To those who know it well, Granblue Fantasy has practically become a platform for all manner of stories to play out besides its core conceit of a skybound fantasy world. Think of a story concept that could plausibly exist as an anime or manga series, and there’s probably a GBF event or character subplot that resemble it. Case in point is a pair of event teasers first aired during the 2020 Granblue Fes livestream that bring a new, science fictional edge to what started out as a medieval fantasy title. One is a celebration of Robomi events, while the other hints at the 7th anniversary event.
The first trailer is less a tease than a tribute, celebrating, in animated form, the saga of the Granblue Fantasy Robomi events. While Granblue Fantasy has its own lengthy main story campaign and character-specific “Fate Episodes,” events are where the game tells its side stories. These stories range from cross-brand collaborations and silly referential seasonal romps, to thinly veiled excuses for dabbling in other genres and topics. Predictably, Robomi and its sequel events are a love letter to classical mecha anime shows and tokusatsu films. The Robomi events have it all for mecha fans, like the titular android herself, a skyscraper-sized super robot, and skintight battlesuits that evoke the cyborg ninja aesthetic of late 90’s and 21st-century mecha design.
Cygames even got legendary anime pro Masami Obari, the director of TV series like Gravion who also worked on shows like Dangaioh, Bubblegum Crisis, and Gundam Build Fighters, to help put together a music video featuring the anthem”The Song of Robomi.” The video concluded with a tease of the next event in the series: Robomi: The Greatest Fight in History – God Gigantes VS. Zooey, Arbitrator of the Skies.
The second teaser video is a ways away, as it teases the 7th anniversary story event for Granblue Fantasy that will happen in February 2021. Since 2017, It’s become a tradition of sorts for the game to pull together a world-shaking blockbuster story for its birthday. After the existence-threatening occurrences of its Archangel Saga ended in 2019 with the final chapter of What Makes the Sky Blue, 2020 saw the game tackle a one-off, lower-stakes story featuring the members of the Eternals.
That’s all off now, though, and come February 26, 2021, the players and their comrades will go to war with the moon:
The evocative trailer, backed by Claude Debussy’s “Clair de Lune,” teases the possible conclusion of the long-simmering “Society” storyline. Running on and off nearly since the game’s launch in 2014, the Society is a secret organization in Granblue Fantasy‘s world dedicated to ending the threats of the Primal Beasts and combating the threat from the Foe, an equally mysterious, malevolent faction. Society members include the characters Beatrix, Ilsa, Eustace, and even Vaseraga and Zeta, who may be better known now seeing as they’re part of the Granblue Fantasy Versus core roster. Now the Society has found out the true enemy, which is a tribe of technologically advanced people living on the Moon itself. They’re going to take the fight to the big ball in space directly, or else see the world end.
Granblue Fantasy is immediately available on Android and iOS devices and PCs via browsers. The next Robomi event will kick off on December 28, 2020, and the 7th Anniversary Event will begin on February 26, 2020.
