I am certainly a bit late with this review but forgive me as the Fate/Grand Order mobile game decided that now was a fine time to drop the first chapter in the second big story arc of the game and laziness due current circumstances of which you are no doubt aware. Considering the number of Fate adaptations we have been getting in recent times, I wouldn’t be surprised if that new Fate Grand Order Chapter got an anime adaption in the future but well that is something for another day. This anime is yet another spinoff to the Fate series and if you know anything about spinoffs you would know that Fate is a bit rocky when it comes to their quality. From the boring Fate Extra Last encore to the mixed bag of Fate/Apocrypha to the weirdly excellent Today’s menu for the Emiya family to the sadly disappointing Lord El-Melloi case files. Many a Fate adaptation we have gotten and even as a Fate fan I wouldn’t say they were particularly good. Still what we have here is an adaption of a story from the Fate/ Grand Order mobile game, otherwise known as the emptier of Nasufan wallets. Not the first adaption as we did get an anime adaption of the prologue of the game in Fate/Grand Order First Order which yeah, wasn’t really much good. In a strange twist of fate this adaption is not really the continuation of that OVA but the seventh story chapter of the game, basically skipping the previous six(Well there are a series of three movies which will cover the sixth chapter Camelot)
To make things clear from the onset, if your question is “Can I start the Fate Series from here?” the answer is a solid no. For anime only fans you will likely have to watch the holy four(Fate/Zero, Fate(No anime adaption at time of writing), Unlimited Bladeworks, Heaven’s feel) and the First Order OVA but even then this likely wouldn’t give you everything you need to enjoy this anime to the fullest. Quite frankly, this anime is a fanservice anime and in that I do not mean the kind with panty shots and breasts that jiggle at the slightest drop in room temperature. (Though there is some fanservice of that degree as well.) I mean that this is an anime made by fans for fans, that namely being fans of the mobile game. Fate GO Babylonia does not hold your hand and instead barrels forward with it’s plot regardless if you are on board or not. There is only the bare minimum to try and allow the viewer to catch up on six chapters of missing content but it more or least assumes that you not only know what has happened but even know the gist of what is going to happen. There are plot points which will fly over your head if you don’t know your lore and even the main villain’s motivation needs some knowledge of mesopotamian creation myth.
In this anime we have barely fleshed out characters that are given robust animation sequences with the assumption that you the viewer already know and care about them. As a end result, any casual fan would be quite detached from the events of the series with even one of the most pivotal endgame reveals in the story likely having them scratching their heads and saying “Who?” That said if you happen to be someone who has played the game then boy is this anime ever the treat. I am sure you have seen plenty of shounen shows which feature action packed opening sequences only to find the action within the series itself to be quite sparse. Well in Fate GO what you see in the opening is only the tip of the iceberg as nearly every episode features a lovingly animated and choreographed action sequence with some truly impressive spectacle to behold. The soundtrack is also quite excellent and it’s clear that this production held nothing back when it came to bringing this story to life. Fate GO Babylonia is one of the most technically impressive feats of animation I have seen that could even compete with Ufotable’s offerings. I say with complete certainty that this is the best mobile game adaption made so far and went beyond my expectations when this anime was first announced.
So with such glowing praise, surely I am happy with it? Surely this is a great adaptation that I have nary a fault to pick with? Oh dear reader let me say, that there is no greater fan of this series than I and as such, there is no harsher critic of it than myself. No it is not perfect, in fact it is very far from it. I have already pointed out the problems for a non-fan but for a fan there are also more problems. For one the pacing of the story is a mess with some episodes taking their sweet time and others speeding through plot points before the viewer has a chance to get their footing. There are quite a number of montages clearly there to show how much time and traveling is taking place but at points you can clearly tell this is a mobile game story and this is the point where gameplay should be there to fill the gap. I have mentioned the massive amount of action sequences but I neglected to mention how the majority of them are meaningless. Every Fate series suffers to a degree with “We shall fight another day because the plot demands it” but none suffer from it worse than this one. Nearly every single fight ends with someone retreating for one contrived reason or another which makes the fights visually entertaining but devoid of purpose. If I made a top ten list of “Visually stunning anime attacks that accomplished absolutely nothing” then I could fill eight spots with this anime alone. I mean I am not saying that it isn’t cool to see Quetzalcoatl jump into the stratosphere to dropkick a goddess, I just wish that it did something. On that this adaption is very strange in that in the moments where it needed to deliver on spectacle, it drops the ball but at moment when it didn’t need to, it goes above and beyond. Direction is baffling at times and I believe it may be a case of talented animation directors being given the lead on the wrong episodes which leads to the big moments being disappointing and the small moments being big. Along with parts of the story being cut from the anime due to the 21 episode limitation yet some cuts being quite questionable.
