Spoilerfree review You ever just watch Madoka Magica and think man if this anime had mechs in it and had them fight in a battle royale it would be perfect? And then said anime comes out and not only does it live up to your expectations it also sets itself apart as something wholly unique and special? Thats Granbelm. In 2019 Masaharu Watanabe just finishing up the thenmost recent season of critically acclaimed fantasy isekai anime Re:Zero teamed up with a couple of other notable figures in the Japanese animation industry original character designer Shinichirou Ootsuka script writer and series composer Jukki Hanada among others to bring us what I unironically think is one of the best entries to ever come out of the magical girl genre. Yes its derivative on first glance its yet another edgy and dark magical girl show that does yet another take on the subgenre that Madoka popularized. Heres the thing though: while other dark magical girl shows stumbled and fell Granbelm more than exceeds. Take one of the largest pitfalls of said genre for instance: the tone. Dark magical girl shows tend to take the wrong lesson from Madoka episode 3 cough cough magical girl raising project cough cough mahou shoujo site cough cough and dump an excessively dark and edgy tone on their viewers from the beginning. While thats not inherently a wrong approach it will very much alienate a good portion of viewers who view said edginess as weakness in storytelling. Why do those same viewers like Madoka so much then? Moderation in use of said tone. Madoka didnt dump despair and death on its viewers from the beginning: it eased them into it even with sudden jumps like episode 3. It knew when to use tone to its greatest narrative advantage and its a lesson that similar successful dark mahou shoujo shows like Yuuki Yuuna and now Granbelm learnt and used well. Theres time for levity and time for overbearing seriousness and Granbelm manages both well. The characters are also toptier. One of the main characters Mangetsu simply has a manic hyper energy about her that simply makes her interactions with the other characters in particular the other main character Shingetsu fun to watch. Shingetsu quite frankly is the typical dark mahou shoujo protagonist archetype that Homura from Madoka popularized: an emotional stone wall thats cool and stoic. The creative minds behind Granbelm knew that having yet another Homuralike would not guarantee success and they ingeniously decided to pair her up with a manic character type like Mangetsu to wring out the emotions. I personally believed it works: as a result the dynamic between the two main characters never gets stale or boring and investment in how these two characters stories turn out becomes quite easy. The other participants in the battle royale are surprisingly quite decent in the characterbuilding front as well even the characters like token Chinese girl Nene and stereotypical shrine maiden Kuon get much more development than they needed. The standouts are obviously Anna and best girl Suishou Anna is very much unlike any villainous character type seen in any magical girl show and her story in Granbelm is compelling in how it unfolds and clashes with the main pairs paths. Suishou is best girl. There is no argument there is no bias whatsoever. The plot and themes however are what made Granbelm go from just another seasonal show for me to a personal favorite that I cant help but think about every other day. Granbelm didnt have to make a deep plot its fellow members of the dark mahou shoujo subgenre like Yuuki Yuuna settled for SUFFERING IS THE BEST PLOT and found great success. However evidently the Re:Zero director had enough of that with his primary work so he decided to actually have Granbelms characters suffer for a purpose and a distinct theme. And he overperforms. Identity is the connecting word of Granbelm and the core of every single characters struggles as they battle each other. The plot greatly benefits from it making the emotional beats and fights more impactful than they wouldve been with a normal genre plot. Even the typical twists and edgy moments that youd expected from a dark magical girl show factor back to this theme and it makes those moments so much more powerful. The staff of Granbelm clearly had a vision for what they wanted to say with the show and it very much works in its favor. The one weak point although this may be up to your mileage is the animation. The animation performed by Studio Nexus is more than up to the task for the characters and plot: the characters are very animated and fun to watch and the animation helped supplement the engaging plot for the entirety of the show. However Studio Nexus decided to animate the entire show with hand 2d animation rather than relying on any CG as the majority of mech shows do that are not named Sunrise. In my opinion this animation style is good even rising to exceptional as needed. However as a 2019 anime in an era where Sunrise has set the standard of mecha fights in Gundam and related works the 2d animated style used by Nexus may not be enough depending on your tastes. For me it worked for others it may not and thats totally fair. If you liked Madoka Magica and the subgenre it created or hell even think that any aspect of this show sounds interesting I implore you to give it a try. I sure as hell am glad I did I nearly dropped this show on episode 1 as did justifiably many others when the show first came out but something kept me coming back each week and Im so glad I kept with the show. This show is the entire reason why I keep trucking through seasonal anime looking for those hidden nuggets of quality and is a big part of my faith that small anime studios still can create compelling stories outside of the 999th generic isekai or the 450th CGCDT adaptation. As a certain redhead once said: Theres no rule saying that an imitation cannot defeat the original.