A historical marriage to symbolise peace between the two main warring factions of Atlatan, Factory Alliance and Fantasia Union falls apart. Treated as an assasination, it was now known as "The Great Hall Tragedy" and conflict continues between nations. Having witnessed the incident during her graduation, Siluca Meletes the prodigy mage was now reluntactly going off to serve a new lord. However, a group of mercenaries from the opposing faction stops her during her journey there and just then she meets the wandering Theo who comes to her rescue. Not knowing Siluca's abilities, he fends off the mercenaries. Theo had created his own Crest from the dark Chaos energy that leaked across the country allowing demons to appear from another dimension to raise terror. The Crest's power allowed humans to battle with them but, the lords who possess them had long forgotten their purpose and now it was more a symbol of status that they fight over for.

After learning Theo wanted to strengthen his Crest so he may free his poverished town from tyrannic rule in Sistina, Siluca decides to help him and make him her new ideal lord. He had the potential to help her own ambition of restoring peace and destroying the Chaos energy that threatened the lands once and for all. After taking over the Crest from the lord that attacked Siluca, Theo now gained the status he needed to achieve his goals but he still had a long road ahead of him before they could both achieve their ambitions.

The show gets off to an interesting start. Your heroine Siluca isn't one that's just a damsel-in-distress but the one pulling the strings and ends up being the important support behind Theo, who starts out as a naive average skilled swordsman. However, he isn't completely outshone since his chivalry and compassion wins over many allies. It's cute watching the relation between the two blossom out of mutual respect and grow to achieve their ambitions which, feels natural instead of your "hero gets the girl" kind of direction. Yes, there's romance in this show but it can be devastingly heart breaking as it can be warm and fuzzy. There's a fair bit of drama and you kind of sympathise with characters caught up in the politics and conflict. Their responsibilities and lineage often force them to take desperate and drastic action which usually ends up in tragedy as they deny themselves of their own personal interests. It can get quite dark and brutal. Some have compared it to a rushed Japanese version of Game of Thrones but it's not as crude as the drama series really. There's also not as much plotting either.

Fantasy world based shows usually don't differ by much and this show doesn't stray far from it with the usual roles, your nations at war but, it does have a few things that help give the world setting a bit of originality. The demonic beings are actually intelligent and play a role in keeping the world safe which is better than your usual mindless monsters added in just to be slain. Even witches are differentiated as black or white. However, the way the Crests work feels like levelling up in an RPG which kind of detracts from the world setting's charm. Sometimes the show can actually feel like a cutscene out of a really bad JRPG.

Action scenes are interesting with your grand battles and a bit of gore which is probably expected in a fantasy show but I've seen worse. Character fight scenes are good and I probably wouldn't have expected less from the studio behind Sword Art Online. There's a lot of focus on body language such as movement of the eyes and hands during dialogue. Sound effects and music do a good job of bringing out the atmosphere although there weren't any tunes that really made an impression. Art's not too bad although you can clearly see some quality drop in the odd episode and, the 3D animation really sticks out like a sore thumb often too stiff looking. The show starts off with little to no fan service apart from the odd alluring attire as you'd expect from fantasy shows but, it does eventually choose some awkward camera angles. There are also some scenes that are just savage so definitely not a show for the younger audience as they can be quite explicit.

As a bit of trivia Siluca's voice actress Akari Kito just happens to be Kaho from Blend S. Interesting how many main roles she's managed to get even though she only started her voice acting career in 2014.

Interestingly enough, this show is based on a 10 volume light novel series of the same name and it's written by Ryo Mizuno best known for the classic Record of Lodoss War. Lodoss is more straight forward with just the good and bad sides fighting it out starring your RPG style party of heroes who turns the tide, no tactics or conspiracy. It's more adventure oriented so not quite as tragic as this and the overall art style is more consistent without the 3D animations. However, this show has better character development which is probably why I found it more enjoyable than Lodoss because you actually feel bad for them when something tragic happens. It also has the better romance if that's what you're after in a fantasy world show.

Overall, it's a fantasy show with a story that can be so good at times but also so ridiculously silly at others. It's filled with action, romance and power struggle at a grand scale just like its title suggests. Be prepared for some really dark moments and don't miss the extra scenes they sometimes have after the credits. Either you'll enjoy this show on the whole with its great cast of characters or end up remembering it for the wrong reasons.