The point of this thread is to keep the random discussions I had while reading the グリムガル in a single place instead of bloating the What are you reading today? thread.
Anyone is free to come in and post about the series and replies to each other, with typical book club/common sense rules:
Keep spoilers behind [spoiler][/spoiler] tags with clear indications of volume/page number, or, better yet, behind a [details=“volume number”][/details] dropdown.
Obviously, do not spoil later parts when replying to someone. If you know that they have read that part (e.g., you are replying to an older post), update the spoiler information to reflect the volume you are talking about (in case someone else tries to read your reply).
And I am going to copy my thoughts on previous volumes here for my own convenience.
Volume 1
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I don’t know, it felt like it was meant as a “funny” scene.
Ah yes, that looks very different. Apparently the change was not even consistent, since whoever wrote that doesn’t understand why one of the characters is apologizing. It would make complete sense with the book version (but there was no apologizing scene)
Anyway, volumes 2 and 3 are free to read until the 17th, so I’m going to read at least volume 2. Not sure I’ll have enough time for volume 3, we’ll see.
Volume 2
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Volume 3
[quote=“Naphthalene, post:5267, topic:38”]
Volume 3 has been kinda slow, and I feel like the main characters are getting a bit too strong… plus the whole thing with チョコ better get somewhere else than just “and now she’s dead”, because it really felt like a waste of time
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I finished volume 3 and the free preview of 4, and I don’t really feel like going further at the moment. It was an okay read, so I’ll probably come back to it at some point I guess.
(EDIT: well, I guess I did )
Volume 4
Putting this here because I changed opinion based on this volume:
EDIT based on this book: actually that is what we end up learning. So I am fine.
More specifically:
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Volume 5
(Edit: shelf space is for the weak, I guess; just pile up books on the floor.)
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Volume 6
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Anyway, I just went to one of the largest Bookoff in my area and grabbed volumes 7-12 (the last volume they had… I guess I’ll have to do a bit more legwork for later volumes)
Volume 7
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Volume 8 (beginning)
I only copied my replies to replies because I don’t feel comfortable copying full messages from other people, though.
So, I finished 灰と幻想のグリムガル level.8 そして僕らは明日を待つ | L31. I was not comfortable reading a book with this kind of cover in public, so I ended up removing the dust jacket The cover is just yellow under it, so that was better.
Volume 8
In terms of plot, that volume was somewhat frustrating, since at the end of the volume, thinking of it, nearly nothing happened. We got to meet a few more characters and see their fighting style AND we got rid of ランタ. Not only that, but we also got to see a pretty nice bonding moment between him and the bandit group. Honestly, it does feel like ランタ would be better off with them, and the ハルヒロ team is better off without him, so I feel like it works out. That kinda makes it hard to keep following him, though, as the main characters are going to go somewhere else.
About the self-contained story, it was just dumb all over. It was clear that the guy would die, and he should have known that she would try to avenge him, leading most likely to her own death. I don’t see how that’s better for her parents than just the two of them skipping town instead. Also, I don’t understand the parents either. You want to marry him? Sure, just give up being the heir, we’ve got two spares anyway. Literally everyone is happy about that result. But nah, we have to go through a lot of convoluted steps to end up in a situation that is a worst versions of what everyone wanted to avoid. Okay.
In terms of character development, it was fun to see the point of view of almost all the main characters (somehow we didn’t get ユメ, which is sad, she is one of my favorite characters; as ハルヒロ said, you can’t hate her :p).
5/6, everyone except ユメ.
I enjoyed that part too.
Definitely. The ハルヒロxユメ fight style was pretty good, and led ハルヒロ to get better for the future. The fact that he found ways to rely more on the other party members is also pretty nice and bodes well for the future.
Note to self to consolidate earlier volume posts here
Vol 8 response
I guess? But like a lot of development happened within that nearly nothing. So it didn’t feel like that to me (but I’m not the most plot-focused, in the first place)
It’s hard for me to think of it as nice, when he’s joining the ppl who kidnapped him & Merii for no reason, and were probably going to kill him (or something? idrc what the implication was there) and repeatedly sexually abuse her. But if I put that aside, then sure. As an aside, I find the bandits group to be really interesting from a world building perspective… like the “all species are accepted, we do our own thing” thing sounds ideal/utopic in this world that’s got some idiotic societies (as shown in the self-contained story)… otoh they’re amoral, and have no qualms about doing some pretty messed up stuff
In the short term, I wonder… like mentally and emotionally, yeah definitely. But in terms of party fighting, it puts them at some disadvantage. They’ll have to either replace him or find new strategies. Conveniently they’re around a bunch of ultra strong ppl rn, so that probly won’t matter too much in the very near future.
