kind of story.
On the other hand, Carole & Tuesday’s latest episode further bolstered this show’s last-act turn into genuine moral ferocity, as its heroes continued to struggle through personal and public conflicts with both emotional bite and strong real-world resonance. I’ve discussed before how C&T’s combined focus on music and politics has served as a neat meditation on the ambiguity of unifying public rhetoric, but this episode was more about searing personal moments, as Carole, Tuesday, Amer, and Angela’s childhoods and current circumstances were contrasted through scattered vignettes and poignant conversations.
Amer’s extremely personal and vulnerable song, as well as Carole and Tuesday’s discussion in the church, both seemed to underline the near-impossibility of having a true “childhood” in today’s world – even if you’re only asking for trusted companions or a place to call home, our age of intense immigrant villainization and unapologetically backwards-looking nationalism mean you can’t really avoid merging the personal and political. And though it was a simple answer, I adored our leads’ response of “lay it all on me” – not as an immediate, pursuable plan of action, but as a general plea to at least take care of each other through these disastrous times. There is so much senseless destruction by older generations being inflicted upon us; we at least ought to be able to lean on each other.
Finally, I’m almost relieved to report that this week’s Given was actually a pretty calm episode, after a slew of episodes that shifted between low-key and high-key devastating throughout. Of course, in Given’s case, that still meant we got plenty of convincingly organic conversations and evocatively shot scenes, they just weren’t all intended to rip out your heart and tear it to pieces.
It was very endearing to see Ritsuka and Mafuyu each trying to feel out the new parameters of their relationship in the wake of their kiss-slash-performance. “New relationship jitters” are a universal source of anxiety, and something anime too rarely gets to prioritize, given how often relationships aren’t actually established until the end of a romantic drama. Not so for Given, which handled both their first reunion and Mafuyu’s ultimate declaration of love with its consistently strong powers of observation, through a series of scenes that actually let Mafuyu take the reigns for once. Even though they’re incredibly different people, it’s easy to see how much each of these leads are stronger for their bond with the other; like many good romantic pairs, they work so well together that it already feels like they were incomplete apart.
I was really puzzled by the article decrying the consequences for Shingetsu and Mangetsu in Granbelm on the basis that they hadn’t committed any “crime”. Is the idea that characters in a fictional work shouldn’t suffer unless they’ve committed a crime worthy of it? That doesn’t make sense to me.
And I certainly don’t see the tragedy as arbitrary or “senseless”. Boiled down to its fundamental essence, the thematic point of Shingetsu’s dilemma with Mangetsu is that Shingetsu thinks magic is causing harm to people, and in response to that harm she’s decided to just “smash the system”.
Except–much like systems in our world–even many of the systems that can cause harm also have enough people wrapped up in them that just smashing them indiscriminately like that can cause collateral damage, even to people who are more innocent bystanders than mustache-twirling villains. That’s not to say that some systems don’t still need to be smashed regardless, of course… but it’s naive to pretend that the world gives us a guarantee (if such a drastic option is indeed necessary) that smashing such systems can necessarily be done without hurting good people in the fallout.
And that’s literally what Mangetsu is: a good person trapped in the fallout zone of the system the protagonist wants to smash. The situation might be framed in terms of magical terminology, and to make it poignant the setup ensures that in this case, the harm will inevitably fall on someone close to the revolutionary (instead of faceless others as is usually the case) but I’d argue the fundamental situation at play is a very simple, very thematically meaningful one with broad application.
So I don’t see the show’s current dilemma as arbitrary or forced tragedy, nor proceeding from worldbuilding rather than theme. In fact, I’d argue it’s intensely thematic. You talked up Shingetsu’s “revolutionary motives” in your blurb on her in the Crunchyroll article; an important theme to go along with that is that revolutions tend to have collateral damage, and I give kudos to the show for engaging with that thematic point.
Now Shingetsu will have to decide whether or not the damage magic she sees magic as doing really warrants the collateral damage she now understands that just smashing the system wholesale will cause. (Or maybe find a third option; who knows?)
Anyway, I’m eager to see where it all goes, and there are a number of different ways I’m torn between interpreting some of the even-larger themes that I don’t think I’ll be able to decide between until I see how it all actually settles out. I don’t even necessarily agree with them all, and there’s plenty about the show I have a gripe with myself… but that’d be an essay and a half unto itself. But in terms of there being at least potential tragic side-effects to Shingetsu’s aim to unilaterally wreck the magical system across the whole world… that, in and of itself I find very thematically appropriate.
I don’t think “Mangetsu as metaphor for revolutionary collateral damage” is especially well supported by the text. It’s a very personal and very specific consequence that doesn’t really map to any greater consequences in either the real world or that of the show. So far as we know, there aren’t any other magic doll-people out in the world, and we haven’t seen much in the way of arguments for keeping magic alive beyond keeping Mangetsu alive. There’s no magic-powered hospital full of innocents reliant on magical life support, just Mangetsu.
What we have seen is a number of lives ruined and lost in senseless conflict for as of yet no discernible gain, which makes a greater argument for not just the collateral, but requisite damage and destruction that keeps the system in place.
I’m trying and failing to think of a bigger idea to tie to Mangetsu’s situation than, “Is one person’s life/happiness worth the continued existence of a damaging system?” That’s a fine enough question to ask, but it lacks the teeth of a broader societal question like your proposed collateral damage interpretation, and also doesn’t feel like it’s arisen from the characters as naturally as say the fates of the characters in Madoka Magica. I still like Granbelm, but Nick’s criticism of tragedy for its own sake definitely makes sense to me.
I’ve read your reply several times, but… I’m still not quite sure where the comparison breaks down for you. How is Mangetsu’s situation not mappable onto situations in the real world?
Are you arguing that there aren’t any people in our world who are innocent on a personal level, yet who (through no fault of their own) are caught in a dependent position to a system that hurts others, such that smashing it will seriously harm them in the process?
Are you arguing that Mangetsu’s situation can’t be accurately described as “an innocent person who finds herself dependent on a harmful system”?
If you don’t deny either of those… then, well, that’s the whole argument. Her situation does, in fact, “map to… greater consequences in… the real world”. And if her situation (despite being presented through a fantastical lens) is (in its broad strokes) a situation we can totally find in the real world, I don’t see anything arbitrary or “senseless” in the narrative forcing Shingetsu to confront that ultimate type of a dilemma, albeit put into more simple and stark relief for her through the device of magic.
The fact that we haven’t seen “other magic doll-people” or “magic-powered hospital full of innocents” is a point I cannot for the life of me see the relevance of. A comparison between a setup in a fictional world and its thematic counterpart in our world doesn’t need to match in terms of objective population numbers between them in order for the underlying thematic comparison to be valid. Even if there’s only one Mangetsu affected by the system-smashing in their world, and even if there are lots of Mangetsus when similar things happen in our world, it doesn’t change the fact that the underlying challenge that Mangetsu presents to Shingetsu is a valid one to consider, in its fundamental nature.
“And that’s literally what Mangetsu is: a good person trapped in the fallout zone”
“revolutions tend to have collateral damage, and I give kudos to the show for engaging with that”
I agree with the sentiment here. Mangetsu has bad luck, but why is that bad storytelling? Saber always had it rough, more than other servants, she is a tragic character who is confronted because of her ideals even after death. Mangetsu is a tragic character that had no say in her own fate and is confronted with the powerlessness.
Having to accept that and make the best of what she has seems like a very good theme to me.