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EP. REVIEW: Grimgar of Fantasy and Ash [2016-01-18]

Why is Grimgar a dog-eat-dog world? There doesn't seem to be any reason humans, goblins or kobolds need to kill each other. What harm would not raiding other species do to everyone? Besides Economic gain for fighting classes, I really don't see how you can say that this is a dog-eat-dog world. Really by that logic, so is our world. As an evolutionary biologist, I really cannot stand people using an overly simplified version of natural selection as a moral justification for oppressive behavior.

Why? Simple, there is literally no authority. In almost any RPG the royalty usually sends you on a quest to defeat monsters, or at least they give you insight in what reason do you even have to risk your ass, mostly saving a princess, or the world, or both.

Technically, and this is mere speculation, Grimgar is an European, feudal world. Do you know how you make a penny in a (somewhat) realistic feudal setting (considering you're not rich already)? Well, you can hope your father has some land to exploit (in feudal times, it was the common),

you're male and you're the first son. If you're not that, then good luck helping your brother, but not all is lost, you can become a priest,

if you're girl you can marry someone with land. But there is one thing that will always work, even trascending royalty and plebs: kick some ass.

It's not a dog-eat-dog situation, because nor goblins or kobold go out of their way to destroy humans (apparently)

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Technically, and this is mere speculation, Grimgar is an European, feudal world. Do you know how you make a penny in a (somewhat) realistic feudal setting (considering you're not rich already)? Well, you can hope your father has some land to exploit (in feudal times, it was the common),

Wrongo, in medieval setting the landlord is the owner of the land, you can work the land for your lord and get a pretty penny (and even have half of the day to do your own things). You could also enter a guild and learn a craft, but how convenient, the only guilds in town specialize in the crafts useful to war.

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you're male and you're the first son. If you're not that, then good luck helping your brother, but not all is lost, you can become a priest,

Even nowadays, to become a priest (as in, someone that gets a church and a flock that will pay you tithe, not a priest like manato that dies in combat) you need someone to pay for your education and pay to get you to a nice place to preach.

This series is definitely going on my wishlist of anime to own. Now it just needs to nail the ending. Death spot was too much for Mary's party to handle and they were way above Haruhiro's party when they died, so I hope they don't take down Death spot in it. Just getting everyone out alive after that would be fine. Even that is not going to be easy though, since Ranta is now all alone to fend for himself.

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if you're girl you can marry someone with land. But there is one thing that will always work, even trascending royalty and plebs: kick some ass.

and to kick some ass, you need some war, otherwise you are an outlaw, a bandit that will be purged if you become famous enough. Even pirates of old needed letters of the marquees to justify their ass kicking. So if there is a (low level) war going on, there is an authority behind it all, it probably is royalty but it could be a democracy since we know so little of this world.

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It's not a dog-eat-dog situation, because nor goblins or kobold go out of their way to destroy humans (apparently)

Manato wants to have a long talk with you. Also, in the latest episode, death spot seems to be going out of his way, heck, he destroyed parts of the mine instalation (that probably were not built in one day).

Well Manato can say things all he likes, after he explains why he was out on a raid on enemy held territory specifically to kill sentient creatures. Can't really blame the goblins for using lethal force against opponents attempting to exterminate them with seemingly no motive besides meager profits.

Or they could build tree houses. I don't know. But they could. They don't have to follow the rules the one dude who talked to them when they were newbies set to them.

Now you could say they don't have a choice, but we've never really been given a reason why the people that warp in have to join any of the presented guilds. Like what if you're just an excellent cook or craftsman?

If say, 30 adventurers decided to go and just take over Damura, they could probably hang out there, maybe rebuild it into makeshift refuge.

hey also got more than good enough to let the goblins go alive, which would maybe send the message that surrendering is an option, which in turn lets raiders get away with dying less often.

On a whole different note, the magic these kids are learning is wicked useful. Jus look at how much a low level priest can cure, or how quickly Yume got good with her bow. She as a hunter, he as a medic, the society these people are in would be able to benefit so greatly from them. Instead they give them a crappy weapon, some barely basic training and send them off to die without any help.

Basically it's the Log Horizon child raising route, but with a continuous stream of newcomers and a bigger incentive to join (since death is final).