I agree though. Clearly a split for the better.
I loved it, but you’re definitely not wrong Even still, I found the world building, politics, and themes pretty interesting. There was a lot about it that I could relate to certain communities or traditions irl (unfortunately)… so that made it interesting to me too.
Yeah, I was surprised the author didn’t just eventually have them reach this conclusion. Since it’s so painfully obvious.
So unfair… gives annoyed look to author. Still I was really happy getting everyone else
I don’t know. It felt like a lot of fighting with some improvements in between. I did like the fights, but we could have been moving towards a goal instead. In that sense, I think the previous volume was much better.
Conversely, I would have been fine with a book more focused on conversations between characters but there wasn’t much time for that.
They captured them because they surrendered, which is way nicer than what ランタ and a bunch of others would have done in return. I still can’t get past the fact that タダ murdered in cold blood a gremlin that was pleading for his (her?) life.
In context, the morality of killing enemy combatants is just shrug to me, considering that the main characters are even called goblin slayers of all things. Just killing a bunch of goblins down on their luck to steal their stuff. Very nice. I’m sure オンサ also thinks they are nice people.
As for the raping part, I’m still having trouble believing that non-humans would do that to a human, but anyway it felt more like a threat to make them talk at the beginning, she got an offer to join the group (thus avoiding that fate), and, if she had asked, she probably could have chosen death instead (I don’t think ジャンボ would refuse that to her).
Plus, regardless, the way they interact with each other and ランタ was nice once he joined. I’m glad they aren’t just random cartoonishly evil canon fodder just there to be the antagonists of the week.
Just like the army thing the main characters belong to (except it seems to be human only in their case; not sure about the status of elves/dwarves who stick around).
But ハルヒロ already found a new fighting style for the group. Sure, one more member offers more options, but they were already stronger as just 4 by the end of volume 8 than the full 6 at the end of volume 7.
At least, that was sorted out by volume 9, so it’s fine.
Honestly, I feel like the part I am reading now should have been part of volume 8. I’ve seen LN volumes longer than 8+9 combined, so it’s not even unheard of.
I read the first two volumes of this series and dropped it towards the start of book 3.
It got sold to me as a “more realistic/grounded take on isekai”, but imo it did not keep that promise. After a turning point in book 1 it turned into a bog standard litrpg imo.
I am still not over how the goblins/kobolds are getting farmed in this story.
Might as well be a book about an MMORPG where the players meet up to grind.
Supposedly these other races are sapient, but they sure don’t act like it.
While グリムガル is not my favorite series, I sure don’t mind reading more of it. I’ll take recommendations, if you know more series like it.
My thought was that they have lower capacities than humans, more like dolphins or something. Even animals with limited intelligence like crows can use tools… but no, as it turns out, they are definitely sentient, and recklessly murdered by the main characters (and others) because they are officially at “war”.
Hmm, the only thing that I can think of that is like grimgar (isekai, no special prophesy, multiple people doing their own thing) is “the wandering inn”.
That’s English though
I am kinda struggling to find fantasy on the level of what I used to read in English in Japanese.
I’ll write a bit more about what I read recently in the other thread.
Case in point, volume 9 was much better on that front, and I enjoyed it a lot more, while even less happened.
It was nice seeing more of the view points of everyone. I am slightly disappointed that ランタ decided to not stick around the bandit groups. I kinda thought we would only see him again 3 in-worlds years (and 10 volumes) later, we a completely different fighting style or something lol. Meanwhile, せ… サ…? チョコ look alike would join the party as a kind of female ランタ (at the very least I find her just as bad as him, if not worse). I am looking forward to her relationship with ハルヒロ though. I wonder if the author will double down, or just find a way out of it.
Oh okay. That’s a pretty blunt way of telling the reader the truth about the world (assuming it’s correct; if incorrect that was just a waste of time).
Not going to lie, I’m not a fan of that setting. I’ve read books where it’s done well (Permutation City being one of them, and my absolute recommendation on this theme), but it involves writing (and planning…) skills that the author hasn’t demonstrated so far
Sooo I’m a bit apprehensive.
