#grimms notes

[bunnystrawberry-sorbet]

[twistedtummies2]

Another Special Report

A sort of follow-up to this post. For those who don't already know...

I.

Love.

Mad.

Hatters.

Happy Alice in Wonderland Day, everybody! ;)

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 1A, MATCH 10 OUT OF 16!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Grimm Notes:

[None Submitted]

Mary Skelter:

I'm just interested in the Mary Skelter games and thought I'd give them more... I forgot the word... attention? Is that the word I'm looking for?

[tribow]

So I watched Grimms Notes the Animation

Wow this was basically nothing!

This anime has a problem that I see some stories encounter and its an easy trap to fall into. It's just lore. There isn't much of a narrative and there's very little to no development. What you get is a story that feels like it's just explaining its own lore and nothing more.

You can have all the depth you want, but if that depth is meaningless then what's the point? I get nothing for taking the plunge! Depth doesn't make a story or its character's interesting, you gotta put something in there.

Throughout this show you get to learn a lot about how the world works and what happened to the characters that brought them to where they are now. It's just lore. Sure, I learned a lot about the main cast overtime and I learned how the world works, but why should I care?

Let me loredump right now. In Grimms Notes there exist Story Zones. Inside these Story Zones are people who are all born with a personal book. This book describes their fate. These books are created by what's known as the "Storyteller" These Story Zones are actually adaptations of Western fairy tales. For example, imagine if everyone in Cinderella knew what their fates were because they had a book detailing their entire fate. That fate cannot be changed, life will play out the way the book describes. Also, no one can read anyone else's books. Only the owner of the book can read it. To everyone else, their book will appear blank.

However, there exists people who are born with blank books. These people are treated more negatively because a blank book is strange, scary, and/or sad to everyone else who has a normal book. Even so, you can live a normal life with a blank book. The big difference is that those with a blank book have the ability to influence others off their fated path.

You may imagine the many different ways you can approach a premise like that, but this anime is not interested in doing so. No, it must use its story to just deliver more and more lore. It feels like I'm watching an anime adaptation of a Wikipedia article.

Also guess what? Grimms Notes is actually a mobile game! It was an RPG created by Genki and published by Square Enix. I mention this cause up until now you might think this is a character drama story based off of what I described so far. Nope! This is an RPG where you gotta fight things.

So, what evil must be vanquished? If there is a Storyteller then there are also Chaos Tellers. A Chaos Teller will possess someone with a book of fate and give them the power to enact their greatest desires. Except the the possessed character will basically become a monster in this process. They're given the ability to transform other characters into monsters called "Villains" that will do their bidding. This transformation does not work on those with blank books, so only those with blank books can defeat Chaos Tellers and return their Story Zone back to normal.

If a Chaos Teller fails to get defeated, that Story Zone will collapse and die. Just straight up. It'll be gone with no way to bring that Zone back.

Interesting lore right? Are you thinking of implications? Well good! Those implications get addressed in the anime...but the implications fail to meaningfully affect the characters. Like I said, the anime is more than happy to explain things, but not have it lead to any kind of development. You will simply learn more and more about how the world works and what happened to the main characters with blank books who are defeating Chaos Tellers.

I'm starting to repeat myself here, so I'll at least say the characters are not bad. They have decent characterization even if there's 0 development. Potentially this story could be good, but alas. It's a ton of tell don't show as well. Big shame.

One thing that really peeves me is that this anime does not only adapt "Grimm" fairy tales. They got Alice in Wonderland, Snow Queen, Don Quixote, and fucking Treasure Island. Those aren't Grimm! What's the deal here...waaaiit a minute.

Square Enix published this... don't they make Kingdom Hearts? They have a partnership with Disney, and all the western fairy tales that aren't Grimm are ones that Disney have also adapted at one point. HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I think this story wouldn't exist without those IPs being available to Square.

Was this idea created in a board meeting? Maybe that's why I can't feel any passion in this anime. The premise could have been cooked up by executives wanting to profit off of the properties they own. Just make a bunch of fancy anime designs for all of these fairy tale characters and make a mobile game! The mobile game market was popping off in 2016! We can even make an anime about it to get more eyes on the game!

Anyway that lasted 4 years. In June 2020 the servers went down and the game was done-zo. Funnily enough June 2020 is also when the anime started to air in the US. Another Square Enix flop....maybe. It's hard to say whether or not it flopped since it did last 4 years. Maybe it did well in Japan, but it died very shortly after the anime's release.

Brain's Base was the studio behind the animation. It's funny to see the quality continually drop over time. These animators had to have known that Grimms Notes was dying on the later half of production because they get real lazy by the end of it. The first episode genuinely has some good quality to it, but they dialed it back QUICK.