But we return to square one, any money they make would come from killing goblins, so it is what they are already doing.

There is a reason you do not do that in a war, they will simply come back to fight you another day. I still remember in an espide of "The World at War" how hitler let thousands of ally soldiers be rescued so that the nazy army could have this huge celebration for taking paris, yep, those soldiers were back on the D-Day.

The other option is taking them prisioners, but then they would need to feed them, build cages and have someone look for them for no profit.

Those skills came from said medieval society, which means they arleady have medics, hunters, etc. but what they need atm is a cheap army.

Lets forget for a moment log horizon is "living in the database", here the kids are "low level" and will probably continue to be for years to come, any uprising will no doubt be not tolerated by the local landlord and while they might get some saving (if they stay alive), it will take them years to buy citizenship and their way into a more peaceful job.

For a war, you need State against a State, such case is not in Grimgar.

these are just associations, most likely legit according to whoever rules there, or maybe not but whoever rules just doesn't have power but that would seem unlikely, considering how well-organised they are.

If a war is what you think they're going for, first you need to find mercenaries, soldiers, working under someone they call Sir,

and then we're talking that they're sending kids to the front line and lower the number of enemies so invasion is easier and there is next to no cost to "them" (considering there is someone behind it all).

Are they? Are the goblins out for blood? They seem to mostly be minding their own business. The Kobolds seem to occupy themselves with mining. Nothing too bad. We have seen no reason why they'd be excessively hostile to people if they weren't continually jumped by bloodthirsty groups of humans.

No, they would live off the land, maybe start growing stuff there, build goods out of primary resources. You don't HAVE to fight goblins to make a buck.

1. They are not at war. There is no army structure, no higher authority that sets goals and no interest they're representing. They raid the goblins for their loot, which is their sole source of income. They aren't getting paid either, meaning they have basically no ties to whoever rules these lands. You'd think that if they were at war there'd be someone directing them at where they were going.

2. In war, you don't just kill your opponent because then next time you do battle, .... Whole systems of capturing rather than killing soldiers developed during some long term wars.

War isn't just about killing all the opponents soldiers. It's about land, supply lines, defensible positions. Often times these can be far more important than beating a specific set of people. Curiously, there is nothing like this going in Grimgar.

Of course, not all wars are equal, but when the soldiers have no loyalty to a larger cause, and they want to survive more than anything else, they'll tend to stop killing each other, like what happened in the trenches of the first world war.

While it is true they got the skills from guilds there, the standard of living is also really low. They need like a few coppers to stay alive, but they can make enough money to live super comfortably very quickly. The party we're following are the slowpokes, but the other people are wearing expensive looking armor and living very comfortably. They're only cheap in the sense that they're not paid, extracting resources from the creatures they slaughter. Also they don't seem to have that many people with skills around.

If you know this from reading the story then I'll grant you that, but otherwise this seems like baseless conjecture. There is no way these more full fledged adventurers are earning less than the people with regular jobs.

I don't know to what extent the political and economical situation of the Grimgar world has been thought out, but the series put a lot of emphasis on the value of specific things, so my mind wanders there. I hope the series will address it one way or another, I could see the conflict there write itself.

Why not? It looks to me like goblins and kobolds are on the same side ("the enemy of my enemy is my friend") and they probably have their own kings (or at least, tribal chieftains).

The thing is, if there was a peace treaty between "grimgar" and the goblin/kobolds, then these kind of skirmishes would not be tolerated, the mine would be admnistered by whoever the peace treaty deems as the rightful owner and the land around town would probably be owned by the local land(feudal?) lord.

But those cost money, lots of it ...

We do not know if there is someone kidnaping the kids and bringing them to grimgar, but there is a definitive effort from the local authority to make them fight their war (or sell them into prostitution).

What do you know, maybe goblins hate kobolds too.

But why would make peace treats with monsters? Why would you care if they die? Most people don't. If there was someone in charge (like @sunflower points out), they would rather have the monsters cleansed and allow for humans to go safely and get their resources.

Oh, damn they do, but most feudal lords would consider it an investment. What if you gain lots of territories in the victory? Maybe you can reward your men with a little piece of it (I forgot how this contract for 'sub-feuds' is called but there was a word for it), gain their loyalty, and maybe you can count with them for training new men and strenghtening a new army.