I don’t think it’s irrelevant in the sense that
it tells us basically the way that world works (probably, it’s just a theory)
I assume we will see both characters again, one way or another. I somehow expect her to have just downloaded his personality or something so that she can put it into another body like in the game Soma. I assume that’s how you make the undeads too.
Ill respond to other thoughts later, but since you’re going through these really quickly, just wanted to mention I looked into the vol 14+ & 14++ thing a bit more. They both follow the format of 3 side stories (which seems to all be “early days” stories), plus one appendix story. The appendix stories are part of the continuity, and take place during the events of vol 13-14.
I thought the one in 14+ was really good. I’m only at the beginning of the 14++ one, but it sounds like there will be a lot, from comments I read.
So you’re saying they can actually serve as role models for ランタ
Genuinely don’t remember that or who she is, besides “one of the crazy 義勇兵たち”, but sounds believable. As an aside that reminds me of a scene in Goblin Slayer (where there’s much more sense to that action)
I didn’t really view them as “enemy combatants” at the time of the events, but objectively yeah, I guess technically they are. Which yes, does change things a little bit. It still seemed like an entirely unnecessary encounter to me at the time.
Setting aside the first part, that’s all entirely possible. It’s still terrible in any case… But so is Ranta.
I’ll admit, I’m just being stubborn, but agreed.
Yeah they’re also awful… As are a lot of the individual adventurers. I guess I haven’t viewed the main party (and the 義勇兵たち in general) as negatively bc they were thrust into this world with no job skills, work history, cash, shelter, etc, and basically pointed at this as apparently their only practical option to survive… Tho certainly there’s a point where many current adventurers could have retired
Well (vol 9 spoiler, I think) he seems to think Yume’s pretty nice. Their whole battle and then bonding to survive afterwards, despite being enemies, was really enjoyable to read
Volume 9, 10 - prologue reply
Agreed there.
This doesn’t exactly preclude most of that
セトラ is pretty over the top at first, but I found her more enjoyable as time went on. Also she’s a million times more useful than Ranta. As an aside, I actually read one of the あとがき recently, and the author apparently hates Ranta too (and had mentioned this publicly already, I assume in earlier あとがき)
Yeah the whole 恋人ごっこ this is pretty amusing
I have not read the book you’ve mentioned, but am similarly apprehensive, and tbh I actually don’t really care about whatever’s going on behind the scenes. It’s been so far in the background this entire time, and the things that make the story compelling to me have almost nothing to do with it
Sure, but we didn’t need the guy’s entire fucking life story, in painful detail, in order to accomplish that. That’s the main thing that bothered me. Just get to the point already!
Indeed it wasn’t quite as irrelevant as I initially thought.
I’ve certainly had that thought before, and even just considered reading the Japanese versions of some of them, like DUNGEONS & DRAGONS ダークエルフ物語 | L30?? . I read that in 6th grade… So I think my JP should be up to it by now
He is the former fighter turned priest who fights with a war hammer.
I guess that the difference between us is that I didn’t have much of a break between volumes. That setup is part of the exposition from ブリちゃん at the very beginning of volume 1.
Right. I think everyone involved is a pretty dark shade of gray.
Plus ハルヒロ at least tried to not kill an innocent when not necessary. That came around to bite his ass, so I don’t think it will happen again, but he tried.
volume 9 (+spoiler free 10)
That is volume 9 and he doesn’t know her. They just survived a bad fall and it makes much more sense to work together (instead of dying together). Plus, ユメ is just nice in general.
Good point! Since they are geographically close, I assumed he would catch up with them, but nothing says he will.
I’m now calling her “et cetera” as my mnemonic for her name.
I did not expect that! Okay, ランタ may have been put on the bus, then.
To be blunt, my question was whether ハルヒロ will agree to perform the baby making part or not. I’m putting my money on not, but I’m not sure. As far as I can tell, everyone involved is adult, but that sure would had some extra drama layers for メイリ.
Vol 14+ & 14++ follow the format of 3 side stories (originally released with the DVDs), plus one “appendix story”
14+:
Ex 1: what if everyone were goblins?!
Ex 2: Manato’s thoughts
Ex 3: Yume & Shihoru’s initial guild training experiences
Appendix Story 1: part of main storyline. Takes place during vol 13-14.
