Grimoire of Zero

Episode 12

The post-credits scene of this final episode of Grimoire of Zero shows the series at its best. The big battle has been fought, our heroes have succeeded in their mission, and Zero and Mercenary are off to find new adventures together. Zero offers Mercenary her real name, which is the most intimate gesture a witch can offer, but Mercenary politely refuses. He's her Mercenary, and she's his Zero, and he's perfectly content to keep things as they are. Together, the two walk off into an unknown but promising future, as a team. The whole exchange is sweet and endearing, exemplifying the genuinely compelling bond the two have formed over the past twelve episodes. Grimoire of Zero was, at its heart, a show about a witch and her tiger, and this emotional core really did make the best of what this light novel adaptation had to offer.

What never worked quite as well was all the political humdrum surrounding Zero and Mercenary's relationship. The over-complicated conflict that Thirteen bore out in the name of his love for Zero started off vague and muddled, and it was never able to serve as the compelling central plot it so desperately wanted to be. Thirteen was capable of being a threatening and entertaining villain in moments, but his master plan was never coherent enough to make for engaging storytelling.

While last week's infodump about Thirteen's true motivations certainly made things less vague, it also squandered a lot of his story's dramatic potential, at least for me. His relationship with Zero is treated less like a genuinely necessary bit of character development and more like a plot device, and even in this final episode there just isn't enough time devoted to fleshing out his character or chemistry with other members of the cast to make his last-minute redemption arc work. Plus, it sees the Sorcerers of Zero come across as little more than patsies in a scheme that the show itself admits was misguided and essentially pointless. The final battle of a series should feel decisive and satisfying, but almost everything involving the Sorcerers felt like killing time until the plot was resolved.

All of my complaints about the general structure of the series aside, this episode ended things about as well as could be expected. The animation was clunky, and the fight scene was underwhelming, but I've come to care about our core cast enough to where I was invested in whether or not they succeeded in sealing away the magic of Wenias. The scene where Mercenary offers himself as the conduit for Zero's spell was probably the highlight of the week, since it offered a level of artistic and directorial quality we haven't seen from GoZ in some time.

As for everything that comes afterwards, I'm of two minds, which is in keeping with how I've felt about pretty much the entire series. I thought the epilogue explaining the aftermath of the sealing ritual was kind of rushed and didn't explain enough, especially regarding whether or not magic was actually gone from the country. Mercenary also only vaguely mentions some other neighboring country that's also experimenting with magic, which seems like little more than advertising for future arcs of the light novel series that we'll never actually get to see unfold. Still, I did appreciate the emotional closure of Albus and Halter's farewell to Zero and Mercenary, and I even liked the notion that Thirteen will continue to repay his debt by assisting our crew in future battles against the abuse of magical power. Even when the actual plot of Grimoire of Zero fails to live up to its own ambitions, the relationships that have developed over the course of the series prove just compelling enough to leave me wanting more.

In that sense, I guess I can't be too mad at Grimoire of Zero, even if it ended up being a much rockier experience that I had hoped for at the start. This single season may just be little more than a commercial for the light novels, but unlike another light novel adaptation I reviewed this season, Grimoire of Zero has actually done its job. As the book closed on this chapter of Zero and Mercenary's partnership, I would be lying if I told you I didn't want to see what happened next. This was far from a perfect series, but I enjoyed my time with it, and I do hope that I get to spend some more time with these characters again someday.

Rating: B-

Grimoire of Zero is currently streaming on Amazon's Anime Strike.

James is an English teacher who has loved anime his entire life, and he spends way too much time on Twitter and his blog.