Well, is what it is. Grimms Notes is not good. I wouldn't recommend this anime. There isn't even much to make fun of, it's just not good. Nothing to salvage here, leave it behind. Brain's Base has something on their portfolio and that's about it.

There is one cool thing that happened at least. Grimms Notes is not lost media! Genki made all of the visual novel bits of the game available to play even if the servers are down. You can't play the actual game anymore, but they did provide an alternative instead of letting their work die. Maybe the game tells a much better story than the anime does.

[munhamaro]

[tibetansandpig]

Request art #1

[yourpalminsk]

Chaos Aurora and Chaos Marie

Chaos Aurora and Chaos Marie from Grimms Notes. This was requested by a user on Pixiv named *kuri*. I hope you enjoy!

[fairytalemovies]

Hello, I hope you’re okay. I recently saw your posts about anime based on fairy tales, such as Shin Grimm Meisaku Gekijou and Manga Sekai Mukashi Banashi. I don’t know if you are a fan of anime, but I know one who is also inspired by famous fairy tales that may interest you. Its title is Grimm Notes: The Animation. This anime is based on a video game of the same name published by Square Enix. The story takes place in a world created by beings known as "Story Tellers." At birth, all inhabitants of this world are bestowed with a "Book of Fate," where all their lives are written in advance. The story, however, stars a hero without a story, someone free to decide his own fate. But since he has only blank pages, he can only wander to find his purpose. Our hero travels to lands and meets characters straight out of the pages of some of the most famous fairy tales, such as Alice in Wonderland, Cinderella (who is the childhood friend of the main character), and Little Red Riding Hood. He must work together with the characters he meets to fight to get his story back. The anime was launched in January 2019 and has twelve episodes. I wish you a very nice day.

Hello, thanks for your message. I'm fine. :) I'm not an avid animé watcher, but from time to time I watch some animé. Grimms Notes The Animation sounds definitely interesting, thanks for the tip! Have a wonderful day, too!

[oquitbootz]

Magic Mirror (Request by *SuK*)

[lohress]

A short LawLight comic. Living my cringe middle school era Death Note yaoi revival in 2024...

[letraspal]

“It’s her sister, I think. She’s too young for Watford yet. She looks like his stepmother, dark-haired and pretty, but not like Baz and his mother—they’re drawn in bolder lines than this.”

Mordelia Grimm | Women of the Simon Snow Trilogy

[softsoaps]

have some quirrel. i usually dont do lineless for all of my art but recently straight ahead lasso tool art has been very calming for me, so this and the last two posts were made entirely using that :)

[fairytale-poll]

ROUND 2A, MATCH 5 OUT OF 8!

Propaganda Under the Cut:

Giselle Lai:

Girlie has 3 different possible princes and one is the princess! Need I say more? I will anyway! She gets the Cinder nickname from her first love interest because she snuck out of home through the chimney to try and meet up with the princess. She falls into the lap of her second love interest the next day when eavesdropping on him from a tree, and then the princess steals her away for the afternoon. The princess literally says she won't get married if it means she'll never see Giselle again and they almost kiss. Girl is such a powerful Cinderella, she has 3 bad bitches to choose from!

This webtoon turns this fairytale entirely on its head. Giselle is actually a noblewoman - well, girl. She has a mother who cares about their reputation as Giselle's father is dead. Her two older sisters are trying to find husbands but seem to be nice, in a sisterly kind of way. But the reason she's a Cinderella candidate is because her mum forbids her to go to the circus. And, when Giselle tries to sneak out as the three of them are leaving for a ball, her mum locks her into her room. So, determined as she is, Giselle manages to climb out of the chimney and out into the city. She's covered in soot and forgets to take money, so she's unable to get in through the front of the tent. Instead, she has to sneak in and meets Ashe. He/They is part of the act and Giselle gets caught up in it. Since he doesn't know her name, Ashe begins calling her Cinder-girl. Also, Giselle was meant to meet the princess to go to the circus, but meets her later in the park, where it's very obvious that the princess is in love with Giselle. And who Giselle might be attracted to, as well! AND, there's also Lord Elliot, who's not actually Lord Elliot, but a guy posing as a dead guy, who may or may not want to marry Giselle when she comes of age or marry one of her sisters. Also, also! The butler looks away when Giselle sneaks in and out, enabling her to be able to "go to the ball", as it were. There's a lot going on and the comic is a lot of fun. And the art is amazing! I really recommend it.

Grimm Notes:

[None Submitted]

[munhamaro]