14++
Ex 4: Ranta & Moguzo
Ex 5: Merii’s history with Orion
Ex 6: What will the party spend their money on, now that they’ve (spoiler for vol 2) defeated Dead Spot
Appendix Story 2: part of main storyline. Takes place during vol 13-14
General thought: I love the color illustrations in the beginning both of these volumes!
Vol 14+ thoughts
I skipped the first 2 stories. The goblin one could be interesting, but I don’t care a bit about Manato. Apparently the gyst of the story is Manato was basically a psychopath, and nobody knew
Yume & Shihoru’s guild training: this was a lot of fun, though I had some suspension of disbelief issues - particularly with Yume’s story… But I let it slide cuz it’s Yume. Anyway, Yume is clearly oblivious to her mentor’s crush (no boundaries are crossed), and they’re soooo cute together. Yume has an interesting エセ関西弁 tick of 〜と思うねやんか… I still can’t work out what exactly it’s supposed to mean, but the author has been consistent in using it, at least in the appendix story next volume
Shihoru - as always I felt so bad for her. Why did her mentor have to be a pervy old man who sexually harassed her?!?! At least she got some deep knowledge out of her actual training, but really, ugh I did appreciate her thought process of "I don’t trust this old pervert anymore, but I do trust the other female wizard’s assessment of the situation. I could see why she made the choice she did, even if it sucked.
Ranta’s story: holy shit the author basically completely rewrote Ranta. Wow he changed in 3 years. This was actually super enjoyable to read. If he continues like this, then I might actually begin to like him as a character. The mask thing seems silly at this point though , but whatever it’s a massive improvement from the past.
The Grimgar politics in this series aren’t generally what grab my interest too much, but it seems like there’s gradually be more serious shit going down in the coming volumes. Also I appreciated the reflection on how “actually the humans really suck, and have a distorted, one-sided view of the story”. And enjoyed that Rant was like mature and humble enough to take this in as “yeah wow, I really don’t know anything”. Also it was interesting finding that Leslie is a descendent of the No Life King, and apparently has some access to the original magic (or whatever it was called) - which is the same thing Shihoru’s teacher gave her a tiny glimpse of
14++ Thoughts (in-progress)
I skipped all three extra stories… Maybe I’ll revisit them, when I finish re-listening to the anime audio… But like this is all vol 1-2 related, and I just don’t care.
ユメ story starts off with some serious fan service. It’s not exactly ecchi, but “2 attractive, half-naked, women wrestling to get each other fully naked, on the beach on a deserted island”… . And then there’s that illustration… Was not expecting naked ユメ . I appreciate that the illustrator actually drew her with realistic proportions… Thankfully she’s usually safe as that sorta thing goes
I have just spent an unreasonable amount of time looking at the illustration on page 71 of book 10
I really like shoulders (and arms, for that matter) in guys and dayum did the illustrator deliver. I was already enjoying ハルヒロ’s fit from the last color illustration, but here it’s just andthey both look really cute.
Gotta say, I’ve been fairly negative about the illustrations overall, but if I get more like this, I may change my opinion.
Yeah that’s a good one… Though out of context, I would have thought I was reading a very different series My favorite ハルヒロ is in vol 12 actually - I suspect you will also enjoy. Actually a lot (not all) of the illustrations in vol 12 are really on point.
Well, I finished volume 10. I was a bit apprehensive because of @暁のルナ’s review, but I did like it just fine past the prologue.
Volume 10
I really liked the romantic tension added by セトラ, and, if I’m being honest, I am now rooting for her.
I also enjoyed ハルヒロ crit’ing on his stealth roll. It didn’t matter in the end, but it was still nice.
Okay, hear me out, the moment she said (well, thought) in volume 9 that she isn’t into masculine guys, I immediately thought “what about feminine girls then?”
Aaaand the scene when she is looking at ユメ rushing back from the forest to the village, like, I don’t know, why not? That being said, I am pretty much shipping ユメ with everyone but クザク, so it doesn’t really matter.
Glad to hear you liked it objectively I can’t really say it was bad or anything. I just don’t have a lot of patience with certain elements.
Vol 10 reply
Interesting. I was wondering whether you were gonna hate セトラ or not, given how she starts off… And now it turns out your rooting for her! What turned you over?
I do appreciate that she actually puts in some real effort to trying to make her crush happen - even if she’s going about it in a not so great way. I don’t appreciate how she treats everyone else (tho the クザク == loyal dog thing is really fun). I do appreciate how she’s already telling ハルヒロ to value his life more, and stuff. But as of volume 10, I’m still solidly Team メリイ.