As well the characters have the Apocrypha problem of being good characters in their own right but not given the development and screen time to allow the viewer to get attached. It even has the same Apocrypha problem of the story being focused on two main characters who are the weakest and blandest of the bunch while devaluing the cast’s moments in order to give the spotlight over to nothing of a character. Ritsuka is a self insert character which they tried to give some degree of development but you really cannot improve on a character concept which is literally “a bland ordinary person” and Mash for as much as she has grown on me while playing the game, just isn’t all that engaging or interesting. I do still hold to the statement that this is the best mobile game adaptation we have ever gotten but if you know mobile game adaptations you would know that’s a low bar to clear. There is value in this adaptation and I can even say that out of the spinoff adaptations it may rank the highest of the bunch. Also for fans of Gilgamesh this anime acts as a sort of end for his character arc and does wonders for his development. But it is mainly a fanservice anime and it’s value to you will depend on your investment in the franchise as a whole. We have plenty more Fate GO to come with the Camelot Movies on the way and the announcement of Solomon, the final part of the first Fate GO story Arc and a sort of Avengers Endgame moment for the franchise. It will be a tricky adaptation no doubt, mainly because six story chapters remain unadapted and the structure of Solomon being difficult to translate into anime. But I will be there to see if it sticks the landing. If anything we might get some excellent action sequences out of it.
Hmm, I’m debating watching this after I finish that part in FGO. Granted, I’m only at Okeanos story-wise (though I’m in the middle of Lostbelt 5 Atlantis fights-wise, since I started getting locked out of events and such for not completing enough of the story and didn’t want that to to happen again) so it’ll take a while for me to catch up. I strongly dislike fanservice (as in, the risque kind) but I do kind of like Gilgamesh. I found him fun to watch until near the end of the UBW anime when I sort of got sick of him, but I do still kind of find him interesting, and seeing his backstory might be fun. Hmm…
A bunch of other shows here don’t have reviews yet as well, such as Revue Starlight and Kanata no Astra.
Did Astra get better near the end? I really liked the first episode but ended up dropping the series a few episodes in because it seemed to be really rushing things.
I personally feel it did, but to each their own.
Hmm, maybe I should give it another chance then. I heard that they tried to cram a ton of manga chapters into a 1-cour show, and that can have mixed results, but if they actually pulled it off well maybe I should give the series another try. 🙂
Yeah, the anime did make a lot of strange adaptational decisions that left out a lot of important details from the manga, and I’m not sure whose idea was it to constantly use those aspect ratio blocks in every scene that doesn’t involve space, but I never let that kill my enjoyment of the show.
That summary of the recent fate series (except heaven’s feel which is excellent) is so spot on.
And you’re so right, this really is fate apocrypha all over again, except that fate apocrypha had a complete story arc. I Still prefer this to apocrypha as, among other things, the bland characters are less bland than good old ‘Cardboard-kun’. Either way this was never going to be the total package since they literally adapt a middle chunk of the story. I just wonder if they could have summarised the earlier installments a bit better. The fate grand order movie was really bad too. And then you consider the absolute insane animation which actually topped fate apocrypha and all I can say is that it’s a really odd production all things considered. I don’t even know what score I’d give it but I did enjoy it despite its faults.
” the holy four(Fate/Zero, Fate(No anime adaption at time of writing), Unlimited Bladeworks, Heaven’s feel)”
Didn’t fate did get an adaptation, the really mediocre Studio Deen series?
You mean the 2006 Fate/Stay night. It’s likely the closest thing to a Fate route adaption indeed but the problem with that is it also splices in parts of Unlimited Bladeworks and Heavens Feel. I believe there is a edit which takes that anime and cuts out the spliced parts but even then it isn’t exactly ideal. Not to mention the anime starts off which a preview of the fourth Holy Grail war with a fight between Gilgamesh and Saber that didn’t actually happen. Not Deens fault in that regard as Fate/Zero was still being written at that time and that part wasn’t covered yet.
My thinking is that after Heaven’s Feel, Ufotable will adapt the Fate route and I honestly hope they do. Though that isn’t cause I think the Fate route is great, matter of fact I think it’s the weakest part of the story that only gets worse every time I revisit it, but rather to finally end the question “Where do I start with Fate?”
yeah the fate route is really the weakest part. It’s almost the foundation for the other routes and heaven’s feel especially is all the better for the contrast with the fate route (if you know what I mean). But each part builds on the previous with heaven’s feel being what seems like the culmination and the fate route does serve a purpose.
This is the problem with all RPG adations and why I think that perfect translations to tv series are impossible to do unless the game works as inspiration rather than direct source material. The ongoing fights and retreats and random encounters in which characters fight for no reason or simple misunderstandings are tolerated in gaming because you want enough fights in a game, but it doesn’t make a lot of narrative sense. And a weak MC won’t bother you too much in a game as long as you are entertained by the gameplay, but can drag down the whole story if it’s a purely narrative medium.
I know it’s impossible to do, but detached singularity adaptions in which the respective central characters (in this case Gilgamesh, followed by Ishtar/Eresh) are the MCs or PoVs you see would make these stories twice as good on an instant. Of course then it wouldn’t be FGO anymore (and I am already hearing the whining of the self-inserters that realize their PC is missing just thinking about it).
Still looking forward to the other adaptions of this and I hope we will get stuff like the LBs and Salem too.