Granbelm (グランベルム), also known as Granbelm -The Two Princeps-, is a 2019 original television anime series directed by Masaharu Watanabe, and produced by studio Nexus. Staff credits also include series composition writer Jukki Hanada, original character designer Shinichirō Ōtsuka, character designer Kei Imanaka and music composer Kenichiro Suehiro. The series first aired in Japan on July 2019.
Background:
“Was going back to school at night to retrieve a forgotten lunch box a really bad mistake? That’s how it seems when Mangetsu Kohinata suddenly finds herself pulled into a strange world where girls in giant magical armor are engaged in a ferocious battle. While the timing was unfortunate, it turns out that Mangetsu’s arrival in this strange realm was anything but a mistake, because Mangetsu appears to be a mage herself! Now, with the help of her mysterious new friend Shingetsu, Mangetsu must learn how to summon and control her own giant armor as they fight against other mages in a competition with an unbelievable prize – control of the lost magic that once ruled our planet! The paths of two magical warriors collide, each fighting to claim their ultimate destiny, in the spectacular world of GRANBELM!”
Plot Synopsis via Anime Limited, March 2024.
With the success of Re:ZERO, the director of that anime series Masaharu Watanabe decided to team up with the Re:ZERO illustrator Shinichirou Otsuka to work on a new project over at studio Nexus. What we got was Granbelm, a magical girl mecha type show and the buzz for the series was pretty much left under the radar. Not a lot of people paid much attention to this but the artstyle was nice at least. Much like a lot of people I did pass on the series during simulcast but the team and premise has always kept the series on my radar over the years.
Crunchyroll licensed Granbelm during simulcast and also had the home video rights, but because they generally don’t release anime on home video themselves (at least until they were bought by Sony and Funimation), the license for a number of shows went to different home video distributors, namely Anime Limited, Discotek Media, Funimation, Sentai Filmworks and Viz Media. For Granbelm it was Sentai Filmworks who released the anime on home video, but it was a subtitled only release which would also limit the audience.
Despite the merger between Crunchyroll and Funimation, Granbelm had a second chance at being released outside of the distributor in the UK through Anime Limited who was able to secure UK home video rights for a number of their titles. Even though its not going to be dubbed, there was room for a nice little release for the fans of the series.
Collector’s Edition Contents:
With Anime Limited being known for their collector’s editions, it was no surprise that their Crunchyroll license pickups would receive this same treatment. Granblem has a strange approach to it but I suppose the artwork was available for them in this instance.
This release is presented with a rigid box containing two Amaray cases to house the Blu-ray discs, in addition to an A3 folded poster and 8 art cards. While the artwork is very appealing on this release, it does baffle me that they chose to go for two UK sized cases for a disc each, rather than the slimmer ones that the US generally use.
The artwork is free of any information or BBFC content and the info sheet covers the information and specification like previous Anime Limited releases. The collector’s edition Blu-ray has 1000 units printed for an SRP of £69.99, and will be available in a standard edition Blu-ray on the same release date as this edition.
The series was made available as an early bird during the month of February, and was on offer for £39.99 with the Anime Unlimited membership lowering the cost down to £35.99.
Physical Contents:
- Rigid Box with Amaray packaging and clean artwork
- Info sheet for specification and BBFC description
- A3 Folded Poster
- 8 Art Cards
On-Disc Contents:
Distributor: Anime Limited
Released: 18th March 2024
The collector’s edition release for Granbelm -The Two Princeps- contains all 12 episodes across two Blu-ray discs, with the encode & authoring done by Sentai Filmworks via their release in 2020. The audio options are Japanese with English subtitles only.
The yellow subtitles are locked during playback, and the regions are accessible to Blu-ray players set to A & B.
Blu-ray Specs:
| Languages | Japanese |
| Audio | Japanese DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 |
| Video | 1080p High Definition Native format 16:9 aspect ratio |
| Region | A B |
| Subtitles | English |
| Locked Subtitles | Yes |
| Discs | 2 (1 BD-50, 1 BD-25) |
Blu-ray On-Disc Extra Features:
Disc 2:
- Clean Opening “Following the Moon in the Middle of the Night (Tsuki o Ou Mayonaka)”
- Clean Endings “Negai”
Unboxing Photos:
Final Notes:
Granbelm -The Two Princeps- is available to purchase on Blu-ray by Anime Limited in the UK & Ireland. The collector’s edition Blu-ray release can be bought through the AllTheAnime Store.
For the standard edition, it will be available through different retailers including Amazon UK, AllTheAnime Store, and Anime-on-Line.
(Disclaimer: Amazon links are also included when available. They are affiliated so if you decide to order them, I’ll earn a small percentage if they ship which will help me with any hauls or small bills.)
The Normanic Vault 
Leave a comment