That was a pretty cool moment! Tho I think in general they/ハルヒロ could have started off a bit more diplomatically with that encounter, once they realized he was probably human
Someone went to yuri shipping before I did?! Also what about feminine guys? Anyway idk, I don’t really see it for her, at this point in time. Like I could see it working (probably even well), but I’ve just never gotten that vibe.
Come to think of it, didn’t she have a thing for Manato, back then?
I only half remember that scene, but I probably had a similar thought
I can pretty much see this… Well I don’t think I could quite see セトラ, but I appreciate how (iirc) she’s been trying to set some boundaries with セトラ, get her to use her name, etc. Why not クザク? Also does this statement include クソランタ?
Tbh while I love ユメ and ハルヒロ as friends, I would definitely enjoy reading them as a potential couple. I’m kinda glad the author hasn’t written that though, bc we’d be getting into harem territory at that point.
The scene around the illustration that I liked. I really liked her straightforwardness, as in “I have no clue of what I am doing, but I want to do it, so I’ll just go with the flow *bites neck*” or “is this what it feels like to be in heat”.
I disagree on that point. She is on par or even better than メリイ when she joined the party, plus, she has changed her attitude towards both メリイ and ユメ as soon as they did something positive towards her (or her ニャア in the case of メリイ, but close enough). That led me to believe that her attitude is mostly part of her upbringing (she was, after all, not in good standing with the village (so pretty much the whole world as she knows it) growing up; and generally speaking people from there have generally a fairly antagonistic kind of behavior by default). I’m pretty sure she can open up to them and change as she gets more exposure to, well, normal (? I won’t put most of the 義勇兵 in that category, so it may take a while) people.
On that front, that’s also how I read the way she “asked” ハルヒロ to date her. In hindsight, it feels like she actually asked both of them if it was fine for her to date him, and since they said so, well, she did. As she is from a culture that never helps others (at least without some compensation), that’s literally her only way to help them “for free”. As such, I find her speech at the time to not be a threat, but more like a “common sense” explanation.
So, tl;dr my take is that she comes from a shitty culture, which is reflected in her behavior, but that doesn’t mean she is a bad person herself, and she is already improving anyway.
I would need to check, but I’m not 100% sure it was that clear.
Still, I feel like ハルヒロ could have tried to tell him something while he was following him. The guy keeping his distance meant that he was not going to attack immediately even if he was hostile.
Yes, she had a thing for him, and obviously feminine guys (and even just less masculine guys) could be fine. But, from experience, it’s much easier to repress same sex attraction when you are bisexual and pretend (to yourself too) that you are straight. I think she should try to do some self searching (not that they have the time to do that, but heh).
セトラ is a really long shot. She would first need to have a bad break up with ハルヒロ (which, honestly, could happen any minute now with the way メリイ and him are around each other) and then need to be comforted or something. She has said that before ハルヒロ she has never found a guy attractive ever, cf my discussion about bisexuality above.
I just don’t see it working, I guess? With their respective personalities, they would just end up doing their own thing separately. I am mostly biased by the flashback to his former life, though. I can definitely see him being on his phone while in the middle of a date.
It absolutely does include バカランタ. She can fix him.
I mean… between セトラ and メリイ, I think we are kinda there already… That being said, my current favorite ship for ユメ is シホル (and generally speaking we don’t have enough gay stuff in this series), so I hope we don’t get anything between ユメ and ハルヒロ.
Edit: Also, forgot to say, but the color illustrations of volume 11 made me wonder if the illustrator changed. But no, it seems to still be the same person. Still, I can definitely see some improvement over the past couple of volumes.
)
The cover is just yellow under it, so that was better.
Even still, I found the world building, politics, and themes pretty interesting. There was a lot about it that I could relate to certain communities or traditions irl (unfortunately)… so that made it interesting to me too.
I did appreciate her thought process of "I don’t trust this old pervert anymore, but I do trust the other female wizard’s assessment of the situation. I could see why she made the choice she did, even if it sucked.
. I appreciate that the illustrator actually drew her with realistic proportions… Thankfully she’s usually safe as that sorta thing goes
and 
objectively I can’t really say it was bad or anything. I just don’t have a lot of patience with certain elements.
Anyway idk, I don’t really see it for her, at this point in time. Like I could see it working (probably even well), but I’ve just never gotten that vibe.