When Granblue Fantasy the Animation was announced, I was all hyped thinking that my gacha money (see below) will be used to fund the animation production. Then, the pilot episode aired in winter 2017 and I was wondering how Djeeta, the female version of the protagonist character, will be incorporated to the anime, since the main character for the anime will be the male version of the protagonist, Gran.
I was disappointed to be informed by my editor who said that Djeeta won’t be in the show. She’ll just be the “announcer” for the series. The judgmental prick inside me then was like, “nope, we are not going to watch it when it airs.” That thought remained for a while until Cygames “bribed” me with the promise of giving Omega Weapons in the game whenever characters in the anime are going to fight the primal beasts. It got me to actually watch the show. I think it was pretty decent. And they manage to maintain the design of from the game in the animation’s drawings. But compared to the main characters like Katalina, Rackam, Io or Eugen, who are obtained in-game through the story, the appearance of non-story characters are lacking. Some have small cameo, while others don’t receive proper explanation about their reasons for joining the Grandcypher crew.
But then, the real prize for me ultimately comes in Episode 13; when Djeeta actually makes an appearance in the anime!
Djeeta the Pay2Win player
Meet Djeeta, the girl who rescued Lyria from the Erste Empire in Zinkestill; who put a stop to the wind goddess Tiamat’s rampage at Port Breeze. This is the girl who also saved archduke of the Duchy of Valtz and defeated the Primal Beast Colossus. After plenty of quests accomplished by Djeeta and Co, a lot of new members joined the crew. Lots and lots of people joined the adventure of Djeeta on the Grandcypher. If I have to name them all, I’m going to be jealous since there are many good SS Rare characters, the highest rarity of characters to be obtained from gacha draw, in Djeeta’s Crew.
Before we delve further more into the points. There are some game mechanics that I need to explain first. The mechanics of Gacha System, Fate Episodes and the Weapon Grid system.
The Gacha system, as most players of Japanese mobile games know, is a system that allows players to participate in a raffle that can be accessed by trading the in-game currency to get characters/items/summon/weapons/etc. Granblue Fantasy also uses this system, with the Premium Draw that allows players to get some rare chara/summons by trading Crystals, the in-game currency which can be accumulated freely through playing the game, or trading Mobacoins.
Fate Episodes are side stories that can be accessed after you obtained the character from gacha. These fate episodes explains how a certain character join the Grandcypher crew from the character’s perspective. There are 3 kinds of fate episodes. One is how the character will join the crew. Another one is to unlock their respective skills and the last one is a cross episode if the player has 2 characters that have their own stories.
The Weapon Grid is Granblue Fantasy game mechanics that dictates what element they will play and how strong will it be. However, the system itself is really complicated. To make it simple: the better grid you have, the stronger the character damage you will have.
So how could Djeeta get the rarest of characters while Gran himself didn’t? There are two plausible explanations. First, this extra episode seems to take place after episode 12, although there aren’t any flashback that show the events on Augustes Isles (they did show Port Breeze and Duchy of Valtz arc, though), they did some more adventures and they met new characters and had their Fate Episodes. However, some of the characters shown in the characters montage are not shown in the main anime. Or, we may think that Djeeta actually has a credit card or two, and she definitely paid quite a sum of real money to do some gacha draws to get all the characters.
This is the first impression of Djeeta compared to the main series’ Gran. She has the money to pull 3000 mobacoins for gacha draws and also a hefty sum of luck since SSR rate is 3%. And thus, Djeeta in this extra episode is the embodiment of the players who actually put their own money to play Granblue Fantasy (and got lucky with it).
Another evidence to support this statement is when they performed a request from Sierokarte to investigate the shortage of ice, and then they met the Empire’s soldier and Bits. But, when Djeeta fought them, she didn’t even break a sweat. This indicates Djeeta is a player with a decent weapons grid. To put it simply Djeeta is already in the mid-late game phase. Therefore, she’s definitely pretty strong at that time.
Grand Blues Channel
What I found out from the narration in episode 13 reminds me of of Granblue Fantasy’s side quests called Grand Blues Channel. Grand Blues are 5 panel gag manga that revolves around Granblue Fantasy stories. The stories in the Grand Blues gag manga usually serves to relieve tension in the main storyline, helps to introduce and deepen understanding of the characters in a comical way. If Grand Blues is the gag manga, Grand Blues Channel is a side quest with humorous content, just as if the Grand Blues comic is transformed into side quests.
The atmosphere of the whole episode 13 seems to depict the humorous side of Granblue Fantasy through the Gran Blues Channel. The swimsuit-choosing scene and the beach scene set the theme for the episode. When Siero asked them to go investigate the shortage of ice, the fight is also quite light-toned compared to the main episodes. The dialog between Djeeta and co. with Pommern also have some comedic tone to it.
With episode 13 and the upcoming extra episode (which also may contain Djeeta in it), I appreciate A-1 and Cygames for adapting the game into anime). I think it is quite faithful to the original game, from the serious content to the comic relief part. I’m sure the anime will invite more player to the game (they have 15 million players right now). And I’m especially grateful for the anime to spend the gacha money to actually Animate Djeeta and her glorious figure (even though it isn’t the Luchador or the Sage version of it).
The Indonesian Anime Times | by Naufalbepe
This article is the personal opinion of the writer and does not reflect the opinions and views of KAORI Nusantara and The Indonesian Anime Times.
KAORI provides an opportunity for readers to submit opinions about Japanese popular culture and Indonesian creative economy. Write your opinion in English or Indonesian for 500-1000 words and send it to [email protected].
