Grimoire of Zero

I'm not entirely sure why Grimoire of Zero was a fun watch, but I sure did enjoy it.

Grimoire of Zero is a very familiar story. It's a medieval world where magic is real, and our heroes are a mercenary fighter and a witch. They should be enemies, but find a way to work together. There's a girl disguised as a boy, witch hunts by ignorant/frightened people, and an evil mastermind. About all that makes this setup different from a thousand others is that the fighter is a beastman, but really any kind of defect/failing that made him a bit of an outcast from society would have worked just as well. And to be fair, the story in the last couple of episodes does veer a bit off the "defeat the evil mastermind" track.

Usually I don't really enjoy shows/books/etc that are very predictable or derivative. But something makes Grimoire of Zero work for me. I think most of it is the relationship between the main characters. It progresses from mutual suspicion to a business arrangement to respect to real friendship (with bumps along the way, of course). That relationship progression is still very predictable, but it's handled nicely and both parties are likable.

It also helps that Grimoire of Zero is well produced, with good artwork and voice acting. And there's very little fluff - at only twelve episodes, there's not a lot of room for anything that isn't part of the main story. There's some minor digressions in the usual anime way - jokes about food, annoying middle-school-level sexual innuendo - but they're short. I'm fairly sure I'd have liked it much less if there had been lots of filler, but keeping the storyline moving meant I didn't have time to lose interest.

If you like the sword-and-sorcery anime genre, it's worth giving Grimoire of Zero a try.