Review of Record of Grancrest War

An extremely compelling story with complex and believable characters with animation that reminds me of Hana and Barberra: dialogue without mouths moving, many still shots, etc. But the animation is bright and colorful the characters clearly rendered and unique background settings adequately detailed. The episodes are short and fast paced all ending on notes that leave you dying to know "what happens next?" like early "Fairy Tail". It was a day i need some real escapism and I ended up binge watching till the sun came up (and then some). Clearly has a feel of a game (card game) expanded into a story but wonderfully realized. It is full of interesting and compelling characters with clear motivations that behave in believable ways. It never has those story killing moments where one ask "why would they say that" or "how can someone be so blind and stupid", you know, when characters do things that any competent 12 year old would not or that the character would themselves not do within their characterization. The world building is great with a unique and and interesting medieval/Victorian fantasy world with established rules that remain consistent, It has a feel of old school fantasy with kings and kingdoms and noble knights rather then the dark fantasies now popular like "The Witcher", more like George Lucus "Star Wars" or rather 1970/80s fantasy novels. The pacing is fast and the conflict constant but with no real bad guys. All the characters are driven by understandable motives where they feel they are dong the right thing. The lead character has believable growth where he starts off understandably young and naïve but grows into his roll. Backstories are acknowledged but not dwelt upon. There was no character that i found excruciating so +++. It was wonderful that they came off as real heroes. They are not cutiesized. This is an adult series with high gore and some level of sexuality. It has so much going for it in this regard. People express their feelings when appropriate. Hero characters will kill people when necessary but not gratuitously. People show competency and incompetency in equal measures. I would say this is one of the best amine ever to make real and uncontrived heroes. This is not a comedy but a heroes journey at it's purist. The only reason I did not give a 10 is the animation that is so old school Saturday afternoon cartoon, but could this be on purpose as a homage to those old classics with a feel of he-man underneath? Highly recommended netflix continues to throw out gems.