stormblood feels very self contained in the sense that obviously the things that happen in it and the consequences it has on ShB and EW are gonna be felt, especially for post-stormblood, it still is very much a story about the people of this land. aside from zenos, every major antagonist is from here. the characters are what pushed a lot of stormbloods narrative with their own arcs and stories and thats what i really like in a story. the characters that really stood out to me were lyse, alisaie, hien, gosetsu, zenos, yotsuyu and asahi. i really enjoyed seeing the world through their eyes and realizing their rights and wrongs as they come to realize them as well. lyse coming to understand ala mhigo and rising to the top because of this understanding, gosetsu who realizes his ignorance towards other cultures and becomes a better person for it, being able to take care of yotsuyu once she turns helpless. and ive already written about zenos who i still love dearly. tears
story wise i thought it was generally very strong with a few issues that didnt bother me too much but they were noticeable unfortunately. at times there was a lack of focus where the story wanted to go i felt, or maybe spent too much time on a piece of it that i just didnt really care for. i think the conflict with the kojin and the some of the buildup for the azim steppe was just not very interesting but it quickly picks back up after so its not a huge thing to me. unfortunately, as much as i was liking yotsuyu, her "end" was also not very satisfactory for her character. i liked what it did for hien and gosetsu tho.
stormblood really was strongest at its end and in post-stormblood though, where we have zenos's character conclusion, a completely new characterization for yotsuyu that was very much needed so im honestly not mad about the fakeout death whatsoever. gosetsus as well, it only served to add to his character. asahi was an amazing addition for what he did for yotsuyu and the parallels between the two but on his own he was fantastic as well, he only wanted to live up to zenos despite it not actually being him. for the actual ending of post-stormblood i thought the introduction for emet was incredibly strong, very comparable to zenos's introduction in how they already establish their characters, varis was also surprisingly good, especially in that talk with all the leaders.
i also cant stop thinking about that random resistance character cutting people down of any faction so far. his manner of speech that we hear towards the end reminds me of zenos so i think theyre cooking something with that but i might just be coping that zenos will be back. theyre at least definitely cooking something with elidibus in zenos's body, emet-selch, varis, the mystery aether man and alisaie. alisaie has had some AMAZING moments in post-stb and i cant wait to see how shb elaborates on her because i expect her to be top 3 at least by the way they were cooking her up