Grisaia: Phantom Trigger

[neflight86]

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"What was once "Mihama Academy," a sanctuary for young girls, has now been transformed into a SORD (Special Organization for Research & Development) training school dedicated to fostering talent for national defense. Rena and Maki specialize in firearms, Touka and Gumi excel at sniping, Chris handles explosives and data processing, and Murasaki is a skilled ninja for intelligence operations. Together, they take on cases too complex for the police or Self-Defense Forces, repeatedly facing dangerous missions. This is the story of these young girls, painted in blood and gunpowder.

Source: Crunchyroll"

Genre(s): Action, Espionage, Slice of Life

Research

Prequil OVAs research

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1

Don't be a chump like me. Apparently there were some episodes of Grisaia set after the OG series and flashback movies that properly introduce this set of characters. Such is made clear with the 2 min recap at the start of this first episode that I skimmed over assuming I'd seen until it kept going over scene after scene with unfamiliar characters and situations that grew my sense of unease...

The first episode is actually pretty confusing without the proper background or at least introduction for these girls and their class, so I'd advise against jumping in cold; I'm going to circle back around and watch the Grisaia: Phantom Trigger the Animation movies before I continue. Because I liked what I saw, more or less. These girls seem like well developed characters and I have an espionage shaped hole in my heart since Spy Kyoushitsu ended.

As for the episode itself, it had that same 'scenes pulled straight from a visual novel' feeling and deadpan direction, but the music, charming visuals and what little story setup there was indicates a product of adequate quality, from my point of view anyway.

[neflight86]

Watched the ovas, rewatched 1, and now 2

Much better. While some of the iffy pacing and 'straight from a visual novel' direction still betrays the source, this is a more than adequate series that has some pretty good scenes, for what it is.

The OVAs are, in my opinion, required for the setting and characters to make enough sense and invest me enough to find interesting. Just treat them like the first six episodes of this season and it all flows really well, even if you haven't seen the OG series. Plus battle nuns never get old. Some platitudes and logical callousness stops just short of being obnoxiously edge when it comes to being pragmatic, and I like that in an espionage/serious military action show.

Also nice that, for the most part, the mooks aren't complete idiots, even if unhinged. Makes the gun battles a bit more interesting.